FROM THE PRESIDENT | PAGE 2Looking Back and Giving Thanks

ON THE AIR | PAGE 4Weekend Programming Highlights

novemBer Birthdays

novemBer 2015

m e m B e r s g U i d e

Daniel BarenboimBenjamin BrittenAaron CoplandFrançois CouperinGaetano DonizettiManuel de FallaPaul HindemithWilheml Kempff Douglas Lilburn

Victoria de Los ÁngelesEugene OrmandyIgnacy Jan PaderewskiKrzysztof PenderewskiHenry PurcellAlfred SchnittkeDame Joan SutherlandBryn TerfelCarl Maria von Weber

WHY WILD UP IS PLAYING THE CACTUS FOR KIDS

OUR INTERVIEW WITH THE COLLECTIVE’S

FOUNDER/CONDUCTOR CHRISTOPHER ROUNTREE

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“Lightning in a bottle” would be one way to describe the LA-based music collective that calls itself “wild Up.” At their concerts, wild Up combine genres, ages, instruments and interests into eclectic programming you can’t quite believe works as well as it does. In just five years of existence, wild Up has become a staple of the LA new music scene. They’ve served as Orchestra-in-Residence at the Hammer Museum and worked with the LA Phil twice during the 2013-14 season (during the Phil’s Brooklyn Festival and Minimalist Jukebox Festival). They were back at Walt Disney Concert Hall this year for the Next on Grand project, which had wild Up working with ten young composers to create new work. Already this fall, they premiered the trio of works that won the American Composers Forum National Competition at REDCAT and took their act on the road for Brooklyn’s SONiC Festival.

wild Up is the brainchild of conductor and founder Christopher Rountree. In a recent conversation, he told me a pal who heard the ensemble’s signature style in its early days made a comment that surprised him.

CR He said, “you guys really program like John Philip Sousa.” I thought, “what is he talking about? I guess we played a piece that was kind of a march.” Then this colleague explained that for every show Sousa did, there was theater music, vaudeville, compositions by people in the ensemble, contemporary music that was verging on avant-garde, classical music re-imagined, and popular tunes of the day. When you do a show like that, it becomes a concert for anybody who likes music. Everybody wants to label music, but what if we got rid of that?

BL As with Sousa, musicians in your group are also composers. Do you take advantage of that when you’re putting together a program?

CR If there is a problem with orchestras, it’s that not enough people have enough control. Everybody wants to give the conductor control. When I arrive somewhere, I’m asked “how high do you want the podium to be? Where do you want your water?” The structure of an orchestra can be very vertical, but what if we squish it out like a pancake? With wild Up, I’m making quite a lot of choices, but the band makes just as many. So we can let everybody in the band contribute, each show has four or five different curators from within the band and that rotates.

BL Last fall, you began a three-year tenure as LACO’s education ensemble-in-residence and one of your “Meet the Music” concerts took place last month at the Colburn School. What are those concerts like?

CR Kids aren’t jaded. When you say, “there was a guy named John Cage. He was from Eagle Rock. He wrote a piece for this cactus and I’m going to perform it now,”

2 Brenda Barnes

from the president

Celebrating A Season of Giving Thanks

cover photo: christopher rountree conducts members of wild up.photo courtesy muriel hahn

top photo: wild up’s conductor and founder christopher rountree.photo courtesy rus anson

This month marks my 18th anniversary at KUSC. When I joined the organization all those years ago, the plan was to stay for a while. Even I did not imagine that I would still be here 18 years later. Thanksgiving will be here in a few weeks, and these two topics are inextricably linked for me and always will be.

It is a great honor and privilege to be President of KUSC, and that was as true 18 years ago as it is now. The people you hear on the air every day are just as impressive in person as they are on the air. They are passionate about the music, composers, musicians and performances, and anxious to share their passion and knowledge with others. The people who work behind the scenes are every bit as impressive as our wonderful announcers. They work very hard, hold themselves to high standards, and are completely dedicated to the station and its mission.

There are many people at KUSC who have worked here a long time. A number have been here longer than I have: Alan Chapman, Shauna Der, Mark Hatwan, Bill Kappelman, Duff Murphy, Steve Sevy, Abe Shefa, and Jim Svejda. Dennis Bartel, Rich Capparela, and Gail Eichenthal have as long a history at KUSC if you count both tours of duty; all three returned to the station after working in other radio formats. There is another large group that has been at the station for more than ten years that, unfortunately, I do not have the space to list.

The reason all of us have been happy here for so long is you. Your support makes it possible for us to do this work that means so much to us and to you. That support inspires us to do the very best work we can, and it makes us determined to perform even better year after year. Your financial investment, your comments, your questions, your suggestions and your complaints help us do a better job. We would be lesser without them and without you.

Thank you so much for all you do for KUSC, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

cover story

Entering Playtime with wild UpHow Christopher Rountree’s Ensemble is Disposing with Labels and Questioning Authority

by Brian Lauritzen

While all the founding fathers of the Minimalist movement have come to actively dislike the word “minimalism”—and why not? Debussy always bristled whenever someone applied the term “impressionism” to his work—Terry Riley would seem to have the most legitimate gripe. Although it was a celebrated, one-page minimalist jam session that made his name, Riley’s output has always been far more varied and eclectic than those of most of his colleagues. If nothing else, this hugely entertaining collection of his four-hand piano music will demonstrate triumphantly there’s a lot more to Terry Riley than In C.

For instance, from the album’s opening work, the 13-minute Etude from the Old Country—part of the complete Heaven Ladder, Book 5 which forms the heart of this collection—it would be all but impossible to hear any connection to minimalism. An alternately brooding and daffy piece, it sounds for much of the time like a sharp (but affectionate) send-up of 19th century virtuoso fluff, while possessing an emotional depth and expressive richness that one doesn’t usually associate with minimalism. This becomes even more pronounced in something like the intensely moving Simone’s Lullaby, which began life as a two-hand work written for Gloria Cheng. The subtle but obvious references to the opening of the Bach Chaconne rarely fail to catch the listener’s breath. By that same token, the rhythmic variety (and antic wit) of Jaztine, Tango Doble Ladiado, and Praying Mantis Rag is very far removed from those endlessly repeated rhythmic cells which drive anti-minimalists mad with rage. Best of all is the colorful, richly varied Cinco de Mayo, which is nearly as long as the Etude and also never threatens to outstay its welcome.

The playing of ZOFO—Eva-Maria Zimmermann and Keisuke Nakagoshi—is pretty astonishing from beginning to end, and actually makes the album blurb (from the composer himself, no less) seem like an understatement: “They think and play as if guided by a Universal mind. It is truly an illuminating and electrifying experience to see and hear these two young artists in performance. Not only are they dazzling in their interactive virtuosity, but also mesmerizing in the cast scope of their musicality.”

What he said.

ZOFO Plays Terry Riley ZOFO; SONO LUMINUS 92189

by jim svejda

Why “Minimalist” Doesn’t Fit One Founding Father of the Movement record shelf

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jim svejda hosts the evening program on weeknights from 7 pm to midnight and the record shelf sundays at 10 pm.

Brian Lauritzen is heard on KUSC weekdays 1PM-4PM. He’s also the host of Arts Alive, Saturdays from 8AM to 8:30AM and Soul Music, Sundays 6AM to 9AM.

there’s nothing but wonder, and the level of curiosity in students is just exponential. We say, “let’s just enter playtime together,” because what I think is at the center of a lot of contemporary music is just playing with sound. It’s also all about asking questions. For the program in October, not only did we ask questions using the music of people like Ives; we also created a theme: when to question authority. We’re always in the place of what do we wish we would’ve heard as a kid.

BL This is probably a question that will have a new answer every time I ask it, but who are your favorite composers?

CR For the composition competition at REDCAT, we played a premiere of a piece by William Gardiner, an Australian composer who’s finishing his studies at Yale. It’s one of those pieces where you get the score and it looks incredibly simple. Then you hear the first sound—this electronic, synth sound from the keyboard—and it’s just so beautiful. During sound check, I walked away from the band

to hear how it was sounding from the house and I actually kind of welled up. It’s rare that that happens to me, but it’s one of the feelings that I think got us all into music. There’s another young composer named Jen Hill. We did a piece of hers as part of LA Phil’s Next on Grand festival that comes squarely out of the punk rock idiom, but it’s basically silent. The trumpet player has a practice mute with a bag over it and he plays a high c for five minutes. You hear him kind of failing and it sends everybody into this angsty place. I think Jen and William are two of my favorite young composers ... this week anyway.

To learn more about wild Up, and see their concert calendar, visit their website wildup.la

wild up plays with animal sounds for their “nature of music” program.photo courtesy wild up

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WeeKend highlights november 2015 on the air

KUSC SOCAL SUNDAY NIGHT: LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRAHOST: DENNIS BARTELSunday, November 1 | 7 pm Jeff rey Kahane, Conductor and musical tour guideJD Cullum, actor (Salieri)John Sloan, actor (Mozart)Alison King, sopranoEmily Fons, altoNicholas Phan, tenorAubrey Allicock, bassLos Angeles Master Chorale

Mozart: Requiem in D minor

Sunday, November 8 | 7 pm Jeff rey Kahane, conductorJoseph Swensen, violin

Prokofi ev: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minorMozart: Symphony No. 41 in C, “Jupiter” (Joshua Weilerstein, conductor)

Sunday, November 15 | 7 pm Jeff rey Kahane, conductorJonathan Biss, piano

Cameron Patrick: Lines of the Southern Cross (LACO commission/world premiere)

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21 in CMendelssohn: Nocturne & Scherzo from A Midsummer Night’s DreamMendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A, “Italian”

Sunday, November 22 | 7 pm A Concert from LACO’s Westside Connections seriesMargaret Batjer, host & curatorFrank Gehry, architectAra Guzelimian special guestChristopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times architecture criticJeff rey Kahane, pianoJoanne Pearce Martin, pianoWade Culbreath, timpaniTed Atkatz, percussion

Bach (arr. Kurtág): Chorale Prelude, “O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig” (“O Lamb of God most holy”)Bach (arr. Kurtág): Sonatina from Actus tragicus, “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit” (“God’s time is the best time”) Andrew Norman: Frank’s House (world premiere)Bartók: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion

Sunday, November 29 | 7 pm A compilation of selections from LACO’s Baroque Conversation series

THE RECORD SHELF WITH JIM SVEJDA Sunday, November 1 | 10 pmThe astounding recordings of the brilliant, virtually forgotten Russian pianist (and fellow pupil of Vladimir Horowitz), Anatole Kitain.

Sunday, November 8 | 10 pmThe Record Shelf Record Reviews. Jim Svejda off ers his critical reactions to the latest compact discs.

Sunday, November 15 | 10 pm Yan Pascal’s Papa, Part 1. In the fi rst of two programs, Jim Svejda brings you a selection of recordings by the great French cellist Paul Tortelier.

Sunday, November 22 | 10 pmYan Pascal’s Papa, Part 2. Jim Svejda concludes a pair of programs featuring the art of the great French cellist Paul Tortelier.

Sunday, November 29 | 10 pmVienna, Lebwohl. In his fi nal wartime appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic, Wilhelm Furtwängler leads his greatest recorded performance of Brahms’ Second Symphony.