The elegant Jordan Schnitzer Japanese Arts Learning Center at the Portland Japanese Garden was a beautiful site to host a special concert, Music of the Birds, by flutist Amelia Lukas and pianist Yoko Greeney. The concert was held in honor of the 65-year-old sister-city relationship between Portland and Sapporo, Japan, and featured music by Japanese and Oregonian composers. The concert was a collaborative effort between the Portland Japanese Garden and the Bird Alliance of Oregon.

I strolled through the nearby Tea Garden before the concert, taking the path among stone pagodas, weeping cedars, and towering firs, under the kind of ponderous, cold, deep gray sky that only those from temperate rainforest regions know. I was surrounded by the gentle chatter of Pine Siskins, Chestnut-backed Chickadees and Dark-eyed Juncos; it was important to me (as it always is) to hear the literal music of the birds, an activity for which I make time every day.

The concert featured thoughts by the performers (and in one case the composer) in between the performances themselves. Lukas’ introduction before the first work, Vesper Flight by Portland composer Kenji Bunch, at first confused me because (being too literal a birder, apparently) I assumed it was about Vesper Sparrows (of which Oregon hosts an eponymous subspecies, one that is both important and endangered). But it turned out to have been inspired by Vaux’s Swifts, the tiny, charismatic birds that delight Portlanders as they come to roost in the Chapman Swift Chimney by the thousands during late summer and early fall. Vesper flights are the flights these birds take to heights of up to 8000 feet at dusk and dawn to take stock of the air and reorient themselves. (Whenever I can go to a concert and learn something new about birds, it’s a double bonus for me.) Bunch’s composition, however, used this flight as a metaphor for transcendence, and the releasing of grief.

It began with a short series of forte chords high on the piano from Greeney, swiftly arpeggiated acciaccature that underlay a gentle piping from Lukas’ staccato theme, jumping about here and there. Lukas, confident and intense, brought to bear her wealth of extended techniques: breathy, low whisperings, faint aspirations and flutter-tonguing, voiceless syllabic mutterings into the embouchure hole: shuka tuka tup! At one point the flute and piano went into polyrhythms that gave a sense of many things going on at once, things intertwined even though they are separate, like a flock of swifts ascending into the evening air. In a skittering, faint whistle tone that faded out into nothingness, one could easily imagine a swift’s sweet patter vanishing as it swirled ever skyward and out of sight. At times the piece was mournful, but it was a reminder that like all else, even sadness fades and eventually disappears. Bunch’s compositions easily yield themselves to visual imaginings on my part, and this piece was no exception.

This was my second time hearing Portlander Deena Grossman’s Snowy Egret, January Messenger for solo bass flute. Beforehand Lukas spoke of how she likes to use the “full palette of tone colors” for the flute, a palette of whose depth and breadth I had no idea until I started hearing Lukas perform regularly. She spoke with Grossman about her love for the “dirtier and messier” sounds the flute can make, and how she believed the bass or alto flute could effectively mimic some of the sounds of which a shakuhachi is capable. As I noted in my initial review of the piece, it was extremely evocative; this time through I noticed the incredibly wide, wailing vibrato, and toward the end the pace was reminiscent of the infinite patience of a slow, stalking egret or heron.

Speaking of herons, the next piece was called Gray Heron, by Japanese composer Kazuko Sugiyama, who lives in Sapporo. Faint harmonic squealing from the flute was interspersed with sudden exclamations from the soprano register of the piano, and an interesting technique on the flute as the keys were clacked with no discernible air being blown into the instrument. The piano was fascinatingly disjunct from the flute at times, as Lukas went on rapid scalar runs, and gave a strange screech on the flute that sounded a bit like a wildcat. The work ended suddenly in a dissonant cadence.

Albatross, by Lisa Marsh, was for solo flute. At once the piece was expansive and airy, with more sostenuto phrasing—the feeling of gliding on currents of air, suspended over currents of water on the open ocean was palpable. The piece was not, however, without its humorous moments, some like a jaunty dance–which was appropriate, as anyone would no doubt understand who has seen these “goony birds” on land, or going after chum following a boat at sea.

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Spring and Asura for solo piano by Dai Fujikura was next. Greeney said that it was a difficult concept to explain, but the title of the work is from a book of poems by Kenji Miyazawa. The term asura refers to a sort of malefic titan or demigod in Buddhist mythology, one typically embodying negative emotions. The work wasn’t about a bird specifically, Greeney explained, but the poem on which it is based featured a line about a bird ascending into a blue sky that had stuck with her all her life; Miyazawa’s importance is such that almost all Japanese people have a poem or two of his memorized, she said.

The opening was in spirit reminiscent (perhaps in the harmonies though not in structure) of Satie’s Gymnopédies; happy yet wistful, and perhaps just a touch world-weary. It was a mesmerizing piece somehow; with an opening theme of interweaving notes alternating between hands, it was sparse, inviting, and somnolent. Then there was a sudden hammered chord, and for the first time rumbling from the instrument’s lower range–I’m guessing the asura had made its appearance. A series of dissonant basso arpeggios contrasted with a spritely right hand–the conflict between the ascending bird and the angry titan? It was almost, but not quite, constantly moving; there were at times the faintest hints of a resting place, a slight moment of rubato before the music moved on. Loud tinkling trills on the very highest notes, then an arpeggio all the way down to the profondo and the drama was done. Greeney has great imagination and a profound subtlety of touch, both of which were required to pull off this beautiful work by Fujikura, and indeed she displayed them both all afternoon.

The final work was the world premiere of Shima Enaga (Snow Fairies) for flutes, piano and electronics, by Kirsten Volness. Behind the performers on the screen was a large image of a snow-white bird with spots of black for a bill and eyes, and which may in fact be the cutest bird in the world, as the composer herself contended when talking about the piece beforehand. (As was later explained, the actual name of this bird is the Long-tailed Tit, but I hope I never think of it as anything but a Snow Fairy for the rest of my life.) She mentioned how they are relatives of Bushtits, a bird that Portlanders know very well, and explained that the opening was her attempt at a transcription of its call, slowed down to about half speed. Lukas mentioned that when she and Volness talked about this piece before its composition Lukas requested that it be for three different flutes, and Volness was happy to oblige, the better to convey the differing sound worlds through which she imagined the shima enaga passing.

Anyone who has seen Bushtits flit around can visualize the frenetic energy of the snow fairies, an energy that infused this composition. Lukas started with the piccolo, evoking a sound like pika pika pika (which, even slowed down, was still very fast). As Lukas switched to a concert flute, the jangly, muddy electronics grew louder and more percussive. There were twittering trills, then a slower, more pensive middle section featuring a solo piano with dotted rhythmic motives. When Lukas switched to the alto flute, on the lower end it was occasionally subsumed by the electronics and piano. The music segued into a beautiful anthemic section, with wall-of-sound electronics accompanying a percussive chuffing from the flute. There were big chords from a solo piano behind funky beats, and it ended on a long, sweet consonance from all the instruments, the electronics yielding a sort of otherworldliness, a reminder, it seemed, that we might imagine a bird’s world, but we can never live in it. There was a long, breathless silence, and the work ended. 

Afterwards there was a panel discussion with Leah Smoot, a gardener and horticulturist at the Portland Japanese Garden, and Brodie Cass Talbott, Statewide Adult Education Manager for Bird Alliance of Oregon (and my colleague on the board of the Oregon Birding Association.) It was moderated by Emily Pinkowitz, Education Director for Bird Alliance of Oregon.

Smoot related an amusing anecdote about what has since become her favorite bird, the reclusive Hermit Thrush. As she told it, she found a grub in the muck at the bottom of a pond that had been drained for maintenance. She offered the tasty treat to the wary bird, who eventually made off with a nice meal.

Cass Talbott spoke for a moment about the theory that birds may in fact have “given” song to humans. Many species of birds, along with humans and cetaceans, are the only creatures that have the ability to learn songs (as opposed to being born with them already ingrained). The theory goes that as humans evolved alongside birds, we learned how to sing by listening to them.  I hope this is true; there’s something mythopoetically beautiful about it. Who better, after all, than the birds to give humankind the gift of song?

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