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    A New Opera Mashes Up Monteverdi and W.E.B. Du Bois

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    “The Comet/Poppea” radically pares down a classic and blends it with a premiere by George E. Lewis for an original show that will travel widely.Morality takes a hike in Claudio Monteverdi’s final opera, “L’Incoronazione di Poppea.” Bold in its satire and explicit in its sensuality, even more than 350 years after its creation, the work gives its ruthless lovers, Nero and Poppea, everything they desire.A decadent exploration of Nero’s Rome, “Poppea” might seem to share little with “The Comet,” a W.E.B. Du Bois short story from 1920. Using tropes of sci-fi catastrophe, Du Bois, the famous Black sociologist, asks what it would take for a racially equitable civilization to emerge. But, like Monteverdi’s opera, it has an amoral, ice-cold finish: After the merest possibility of interracial love, the status quo of segregation returns.On Friday, both the opera and the story will be brought together, united by their common denominator of jaundiced cynicism, in “The Comet/Poppea,” which is premiering at Geffen Contemporary, a warehouse-style space at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. (There are already plans for it to travel to Philadelphia this fall, to New York next year and to the Schwarzman Center at Yale University in 2026.)Yuval Sharon, center, the director, with the singers Joelle Lamarre, left and Davóne Tines.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAmanda Lynn Bottoms, seated, and Nardus Williams, lying on the floor, during a rehearsal for the show, which adapts a W.E.B. Du Bois story from 1920.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesePresented in Los Angeles by MOCA and the director Yuval Sharon’s company of operatic experimenters, the Industry, “The Comet/Poppea” was commissioned by the American Modern Opera Company. Over a 90-minute run time, it alternates between a radically pared-down “Poppea” and an adaptation of Du Bois’s story by the librettist Douglas Kearney and the composer George E. Lewis, for a mash-up featuring stark transitions — and superimpositions — between Monteverdi’s Baroque style and Lewis’s high-modernist states of frenzy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Courtney Bryan’s Music Brings It All Together

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      A recent recipient of the MacArthur “genius” grant, this pianist and composer fuses different styles for a sound that is entirely her own.The name Courtney Bryan is not one that you’ll currently find on many recordings. Aside from two independently released, jazz-tilting albums from 2007 and 2010, precious little of this pianist and composer’s finely woven, adventurous music is available to hear widely.But you can expect that to change, beyond live performances including the premiere of Bryan’s chamber work “DREAMING (Freedom Sounds),” presented by the International Contemporary Ensemble at Merkin Hall on Wednesday. She also recently signed with the influential music publisher Boosey & Hawkes, whose biography of her online includes the promise of a third recording: “Sounds of Freedom.”Bryan, 41, who was born in New Orleans and received a MacArthur “genius” grant earlier this month, has been making her mark since earning her doctorate in composition from Columbia University in 2014. Symphony orchestras, chamber musicians, vocal groups and jazz performers have all been drawn to her sound. Last spring, the New York Philharmonic premiere of “Gathering Song,” with text by the stage director Tazewell Thompson and hints of post-bop jazz harmony, displayed her place among the most exciting voices in contemporary American music.In a phone interview, Bryan said that before she started her Ph.D. program, “I had the separate thing of doing ‘classical’ here, ‘jazz’ here,” while also working as an organist at the Bethany Baptist Church in Newark.From left, Leslie B. Dunner, Tazewell Thompson, Ryan Speedo Green and Bryan at the New York Philharmonic premiere of “Gathering Song” last spring.Chris LeeBut at Columbia, her composition teacher — the eminent composer, trombonist and computer-music pioneer George E. Lewis — encouraged her to put everything together. “He helped me dream bigger,” Bryan said.And Lewis also helped introduce her to other like-minded students, including the musicologist Matthew D. Morrison, who said that his forthcoming book “Blacksound” is “heavily informed by our conversations, our conspiring — trying to figure out how to get certain ideas of what Black music is out into the world.”Lewis recalled Bryan’s “unassuming brilliance,” a quality evident even at the admissions stage, in which “bombast” and “blowing your own horn” are the norm. Once she started, she altered the culture of the program, Lewis said. The school’s composition seminars had a reputation for treating people poorly: “you know, the idea that somehow sharpening one’s critique was confused with being mean to people.”One day, Lewis added, “Courtney stood up and said, ‘We just can’t continue to treat people this way.’ And everyone just looked at her; she hadn’t said very much, to this point. She’s a person who has that deep spiritual reservoir. And she changed a lot of people.”Their relationship continues today: Lewis leads the International Contemporary Ensemble, and he programmed Bryan at Merkin as part of “Composing While Black: Volume One” — which has ties to his latest book, a volume of critical essays that he edited with Harald Kisiedu.The inclusion of Bryan on this bill reflects Lewis’s appreciation for her direct approach to political commentary. “Courtney was one of the people who, early on, put Black Lives Matter on the classical music table,” he said. Yet, he added, in her works “there’s no one dogma. It’s not conventionally tonal; it’s not conventionally atonal. The orchestration is lush — but spare in some ways.”She brings eclectic references to bear in “DREAMING,” which incorporates text from a dissent by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and other legal opinions. To hear the gospel and jazz elements, Lewis said, “you have to go through the looking glass with her,” and the results are what he called “strange resonances.”“Courtney is able to make you feel reassured,” Lewis said, “but also to realize that you should be feeling unsettled about the state of the world.”In an archived La Jolla Symphony performance of “Yet Unheard,” a 2016 piece that incorporates poetry by Sharan Strange and commemorates the life of Sandra Bland (a Black woman who was found hanged in a Texas jail cell in 2015 after she was arrested during a traffic stop), you can hear Bryan’s talent for transfiguring trends in experimental orchestration, as well as gospel tradition. Similarly, a recently filmed performance of “Sanctum” (2015) by the London Sinfonietta illustrates the score’s braiding of influences including the sermons of Pastor Shirley Caesar, marching band percussion and the rhythmic exultations of street protests.Bryan’s religious side is likewise front and center in her Requiem, in which she sets Greek and Latin text from the Mass as well as selections, in English, from Ecclesiastes and Psalm 23. That work was performed on video during the lockdown portion of the pandemic by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the treble-voice quartet Quince Ensemble.The mezzo-soprano Kayleigh Butcher, a member of Quince, said that Bryan’s use of extended technique — including whispering and chanting — was not “super intense or aggressive” compared with other contemporary music. But, she added, it was Bryan’s way of fusing those elements with more traditional chamber writing that was responsible for its distinctiveness: “Usually someone will only do an only-extended techniques piece. Or only a tonal, written-notes-on-a-page piece, and not combine them in interesting ways.”“Courtney is able to make you feel reassured,” George E. Lewis said, “but also to realize that you should be feeling unsettled about the state of the world.”Maansi Srivastava/The New York TimesBryan’s recent piano concerto, “House of Pianos,” bustles with references to jazz-piano history, including boogie-woogie and Harlem stride. It also contains approaches to harmony that she learned in lessons from the towering New Orleans pedagogue Ellis Marsalis, and traces of music that she examined in a master’s degree program at Rutgers, where she studied with the jazz pianist Stanley Cowell. “New Orleans Concerto,” by her former teacher Roger Dickerson, also informs the work.“It’s my way to pay tribute to a lot of pianists who’ve inspired me — but also a challenge for me as a pianist and composer,” Bryan said of the concerto. For its premiere at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra last May, she performed the solo part.More of her pianistic prowess can be found on those early recordings. For Morrison, the musicologist, one exemplary moment comes during a rendition of “City Called Heaven,” from Bryan’s first album, “Quest for Freedom.”

      Quest for Freedom by Courtney Bryan“She takes this spiritual and she really transforms it,” he said, professing himself “obsessed” with its experimental rhythmic touches and its “Chopinesque” figurations. The first time he heard it, Morrison thought: “Oh my goodness, who does this so seamlessly? And it was Courtney.” More

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      Review: A Contemporary Music Group’s Next Era Begins

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      George E. Lewis’s tenure with the International Contemporary Ensemble began with a tribute to the multitalented artist Douglas R. Ewart.Some artists earn the “multi-hyphenate” label by doing two or three things. But Douglas R. Ewart works on a whole other level.That much was clear when this composer, visual artist, poet, multi-instrumentalist and instrument-maker put on a true multimedia event at the Chelsea Factory on Friday night. He gave a thrilling tour of his varied creativity in the company of a violist, cellist, bassoonist and two percussionists from the International Contemporary Ensemble — whose new leader, George E. Lewis, organized the concert, making his curatorial debut with the group.In the lobby were three of Ewart’s sculptures (including one dedicated to the jazz musician Eric Dolphy), and inside the hall hung five of his paintings (including one titled “Rasta in Sun Ra”). Underneath those canvases, the concert featured some shimmering, percussive work from Ewart, 76, himself — on a tall wooden staff outfitted with a sequence of Bundt cake pans, which he called “The George Floyd Bunt Staff.” (More on the chiaroscuro effect of that Bundt/bunt ambiguity later.)From left, the International Contemporary Ensemble players Wendy Richman, Aliya Ultan and Rebekah Heller.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAlso on offer was Ewart’s piping, ecstatic approach to the sopranino saxophone, informed by bebop and the avant-garde alike. And there was plenty of meditative yet tuneful chamber music writing for the full ensemble, which the composer sometimes underlined with performances on a series of flutes.Elsewhere, Ewart gave somber, spoken-word testaments to Floyd’s memory, in addition to more slyly humorous commentaries on contemporary discussions of race. One such aperçu involved his interrogation of the phrase “unapologetically Black,” with him saying, “I am not unapologetically anything, because when I say that I have already apologized.”Other compositions offered space for Ewart to celebrate the practice of “sound sifting” — which he defined as a dedicated process of studying music’s mysteries — alongside playing from the ensemble members that emphatically endorsed his poetry’s quality of exultation.Clockwise, from top left: Ewart’s “Eye of Horus” (2017-18); “Sonic Stroller” (2006); his elaborately decorated performance outfit, which has bells stuffed in its pockets; and “Eric Dolphy Sonic Dread” (2017).It sounds like there’s a lot going on here. But while undeniably jam-packed and charged with grave themes, the evening progressed with a sense of unhurried equanimity. That was in large part thanks to the figure cut by Ewart; when he paced the stage to grab a new instrument, you could hear bells — tucked away in the pockets of his colorful, homemade concert suit — jangling peaceably.The International Contemporary Ensemble had commissioned the evening’s first through-composed piece, “Songs and Stories of Hopes, Dreams and Visions,” and throughout, the players were on Ewart’s same wavelength: intense yet generous. At the outset of the concert’s first half — a 40-minute set that included three works played without a break — the percussionists Nathan Davis (on vibraphone) and Clara Warnaar (on marimba) collaborated on dreamy, interlocking mallet-instrument patterns that recalled past Ewart projects that have involved choirs of similar instruments.Rebekah Heller, the ensemble’s bassoonist, responded to the upward-swooping graphic notation of “Red Hills” with a peppery excitement that rivaled earlier interpretations of it. (This piece was previously documented during a 1981 concert in Detroit, which has recently been reissued digitally on Bandcamp.)

      Beneath Detroit / Ewart . Barefield . Tabal Trio by Geodesic DisquesEwart, center, performed spoken-word portions of the show alongside musicians including Ultan, left, on cello, and Heller, on bassoon.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThat members of the International Contemporary Ensemble could stack up so well against the recorded legacy of an artist like Ewart was no small thing. Credit also to Lewis, the ensemble’s new artistic director. This pathbreaking trombonist, composer and scholar literally wrote the book on the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the organization that provided schooling to Ewart in the 1960s, after he immigrated from Jamaica. (Ewart later served as chairman of that influential organization.)During the intermission on Friday, Lewis interviewed Ewart, a longtime collaborator, onstage. They amiably referred to moments in their history together, which includes a memorable 1979 duo recording on the Black Saint imprint.Given that relationship, Lewis was an ideal figure to extract more from Ewart about the ambiguities only hinted at in the performance’s staging and program notes. Such as: Why was the percussion instrument that Ewart employed during “Homage to George Floyd” billed as “The George Floyd Bunt Staff,” when it was clearly built from a series of Bundt pans? Channeling the serious-and-witty ingenuity of his music, Ewart responded with a sports analogy. He noted that Floyd’s death had catalyzed protests that had helped the national conversation to advance, like the sacrifice bunt in baseball.Nathan Davis, left, and Clara Warnaar on percussion. The performers played against a backdrop of visual artworks by Ewart.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesSuch poetic abstraction risks sounding flip out of context, but the qualities of Ewart’s compositional practice made the gesture seem more like an authentic celebration of multiplicity and invention. The variety of tones he elicited from this instrument helped make the ambit of the tribute clear. When rapidly twirling it, and dragging the edges of a particular pan against a drumstick, he created a haunting, skittering effect — a restless signal of warning. When striking it directly, he could produce profoundly resonant gong-like sounds.This elegant shift from the grave to the exultant was heard again during the finale of the concert’s second half, which reached a climax with a fully notated piece for the ensemble players, “Truth is Power,” in which Ewart improvised on sopranino saxophone.It was a raucous, exciting conclusion to the show. And it was just a taste of what Lewis’s directorship of the International Contemporary Ensemble could bring. How many other artists like Ewart might benefit from having their larger works receive this kind of attention? The possibilities are extensive, and tantalizing.Douglas R. Ewart and the International Contemporary EnsemblePerformed on Friday at Chelsea Factory, Manhattan. More

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      Outspoken Composer to Lead International Contemporary Ensemble

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      George E. Lewis, a Columbia scholar who has documented how Black composers have been excluded from experimental music, will lead the renowned group.A composer and scholar who has spoken forcefully about the exclusion of Black artists from experimental music will lead the renowned International Contemporary Ensemble, the group announced on Friday.George E. Lewis, a professor of music at Columbia University known for his groundbreaking work in electronics, will take the helm as artistic director later this month. Lewis, 69, a trombonist and frequent collaborator with the ensemble, will be the first Black leader in its 21-year history. He said in an interview that he hoped to bring more of a multicultural focus to one of New York’s premier new music groups, and to feature a wider variety of artists.“I’m looking to bring newer people who happen to have great ideas, but who might be overlooked by other ensembles or institutions, to the forefront so they can be noticed by everybody,” Lewis said. “It’s a sense of widening the community.”Lewis is an influential voice in the effort to “decolonize” classical music, at a time when the field is reckoning with questions about racial injustice and a legacy of exclusion.“The composers and improvisers are not the ones producing the sounds of colonialism,” he wrote in a recent essay. “Rather, it is the music curators and institutions who have been composing and improvising colonialism.”Lewis has called on music schools to recruit more young composers who belong to racial and ethnic minority groups. He has also said that ensembles should commission more works from composers of color.“There is no reason why major music institutions that tout themselves as international should continue to present all-white programs,” he wrote in the essay.The International Contemporary Ensemble, with its 35 members, has long been an important outlet for modern composers — including Lewis, long revered among avant-garde jazz fans. In 2011, the ensemble premiered his “The Will to Adorn,” inspired by a Zora Neale Hurston essay and also the title of a 2017 album of his works made by the ensemble.Lewis will replace Ross Karre, a percussionist who after five years as artistic director is stepping down to take a teaching position at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. The ensemble was co-founded and led for years by the flutist Claire Chase.The group’s leaders said Lewis, a board member since 2018, had long had an outsize influence on their work.“George’s impact on this ensemble is almost immeasurable,” Rebekah Heller, a bassoonist and board member, said in a statement. “His voice and his vision have been quietly shaping the musical direction of our collective.”Lewis said he hoped to help the ensemble move beyond rigid notions of genre, in part by encouraging artists to listen to each other through improvisation.“At a certain point, classical music becomes so fluid that it becomes like a permeable membrane where you start to realize that it’s a point of connection rather than a set of practices or a set of received histories,” he said. “It’s something that accretes and accumulates new information, rather than something that excludes or does gatekeeping.” More