Gian Carlo Menotti's The Medium (1946) is something of a cautionary tale, which had its genesis in a séance attended by the composer himself. The plot of the opera runs as follows: Living in conditions of near-squalor, Baba poses as a medium with her daughter, Monica, posing as ghosts from the beyond. She takes in Toby, a mute, as a lodger but distrusts him. The business continues until, during a séance, she feels a 'cold hand' tightening about her throat. When her customers return for another session, she tells them that she is a fake and demonstrates her tricks, but her clients protest that she must be real, that it was not Monica's voice they heard. She drives them out and resolves to cast out Toby as well. When Toby returns, she shoots and inadvertently kills him. At the conclusion, she still wonders if it had been Toby". According to Barbara Eisner Bayer "The Medium is a musical theater piece, dependent upon the interactions of three principal singer/actors, one of whom's a mute whose actions and expressions are intrinsic to the plot's dramatic impact. Without Toby's 'voice', the story lacks heart". The Black Swan, from the end of Act I, is a haunting lullaby of the damned, and Menotti's magical musical lyricism is magnified by characters camaraderie and close vocal timbres. Watch a performance/collage by Madlenianum Opera Theatre Belgrade, directed by Nenad Glavan . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

American Composer Judith Shatin is a sonic explorer whose music spans chamber, choral, dance, electroacoustic, installation, multimedia and orchestral genres. Her inspirations range from myth, poetry and her Jewish heritage to the calls of the animals around us and the sounding universe beyond. The Washington Post has called her music "highly inventive . . . hugely enjoyable and deeply involving, with a constant sense of surprise." This week we are privileged to present an exclusive Interview @ Pytheas with Judith Shatin by the Pytheas Center's director, Vinny Fuerst. Shatin talks about her life as a composer, her current compositions and activities, technology and music, and her thoughts on contemporary music . . . it's our current COMPOSER PORTRAIT.

For those of you who'll be in southern Maine during the last weekend of October, please stop in to the Pytheas Center's Yarmouth Contemporary Music Days, a series of music events taking place Thursday through Sunday, October 28-31, involving Maine composers, musicians, educators, artists, and students. All events are FREE and made possible by a grant from Yarmouth Arts . The four day Yarmouth Contemporary Music Days features contemporary music with film, visual art, and live performances. Day One, Let's Talk Music [Thursday, Oct 28th, 6:30 PM, Bay Square at Yarmouth] will be a 'listening group' (similar to the concept of a 'book group'), open to the public, and focusing on the idea of "moving from hearing to active listening". Day Two, Film and Music [Friday, Oct 29th, 7:30 PM, The Log Cabin, Yarmouth] features film excerpts and music and focuses in on how soundtracks influence our perception of the visual and dramatic experience. Day Three, Ten by Ten [Saturday, Oct 30th, 2 PM, North Yarmouth Academy, Higgins Hall] is a performance of 10 pieces by 10 contemporary composers (a good number of them Maine-based), and many of the pieces performed by the composers themselves. And lastly, Day Four, Visual Art and Music: Music as Inspiration [Sunday, Oct 31st, 2 PM, Yarmouth High School Art Room] is a musical gallery walk through art inspired by contemporary music and created by area artists and students. It is the culmination of a project in which Yarmouth High School and Elementary School art students, teachers and area visual artists listened to selections of contemporary music and then created art in reaction to it. The day of the event will also include a "live art creation" by area visual artists. You can find the Yarmouth Contemporary Music Days webpage here and a YCMD poster here . Please come and join the Pytheas Center for an exciting weekend!

According to composer Christopher Rouse Ogoun Badagris (1976) derives its inspiration from Haitian drumming patterns, particularly those of the Juba Dance. Hence, it seemed logical to tie in the work with various aspects of Voodoo ritual. Ogoun Badagris is one of the most terrible and violent of all Voodoo loas (deities) and he can be appeased only by human blood sacrifice. This work may thus be interpreted as a dance of appeasement. The four conga drums often act as the focal point in the work and can be compared with the role of the four most basic drums in the Voodoo religion — the be-be, the seconde, the maman, and the asator. The metal plates and sleighbells are to a certain extent parallels of the Haitian ogan. The work begins with a brief action de grace, a ceremonial call-to-action in which the high priest shakes the giant rattle known as the asson, here replaced by cabasa. Then the principle dance begins, a grouillère: this is a highly erotic and even brutally sexual ceremonial dance which in turn is succeeded by the Danse Vaudou at the point at which demonic possession occurs. The word reler, which the performers must shriek at the conclusion of the work, is the Voodoo equivalent of the Judaeo-Christian Amen". Watch a performance of Christopher Rouse's Ogoun Badagris by the Percussion Section Residentie Orkest/The Hague Philharmonic . . . it's our BANG, CLANG, and BEAT/NEW MUSIC for PERCUSSION this week.

The music of Canadian-American composer Karim Al-Zand has been called "strong and startlingly lovely" (Boston Globe). His compositions are wide-ranging, from settings of classical Arabic poetry, to scores for dance, and pieces for young audiences. His works explore connections between music and other arts, and draw inspiration from diverse sources such as 19th century graphic art, fables of the world, folksong and jazz. The themes of many of his pieces speak to his middle-eastern heritage as well. Watch a performance of Karim Al-Zand's Capriccio (2002) for solo violin performed by violinist Matt Detrick . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

Osvaldo Golijov is known for his musical hybridity in combining the traditions of classical chamber, Jewish liturgical, and klezmer music with hints of the tango of Astor Piazzolla in his compositions. He is the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" Fellowship, the Vilcek Prize, and the recording of his opera "Ainadamar" was awarded two Grammy Awards in 2006: Best Opera Recording, and Best Contemporary Composition. His piece for solo cello Omaramoor (1991) is described by Richard Buell (The Boston Globe) as "a kind of quest piece - the solo cello wanders toward some tantalizingly withheld realization - the near-statement, the composer tells us, of a song made famous by the Argentine tango specialist Carlos Gandel". Watch a performance of Omaramoor by cellist Amy Sue Barston . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Richard Addinsell was a British composer most famous for his composition "Warsaw Concerto", which was written originally for the little-seen 1941 film "Dangerous Moonlight". Over the course of his career he composed scores for over 40 films, including "Blithe Spirit" (1945), "Under Capricorn" (1949) [with director Alfred Hitchcock], and "Scrooge" (A Christmas Carol) (1951), as well as music for Broadway musical plays and revues, orchestra and popular songs, especially in collaboration with Joyce Grenfell. Hear his moody and brooding score for director George Cukor's Gaslight (1944) . . . it's our current PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

Richard Maxfield was a composer of instrumental, electro-acoustic, and electronic music. Born in Seattle, he most likely taught the first University-level course in electronic music in America at the New School for Social Research. His electronic piece Amazing Grace (1960) mixes tape loops from two sources which are played back at various speeds, causing the fragments to overlap in complex ways, predating both Terry Riley’s and Steve Reich’s tape-loop pieces. "Amazing Grace" even uses a tape of a preacher, as Steve Reich's did in his famous "It's Gonna Rain" (1965); the results are at least equal to Reich's! Maxfield's pieces represent the state of new music just before minimalism was born. Sit back and listen to Richard Maxfield's Amazing Grace . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS this week.

Edgard Varese's Ionisation (1931) is credited with being the first Western work written for percussion alone, having no basis in traditional concepts of melody and harmony. As such, the implications of the work (from the standpoint of when the piece was written) questioned the meaning of the word music, as it was understood in the Western world. Viewed historically, it is actually a return to a very ancient Eastern tradition of percussion music, particularly in the aspect of timbre. Eastern concepts of sound and Western formal concepts of structure and logic merge, resulting in a musical entity which is universal (from "Tater Z the Anti-G and DJ Hunsmire's Musical Studies Index"). Watch a classic performance of Varèse's Ionisation by the Ensemble InterContemporain with Pierre Boulez conducting . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music