2012: concerts of the year

All the time I spent not DJing, I spent going to concerts. I can’t stress enough how fantastic many of my “honorable mentions” were.

György Ligeti – Poeme Symphonique
Yes, the OSM did “100 Metronomes”. Yes, it was great, even with the hecklers as the last metronome kept failing to stop. Yes, you should go see it (or put it on!) whenever you get the chance.

Patrick Saint-Denis – Air
Mr. Saint-Denis is a Ph.D student at U de M. His piece, Air, is for three soloists with electronics, then a combination of them…and also for a grid of 192 pieces of paper, each controlled by a fan. This was by far the coolest thing I saw all year: a rippling, low-res screen that felt like a living thing, shouting at the performers from backstage. The music was pretty rad too.

Kim Shepherd, Jillian Hanks, Kevin Thomson – Graduating Recitals
My people, who I could not be more proud of. Kim sounds like Webern and late Steve Reich got drunk with George Gershwin; Jill sounds like Debussy channeling Nobuo Uematsu. Kevin sounds like Messiaen, but hipper – wearing a hat and dress shoes and holding a glass of rye. They each, it must be said, sound like themselves.

Various – The Workshop
Remember that time that people wrote, rehearsed, and performed pieces in less than 12 hours? Me too. It was amazing.

Non-trivial honorable mentions to: Cassandra Miller’s hypnogogic Bel Canto; Dan Brandes’ A Place to Listen series; Quartetski’s postmodern Tobias Hume covers; the grad recitals of Heather Harker, Karl Hirzer, Jeremy Potts, Alex Loewen, Justin Boechler, and Liova Bueno; the Trimpin concert, especially Darren Miller and Chris Reiche; MISQUA, esepcially Ligeti I, the MSO doing Shostakovich 13, and the Mario Bertoncini aeolian harp / bowed piano party.