More Pendulum swings.

I went again to a Pendulum concert the other night at the University of Colorado. The Pendulum series is one of my favorites: all contemporary music that I'm hearing for the first time.

The featured composer this time as Alan Fletcher, the president of the Aspen Music Festival. Milton Babbit, one of his teachers, told him that he was "French" (as opposed to "German") and his music lived up to that designation. A short, Messiaen-like piece "Green" was beautifully played by Hsing-ay Hsu who then with violinist Lina Bahn performed a delightful "Study: Woman Holding a Balance", a musical impression of Vermeer's painting. While in college I had a print of Vermeer's "Milkmaid", so this piece reminded me of college. Fletcher's music is tonal and accessible and fairly short. Since he's a "local" composer for Colorado, you might expect that the so-called classical music station for Colorado, KVOD, would have broadcast something of his. Nope. I then went to my favorite Internet station, http://contemporary-classical.com and looked there for Fletcher. Unfortunately nothing is available there either.

A student composition, Jökulhlaup, by Paul Hembree was another interesting piano piece at this concert. A Jökulhlaup is Icelandic for a catastrophic flood caused by a volcanic eruption under a glacier -- shades of the cartoon move "Ice Age".

The final piece at this Pendulum concert was an violin octet "Gran Turismo" by Andrew Norman. I'm not into video games, the inspiration for the piece, but I could sense the agitation and speed. Another fun composition well played.