Now look - I know what "going viral" means. Hell, I have a teenage daughter! I am not that out of touch... so of course I understand that what is going to be discussed here today - the gradual spread of B's music and ideas across the wider musical community - does not really represent what we would usually mean by "viral" in the internet craze sense. Quite the opposite, probably... nevertheless, there is a real sense that this stuff is actually, finally, beginning to catch on. The metaphor was irresistible.
This post is somewhat out of sequence, in that the site which led me to the two videos I'm about to share with you is one to which I was led by McClintic Sphere, and the event he was telling me about is one which is not going to fit into this article... so there will still need to be a little follow-up. But you see, that page led me to quite an exciting video, and that in turn led to another one, and this all just feels as if it needs to be taken care of first...
What we have here is two separate, unrelated GTM performances, both recent, neither of which had (as far as I know) anything to do with the maestro. This is good, because it proves that the message is at last getting spread among musicians (if it wasn't already - and I'm not totally convinced that it was). Something else which is good, and which I know would greatly please the man himself, is that women are much represented in both groups: it's an established imperative for B. to try and encourage more women into creative music, and I can't help thinking that the well-balanced ensembles we're going to look at here are a sign that this plan, too, is working*.
***
The first video is undated (as yet, although I have asked Ictus if they can provide this information - so we'll see); but given that it was posted on 6th July 2022, it must be of a performance earlier than that. I found the video on the "Watch & Listen" page of Ictus' site; the institution itself is a Belgian enterprise, founded in 1994 as the live band for a dance company, but which has grown steadily ever since. Anyone who has been reading this blog since I resumed posting on it will not be surprised to learn that guitarist Kobe Van Cauwenberghe is currently one of the (many) members; a quick scan down that list reveals that trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, one of B's most recent touring musicians, is also involved. Anyway, the video we're concerned with here is "the result of a 2 day workshop where Advanced Master students from the School of Arts Gent join forces with a squad of Ictus musicians" - and the workshop in question was given by Kobe Van C., drawing on what is by now a fair bit of time and experience working with B's music. He can't claim to the same sort of direct lineage as Roland Dahinden; unlike the trombonist, the Belgian has never studied under B. or collaborated with him. But he has immersed himself in the maestro's music to a degree that few "outsiders" can match: he leads a group which plays only GTM, and has himself recorded a solo album of GTM pieces, using tape loops and electronics for accompaniment**. It doesn't seem at all arrogant or inappropriate for him to be hosting GTM workshops - he has clocked up the mileage and established his credentials beyond doubt***.
The main territory for this triumphant performance, then, is Comp. 255 - a Syntactical GTM work which, in principle, is an eccentric choice for an all-instrumental ensemble. But although the syllabic content of the score must necessarily be missing, there is no other reason why any one work should not be undertaken by any grouping of voices, human or otherwise; and KVC's septet has already tackled this piece, so it's a score he presumably knows pretty well. He will have had his own reasons for preferring this territory for the ensemble to work from. As for the ensemble, it's a very Braxtonian tentet, albeit with rather unfamiliar instrumentation: two electric guitars, three woodwinds, one brass, keyboards, two drum kits plus one mallet percussion. (The full line-up is given on the website, although the instrument credits are not all that complete: Berndt plays piccolo as well as flute, (Dirk) Descheemaeker more than one clarinet; the leader switches from guitar to electric bass at one point.) As for who represented Ictus, and who came from School of Arts Gent: besides the leader here, Plouvier, Messler and Dirk Descheemaeker are all listed as being part of the Ictus roster, so let's assume for the time being that the others had attended the workshop as students.
Kobe Van Cauwenberghe is shown right at the beginning of the video, counting everyone in; a few minutes later, when the second guitarist (playing the red Strat) displays a prominent hand signal, the viewer could get confused as to who is who, but no, that really is him at the outset#. Not all players seem to be fully audible, at first, with the two guitars and two drum sets, plus the piccolo, dominating the sound - as the camera pans slowly around the room, this is if anything emphasised, but as the music develops, everyone gets plenty of chances to make themselves heard. It's not long at all before the written theme gives way to an open space, and from here on, freedom of expression is the order of the day. I have no intention this time of trying to run through the video describing the music - which incorporates secondary and tertiary materials, as one would expect (Comp. 115 is much used##, as well as Comp. 40i, and of course the repetition series Comp 40(o), which just seems to be everyone's favourite###) - but suffice to say, with top-class musicians given the right sort of instruction and encouragement, this is music which one can inhabit, not just hear.
***
The second video, if anything, excited me even more, because none of the names meant anything to me at all - which potentially implies a completely new set of musicians finding this stuff for themselves (although I did eventually discover connections, as explained below). What we have here is a sextet performance (entitled simply "Ghost Trance Music") given by the Plus-Minus Ensemble, a British group "committed to commissioning new work and placing it alongside recent and landmark modern repertoire". The video was filmed at MINU Festival, Copenhagen, on 18 November 2023 and has only been up on Youtube since December. (The performance was one part of a four-piece programme, and this was the fourth time the programme itself had been presented^.)
It's not a new thing for an ensemble such as this to interpret B's work alongside that of other contemporary composers; but we seem to have come a long way since the Cygnus Ensemble gave a completely-straight reading of the written score of Comp. 186^^. Starting with what sounds like a second-species GTM theme - no opus numbers are provided on the group's website - the group takes us on a twenty-one minute journey through some very free and open territories, with the presence once more of electric guitar and synth (plus piano, bass clarinet and two strings) guaranteeing some pretty fiery and adventurous sounds along the way. Almost inevitably, Comp. 40(o) makes yet another appearance, kicked off by the pianist around 3.15, then played faster and faster by the whole group. What delights me so much about this rendition is the way in which the musicians have fully grasped the music's possibilities, leaving the written material far behind in their willingness to embrace the freedoms coded into the model. I have no idea whether the maestro is aware of what this ensemble has done, but if he is, he must surely be jumping for joy.
With a little digging, I did discover that these guys didn't exactly find the music all by themselves: guitarist Primož Sukič is a member of Ictus (although not one of the musicians present for the first video described above), and furthermore, selecting the keyword Braxton on the British group's website reveals that the very first public readings of a work entitled "Ghost Trance Music" were given in February 2022, led by none other than... Kobe van Cauwenberghe. But the fact that they have continued to nurture and develop the music all by themselves is nonetheless hugely encouraging. The human race finds itself in a terribly dark and dangerous place at the time of writing, but it's no exaggeration at all to say that this sort of creative art gives me real hope for the future.
* There is absolutely nothing new about women playing serious music, if by "serious" we mean classical. The jazz world has tended to be overwhelmingly masculine, though, and B. seems to have been painfully conscious of this - and determined to prevent such an imbalance from spilling over into his ensembles.
** Both the septet's release and the KVC solo album will eventually get covered in these pages. All in good time, etc. (Both these albums include readings of Comp. 255, which is clearly a favourite.)
*** As it turns out, KVC is not the only musician - or even the only guitarist - keen to establish his credentials as a master interpreter of B's works. While preparing this article I stumbled across a recording of Comp. 115 arranged for solo guitar by Noël Akchoté; the Frenchman's is not a new name to me, but what I had no idea about is how prolific he has become in recent years, issuing dozens of recordings as digital downloads on his own label, including a huge range of B's pieces. Once I went looking, I was amazed at how many of these there were. (So much I have missed in recent years, and so many things to catch up on..!)
# If there is one thing we would expect to emerge from a workshop such as this, it's surely an emphasis on musical democracy: section leaders may or may not have been chosen beforehand, but in any case, each player must be at liberty to cue up certain secondary or tertiary materials as the mood takes them. There will of course be times when everyone is required to play from the score, but we know that these scores have extensive pockets of space written into them.
## Well, that's what it sounds like, anyway - although I can't shake the nagging feeling that I have misidentified this one, and that the group is actually playing something else. I am still a bit rusty here.
### Marilyn Crispell may have been bitten by this number before anyone else was, but in any case, it's long since become an almost mandatory inclusion in any proper examination of B's work. Keyboard players just seem to love it - though evidently KVC does, too.
^ The three previous concerts were given in the last week of October 2023, all in Britain. (The other three pieces played are listed as world premieres - although I wasn't aware that a piece can receive its premiere every time it is played..! I suppose technically the actual premieres must have taken place on October 25th, in Edinburgh...) By the look of it, the Braxton piece was the final selection on the programme, each time.
^^ The Cygnus Ensemble still exists, by the look of it. None of the current players are familiar to me - and I don't know if the reference (on their main page) to their having "commissioned" work from B. - among numerous others - is just poetic licence. I am not personally aware of their having played any of his music, except for that one time: at that point, the group's roster included violinist Jacqui Carrasco, who did have a previous direct connection to the maestro's music.
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