Unsafe Havens in Music, Words and Pictures

The music for "Shelter" is by a troika of New York-based composers: Frequent collaborators Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe each contributed two or three of the 65-minute work's seven sections. They are the co-founders of Bang on a Can, a new-music conglomerate with a brande...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Wall Street journal. Eastern edition
Main Author Jepson, Barbara
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, N.Y Dow Jones & Company Inc 07.12.2005
EditionEastern edition
Subjects
Hurricanes
Middle class
Motion pictures
Music
Musical theater
Shelter
Theater
Visual artists
United States > US
Brooklyn New York
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Summary:The music for "Shelter" is by a troika of New York-based composers: Frequent collaborators Michael Gordon, David Lang and Julia Wolfe each contributed two or three of the 65-minute work's seven sections. They are the co-founders of Bang on a Can, a new-music conglomerate with a branded performing ensemble, record label (Cantaloupe Music) and summer music festival (dubbed "Banglewood") at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Stylistically, they have long inhabited a terrain of their own, a place where classical forms are recharged by the repetitive patterns of minimalism and the driving energy of rock. Throughout the piece, there is an underlying threat of menace. Sometimes it is more seen than heard. Mr. Lang's music for the first segment, "Before I Enter," is slow, reflective and hypnotic, with repeated, high-pitched utterances in the glockenspiel and flute above low, sustained tones in the double bass and piano. (Each composer's contributions were noted in the score but not in the program.) Over this instrumental meditation, the all-female members of trio mediaeval, a splendid Scandinavian vocal ensemble, intone librettist Deborah Artman's pithy text: "Before I enter my house, I touch the door frame . . . I leave my shoes at the door . . . I kiss my fingers and pat the scroll . . . I punch in a code on a key pad . . . I crawl through a tunnel . . . ." "Shelter" concludes with Mr. Gordon's "What We Build," a musical tour de force at a rapid-fire pace. There are more train whistles (which threaten to become a Gordon cliche), wailing vocals and electronic distortion. Throbbing rhythms build to a screaming climax as deteriorating film of partially submerged houses or flood survivors in row boats are seen on screen. The only disappointment was that for the first time in the evening, it was hard to understand the text, inspired by the words of a rabbi: " . . . No dwelling built by human hands is eternal."
ISSN:0099-9660