It’s always with great excitement that I approach a concert featuring works by composer, steel pan virtuoso, and multiple Grammy nominee Andy Akiho. Since I first heard him as a protégé artist at Chamber Music Northwest in 2013, I’ve been fascinated by the imagination, passion, and originality with which he approaches composition and performance. Though not originally from here, he is currently based out of Portland and NYC, and is something of a hometown hero to many P-town cognoscenti. 

The September 5 concert with the Oregon Symphony conducted by David Danzmayr was an interesting juxtaposition of Akiho’s oeuvre, as the first half consisted of two different Akiho pieces: his very first professional work, Concerto for Steel Pans and Orchestra, and his most recent work, Nisei: Concerto for Cello and Chamber Orchestra. The title of the latter is a reference to the Japanese heritage of both Akiho and the cello soloist, former Kronos Quartet member Jeffrey Zeigler, a friend of the composer. Akiho, speaking with OAW Music Editor Matthew Neil Andrews, and had this to say about how his first real day job as a sushi chef in NYC informed his composition:

I would go home from sushi and write these color pieces that had Japanese titles, and I’m still doing those pieces to this day. That’s what really got me going in composition. So a lot of my roots of becoming and identifying as a composer comes from me getting in touch with my Japanese roots later in life.

The first part of these bookend compositions exploded right out of the gates. Akiho lit up the steel pan with an array of fireworks: lightning scalar runs, percussive effects from banging on the rims and sides of the pans, eliciting differing timbres by switching between a fascinating array of mallets. The piece as a whole felt cinematic in nature; it was like listening to the score of an exciting sci-fi movie. Long, moody legatos were interrupted with percussive blasts seemingly out of nowhere, and there was a cool tinkling and warbling toccata duet between pan and harp. At a couple of points Danzmayr had the orchestra plodding ahead so that the soloist had to play catchup on his own from a rubato section, but as a whole the performance was a gem to hear.

Akiho’s extended cadenza took the form of a fantasia, wherein he highlighted the unique, entrancing dolcissimo legato capability of the pan, exploring the surprising, mellifluous sostenuto of the instrument wherein the sharp attack and the gentler, bleeding decay seem both to be ever-so-slightly out of phase with the center of the pitch, so as these shifting colors bleed one into the other from one note to the next it yields a dreamy, ethereal timbre.

Nisei was divided into three untitled movements. Zeigler began with a repeated saltando on one note as the orchestra churned restlessly in the background, and then the pattern switched to a minor 2^nd melodic pattern as discordant chordal explosions emanated from the orchestra. Stylistic wind phrases built on dotted rhythms and drooping glissandi from the brass and winds imparted an unsettling, hallucinogenic effect, like a shifting of consciousness from the here-and-now to a nether frontier. 

The second movement opened with a sighing clarinet, flowing like a mist filament over a sea of mournful strings. Ziegler’s cello sang from the baritone range, more interesting to listen to than lovely at times, ranging at other times to sentimental and intimate themes.

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The finale began with syncopated pizzicato from the soloist, a ‘floating’ melody, in the composer’s words, as the cello ranged in and out of duplet and triplet phrases in an aria somehow detached from the orchestra. There were long, strange crescendi from the winds, gradually fading into and out of existence. There was a dialogue section with much call and response between the soloist and orchestra, and a virtuosic cadenza with leaping double stops interrupting a long, sad, engrossing legato tale which finished with frenetic wailing. This felt like breaking new ground for Akiho—a departure from the familiar, percussion-heavy composition style for which he is so justly known. Unfortunately, there was a long section where Ziegler was almost completely overbalanced by the orchestra in this last movement. 

Akiho and Ziegler gave the audience an encore in the form of a pan and cello duet. I seldom review encores, as they are a gift to the audience, but I will say this: it was sweet, beautiful, marvelous, and intimate. Watching two old friends (who just happen to be virtuosi at the top of their games) jam together is a rare treat indeed, and a reminder, if one were needed, of the importance of live music.

Exit in case of Brahms

What to say about Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73, by Brahms? I’ve never loved Brahms’ orchestral works (in contrast to his chamber works, of which I’ve always been a fan. And I’m not sure exactly why the difference exists, but I’ve resolved to pay close attention to it going forward.) It was music critic Philip Hale, who, in 1900, suggested that when Boston’s new Symphony Music Hall was being built, a sign should go up over the door saying, “Exit in case of Brahms!” To me his orchestral work feels like Beethoven without the bite, as if Brahms’ musical ideas (which are often not very interesting to begin with) are tamed into slumber by the very lushness of the orchestral texture. The melodic ideas are predictable and usually uninspiring. Whatever Brahms is laying down in his big orchestral works, I just ain’t picking up. I know that the Brahmsians out there will say (if they’re being charitable) that my problem is I have a pair of wooden ears connected to a heart exactly like the one that was in the Tin Man’s chest before the Wizard chucked in the plastic clunker. Which is, of course, to say none at all. Touché. 

Nevertheless, I resolved myself to try and find things I like in this work, and the OSO is a marvelous orchestra. The string work was suitably stately, doing justice to the titanic structure of the composition, but it felt that the engine firing the music was dull. So much beautiful sound, yet I’m reminded of the immortal words of The Bard from Macbeth: all sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Wait…positive things.) I enjoyed the finale of the first movement–sweet, even moderately arresting at times.

The sheer volume in the Adagio non troppo, produced by the fat texture and weight of numbers in a large Romantic orchestra, was an aural delight in and of itself. There was a certain mysterioso element that occasionally wove its way through when the music became darker, and the flood of sound from the strings swept me away nicely to the pianissimo rumble of the timpani at the end. In the Allegretto grazioso the wind choir was exceedingly well-balanced, and once again the moodier minor-key elements grabbed me more, as did a few fun piano allegro moments from the strings. The bombastic Allegro con spirito finale reminded me most of Beethoven, which is probably why I liked it the best, but ultimately, despite the positives I picked out, the best thing about the Brahms was that it ran closer to the 40-minute end of the average run-time rather than the 50.