6 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
6 - Tuesday, November 5, 2013 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
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'U' alum to present
diverse 'Friends'
Jonathan Chapman
Cook to perform
contemporary piece
By JOHN BOHN
Daily Community Culture Editor
This Tuesday, University alum
Jonathan Chapman Cook will pres-
ent a selected program of piano
compositions
titled "Among Among
Friends: A Friends: A
Recital of
Contempo- Recital of
rary Piano Contemporary
Music."
Drawing from Piano
the works Tuesday at 9 p.m.
of fellow
composers Moore Building
that he has Free
befriended
over the years,
Cook will performa contemporary
moment, crafting a living com-
munity of artists through personal
relations and sustained musical
engagement.
"My feeling has always been that
any music deserves the same kind of
attention as the classical repertoire,"
Cook said. "I wanted to devote a
lengthy amount of time to an entire
program of music by composers
who I personally know, to put the
kind of work into it that one would
put into a classical repertoire."
The pieces are diverse, ranging
from improvisational explorations
of Arabic modes and rhythms to
the attempt to musically reflect
the physics of subatomic particles,
as well as Cook's own synthesis of
Chopin-inspired techniques and
popular cultural forms. For many
of the pieces, Cook will be the first
pianist beyond the composer to
perform the work, and for that rea-
son this project presents its own
questions and concerns, distinct
from how one would approach the
classical repertoire in which Cook
was trained.
"There's more territory when
you study a Beethoven sonata,"
Cook said. "People have studied
this music extensively, and so you
have this institution, this establish-
ment, that dictates."
Freedom from encumbering
tradition and legacies of interpre-
tation presents its own challenge,
however.
"Every individual has a huge con-
fluence of influences, all of which
are going into this piece," Cook said.
"Some of those influences you may
be familiar with, and some you may
not be familiar with. So you really
are dealingwith ajungle when play-
ing contemporaryrepertoire.
"I think that a lot of people are a
little bit afraid to study contempo-
rary music because the guidelines
are not as set in stone."
While Cook has, on occasion,
consulted the composers for assis-
tance and insight,muchofthe prep-
aration has been his own.
"I've really enjoyed taking these
pieces and making them my own
in a certain way," Cook said. "I am
going to do everything I can to be
faithful to the composer's desires,
but what Ilike about the music that
I've been given is that it allows a lot
of room for my own personality to
come through."
For Cook, this room for person-
ality is critical. His foray into con-
temporary music is in many ways
a response to his experiences with
performance and composition edu-
cation and comes after a journey of
self-exploration following his grad-
uation in211from the University's
Masters in Piano Performance pro-
gram.
During that first year following
graduation, Cook stopped perform-
ingand practicingcompletely.
"I just needed to step back from
things," Cook said. "It's been an
interesting process leaving music
school very consciously just know-
ing at a certain point that I needed
to get out. I think something in me
knew that it was suffocatingme."
"For instance," Cook added, "in
one of my first composition classes,
I was writing music using quartal
harmony. ... It's basically the inter-
val of a perfect fourth. And I just
really love the sound of just stack-
ing fourths on top of each other
and using them in different ways.
And the first thing I was told was,
'No you shouldn't stack fourths on
top of each other like that. If you're
going to use fourths you have to
hide it in there,' which is a com-
pletelyarbitrarylesson"
Upon returning to the piano,
Cook took on a variety of projects
- from improvisation to the clas-
sical. Then last November, Cook
conceived the project that would
become "Among Friends."
"I wanted to do a contempo-
rary music project," Cook said.
"I thought I would write a piece
for it, and then I started thinking
about other composers who I knew
between Western Michigan, the
University of Michigan and here in
Lexington, Virginia."
The first composer who came
to mind was Benjamin Bourlier,
whom Cook met while studying at
Western Michigan.
"It was kind of like everything
in my life changed after I met Ben,"
Cook said. "(His work) justblew me
away."
Bourlier's composition"L'escalier
sans maitre" will be the final piece
performed and is, as Cook says, one
of the most difficult pieces he has
ever played. The program describes
it as a "complex stylistic pun" draw-
ing from two works of the 20th cen-
tury - Gyorgy Ligeti's"L'escalier du
diable" and Pierre Boulez's "Le mar-
teausansmaitre."
"I personally don't claim I know
nearly half of what is underlying
this piece, but it just struck me as
an extraordinarily energetic and
charged piece of music," Cook said.
Bourlier, along with Western
Michigan piano accompanist Cas-
sandra Kaczor, Lecturer in Music
at Washington and Lee University
Byron Petty, University alumn and
Royal Schools of Music certified
pianist and theorist Donia Jarrar
and University Composition and
Music Theory doctoral candidate
Evan Ware, provided Cook with
the material to be heard at "Among
Friends" Tuesday.
"I personally think the living
community is tremendously impor-
tant," Cook said." ... I think that
having a community of performers
relatingto composersgets us closer
to what we're experiencing in our
contemporary life and how indi-
viduals are expressingthat through
art."
Just don't get married
Ansari's old techniques
'Buried' in new special,
By MAX RADWIN
Daily Fine Arts Editor
How-does a comedian grow
up? Over time, as is the case for
everyone, some issues take on
a 'new impor-
tance, while -+
others fall
away. But style, Buried Alive
too - as well Available for
as delivery and
stage presence streaming
- transform Netflix
and mature in
a comedian.
When is it OK to challenge your
audience as you challenge your-
self? H
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Call:d#734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplayC gmail.com
ow do you walk that line deeper subject matter now.
it getting crickets? There is a long tradition in
Ansari's newest stand- comedy of using the stage as a
ecial, "Buried Alive," kind of therapy. Ansari, who
'his line through a disap- must be the most avid student
gly typical relationships of that tradition, assumes the
work - expertly at times, role to an extreme. Is marriage
ss so in others - that what I want? Or is it what I'm
es him into a new phase supposed to want? How do I get
career distant from the it? Is a child a burden or a bless-
kes that garnered him his ing? Am I really'ever going to be
uccess. ready for any of this?
isn't the Aziz that hangs Countless comics have
th Kanye, that trolls his explored these questions before,
Harris on Facebook or but Ansari brings a refreshing
icks -a Butterfinger into complexity to them because
tone ice cream. This is his jokes are not informed by
entering his 30s with a a Seinfeld-esque insight, but a
fe experience under his naive, peripheral speculation.
nd with age comes a more More often than not, he seems to
approach to crafting be working through these issues
Stand up isn't just mak- out loud because he needs the
ople laugh, but an outlet answers for himself - the audi-
h which one can explore ence just happens to be there to
if the self and its society. hear it, and their laughter vali-
dates his insecurities as a result.
Huge themes risk getting
M ature stale, and Ansari plays it close
to the edge. Romance sends
taterial, but him off on some tangents, but
everything seems to loop back to
ill relationships, and it gets Weari-
some. During the encore, you
jizz jOKeS. half expect him to propose to an
unsuspecting girlfriend.
But Ansari's crowd work
relieves the sputtering some-
that Ansari doesn't throw what. It's clear that he's done
e old man jizz, hand jobs his time in smaller clubs. Every
5-year-olds and "a robot conversation with the audience
ieen sent back in time to is smooth (unlike his earlier spe-
your face." There's plenty cials) and hilarious, although
arian absurdity to satisfy, occasionally sensationalist.
s what you're looking for. "Buried Alive" is the bright-
if the theme of this spe- est beacon of his maturity as a
relationships, then the comic, and as a person. And if
motif has to be semen in he's going to keep it up - if his
glorious forms and func- jokes are going to mature as
Even then, the jizz is so he does - then Ansari needs
more than it was in "Intl- to remember where he came
Moments" or "Danger- from: a place of energy and light
Delicious." It's rooted in absurdity.
RELEASE DATE-Tuesday, November 5,2013
Los Angeles Times Daily C
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