by Tom Benton

As a musician who is bold enough to refer to himself as an "improviser," I've always maintained a curious relationship with classical music -- one based on admiration, intimidation, and a heavy dose of ignorance. Hopefully, admiration of beauty for its own sake requires the least explanation, while intimidation is fueled by consideration of the actual act of composition. As opposed to creating musical spaces in which to work in performance (as is typically the task of the composer in improvised music), classical music is almost invariably thoroughly composed from beginning to end. In any case, this seems like a rather challenging undertaking. The idea of cobbling together something on the scale of a symphony, for instance, is mind-boggling. And last comes ignorance: I can tell you some things that I like and, upon hearing something, can offer an opinion that doesn't involve the phrase "just because." But at the same time, I remain woefully in the dark about a cohesive historical picture of this music. For an admitted music geek to not be able to tell you in what century an artist he enjoys lived is not a pretty thing.

This is all complicated, of course, by the assorted cultural trappings being hoisted upon classical music as pop culture moves progressively towards entertainment that demands the absolute least mental engagement possible from its audience. Living composers labor away in the halls of academia (gangs of composers all sitting around composing for each other), while the works of the great masters are presented as overblown spectacles where the well-groomed crowd might not even know (or particularly care) what they're listening to. And since your intrepid pinch-hitting columnist really can't keep up with what's going on at the UT Recital Studio and scoffs at the notion of actually tucking in his shirt, whatever is he to do? Why, go down to a funky East Austin warehouse/artspace, 22 ounce Heineken in hand, and listen to some chamber music, dammit.

Such was the scene at the Off-center for the third installment of what I'll tentatively dub "The Golden Hornet Classical Series." The collaboration began, as best I can understand it, with Graham "Golden Arm" Reynolds and Peter "Brown Whornet" Stopschinski both trying to impress women by going on and on about the string quartets they were working on and at some point calling each other's bluff, as neither of them were doing any such thing. Coming clean and getting down to business, each of them composed a handful of pieces which were capably rendered at a successful show at the Hyde Park Theater by the Tosca String Quartet last fall. At this point, the pair opted to simply leap-frog over the chamber and ensemble concerts they had hypothesized and go straight for symphonies. And earlier this spring, Symphony invaded the Scottish Rite Temple and several hundred Austinites were fortunate enough to witness the world premieres of two powerful new works.

At the Off-center, a disparate gang of new faces were in on the fun: the evening featured premieres by both Reynolds and Stop as well as Carolyn Crimona of Brown Whornet, Paul Ahern of Viperhorse, Sean Crapo of the Blacklight Bassoon Ensemble, and Erik Hokkanen of the Snow Wolves. With the audience on tiered risers surrounding the center of the room, the space was dominated by the musicians, who sprawled across the floor like the most curiously instrumented pit orchestra in the world: the Tosca String Quartet, the Blacklight Bassoon Ensemble, vibraphonist Laura Phelan, bassist Erik the Butcher, and clarinetist Emily Zizza.

The evening began with the aptly-titled "Rockin'," the first of Reynolds' two pieces for bassoon quartet, which was followed by Stopschinski's plaintive soundtrack to "American Stalag," for string quartet, bass, and vibraphone. Though the remainder of the evening would be dominated by the works of the two ringleaders, impressive showings were made by all of the composers, made even more impressive by the fact that none of them seemed to have sacrificed any amount of sincerity for the sake of compositional complexity. Whatever the gradient in the levels of compositional skill on display, none of the music seemed anywhere near a tedious compositional exercise. Ahern's "Desperation" felt like exactly that, as Tosca simmered ominously, leaving the audience out in space as they finished the piece just shy of reaching a breaking point.

Naturally, there was a bit of wink-wink-nudge-nudge all over the place; for "Funky VLA," Stopschinski sat down with Tosca, violin in hand, and went to work on it with a guitar pick, while Crimona's "One Night Stand??" for Blacklight including approximately half a bar for mixing bowl and spatula (lovingly played by Graham Reynolds). Meanwhile, Tosca's reading of Erik Hokkanen's "Blues for Jethro" was nothing but total soul. Crapo's two pieces for his own group showcased a serious ear for compositional intricacy as well as his intimate knowledge of the instrument. The evening closed with "Grand Graphic Soundscape #1," composed by Peter and Graham for all eleven musicians; surely a first for this particular instrumentation.

I'm sure I wasn't the only member of the audience wondering what I had just witnessed as I wandered out into the night -- as best I can explain it, the appeal lies in composers and musicians presenting honest music on their own terms, with the finest punk-rock do-it-yourself ethic you've ever seen. Admittedly, sitting in a renovated warehouse with temperamental air-conditioning may not sound like the ideal situation for hearing this music, but when you forget that's where you are and realize that you are in fact really listening to it, then none of your surroundings seem to matter.

At this rate it looks like putting pen to staff paper could turn into some kind of rite of passage for the 21st Century's hip Austin musician. When Paul Klemperer gets back from vacation, he and I are getting to work.

Anyone know 76 trombonists?

Wish us luck.