Lyric – the form of expression, the symbol of communication, poetry, imagination, life and music. Astoundingly peaceful and beautiful, Billy Childs has composed some of the most intricate and complex arrangements for this project, which in addition to his ensemble includes a string quartet! The music is full of joyous adventure with journeys deep into our parallel realities where flowers fragrance is more potent, colors are more vivid and new experiences along with and abundance of love is the fabric that spins the universe.
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The Da Camera Society is an organization of individuals who bring together the rich history of Los Angeles’ architecture with the highest degree of chamber music to create a “voyage of discovery” into the history, into the music, into our memories, into our hearts. I have personally attended performances at the old Egyptian theater, LACMA West, which was once the popular department store Orbachs, as well as this venue at the Warner Grand Theater in the historic core of San Pedro California.
Like water flowing down a stream and carving out new directions in the earth, the ensemble of six bob, weave, swirl and exchange their rhythms so seamlessly. You are stimulated by the music because it is fresh, big and delivered with such a large pallet of dynamic sound your mind and soul have plenty opportunities to dance and swoon!
Billy’s cascading runs, Bob Sheppard’s fleeting soprano and Carol Robbins’ heavenly harp stir up the romantic wanting desire in us all. Larry Koonse provides the melody on top of melody as the epic tale of the music, narrated by the notes and chords, turn simple reality into complex fantasy!
Is this Jazz you say? Perhaps, but how can you even want to or begin to attempt to define such creativity. This is intricate music and the cats have been here for most of the afternoon working through charts, discussing theories and approaches, dissecting structure, opening up forms and allowing space, time and music to magically converge and blossom into prism palaces of light and sound.
Peter Erskine’s touch on the drums is as light as a feather and encompasses the sound by holding the line, sprinkling the seeds and watching the garden as it grows with fills, texture, temper and the impeccable placement of a bouquet of notes. This is only his second time playing the music and he is finessing it beautifully.
Both of Billy’s children were present and the first tune the evening was dedicated to his eldest, “Aaron’s Song”. Of course you cannot give tribute to one child without acknowledging another as “Scarborough Fair” was played for Carson. It is so wonderful to watch the happiness displayed by the kids as music in their honor is being performed. As you watch, their smiles turn into acute concentration on the style and creation of the compositions. You see their minds absorbing the creation to use for their future dreams and aspirations.
Listening to Carol is so dreamy; her solos dance like ballerinas on clouds and when Larry lays down his loveliness on guitar, the strings glide and skate together like Olympic champions spinning on ice and roses and receiving perfect 10’s! Billy mesmerizes as he builds blooming clusters of chords that dance, waltz and melt all over the ivory. When you listen to the structure of the music and contemplate hearing, as Billy originally imagined, how the guitar and soprano work together, the synchronicity of Hamilton Price's bass and Erskine’s drums work the rhythm, how Carol’s harp and Bob’s flute create their magic, you can only begin to appreciate and conceptualize the genius that exist within.
Imagine butterflies twirling and inside a bubble sphere, each flying and taking the music in different directions while the revolutions of the clear prism sphere floats and rises to destinations unknown. In the confines of a single composition you hear a piano trio, a guitar trio, a soprano and bass duo and an entire sextet splashing its appropriate colors on the canvas. This is the music!
Billie’s sister Kirsten who did not attend the concert lives in New York. She does not like to fly so when she visits she takes the train and Billie loves to listen to her as she describes the countryside. I guess you can think of her window as a vantage point from the present staring out into the vastness of a cumulative existence of time. Her stories were the inspiration for “American Landscape”.
After the intermission the ensemble was joined by the string quartet featuring Mark Robertson on 1st violin, E. Samuel Fischer on 2nd violin, Luke Maurer on viola and Victor Lawrence on cello. These wonderful players add a heavy increment of loveliness bringing the heavens and stars that much closer and within reach! I think that all strings must vibrate at the same frequency as the human heart because every time I hear them, I cannot help but contemplate the purest form of love that emanates from one human to another, as some of us have been fortunate enough to experience. If you are lucky enough to have known this or you know it now, acknowledge it, feel it, express it for this is what our existence on this planet is all about!
The movements in the suite shape and form such wonderful characteristics in the music. Fluidity is X in the equation making the sum of the parts equal to the whole. Precision is common amongst the strings, which are expressed with such clarity that is definite in intension, poignant in it phrasing and sensationally stimulating on the soul. The transitions take you to the edge of you seat allowing you to close you eyes and soar!
A wonderful experience of extraordinary music meeting imagination, tapping into inner worlds and visions of history all riding on a magic carpet of Billy Childs' creativity!
By the album, experience the music!
LeRoy Downs
