SuppliedAllison Balcetis and Roger Admiral
September 23, 8:00 p.m.
Convocation Hall, University of Alberta
$20 Adults; $10 Students/Seniors
Tickets available online or at the door (30 minutes before performance)
Music doesn’t have to be conventionally pleasing — at least that’s what saxophonist and member of the University of Alberta’s Department of Music, Allison Balcetis, argues when speaking of the program her and pianist, Roger Admiral, will be presenting on campus this week.
“(The music) is going to push your boundaries,” Balcetis says. “Perhaps it will even make you question whether or not it is music.”
The “music” she is referring to will be featured as part of the Department of Music’s ongoing 2016/17 Mainstage Concert Season in Música Contemporânea Brasil, which will take place at Convocation Hall on September 23rd. The avant-garde pieces which will make up Friday’s show were conceived at Curto-Circuito de Música Contemporânea Brasil/Canada, a yearly workshop for young Brazilian composers, and have been written specifically for Balcetis and Admiral.
As a chamber musician, co-creator of the Curto-Circuito program, and saxophone professor at the U of A, Balcetis says she’s known for most of her life she’s wanted to get her Doctorate in music, but hasn’t always been aware of where it would take her. “I didn’t even know what (avant-garde music) was initially,” she says, “but it kind of grew on me.”
Balcetis says that because the saxophone is a relatively young instrument (in comparison to, say, the violin), contemporary music is “pretty much all it has.”
Though she is passionate about the style of Curto-Circuito, Balcetis struggles to find a specific definition when questioned about what contemporary Brazilian art music — the genre of the concert’s program — actually is.
“I like to use lots of words hoping that some of them stick in peoples’ understanding,” Balcetis says, laughing. She agrees the music has classical origins, but attests that it’s reformed by contemporary culture. “Although these (composers) have multiple degrees in composition and music, they’re also influenced by the society of today like everyone is,” she says.
Despite these influences, Balcetis is assured the contemporary Brazilian music of Curto-Circuito won’t necessarily sound how a person might imagine. “If you think you’re going to come and hear sambas, you should think twice,” she says.
Attendees may have to forget about thinking twice at all, as they might not be sure what to think upon hearing Curto-Circuito; not only is the music atypical to Brazil, it’s simply not typical anywhere. Pieces like “Mind Under Matter” and “H1N1″ are largely free time, discordant, and difficult to comprehend.
The project of Curto-Circuito supports this idea, as its focus is not only about providing young composers a place to compose, but also encourages the exchange of new, albeit strange, ideas. And to Balcetis, experiencing music (especially of this style) with an open mind is extremely important.
“I think the biggest frustration is when people say, ‘Well, I don’t get it,'” she says. “What did they want to get in the first place?”
When it comes right down to it, Balcetis just wants the sounds to move people in some way.
“Sometimes these pieces are really evocative of intense and aggressive or super dreamy and meditative emotions, and if it takes you there, then that’s a way of appreciating it. It’s not necessarily about loving it, either; detesting strongly is a nice emotion to have too.”
