Concert Reviews – Emily McCulloch:

CSO – Radiance – 12/3/16

This was the first concert in the Masterworks series by the CSO this year. The
concert started off with Debussy’s Nocturnes, which was a great opener to the
concert. Despite it being a quiet start, I was captured immediately. I particularly
enjoyed the wind solos in the first movement (particularly by the Cor Anglais)
accompanied by beautiful string harmonies, the contrast to a livelier, energetic
feeling in the second movement and finishing off with the mesmeric Sirènes,
with beautiful singing by Bel Canto. Despite the challenge of the vocal parts in
the sustained notes and phrases, the girls sang with very good tone quality and
tuning of chords with each other and with the orchestra.

Second was the world premiere of a viola concerto by Chris Cree Brown. The
Principal Viola of the CSO, Serenity Thurlow, played this with amazing strength,
precision and musicality. The more mellow sounds of a viola are not often heard
as a soloist and I really enjoyed this concerto. The first movement was fairly fast,
the second movement was slower and sounded almost nocturne-like and the
third and last movement was fast. I enjoyed the contrasts and the orchestra
accompanied the soloist very well. I particularly liked the last movement, which
was energetic and really displayed the virtuosic talents of the soloist.

The concert was finished off with Symphony No. 5 by Prokofiev. The first
movement, Andante, started out with melodies from the wind section which is
then taken over by the strings. It starts off with a fairly relaxed feel, but builds to
a roaring finale. The second movement, Allegro marcato, was a lively toccata and
featured fast-moving sections passed around the orchestra to different soloists
and sections. The third movement, Adagio, was dreamy and slow but gradually
builds to a climax before going back to the calm feel from the beginning of the
movement. The final movement, Allegro giocoso, starts off calm but launches into
a rondo with a playful theme. This theme is contrasted with a couple of calmer
episodes, and near the end goes into a frenzy, finishing dramatically. This was a
very entertaining piece that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to.

In conclusion, the concert was very good with a variety of music that showed off
the talents of both the orchestra and the soloists.

Wayne Shorter Quartet – 8/6/16

This concert was part of the Wellington Jazz Festival and featured the legendary
saxophonist Wayne Shorter (now 82 years old) as well as incredible musicians
Brian Blade (drums), John Patitucci (bass) and Danilo Perez (piano).

Despite the skill of all the musicians, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the
concert. I was expecting jazz standards and melodic pieces, but this is not what
the quartet played. They played tone poems, the improvisation based around
chord progressions and grooves that were only implied and hardly any melodic
structure. The musicians played with incredible skill around the complex
structures of the pieces, which lasted up to 45 minutes each and all sounding
very similar.

Despite Shorter’s reputation as one of the best jazz improvisers alive at the
moment, it seemed that he was past his prime as a musician – or maybe it was
just the type of pieces played with very strange, impressionistic lines of
improvisation. The playing was mesmerising, hearing the way the musicians
interacted and played dreamy lines of melody over constantly-changing
structures but after a while of hearing the same thing it got a bit boring. Overall, I
thought the skill of the musicians was incredible but the music they were playing
was confusing and went over my head most of the time.

Snarky Puppy – 11/6/16

This concert was part of the Wellington Jazz Festival. Snarky Puppy is a 2-time
Grammy winning, Brooklyn-based band that combines many different genres of
music, primarily jazz and funk. Their setup was fairly unique, although similar to
that of a funk band with a large rhythm section and a smaller horn section.

They played 9 songs at the concert, which were all original compositions by the
group:
1. Flood
2. Grown Folks
3. Semente
4. Tarova
5. Thing of Gold
6. Young Stuff
7. Ready Wednesday
8. Lingus
9. What About Me

The band was absolutely phenomenal. Every single musician displayed

phenomenal skill on their individual instruments, playing both as soloists and
the group. What was most exceptional, however, was the musicianship and the
way the group communicated and worked together seamlessly, as well as
connecting with the audience. They also played with an incredible amount of
energy and obviously enjoyed playing their music with each other, which they
communicated to the audience to create a high-energy atmosphere where
everyone in the audience was enjoying themselves.

The band were clearly very used to playing with each other, and despite the
challenging pieces they played which often changed tempo and feel very
suddenly, these changes were smooth and everyone played perfectly in time
with each other. An example of this is in the challenging horn lines (for example,
after the solo section in Lingus), which were fast moving and technically
challenging, but trumpet players Mike Maher and Justin Stanton and tenor
saxophone players Chris Bullock and Bob Reynolds played these effortlessly and
absolutely together with starts and cut-offs of notes, as well as articulation and
tone blended so that it sounded like one person and not four were playing. This
was also shown in the percussion, where drummer Larnell Lewis and
percussionist Nate Werth were able to build and develop each other’s ideas
together and sound like one very complex rhythm, rather than 2 separate players
playing different things.

Another aspect of the concert that stood out was the way the players built up
tension and energy during their solos. They started out very simple, gradually
building in complexity and intensity and developing their ideas and using very
effective jazz vocabulary, with influences from many other genres. The rhythm
section followed the soloists, gradually building up with them. This was
particularly shown in Bob Reynolds’ tenor saxophone solo in Lingus where he
was able to build up an incredible amount of tension during the solo with
support from the rhythm section (particularly drums, percussion and bass), and
Larnell Lewis’s drum solo in What About Me in which he displayed an incredible
amount of skill incorporating different grooves and fills gradually building in
complexity. This created an incredible amount of energy for both the band and
the audience.

Overall, this concert was absolutely incredible with world-class performances by

world-class musicians. Snarky Puppy was able to engage the whole audience and
leave us all wanting more at the end.