Cascading Minimalist Works Featured in Santa Monica Soundwaves Concert

By Lookout Staff

May 7, 2018 -- Minimalist music that features slowly changing cascades of sound will be featured this month as part of the Santa Monica Public Library's Soundwaves concert series.

The free concert featuring solo works by Daniel Lentz and Michael Byron -- recently released on CD by the Venice-based Cold Blue Music label -- takes place Wednesday, May 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the Main Library’s Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium.

Lentz's 2016 work "River of 1,000 Streams" performed by Vicki Ray "is a complex, slowly growing, densely textural piece for solo piano and up to 11 layers of 'cascading echoes,'” according to the concert promoters. The piece’s hundreds of “echoes,” which are created in a live performance on a computer running a MAX patch, generally last no more than a few bars and "may reappear anywhere from a half-second to 25 minutes after the pianist first plays it."

The work, which Lentz said was conceived early one morning on the banks of the Yellowstone River, is a "prodigious work, in its vision as well as the realization," Paul Muller wote in NewClassicLA.

"The subtle variations are always engaging, even as they unfold slowly, and the intricate layering of the various passages is precisely formulated," Muller said.

Foe nearly half a century, Lentz has been a fixture on Southern California’s new-music scene and his works have been commissioned and performed by noted ensembles and soloists around the world.

“When it comes to attempts at musical seduction, Daniel Lentz’s music is way out in front,” music critic Kyle Gann wrote in the Village Voice

Ray, who has been is a leading interpreter of contemporary piano music, has been described as “phenomenal and fearless,” concert organizers said.

Also on the bill is Byron's "In the Village of Hope," a virtuoso harp solo performed by Tasha Smith Godínez, who commissioned the work.

"This ever-changing, ever-churning, ever-developing music is unlike anything else in the solo harp repertoire," concert organizers said.

“There is a dark allure to Michael Byron’s music, a seductive otherness that leads, through fascination, to a gently disturbing ambiguity of emotion,” wrote Dusted magazine

Smith Godínez, who debuted as a soloist at age 16, has performed throughout Europe, the United States, and Mexico. Her recent projects include the commissioning of a solo harp suite by Argentine composer Andrés Martin.

The monthly Soundwaves series presents artists who appear on the DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) streaming service. The Santa Monica Library is the first public library to offer this service to its cardholders.

Listings of past and upcoming Soundwaves shows as well as sound and video recordings can be found at SoundwavesNewMusic.com
This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited and on a first-arrival basis.

The Main Library is served by Big Blue Bus routes 1, 7, R7, R10 and 18 and provides bicycle parking racks.

For more information, visit smpl.org or contact the Santa Monica Public Library at (310) 458-8600.

The free concert featuring solo works by Daniel Lentz and Michael Byron -- recently released on CD by the Venice-based Cold Blue Music label -- takes place Wednesday, May 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the Main Library’s Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium.

Lentz's 2016 work "River of 1,000 Streams" performed by Vicki Ray "is a complex, slowly growing, densely textural piece for solo piano and up to 11 layers of 'cascading echoes,'” according to the concert promoters.

The piece’s hundreds of “echoes,” which are created in a live performance on a computer running a MAX patch, generally last no more than a few bars and "may reappear anywhere from a half-second to 25 minutes after the pianist first plays it."

The work, which Lentz said was conceived early one morning on the banks of the Yellowstone River, is a "prodigious work, in its vision as well as the realization," Paul Muller wote in NewClassicLA.

"The subtle variations are always engaging, even as they unfold slowly, and the intricate layering of the various passages is precisely formulated," Muller said.

Foe nearly half a century, Lentz has been a fixture on Southern California’s new-music scene and his works have been commissioned and performed by noted ensembles and soloists around the world.

“When it comes to attempts at musical seduction, Daniel Lentz’s music is way out in front,” music critic Kyle Gann wrote in the Village Voice

Ray, who has been is a leading interpreter of contemporary piano music, has been described as “phenomenal and fearless,” concert organizers said.

Also on the bill is Byron's "In the Village of Hope," a virtuoso harp solo performed by Tasha Smith Godínez, who commissioned the work.

"This ever-changing, ever-churning, ever-developing music is unlike anything else in the solo harp repertoire," concert organizers said.

“There is a dark allure to Michael Byron’s music, a seductive otherness that leads, through fascination, to a gently disturbing ambiguity of emotion,” wrote Dusted magazine

Smith Godínez, who debuted as a soloist at age 16, has performed throughout Europe, the United States, and Mexico. Her recent projects include the commissioning of a solo harp suite by Argentine composer Andrés Martin.

The monthly Soundwaves series presents artists who appear on the DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) streaming service. The Santa Monica Library is the first public library to offer this service to its cardholders.

Listings of past and upcoming Soundwaves shows as well as sound and video recordings can be found at SoundwavesNewMusic.com

The Main Library is served by Big Blue Bus routes 1, 7, R7, R10 and 18 and provides bicycle parking racks.

For more information, visit smpl.org or contact the Santa Monica Public Library at (310) 458-8600.