The Échange score with conductor's markings.
Judging by the number of wait-listers who hovered at the entrance to the MCA Stage Thursday night, the guerilla marketing tactics of International Contemporary Ensemble’s Street Team—including hipster-friendly “X” and “Xenakis” buttons—seemed to have paid off. Brainy Greek composer Iannis Xenakis is known for the sometimes impossible demands he makes on the musicians, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who came to see how ICE navigates his scores.
Steve Schick is a world-class percussionist and, at the MCA show, ICE’s conductor. Stepping into an eerie wash of scarlet light surrounding his rig, he opened the concert with “Psappha,” for solo percussion. As Schick coiled up between attacks, it occurred to me that “Psappha” is as much about the potency of silence as it is about sound—and that I held my breath during each of these suspensions.
By far, one of the most harmonically beautiful moments of the night was unveiled toward the end of “Akanthos,” with the retreat of the instruments into an atmospheric haze as vocalist Tony Arnold lofted a very pure tone toward us. She spent the majority of the piece wrangling with Xenakis’s vocal acrobatics, and it was a much-needed moment of serenity. If you see Tony Arnold’s name listed for a concert, buy a ticket immediately.
Other highlights included the never-disappointing Joshua Rubin, grinding multiphonics out of his bass clarinet in “Échange” and the sonic experience of “O-Mega,” in which ICE members lined the side walls of MCA Stage for a literal surround-sound effect.
ICE has been described as having one foot in Chicago and one in New York City. Let’s hope the one in our city stays firmly planted.
