Rock-shock percussion, ferocious sonic complexity, luminous vocals. The third concert in the New Music Works season, with Caroline Shaw’s Narrow Sea as the finale, stunned the large audience at UCSC’s Music Center Recital Hall on Feb. 22.
The piece explores folk song themes with a widely dispersed soundscape that included ceramic bowls, hammered piano strings, tin toy buckets, bass drums and vibraphone. All that startling sound encircled a central singer, a poor wayfaring stranger, singing of the promised land.
Each movement of Narrow Sea began a new melody with text from the Sacred Harp, a collection of shape note hymns first published in the 19th century, referring to water, the river Jordan, floods, narrow seas and the ecstasy of looking to heaven.
The yearning lyrics seemed to float thanks to soprano Sheila Willey’s performance. Gorgeous, mesmerizing, even shocking—as when five musicians hammered away at the concert grand piano strings, treating it as a giant dulcimer. This piece drew in every single person in the audience and held them tight. The direct simplicity of Willey’s tone wove strands of silver through the piano’s stride and the percussion’s epic journey.
This concert was breathtaking from start to finish. First came Kenji Bunch’s lilting reinventions of American vernacular tropes showcased by four inspired musicians: Shannon D’Antonio and Samantha Bounkeua on violins, Rebecca Dualtre-Corbin on viola, and Irene Herrmann on cello. Next came a poignant Kaddish Canon by the late Larry Polansky. With his partner, pianist Amy Beal, leading the series of piano variations begun by a trumpet elegy, the piece ached with the playful authenticity Polansky mastered in his too-short composing life.
In the second half of the concert, more Polansky shook the stage. His Ensembles of Note was written for “any instrumentation,” guaranteeing that the texture and color of the piece would always be unique. A rhythmically insistent ostinoto pattern was repeated and varied by each of the ten players. On electric guitar Giacomo Fiore burned and sizzled, as did Samantha Bounkeua on electrified violin. Lars Johannesson and Alissa Roedig on flutes intensified the topnotes. Polansky championed canons, rounds and dancing soundscapes that could be reinvented with each performance—neither entirely freeform nor rigidly notated.
The power of the vocal performances lingers. The numinous spell cast by soprano Sheila Willey’s rendering of Errollyn Wallen’s Daedalus, with string quartet, had many of us in tears. Leaning into the lyrics, Willey unfurled her voice from a hypnotic state.
But the thunder of the final piece, directed by Michael McGushin’s authoritative keyboard, seemed to transform the Recital Hall Mainstage into the bow of a mythic ship on the high seas, bound for a better world, a possible home. Perfect message for these times.
More music lies ahead this month. Always a feast for purists, the Distinguished Artists Series wraps up its 2025 season at 4pm on March 9 at Peace United Church, with a “Rite of Spring” concert for duo pianists, Audrey Vardanega and Eric Zivian. Keyboard fans will be in heaven. The afternoon includes a Schubert Rondo for Four Hands, some Schumann, a touch of Debussy, and absolutely some Stravinsky. distinguishedartists.org
A world premiere from composer Chris Pratorius Gómez comes mid-March when he directs the new Santa Cruz Chamber Players concert “Among the Fuchsias: Nostalgic Musings for Tenor, Viola, and Piano.” The program ranges from Debussy to Beethoven (Piano Sonata in E major Op. 109), plus songs by African-American composer H.T. Burleigh. Also a Ralph Vaughan Williams setting of poems by William Blake. Lending expert interpretation to a program exploring nostalgia will be tenor Andrew Scott Carter, who was a charming and adroit performer in last month’s Santa Cruz Baroque Festival performance of Bach’s Coffee Cantata. Locally renowned violist Polly Malan and pianist Kiko Torres Velasco will lend their expertise to the eclectic program. Composer/concert director Gómez will also showcase his keyboard chops in the premiere of his music to accompany texts by poet Laurence Hope. Those who recall recent performances of Gómez’s sensuous operas won’t want to miss this concert. It takes place March 15 at 7:30pm and March 16 at 3pm at Christ Lutheran Church in Aptos. scchamberplayers.org
Ensemble Monterey hosts soprano Lori Schulman as soloist in The Pieces That Fall to Earth, by Pulitzer Prize-winner Christopher Cerrone. The program includes the elite vocal ensemble Cantiamo! performing Jocelyn Hagen’s multimedia work The Notebooks of Leonardo de Vinci, conducted by Maestra Cheryl Anderson. March 22, 7pm at First Presbyterian Church in Monterey. March 23, 7pm, at Peace United Church in Santa Cruz. ensemblemonterey.org
Catch Santa Cruz Symphony’s dreamy Symphonic Shakespeare concert at the end of the month. Santa Cruz Shakespeare Artistic Director Charles Pasternak brings his dramatic vocal gifts to a concert of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet Overture, Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a contemporary exploration, Sound and Fury (another Shakespeare allusion), by composer Anna Clyne. Should be a bewitching combination of powerful vocal text and music inspired by the tales of William Shakespeare on March 29, 7:30pm, at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium and March 30, 2pm, at Henry J. Mello Center. santacruzsymphony.org
This article marks the first installment of Performance, my new monthly column on Santa Cruz’s performing arts scene. Talk to me! Let me know what you’ve got in the works: xt***@cr****.com.
Congrats on new column!