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| Photo by Shawnte Sims |
One of the rising stars among the constellation of young American composers is Kyle Rivera, whose "Grimoire I, Laplace’s Demon" received its world premiere by Chamber Music Northwest at The Old Church (July 17). And as part of CMNW’s Summer Festival, Rivera gave a masterclass at Portland State University (July 18) to a select group of nascent composers from Fear No Music’s Young Composers Project. I also saw him in the audience at The Reser for the Preeminent Piano concert (July 18), which featured works by Stewart Goodyear, György Ligeti, and Beethoven. So he kept a busy schedule while in Portland.
Born in Boston (1996), Rivera and his family lived in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. They moved to Houston, where Rivera began viola lessons and became interested in the symphony. While in high school, he began composing, matriculating to the University of Houston for his bachelors and then to the Yale School of Music for his masters, which he received this year. In the meantime, Rivera’s works have been performed at many classical music festivals across the nation as well as Russia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and China. His music has also been played by the Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Yale Philharmonia, Albany Symphony, Musiqa Houston and other orchestras.
Rivera likes to make bold moves in music, including esoteric ideas like the casual determinism of Laplace’s Demon, chaos theory, and a grimoire, which is a book of magical spells. Those concepts collided in a fanciful way in Grimore I: Laplace’s Demon, which was featured in CMNW’s New@Night series. It should be noted that according to determinism (from Wikipedia) “if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics.” So, if I understood Rivera’s opening remarks correctly, in the music, the randomness of chaos theory dukes it out with the calculating demon so that demon is finally banished. Along the way, words would be spoken in a jumbled way that would make sense at the end.
Played by members of Opus13 (violinist Edvard Erdal, violist Albin Uusijärvi, and cellist Daniel Thorell), pianists and electric keyboardist Stewart Goodyear, and percussionist Ji Hye Jung, "Grimore I: Laplace’s Demon" generated sounds that ricocheted all over the hall. The first movement, “Phase Space,” began with a wham on a large gong and featured extended pizzicato-ing strings. In the second movement, “Traveling an Infinite Curve in a Finite Space” the violist stood up, perhaps symbolizing the top of a hierarchy, and led the strings in motifs that were angular and wild glissandos while the percussionist tapped an assortment of wood blocks and other items. The third movement, “Fractals, Free Will, and the Future,” offered a lot of fragmentary sounds and coordinating yelling of “deliver” and “us up.” With the fourth movement, “The Demon Knows, The Butterfly Dreams,” came repeated exclamations of “Ah” followed by sustained notes, then percussive sounds from all instruments, including crumpled paper bags, and finally feathery tones from the strings. In the final movement, “Weird Densities of Ancient Orbits.” I noticed that Goodyear had one hand on the piano keyboard and the other on the electronic keyboard. Ji Hye Jung rang everything in her arsenal. The strings went bananas. Then came a sequence of quiet sounds. It may have been in this movement that the phrase “deliver us up from evil” jelled. At any rate, the demon was banished and the audience responded with a standing ovation.
Somewhere during the piece, the violist and the violinist switched places, and that might have been part of the hierarchy that Rivera mentioned earlier. It may be that chaos and randomness entered into the equation; so that you would never hear the piece played the same way. In any case, a bit of trimming to tighten things up a bit might make "Grimore I: Laplace’s Demon" more relatable.
Born in Boston (1996), Rivera and his family lived in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. They moved to Houston, where Rivera began viola lessons and became interested in the symphony. While in high school, he began composing, matriculating to the University of Houston for his bachelors and then to the Yale School of Music for his masters, which he received this year. In the meantime, Rivera’s works have been performed at many classical music festivals across the nation as well as Russia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and China. His music has also been played by the Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Yale Philharmonia, Albany Symphony, Musiqa Houston and other orchestras.
Rivera likes to make bold moves in music, including esoteric ideas like the casual determinism of Laplace’s Demon, chaos theory, and a grimoire, which is a book of magical spells. Those concepts collided in a fanciful way in Grimore I: Laplace’s Demon, which was featured in CMNW’s New@Night series. It should be noted that according to determinism (from Wikipedia) “if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics.” So, if I understood Rivera’s opening remarks correctly, in the music, the randomness of chaos theory dukes it out with the calculating demon so that demon is finally banished. Along the way, words would be spoken in a jumbled way that would make sense at the end.
Played by members of Opus13 (violinist Edvard Erdal, violist Albin Uusijärvi, and cellist Daniel Thorell), pianists and electric keyboardist Stewart Goodyear, and percussionist Ji Hye Jung, "Grimore I: Laplace’s Demon" generated sounds that ricocheted all over the hall. The first movement, “Phase Space,” began with a wham on a large gong and featured extended pizzicato-ing strings. In the second movement, “Traveling an Infinite Curve in a Finite Space” the violist stood up, perhaps symbolizing the top of a hierarchy, and led the strings in motifs that were angular and wild glissandos while the percussionist tapped an assortment of wood blocks and other items. The third movement, “Fractals, Free Will, and the Future,” offered a lot of fragmentary sounds and coordinating yelling of “deliver” and “us up.” With the fourth movement, “The Demon Knows, The Butterfly Dreams,” came repeated exclamations of “Ah” followed by sustained notes, then percussive sounds from all instruments, including crumpled paper bags, and finally feathery tones from the strings. In the final movement, “Weird Densities of Ancient Orbits.” I noticed that Goodyear had one hand on the piano keyboard and the other on the electronic keyboard. Ji Hye Jung rang everything in her arsenal. The strings went bananas. Then came a sequence of quiet sounds. It may have been in this movement that the phrase “deliver us up from evil” jelled. At any rate, the demon was banished and the audience responded with a standing ovation.
Somewhere during the piece, the violist and the violinist switched places, and that might have been part of the hierarchy that Rivera mentioned earlier. It may be that chaos and randomness entered into the equation; so that you would never hear the piece played the same way. In any case, a bit of trimming to tighten things up a bit might make "Grimore I: Laplace’s Demon" more relatable.
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| Kyle River and James Lee | Photo by James Bash |
Rivera began the masterclass - held in Room 225 in Lincoln Hall on the Portland State University campus - with a bit of information about himself and how he came to compose music.
“When I was really young, I liked to imagine myself writing music and doing other creative things like doing visual art and writing” Rivera said. “It took me a while to realize that composers were real thing because you always associate composers with the dead guys like Beethoven and Brahms. In high school, I started writing music after my school borrowed a harp from another school, I want to sit down and play it, and after messing around with it, I decided that I should write something so that I can learn how to play this instrument. Then my orchestra instructor suggested that I should just start simply writing music.”
“I’ve had a snaking journey writing composing,” he continued, “because I have a lot of interests. I left music and for a while was working in therapy for a few years. Then I got drawn back into this world and realized how meaningful it is to explore ideas in music. I kept going with it and got a lot of opportunities with groups that trusted me and were okay with my abstract and experimental ideas.”
For the masterclass (shepherded by Fear No Music’s Jeff Payne), Rivera and the audience heard four pieces from four participants in the Young Composers Project. As the recording of each piece was played, its score was projected onto a very large screen. I only was able to stay for the first number, “Time Out” by James Lee, who will be a junior at Wilsonville High School. I was extremely impressed by how Rivera encouraged Lee to talk about his music, and how Rivera deftly pointed out things that could be changed or improved upon without sounding intimidating or condescending. He has a natural talent for teaching with the Socratic method and genuine enthusiasm that is infectious.
I have to admit that that I learned a lot during the first hour and wanted to stay to hear Rivera’s comments on the other pieces by Elishiya Crain-Keddie, Charles A. Martin, and Alejandro Belgique, but I had other commitments. Suffice it to say, any young composer would benefit greatly from a class with Rivera. Even a jaded music critic like yours truly would benefit greatly. He is that terrific!
“When I was really young, I liked to imagine myself writing music and doing other creative things like doing visual art and writing” Rivera said. “It took me a while to realize that composers were real thing because you always associate composers with the dead guys like Beethoven and Brahms. In high school, I started writing music after my school borrowed a harp from another school, I want to sit down and play it, and after messing around with it, I decided that I should write something so that I can learn how to play this instrument. Then my orchestra instructor suggested that I should just start simply writing music.”
“I’ve had a snaking journey writing composing,” he continued, “because I have a lot of interests. I left music and for a while was working in therapy for a few years. Then I got drawn back into this world and realized how meaningful it is to explore ideas in music. I kept going with it and got a lot of opportunities with groups that trusted me and were okay with my abstract and experimental ideas.”
For the masterclass (shepherded by Fear No Music’s Jeff Payne), Rivera and the audience heard four pieces from four participants in the Young Composers Project. As the recording of each piece was played, its score was projected onto a very large screen. I only was able to stay for the first number, “Time Out” by James Lee, who will be a junior at Wilsonville High School. I was extremely impressed by how Rivera encouraged Lee to talk about his music, and how Rivera deftly pointed out things that could be changed or improved upon without sounding intimidating or condescending. He has a natural talent for teaching with the Socratic method and genuine enthusiasm that is infectious.
I have to admit that that I learned a lot during the first hour and wanted to stay to hear Rivera’s comments on the other pieces by Elishiya Crain-Keddie, Charles A. Martin, and Alejandro Belgique, but I had other commitments. Suffice it to say, any young composer would benefit greatly from a class with Rivera. Even a jaded music critic like yours truly would benefit greatly. He is that terrific!
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