Dear friends of new music,

The annual Other Minds concert series is coming up on February 28, March 1 and 2. Now in its 18th iteration the festival seems to constantly be able to find new and interesting music from all over the world. And it gives every season’s musicians a week’s retreat at the Djerassi Resident Artists program during which they perform and discuss their music with each other sharing what must be a wonderful mind-expanding experience for them.

Kanbar Hall at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco provides a comfortable venue that is both visually and acoustically well-suited to the marvelously diverse collections of composers and musicians that come together for three nights following their week-long workshop/retreat. Under the direction of Charles Amirkhanian who was music director at KPFA radio from 1969 to 1992 this concert series threatens to invade the musical consciousness and tastes of Northern California and beyond. At the very least it holds off the danger of the music scene becoming stuck in a rut. And at best it cross pollinates the DNA of the musical world to yield as yet unknown artistic mutations.

For die hard fans of new music like myself the festival provides an opportunity to hear some exciting artists whose work has interested me as well as an opportunity to widen my horizons and hear younger artists whose work is yet known only to a smaller audience. There are world and local premieres every year. And one of the thrills, at least for me, is the chance to hear artists who later rise to greater fame, “I remember when I first heard…”

This year’s line up is no less varied than previous years. Casting its usual wide net composers are included from Denmark, India, South Korea, Sweden, Canada and the United States. For me it will be the first time in which I will have had practically no knowledge before hand of these composers. But some of the performers are known to me including electronic diva gurus Amy X Neuberg and Pamela Z, two Bay Area artists with distinctly different approaches to the ‘voice with electronics’ genre. Having appeared previously in the ‘Other Minds’ concerts presenting their own compositions (composers thus far have only been allowed a single appearance presumably to make room for the new) they are engaged to perform music by other composers.

Neuberg recently appeared doing her own arrangement of Joni Mitchell’s ‘California’ in a well-received performance with 9 other bands playing their arrangements of the other nine tracks from Mitchell’s classic album, ‘Blue’. This wonderful concert was reviewed in a previous blog. She will perform along with virtuoso percussionist William Winant and his percussion group in the world premiere of Canadian American Aaron Gervais ‘Work Around the World’.

Pamela Z is also well known and is pictured above in a performance at the annual Chapel of the Chimes Summer Solstice concert. The world premiere of her Kronos Quartet commission, ‘And the Movement of the Tongue’ for string quartet and electronics occurs on February 20 and 21 at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center. She will be performing an improvisation with another soloist with electronics performer, Paula Matthusen as well as her own arrangement of Meredith Monk’s ‘Scared Song’ on the last day (Saturday).

While I had been aware of recorder player Michala Petri I am only familiar with her recordings of baroque music. But we will get to hear her artistry in performances of fellow Danes Sunlief Rasmussen and Paula Matthusen in contemporary pieces, one a U.S. premiere.

In addition there will be performances by Danish folk trio (recorder, accordion, violin) and Indian Bansuri master G.S. Sachdev as well as a performance by jazz pianist and ECM recording artist Craig Taborn.

Swedish contrabass recorder artist Anna Petrini will perform three works for contrabass recorder and electronics (an unusual combination to say the least) by three Scandinavian composers. Mattias Petersson is featured in a performance with video and electronics of his work ‘Strom’ from 2006 in its U.S. premiere.

And the second (of three) nights will feature the world premiere of a theatrical work, ‘ARA’ by the South Korean vocalist Dohee Lee featuring video and multi-channel electronics. I’m betting that this may be a major premiere.

If, as most biologists now believe, diversity is crucial to the survival of a species then the Other Minds festival appears to be mixing enough artistic DNA to keep new music alive for a couple of hundred years. I don’t know how many friends and acquaintances will be awed in 5-10 years when I tell them I was at the premiere of ‘ARA’ or ‘Work Around the World’ or try to describe the sound of a contrabass recorder with electronic enhancement but even the blank stares with some scratching their heads won’t detract from my own self satisfaction of having been there.

Hoping to see you at Other Minds,

Allan