Features

El Cerrito resident Charles Amirkhanian is a composer with an impressive resume. He’s been at it a long time, and has broken new ground along the way. He’s also one of those rare artists who acts as more than a champion of his own work. His considerable skills as a communicator and organizer have been harnessed to advance a great deal of daring music by others. As director of the Speaking of Music series at the Exploratorium in San Francisco from 1983 to 1992, then as music director of KPFA from ‘69 to ‘92, he’s been in the trenches for a long time, fighting the good fight. In other words, he’s in favor of music that doesn’t sound like everything else. And that’s what the Other Minds Festival is all about. 

The standards at the Other Minds Festival have been very high all during its 10-year run, and that’s a vital component when you’re hoping to bring in people who may be skeptical, or gun-shy, about new music. Amirkhanian has pulled it together this year in style. There is an impressive array of offerings at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco this Thursday through Saturday. The players are superb, and the music that is programmed looks to be what we hope for in a festival of new music: It’s daring and it’s extremely varied. 

Opening night, Thursday March 4, features premieres by Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian, and by composer Hanna Kulenty—the latter for quarter-tone flute and chamber orchestra. Amirkhanian tells me he’s also excited about the premiere of “The Hear and Now,” by composer Jon Raskin of the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, for that ensemble. That’s also on Thursday night. This piece throws ROVA together with an acclaimed ensemble of musicians from Asia, featuring Kyaw Kyaw Naing on pat waing. The Bay Area’s own Gino Robair conducts. 

On Friday, March 5, there is a special 4 p.m. performance arranged with composer Stanley Shaff, who is creating a “total sensory experience” in the darkness of the Audium, at 1616 Bush St. in San Francisco, this being a salute to the composer’s seventy-fifth birthday.  

The evening concert at Yerba Buena on Friday features the U.S. premiere of “Ashtayama,” by Italy’s Amelia Cuni, one of the few Western women to have mastered the classical Indian dhrupad vocal style. Her multi-media piece, which Amirkhanian says is a not-to-be-missed event, is called Song of Hours. Ms. Cuni has toured with Terry Riley and has been mowing them down, apparently, in the U.K. On Friday evening you can also hear accordionist Stefan Hussong performing transcriptions of John Cage’s keyboard music, with dance accompaniment by “stilt choreographer” Pamela Wunderlich. There are several other U.S. premieres for accordion. 

There’s more. Also on Friday, a premiere from Oakland-based composer Mark Grey, with Joan Jeanrenaud the featured soloist on cello. I know Mark Grey a bit, and have heard his music. He’s a heavy-hitter. An associate of Philip Glass, his own music is an adventurous exploration of the color and fire found where acoustic and electronic instruments meet.  

The closing program on Saturday is really three events: Joan Jeanrenaud returns to perform a piece of her own for cello and electronis, a world premiere commissioned for the festival (I bet she’s getting tired of hearing “Formerly of the Kronos Quartet,” but there you have it. If you think you don’t know Ms. Jeanrenaud, you’re probably wrong. Next up, Francis Dhomont surrounds the audience with a 12-piece “loudspeaker orchestra.” Then, answering the question “How do you follow that?” bassist Alex Blake appears with his quintet. Panamanian-born Blake, long a sideman with Sun Ra, Dizzy Gillespie and McCoy Tyner, cites Jimi Hendrix as a primary influence.  

There’s a panel discussion at 7 p.m. on each night of the festival for those who want to hear from these artists about what they’re doing. 

And there’s more happening around the edges… 

Women in Music: a panel discussion on Saturday, March 6, 9 a.m.-noon, YBC Forum. Presented by the Women’s Philharmonic, it’s free and it features Israeli-American composer Shulamit Ran as special guest. (www.womensphil.org.) 

Film: Also Saturday, 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m., “My Cinema for the Ears.” YBC Forum. As regards the musique concrète of Francis Dhomont and Paul Lansky. Tickets: $5; Other Minds 10 pass holders free. 

Also Saturday, but this at 3 p.m., a screening of “Khachaturian,” a new documentary on the composer’s life and music during the great Soviet Experiment. The film, which premiered in New York in October, was recently named Best Documentary at the 2003 Hollywood Film Festival. A short program follows the screening, featuring pianist Dora Serviarian-Kuhn, composer Tigran Mansurian, who appears in the film, and Other Minds director Charles Amirkhanian. Tickets: $10; Other Minds 10 pass holders free. 

There’s an exhibition and sale of original scores in the YBC Theater Lobby, featuring original musical manuscripts by Other Minds 10 Festival composers. 

And—last but not least—a photography exhibition; a selection of John Fago’s black-and-white photographs from past Other Minds Festivals on exhibit in the YBC Forum (701 Mission St. ) during Other Minds 10.  

Tickets to Other Minds Festival 10 you can get at the Yerba Buena Center Box Office, 701 Mission St., open from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. for walk-up sales (the box office at 700 Howard St. opens 90 minutes prior to all events). Or you can order by telephone: (415) 978-ARTS; daily 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Or online at www.YerbaBuenaArts.org; $5 per-order service fee (except films). Individual concert tickets are $35 Premium; $27 Regular; $18 Budget. Festival passes to all public events: $80 Premium; $65 Regular; $45 (for budget student discount deduct $3 Premium; $2 Regular; $1 Budget off concert tickets and passes). The Friday 4 p.m. program at Audium is $12, sliding scale for students. Audium has limited seating, so if you plan to attend, call to reserve at (415) 771-1616. And the films work like this: My Cinema for the Ears, is $5, and the Khachaturian is $10. 

So what’s the upshot of all this? Well, for a few days this weekend, the odds of your hearing something unique, strange, unprecedented, perhaps even beautiful and unforgettable, are vastly increased. Hats off to Charles Amirkhanian. There have been others in the Bay Area who have curated new music as well as created it: trail-blazer Henry Cowell, for instance, founded the New Music Society in 1925.  

While Henry Cowell has gone on to the big Festival in the Sky, Charles Amirkhanian is very much with us. In the company of Kent Nagano, Sarah Cahill, Stuart Canin, Paul Dresher, and a handful of other area artists, Mr. Amirkhanian seems willing to attempt the unlikely again and again, in this case pulling together scant resources to present the flip side of popular music. The flip-side of popular music, of course, is not unpopular music. It is the music that we’re rarely, if ever, given a chance to hear.  

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