Foster Reed was always an enigmatic presence in theBay Area

Tag : loops terry
 New AlbionRecords has always been a great source of pride to those of us wholive in the Bay Area. Over two decades, New Albion gatheredtogether a community of composers, musicians, instrument builders,recording engineers, and artists, and documented theircollaborations in one remarkable release after another. We eagerlyanticipated each new recording, and listened over and over: LouHarrison's La Koro Sutro , Carl Stone's Mom's , Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel , Janice Giteck's Home, Revisited . Starting in the mid-'80s, I contributed an annual "Ten BestRecords of the Year" to the East Bay Express , an alternative weekly, and New Albion releases consistentlytopped my list. Foster Reed was always an enigmatic presence in theBay Area new music scene. One year, he gazed inscrutably from Gapbillboards and magazine ads, wearing a good-looking grey GapT-shirt. There was something so delightfully odd about the factthat this man, who devoted himself to seeking out neglected andforgotten experimental composers, was being celebrated by The Gap.
What makes Foster especially enigmatic is how he defines the NewAlbion aesthetic. How do those fantastic Ensemble Project Ars Novarecordings of Machaut and Ciconia fit in with Lou Harrison andTerry Riley? If you're devoted to the "mellow, languid, atmosphericmusic of wide-open spaces, redolent of California," as Kyle Gannwrote in the festival program book, how do you then produce albumsof Ladino love songs, Maurice Ravel, Frank Martin, or Komitas?Foster does not consider these CDs to be anomalies; on thecontrary, they are completely in line with what he seeks out forNew Albion, although it may be hard to articulate why. He will tellyou about their strange beauty, or their narrative trajectory;there is a connection, but he doesn't need to explain what it is.
It's still hard to believe that New Albion, such a quintessentiallyWest Coast label, has moved to Elizaville, New York, in the HudsonValley. The inventory is housed in a large barn, across from Fosterand Tricia Reed's 1820 farmhouse, overlooking 35 acres of meadowand pond and forest. But while the geography of New Albion Recordsis different, its heart has not changed. Just as the innatelyCalifornia composers Ingram Marshall and Pauline Oliveros havemoved to the East Coast without altering their style, and CarlStone has moved to Japan without losing his California-ness, so NewAlbion has been transplanted but not transformed.
Of course, with such an ambitious and intricate undertaking, someproblems arise. The Spiegeltent is a festive and welcomingatmosphere, but acoustically unpredictable. And being in the ruralHudson Valley has its drawbacks. During my concert, in the middleof Evan Ziporyn's Pondok , a skunk detonated itself outside (everyone's a critic!),requiring some airing of the tent during intermission. And thenthere are the dozens of performers, some of whom are endowed withextra-strong personalities. During the sound check for Friday'sconcert, percussionist Willie Winant got mad at the crew and,pulling down his pants, said "Well, I could play like this!" Bythat evening, he summoned up the most subtle, spellbindingperformance of Lou Harrison's Solo to Anthony Cirone on tubular bells. The next afternoon, toy pianist Margaret LengTan and glass instrumentalist Miguel Frasconi offered a children'sconcert, and Margaret became so irritated at one child's disruptionof Miguel's performance that she grabbed the girl in her arms andheld her for the rest of the piece. Then she performed Ge Gan-ru'sastonishingly dramatic Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! with her legendary flair.
One interesting facet of the festival is the way it combinesestablished New Albion stalwarts with young performers just gettingto know this music. On Friday, the Wroclaw Opera Chorus, in town toperform Szymanowski at the Fisher Center, delivered a lovelyreading of Feldman's Rothko Chapel , brilliantly conducted by Steven Bodner. This coming Friday'sperformances of Fog Tropes and Shaker Loops feature musicians who weren't even born when those pieces werecomposed.
As with any summer music festival, the concerts themselves provideonly part of the pleasure. There's also the socializing. Bumpinginto Pauline Oliveros in a caf