Photograph by Carl Socolow
So lucky us: The next Cards game is tonight; and if they win, the next one’s on Saturday. Which means your decks are cleared to attend two pretty amazing concerts this weekend.
New York-based new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, which has dedicated itself to putting down roots in St. Louis, has not one, but two big nights of new work premiering. The first concert, on October 17 at The Sheldon Concert Hall, celebrates St. Louis’ 250th birthday with a three-hour program that incorporates ragtime, jazz, blues, classical, R&B, and rock. Then on Sunday, Alarm Will Sound performs the world premiere of John Luther Adams’ Ten Thousand Birds at the new Media Commons in Grand Center, and will take full advantage of the two-story-high video walls. (More on that in a minute.)
“So what I am particularly happy about for October 17 and 19, that weekend, is that it's about music history and music future in St. Louis,” says the group’s Managing Director, Gavin Chuck. “On Friday night, we will be looking at the many ways in which the styles that came out of St. Louis tell the story about the city, but also tell the story about American music. So there's a lot of sort of looking back at the tradition of music.” It will also look forward, he says, with two new pieces by pianist Peter Martin and AWS cellist Stefan Freund.
The night starts at 6:30 p.m., with performances sprinkled throughout the space. Willie Akins and Eric Slaughter play at the Emerson Entrance; the St. Louis Ragtimers (sadly, now missing the late Trebor Tichenor) will be in the Kemper Auditorium. Gary Hunt and Dade Farrar perform in the art galleries, and the Webster University Chamber Singers will be in the box office lobby and concert hall. At 8 p.m., Alarm Will Sound, Peter Martin Trio, Kim Massie, and Denise Thimes perform in the main concert hall, followed by another round of multiple performances throughout the building, including a ragtime piano cutting contest in the Spiering Room and a show by legendary blues guitarist Billy Peek in the ballroom.
If Friday night’s concert is a vision of how St. Louis’ musical past influences its present and future, “The October 19 show takes that even another step forward,” Chuck says. “We wanted to commission a special piece, and we asked John Luther Adams to write something that celebrates the environment, because that's what he's known for,” he says. (Adams’ Become Ocean, inspired by the waterways of the Pacific Northwest, netted him a Pulitzer Prize this year.) Adams’ hour-long composition was inspired by the songs of birds that either migrate through, or are native to Missouri. (Readers of bird-obsessed St. Louis native Jonathan Franzen will know that is actually a very large number of species—we’re home to the Mississippi River flyway.) During the performance of Adams’ work, the enormous screens on the plaza will show a new video work by St. Louis photographer Michael Eastman.
“It’s exciting to work with Michael Eastman just because of his incredible artistry as a photographer,” Chuck says. “And I think its particularly exciting to work with him, because he is exploring video for the first time, so we are collaborating with him at a time when he is trying something radically new for himself.”
Also on the bill: Eric Hall, former composer-in-residence at Laumeier Sculpture Park and frequent performer at spots like Melt and Blank Space; and Nathan Cook, who performs solo as N.N.N. Cook, and is part of the Close/Far Collective. (You can hear what he does here.) Both of this weekend’s concerts bring work to St. Louis audiences they would never hear otherwise, but also further AWS’s goal of weaving itself into the artistic community St. Louis, whether by collaborating with local artists, or deeply engaging with the day-to-day life of the city, such as with the christening of the Media Commons.
“I think the space has really created an optimistic outlook for what Grand Center can be, and what living in the city can be, just shared public space,” Chuck says. “And to be there to inaugurate that space, and to be really focused on what that space can be in the future, is really wonderful for us.”
250 Years of St. Louis Music: American Music at its Best, Friday October 17, Sheldon Concert Hall, 3648 Washington. Admission is $30.
Ten Thousand Birds, Sunday October 19, Public Media Commons in Grand Center, 6:30 to 8 p.m. Free.
