By Dennis Polkow

Boulez.  The radical and outspoken enfant terrible who once advocated that concert halls and opera houses should be burnt to the ground as dead monuments to an irrelevant past, but who ended up being known as one of the all-time great conductors and interpreters of that past.

Boulez.  The name of the leading twelve-tone composer of his generation, the man who once advocated that serialism would become “the only musical direction of the future,” and yet who later completely abandoned it as a compositional method.

Boulez.  The frustrated artist who vowed that he would never come back to an artistic position in his native France, and yet who returned to Paris to found and lead the world’s premier experimental music research center at the Centre Pompidou for a decade and a half.

Boulez.  The defiant and arrogant lion in Nietzsche’s “Also sprach Zarathustra” who once attacked all established systems, but who is today as diplomatic and subdued as a pussycat and who has come to epitomize the very musical establishment he once so sharply opposed.

On the surface, at least, it would seem that Pierre Boulez is a man of considerable contradiction.  Rather, Boulez is a man of genuine paradox: a living parable and a walking twentieth-century monument.

Our greatest living figure in music, Boulez is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s most significant and innovative composers.  But there is also Boulez the conductor, the champion of new music, of technology to expand music materials, the teacher, guru to rock stars, author and lecturer of international renown; in short, a man who helped reshape the course of music after World War II on a myriad of levels. Read the rest of this entry »

By Dennis Polkow

Pierre Boulez is widely represented on recordings and videos both as a composer and as a conductor. Sony Classical has re-released virtually all of his earliest recordings in a special “Pierre Boulez Edition” released for his eighty-fifth birthday, but many of these recordings have long been supplanted. Deutsche Grammaphon is re-releasing many of its Boulez recordings in multi-disc sets this year and the CSO is even releasing an all-new “Boulez Conducts Stravinsky” disc later this month on its own CSO Resound label. The following very select list is a basic introduction to the remarkable art of Pierre Boulez:

Bartók: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 3. Daniel Barenboim, soloist, Pierre Boulez and the BBC Symphony. Angel/EMI Classics. Many people thought the Bartók Piano concertos were just noise until this legendary 1970 recording forever made these works part of the standard repertory.

Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, Four Orchestral Pieces, Op. 12. Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Pierre Boulez. Deutsche Grammaphon. This stellar recording swept the Grammy Awards and is the best of several Boulez/CSO recordings of the Hungarian master’s music. Read the rest of this entry »

By Tom Lynch

For what seems like an eternity, Tim Kinsella has been a figure in Chicago’s art scene, mostly through his musical work with Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc, Owls and Make Believe, plus work he’s presented under his own name. While an innovator, Kinsella’s a bit of an acquired taste—his apparent aversion to conventional melody and his unique and often abrasive voice could turn a traditional rock fan off. That said, Kinsella’s a lyrical master, his projects each thrillingly distinctive and daringly experimental, and it’s obviously no stretch to call him an icon in certain circles.

Joan of Arc, Kinsella’s longest-running project, has famously consisted of a rotating cast of musicians through the years and its twelve releases. 1997’s “A Portable Model Of…” and 1998’s “How Memory Works” remained my favorite Joan of Arc records for a decade, until “Boo Human” was released in 2008 and annihilated me. Kinsella’s newest Joan of Arc project is called “Don’t Mind Control,” and it’s a compilation of brand new songs submitted by past and current Joan of Arc members, eighteen tracks in all. Contributors include Tim’s brother Mike Kinsella’s Owen, A Tundra, Disappears, Jeremy Boyle, Cale Parks, Euphone, Tim Rutili, Josh Abrams, Ghosts and Vodka and Kinsella himself. In many ways this is the quintessential Joan of Arc release, as over the years the band has thrived with planets of talented musicians orbiting around Kinsella’s sun. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

If you were going to catch only one concert of the month-long Boulez@85 celebration that would tell you the most about the man who is being celebrated, this is the one to catch. We know Boulez is a great conductor, but hearing his own music in Chicago is still somewhat of a rarity compared to how much music we hear Boulez conduct of others. This is the only concert primarily devoted to works composed by Boulez himself.

Opening the program will be French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performing “Notations,” an early adventurous piano work consisting of several movements which Boulez is in the process of re-imaging for orchestra. Aimard will be joined by his protégé Tamara Stefanovich for “Structures I” for two pianos, the first major piece that Boulez wrote that applied the serial principles of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern to all aspects of its composition: form, rhythm, register, dynamics, et al.     Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

The only Boulez work that Boulez himself will conduct with the Chicago Symphony for his month-long eighty-fifth birthday celebration is his short “Livre pour cordes,” his 1969 orchestration of a string quartet (“Livre pour quatuor”) from 1948-1949, which will open this last Boulez CSO program before the celebration transfers to the University of Michigan and to Carnegie Hall in New York next week (Boulez was there last week as well, leading the Vienna Philharmonic with former CSO music director Daniel Barenboim at the piano).

But the real curiosity of this program is Boulez’ first-ever performances of the Bartók Concerto for Two Pianos and Percussion, an orchestrated version of the Hungarian composer’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion that Bartók made at the suggestion of his music publisher for orchestras to perform and to have the composer and his wife appear as the soloists during Bartók’s last, lean years in exile in the United States. Boulez had never done the piece before, but being such an admirer of the music of Bartók, the piece made his birthday “wish list.” French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard and his protégé Tamara Stefanovich will be the soloists and the CSO percussion section will also take the spotlight. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been a steady ongoing wave of electro-noise floating through the independent musical seas for a while now. The dynamic duo cleverly titled Truman Peyote brings a crisp and carefree attitude to what is often clogged with pretentious high concept, well, noise.

Hailing from the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plains, Caleb Johannes and Eric Farber pump out elongated sound-filled structures, using samples, field recordings and anything they can gets their hands on, making noise reminiscent of Animal Collective, The Rapture and Matt & Kim. Along with their LP “Light-Lightning,” the twosome has a twelve-inch split with fellow Whitehaus Family band Many Mansions and a split seven-inch with Turtle Ambulance on Breakfast of Champs due out this month, featuring the track “New Life, New Wife.” The song’s already received much love from Pitchfork.

Farber and Johannes discuss their music, their busy schedules and the town that influenced their sound. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ashley Mouldon

It’s an unlikely juxtaposition—the Spanish requinto, guitar and improv—but this colorful combination will be the highlight of Bill MacKay’s set this weekend at Heaven Gallery. Hailing from Pittsburgh, MacKay, 41, traveled extensively before planting his feet in Chicago in the summer of 1998. During one of his excursions to Mexico, MacKay met fellow folk artist Ramon Gutierrez Hernandez and it was then that MacKay fell upon the requinto: a smaller version of the modern guitar with a slightly higher-pitched tone. Hernandez, a member of the group Son de Madera, handcrafted MacKay’s requinto. “It’s just a resonant and radiant instrument that I fell in love with,” MacKay says, and now he is bringing it to life on stage, fusing it with his seasoned guitar skills. “The requinto adds a different texture, different color to the sound.”

MacKay describes his music as: “aiming for melodic songwriting, a wide take on things that have folk culture and music as a kind of root, and that cinematic notion of improvising, a voyage. It’s sort of like being an orthodox surrealist.” His ability to give songs a recognizable twist is something MacKay has been perfecting for a number of years. He started playing music at just 9 years old in a household where his dad and brother played the trumpet and his mother played the piano. He grew up listening to The Beatles, Chopin, Jimi Hendrix and Laura Nyro and now, as an adult artist, still credits those early groups as his inspiration. Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Jookabox is on tour with their latest record, “Dead Zone Boys,” an album that’s full of synthesized spooks and spiritualism. Using layers of sonic mimicry, Jookabox borrows from urban hip-hop, glam-rock vocals and 1990s-era tricks. In “Don’t Go Phantom” it sounds as if a choir of Alvin’s chipmunks are leading a cheer. A rowdy sound with cuckoo calls and stamping feet, Jookabox brings you ghosts, zombies and a musical flair for the macabre; the subject: white flight in American cities. Each vocal part sounds like something belonging to an unstable and adolescent cartoon: playful, shrieking, dirty and driving vampire-mythos hormones. Underneath, the content is colder, “Well, you’re trash man don’t come?” a lyric snuck in between electric guitar riffs and giggles. (Caroline Picard)

January 17 at Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 8pm. $3.

RECOMMENDED

Final Fantasy is a stupid name for a band. It’s like naming your band World of Warcraft or something. Trying to find music or info, especially early on in violinist Owen Pallett’s career, is difficult, as you are bombarded with links for the bajillion video games of the same name. And so, with the January 12 release of “Heartland,” Pallett’s third album and first to be released in many countries, including Japan, he retired the moniker. (Also, “the laws of trademark infringement exist for good reason,” Pallett said in his official statement. Surprisingly, he wasn’t sued in the five years since his debut was released.) “Heartland” is the follow-up to Pallett’s poorly titled, Polaris Prize-winning “He Poos Clouds,” a beautiful and intense record that was a huge step up from his promising debut, “Has a Good Home.” It’s always interesting to see Pallett live, as often it’s just him, his violin and loop pedal. To see one man bring those indie-rock/baroque pop songs to life is fascinating, and if you’re lucky, he’ll whip out a cover or two—maybe Bloc Party’s “This Modern Love,” Joanna Newsom’s “Peach, Plum, Pear,” Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” or friends Arcade Fire’s “No Cars Go.” The first three are actually better than the original, and the chance to hear any of those covers alone would make this show worthwhile. (Kelley Hecker)

January 16 at Schubas, 3159 N. Southport, (773)525-2508. 10pm. $15, five-day passes available for all TNK shows at both venues for $75 via Schubas.com.

RECOMMENDED

After turning to conducting, initially as an avocation, composer Pierre Boulez was chosen by legendary conductor George Szell in the mid-1960s to become the Cleveland Orchestra’s principal guest conductor so that Szell’s audiences would be able to hear large doses of twentieth-century music that Szell himself felt were beyond his grasp as a conductor to present convincingly.  Boulez’ Cleveland recording of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” from that time revealed the piece with a clarity and power that forever changed the way the public thought about the work.

“That work is extremely important to me,” says Boulez, “but it was rarely performed even in my student days. One performance I heard then with Charles Munch, the sacrificial dance that closes the second part, was as if both the players and conductor were driving on ice; neither were convinced.”

Boulez, for his part, says that he saw the significance of “Sacre,” as he calls it from its original French title, from the moment he saw the score, and that the transparency that became the trademark of his performances was immediately apparent and he admits that his approach to conducting the piece has been the same since he first conducted it nearly half a century ago.   Read the rest of this entry »