Fall 2009 eNews: InterNetzo
From Spectral to Sardonic: San Francisco Composers Forum Runs the Gamut

by Qian Li

On May 30, over 50 Walden School Young Musicians Program and Teacher Training Institute alumni and faculty actively engaged with each other’s music at a Composers Forum in San Francisco. Gathered in the Girls Chorus Building, composers and their family and friends heard pieces from ten alumni and faculty. After each performance, Walden School founder and former Director Pamela Layman Quist (above, right) put the composer in the hot seat with leading questions and remarks. The audience responded with enthusiastic encouragement and questions about form, instrumentation, and details of harmonic and performance choices.

The Walden School practice of creativity was evident in the stylistic variety of the program. From the dreamy fantasy of NGC2997 by Ann Callaway, performed by the composer, to Nathaniel Baron-Schmitt’s tastefully orchestrated Trumpet Quintet for trumpet and string quartet, to the dramatic and magnificently colorful songs Two Settings of Baudelaire by Michael Johanson, there were new sounds to enrapture every ear. Creative, too, was the use of accustomed sounds: the room erupted into laughter through David Saslav and Melissa Smith’s Twelve Downloadable Ringtones for Piano and Cellphone, a unique collaborative work. Other performers included Walden’s development director Esther Landau (below, left) and young musicians from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Video clips of the performances are available on Walden’s YouTube page and the printed program is available at the Hand Over Hand website (www.handoverhand.org). Sound files will be posted there soon.

We look forward to the next Forum, planned for New York on the afternoon of Sunday, November 15. Participation in Forums is open to everyone in the Walden/JCC community: alumni, past and current faculty, staff, and visiting artists. If you have a composition or improvisation to present, join us! Click here if you’d like to participate in a future Forum.

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Pamela Layman Quist

David Saslav