Rapid Transit wrap-up, with photos

It was an amazing week at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, where my old friend Ryan McAdams and virtuosi Mary, Kevin, Louis, Anne, and Oya did amazing work premiering my new chamber piece, Rapid Transit for oboe, trumpet, trombone, bassoon and percussion.

The Boston Globe said quite accurately that the piece was “highly caffeinated,” (thank you, New Wave Coffee in Logan Square) “a suave romp for an unusual assembly of woodwinds, brass, and percussion.” Over at Sequenza21, reviewer-composer Christian Carey had some very thoughtful analysis:

A TMC commission, the piece started out slowly, alternating nervous percussion flurries with chorale-like pan-modal verticals. Eventually, the winds picked up the percussion’s rhythmic ideas, and the ensemble was off to the races. Bancks created a clever amalgam of ‘transit sounds,’ using brass for car and train horns and percussion for the various noises that routinely besiege commuters. The faster sections also employed a more chromatic pitch field to further ratchet up the tension. While some details of pacing between the ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ sections might be rethought, Bancks’ compositional language is attractive and the overall impression was quite promising.

Another blog, Feast of Music, described Rapid Transit as “a thrilling ensemble work inspired by the Chicago El train (where he lives) and cut from the same cloth as Louis Andriessen’s minimalist classic Workers Union.”

Bravissimo to festival director and guru Augusta Read Thomas, who, as the New York Times keenly observed, programmed an entire festival that wasn’t about her. Who does that?!

In all, just being here was a thrill, to hear brilliantly performed works of both super-famous and up-and-coming composers… of the latter, particularly arresting were works by my new friends Paula Matthusen, Judd Greenstein and Helen Grime, and my old Rochester neighbor Aaron Travers, whose Songs of Loss for solo piano was a festival highlight.

We all survived the El together.

Post-peformance, with the master herself.

Panel discussion of the youngsters. (l-r) Helen Grime, yours truly, Cynthia Lee Wong, Gusty, and Aaron Travers. Past Aaron (not pictured) were rockstars Judd Greenstein and Paula Matthusen.

With maestro Ryan, the coolest kid in school.

Kara and me with our amazing friends Dr. Mark and Julie Silvestri, who made the trip from New Haven... and Hannah Rose Bancks (in utero, due Nov. 22). Apparently, judging from her constant movements during concerts, we have a musician on our hands!