Miller Theatre’s convivial, panoramic Composer Portraits concert series turns 25 this year, and the Sep. 12 season opener celebrating the work of Courtney Bryan was a fitting kickoff. The excitement began prior to the music as audiences were greeted by Akhira Montague’s thoughtfully curated photo exhibit in the lobby.
One of the many meaningful additions Melissa Smey has made to the Composer Portraits series during her 15 years as Executive Director is commissioned photos of the artists, many of which were on display that evening. Shot both on the Columbia University campus and around the world, the 21 beautifully arranged portraits of composers featured on the series over the years (including the likes of Du Yun, Caroline Shaw, Felipe Lara, and Marcos Balter) were their own potent program note. The arresting visual codified the series as a whole, underscoring the intent to celebrate a diversity of musical personalities and styles.
The opening of Blessed for voice and piano felt like a call to prayer. Bryan and Damian Norfleet took the stage dressed in gleaming white, with Bryan’s luscious jazzy hues radiating out from the piano as Norfleet began to sing, then speak. Throughout their performance, a corresponding film by Tiona Nekkia McClodden worked with the music to amplify a feeling of quiet and soulful strength.
Courtney Bryan and Damian Norfleet — Photo by Cherylynn Tsushima
Filmed in New Orleans at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church – where Bryan was exposed to a maximalist palette of musical styles as a child – the slow shots of the building and Bryan playing the church’s piano and organ cherished the small details. And as film and the music entwined with deep synergy, it delighted through the meta effect of getting to watch the film Bryan as we listened to the on-stage Bryan.
Blessed takes its text from Matthew 5:5 and eventually arrived at Norfleet’s rich, deep voice uttering the word “blessed” again and again, each time in a different way: in shades of emotional melting, stark bleakness, and soothing kindness. As the film hovered on the vibrant yet austere stained glass windows, Norfleet asked, “Who is blessed?,” transforming from vocalist in front of a music stand to reverend at the pulpit.
The work’s minimal score consists of two notated themes and a series of written prompts; Bryan and Norfleet’s improvisations were fantastically fused in this performance, and the piece brilliantly displayed Bryan’s tendency toward allowing space for a quickly shifting kaleidoscope of sonic styles and moods.
Rebekah Heller — Photo by Cherylynn Tsushima
Requiem featured the treble voice quartet Quince Ensemble with members of the International Contemporary Ensemble, marvelously conducted by Rebekah Heller. The work opened with Quince meditating on the word “dust,” repeatedly vocalizing different fragments of the word until its essence became stripped of context. Liz Pearse, Amanda DeBoer Bartlett, Carrie Henneman Shaw, and Kayleigh Butcher glided through tricky harmonies with ease, warmly welcoming the audience into the mesmerizing sounds of the piece.
As the instrumentalists joined in, the work came into its full requiem self. The entrance of bass drum immediately signaled the gravity of mourning. Brass and clarinet threw us into a New Orleans funeral procession and the feeling of so much life being celebrated through death, a highlight of which was Campbell MacDonald’s eloquent and expressive clarinet solo.
During the post-intermission talk with Melissa Smey, Bryan shared that the world premiere of Requiem, originally scheduled for March 2020, had to be postponed until mid-2021. But she said this ultimately felt like “the right timing, all of us having recently experienced so much loss.” In that same talk, Bryan mentioned the importance of “making time for dreaming” in one’s life/work balance, and the second half of the program was occupied by DREAMING (Freedom Sounds) for chamber ensemble and two voices (Norfleet and soprano Alice Teyssier).
Melissa Smey and Courtney Bryan — Photo by Cherylynn Tsushima
The first movement, “The Color Line,” began in a cornucopia of bright, crystalline fluttering: quick, high glissandi in the strings expanded into fluttering pointillism in the winds, gradually descending into resonance as the music brought the words of Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois to life. “We Dissent” was especially jaunty, playing with texts and matching rhythms from court case transcripts and letters of dissent from the United States supreme court. “What is the Sound of Freedom” haunted in its minimalism with text by George E. Lewis, while “Freedom Dreams” had a vivid groove as it focused on words by Robin D. G. Kelley, with Clara Warnaar’s marimba moments shining especially bright.
“The Garden” brought us back to the New Eden of the first movement: sounds mimicking nature blossomed over a climax of grand sweeping melody passed throughout the ensemble. The final movement, “Grace,” was nearly operatic, with stunning duet moments from Norfleet and Teyssier as they sang words by Farah Jasmine Griffin, blending together in long lines filled with a sense of bold optimism. As the music dissipated amidst the delicate sounds of avian murmuring, the work ended with a hushed and deeply moving piccolo solo by Isabel Lepanto Gleicher.
There are many boons to the Composer Portraits format: spending an entire evening listening to one person’s work gives you the space to identify patterns and begin to construct a personal understanding of the music’s identity. In Bryan’s compositions, this manifests as watching meaning dissolve and evolve as she asks performers to repeat one word over and over; it means making space for the many individual dialogues of improvising musicians, and the many dialects of her musical language. And even in just three pieces, it is quite clear that as Bryan writes about the gravity surrounding humans and how we treat each other, she is ultimately spreading hope – it is a calm, practical hope, but nonetheless, it sparkles.
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