Last month, I had the chance to attend a concert at the UBC School of Music which featured Mark Takeshi McGregor on the flute and Adrian Verdejo on the guitar. I believe an aspect of this show was to use tradition western instruments for pieces that were not at all composed by Western American composers. They started the concert with “Toward the Sea” that featured 3 different parts – “Night”, “Moby Dick” and “Cape Code”. Together, all of these pieces contributed to an overall image of the ebb and flow of sea-waves. They also seem to be written without any sort of strict organization which also evokes the erratic and ambiguous behaviour and movement of the sea. With “Night”, it sets the tone where the overall feeling of the piece was quite nocturnal and dark. The flute in this piece also seemed to be more temperamental with its melody moving around quite bit. The guitar on the other hand seemed to have a more constant rhythm and melody, therefore, perhaps serving as a gentle, soft spine of the piece. The next piece, “Moby Dick”, was quite sparse sounding. However, occasionally there would be sharp abrupt sounds from the flute. Maybe what was trying to be conveyed here is that there maybe something sinister bubbling beneath the surface even though there seems to be a light exchange. This sinister atmosphere and sparse atmosphere created by the flute and guitar gives us the image of seemingly calm waters, however, somewhere, Moby Dick, is lurking beneath the surface of the water. The final piece of this first set “Cape Code” featured a fuller sound and was much lighter in feeling than the previous two. The melody also seemed to more continuous. Overall, unlike many of the pieces that we had studied in class, all these three pieces in “Toward the Sea” did not seem to feature any sort of repetitive theme that they returned to. As a result, there seemed an overall feeling of something that was not quite resolved.
The other piece in the program that greatly interested me, mostly because it was really unlike anything that I had heard before, was Dúo by Mexican composer, Ignacio Baca-Lobera. Throughout the piece, the flute and guitar often played in unison, however, sometimes harmonic. Both also seemed to explore the noisier parts of their instruments and often played in pitches that may be combative, dynamic, and snappy. I would almost describe that these instruments sometimes played at a shrieking register. At times it also seemed like the instruments were almost fighting to express themselves. The flute would seem to express the sound of ‘air’ rather than an actual sound while the guitar seem to strum dead notes -‘chucking’? It was interesting to see both of these instruments expressing sound in this way not just for a single part of the piece but for a great majority of it. And often there would be a large contrast throughout the piece. The instruments would move from playing a melody then would quickly transform into playing just blank sounds. What was therefore created was perhaps an almost uncomfortable atmosphere which was rather sinister and aggressive.