Monday, October 29, 2012

MAM Concert on Saturday

I attended the MAM concert at Longy on Saturday night and was amazed by the wonderful music on stage. The first half of the program consisted of solo piano music by Dave Bryant and Deborah Beers (who played her own world premiere). It was hard to distinguish a genre for these pieces which probably led me to enjoy them more. There were moments of tonality and atonality as well as jumping rhythms and spacey harmonies. The second part of the program involved Dave Bryant performing with his ensemble. First, he played a few pieces with upright bass. There was a wonderful mixture of improvisation and composed elements. Next, they were joined by drums, saxophone, cello, and percussion for the final two pieces. As with the earlier pieces, these felt genreless. I loved the ability of these musicians to listen to each other and react in a spontaneous and effective way. They brought together parts of different genres to create a unique aural experience. I strongly encourage performers to experiment with mixing genres or just creating music that is meaningful in spite of a genre label. This concert would have probably been labeled as Jazz to many people, but to me it was just enjoyable music.

List of Performers:
Dave Bryant, piano
Jacob William, bass
Junko Fujiwara, cello
Chris Bowman, percussion
Tom Hall, tenor saxophone
Eric Rosenthal, drums
Deborah Beers, piano

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