Don’t lose any sleep over this (as if you would) ” but one of classical music’s central figures sports a legacy as a quasi-rocker. He really does. And thanks to his modernist counterparts, his work was reconfigured at a convenient crossroad. The year was 1968, and composer Wendy Carlos’ “Switched-On Bach” tantalized all but about six and a half listeners, her treatments on the ancient Moog synthesizer breathing escapist life into Johann Sebastian’s crafty but exacting fare.
If Carlos hadn’t done it to Bach back then, somebody would have done it to somebody else by now. That’s the word from Felix Fan, co-founder and artistic director of Muzik3, La Jolla’s signature chamber concert gone astray, set for Tuesday and Wednesday, April 18 and 19.
Muzik3, which the La Jolla-based cellist Fan founded in 1998 as something quite different, has found itself a reflection of the times ” wholesale technological evolution has yielded instant refinements and a reflection of popular demand.
“Some people believe that everything’s been done before in some form or other,” Fan said. “To an extent, that’s true. But what we’re trying to do is supply people with a different take, perhaps a different voice, on that age-old question.”
The idea behind Muzik3 was built around more classical motifs ” the natural setting for a man who plays with several symphony orchestras (including San Diego’s) and is a guest artist at a number of international festivals. But time and taste quickly shifted, with Fan’s musical philosophy adapting in, uh, concert with public expectations.
“It wasn’t until I started to expand a bit more on my music that [the festival’s] gone more and more into a contemporary direction,” he said.
In this case, “contemporary” means multimedia ” witness David Lang’s “Work,” which will have its world premiere at Muzik3 on April 19. The piece, billed as part chamber music and part art installation, will feature three musicians flanked by an entanglement of video monitors, lights, wires and diverse musical instruments. The monitors show divergent videos around which the musicians craft their rhythms, challenging them to coordinate as a group.
Lang is a founder and an artistic director of Bang on a Can, an organization dedicated to the preservation of new music. His pieces are performed throughout the United States and Europe, and he’s commissioned to write them by a number of American orchestras and opera companies. He and Suzanne Bocanegru, his video coordinator, will attend the premiere and will hold a talk-back on it afterward.
Pianist Andy Russo, percussionist David Cossin and bassist Richard Worn will accompany Fan. On April 18, the group will play Annie Gosfield’s “Manufacture of Tangled Ivory,” Marc Mellits’ “5 Machines,” Louis Andriessen’s “Worker’s Union” and a selection by Dutch composer Jacob ter Veldhuis. All include hardware as disparate as the cello and the electric keyboard and, in Andriessen’s case, “any loud-sounding group of instruments.”
Procul Harum. Genesis. Mathias Holt. Yes; Pink Floyd; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Tomita; The Electric Light Orchestra: The world is loopy with pop artists who’ve embraced classical music to one extent or another, sometimes to their chagrin. “Born,” the 2000 debut album by the female string quartet Bond, peaked at No. 2 on the British classical charts but was thrown off that slate amid its guitars, drums and ” gasp! ” techno.
“In a modern world, it is disappointing that the classical elite cannot embrace change,” Bond’s Haylie Ecker groused to the BBC.
But in its own good time, such change eventually takes root. Beethoven, nearly laughed off the stage at first, is now a titan among titans. John Cage, whose early 20th-century “chance music” branded him a cowboy, is today a cult hero among the avant-garde.
That’s the world for you ” slow to change but quick to explore. Muzik3 touts the benefits of the latter, which in 2006 are there for the taking.
Muzik3 will take place at The Other House, 7813 Esterel Drive, La Jolla. General-admission tickets are $20 per show or $30 for both. Students can get in for $15 and $20 respectively. Both concerts begin at 7:30 p.m.
More information is available by calling (858) 405-0413 or by visiting www.muzik3.com.
