ICE Takes on Composer Ann Cleare at Miller Theater

NEW YORK – On March 1st, International Contemporary Ensemble, conducted by Steve Schick, gave a concert of Irish composer Ann Cleare’s music. Over the years, the attendance at Miller’s Composer Portrait series has waxed and waned, but the word was out about this concert. It was packed with students and faculty members, performing musicians, the ever-faithful subscribers, and a cohort of composers (including some, like Harvard’s Chaya Czernowin from Cleare’s old stomping grounds in Cambridge, MA). Recent portrait subject Marcos Balter was on hand, as was flutist and ICE founder Claire Chase. The two are collaborating on an extended version of “Pan,” a multimedia work that was on Balter’s program at Miller. The upcoming performance put Chase in rehearsals this week and, consequently, in the audience for Cleare’s concert. Flutist Alex Sopp deputized for her ably, playing everything from bass flute to piccolo with pure tone and vivid phrasing.

Educated at IRCAM and Harvard, where she studied with Czernowin and earned a Ph.D., Cleare is now associate lecturer of music at York University in the U.K. Inside and outside academe, she is very much an exemplar of the present moment. Like the work of several other composers in their 30s and 40s, Cleare’s  music explores the sonic properties of instruments, often calling for them to be played in unconventional ways. In an onstage discussion with bassoonist Rebekah Heller, ICE’s new co-artistic director, the composer described making electronic versions of the sounds she imagined as a first stage of composition, only to work with acoustic instruments herself and performers to turn ideas from the digital realm into analog realizations. She also works with electronics and is currently an adviser to Dublin Sound Lab, where she is helping to upgrade its recording and programming capabilities to better enable Irish composers access to cutting-edge technology.

Her advocacy doesn’t end there. Cleare is also projects officer for Sounding the Feminists, a collective that promotes inclusion in the musical activities of Ireland. Given the current uptick in conversation about programming with greater diversity in America, Cleare is a particularly compelling figure.

The composer often explores her fears in her music—she thinks of this as facing them down. Dorchadas, or “darkness,” is a piece about her fear of the dark. It is an evocative nonet that uses a trio of low winds--bass flute, bass clarinet, bassoon--plus trombone, viola, cello, piano, and percussion. Conducted by Schick, the performance was filled with a haunting spectrum of sounds interspersed with pregnant pauses. Gesture and the noise spectrum play a large role in Cleare’s music. Although mostly employed delicately, creaks and scratches sounded, indeed, like “things that go bump in the night.”

According to the composer’s detailed program notes, The square of yellow light that is your window is about two sets of eyes: a deep-sea creature glimpsing from penetrating darkness and a dragonfly’s multi-refracting gaze. It’s a rather abstract narrative to realize in sound, but it sparked Cleare’s imagination. Per the program, estimable ICE saxophonist Ryan Muncy played the role of dragonfly, building from his lowest register to altissimo overblown notes, with plenty of multiphonics along the way. The rest of the ensemble undertook the role of sea creature. Pianist Jacob Greenberg was mostly required to play inside the piano, using devices that included brushes, mallets, and metal bowls against the strings. Percussionist Ross Karre played a similarly unorthodox setup involving bowed Waterphone, sandpaper, and metal tins, among other items. Dan Lippel used a cello bow and various slides on an electric guitar. All the players except Muncy got a chance to play miniature plastic harmonicas; Greenberg also played melodica. Given that the rhythm section was meant to stand in for a mysterious undersea denizen, its unusual sonic palette worked as a foil for Muncy’s more exuberant flights into the saxophone’s stratosphere. 

Teeth of light, tongue of waves, a Miller Theatre commission and world premiere, was a showcase for bassoonist Heller and soprano Alice Tyssier, accompanied by bowed guitar (this time an acoustic) and strings. Based on Cleare’s interest in paleoceanography (the geologic history of oceans), the piece interweaves ancient Irish poetry with a more recent text by Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa, a Galway-based bilingual writer whose work often juxtaposes human interactions with nature imagery. Tyssier sang much of her part through a cardboard tube, while instrumentalists occasionally whispered words in reply. Fascinating textures emerged from interweaving of soprano voice and bassoon. Heller is an extraordinary player. The smoothness of her tone when navigating passages throughout the instrument, effortlessly leaping from register to register, is remarkable. The other instrumentalists meted out harmonics and a pliant plethora of glissandos. Toward the end of the piece, double bassist Randall Zigler tuned down his lowest string while simultaneously bowing it. The resulting sound was reminiscent of whale song and most evocative. While few could likely follow the precise meaning of the text, the underlying message about the dwindling of ocean flora and fauna in our embattled environment, was given eloquent voice.

The evening’s finale, to another of that other (a quote from Samuel Beckett), was for a trio of soloists – clarinetist Zachary Good, trumpeter Peter Evans, and trombonist Michael Lormand. It had the most dramatic heft of Cleare’s works, with frequent powerful attacks counterbalanced by sustained high register lines from piccolo, soprano saxophone, and upper strings. This was offset by muscular playing from three percussionists. Often allied with the harp, timpani served to signal section changes in the piece. The brass soloists made use of mutes in techniques that varied from the jazz squalls of plunger mutes to stentorian salvos with straight mutes. Good held his own, playing legato lines that cut through forte ensemble passages and matched the other soloists in intensity. The audience responded enthusiastically to this powerful piece, calling the musicians, and then Cleare, back for several curtain calls.

Pictured: Ann Cleare