The contemporary music scene in New York may seem like a niche within the niche of classical music. But this teeming musical world has an
intensely loyal audience and its share of brilliant young stars. One is Blair McMillen, a hardy, fit 34-year-old American pianist of Irish and Scottish heritage, with the reddish hair and gregarious manner to prove it.
You may not encounter McMillen playing a Beethoven concerto with the New York Philharmonic. You won't find a separate McMillen bin in the rows of CDs at Tower Records. But he appears frequently at museums, adventurous recital halls and hotbeds of new music and attracts enthusiastic audiences. Last year at the Miller Theater, for example, he presented a daunting recital of works by two Italian
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
modernists, Luciano Berio and Giacinto Scelsi, winning high praise from the New York Times critic Allan Kozinn for his technique, authority, imagination and "irresistible energy." Another pianist in the new-music scene, equally formidable but of a different personality than McMillen's, is the British-born Stephen Gosling, who turns 35 on Monday. A lanky, serious-minded artist with a wry sense of humor, he has scant patience for the numbing routine of conventional
concertizing. On his own terms, Gosling has made
notable appearances as the soloist in contemporary works with Orpheus, the Orchestra of St. Luke's, the American Composers Orchestra and the Riverside Symphony. More typical, though, is a program Gosling will present Sunday evening at 7 at the Triad, the jazz club on West 72nd Street in Manhattan. The concert inaugurates a bimonthly series featuring the music of the composer and saxophonist Patrick Zimmerli, who "married jazz to uptown Columbia serialism," as Gosling described it recently, though these days, Zimmerli's music is looser and more tonal.
You could call McMillen and Gosling the dynamic duo of contemporary music pianists in New York. Yet they are not close friends who hang out -- just good colleagues who move in the same circles. In a rare occurrence, they are sharing a recital program next week, with McMillen playing the first half and Gosling the second. Presented by a new group, the American Modern Ensemble, the program of mostly new and recent works by, among others, Chester Biscardi, Lee Hyla, Eric Moe, David Rakowski and George Tsontakis, is called Powerhouse Pianists. And few people who have heard them would quibble with that billing for these thoroughly impressive players.
Gosling is especially excited by a group of fiery etudes he will play by the Chicago-based composer Mischa Zupko. A fanciful work by Annie Gosfield, inspired by baseball and titled Brooklyn, Oct. 5, 1941, requires McMillen, at one point, to roll a ball on the keys and wear a baseball glove.
These artists share a messianic devotion to modern music, something they spoke about in separate interviews recently. "Contemporary music is the most fulfilling for me right now," McMillen said. "I thrive on working with musicians and composers -- the feedback, arguing over the music, putting it together." He finds audiences for new music, however small, energized and open-minded. "I'd rather play for 30 or 40 people who are really listening intently than for 500 who couldn't care less."
For his part, Gosling said that the mainstream repertory was being "very adequately covered" by others. "I can't imagine being happier doing anything else," he said. Besides being convinced that contemporary music is what his "brain is most suited to," he added, he also considers himself useful. "I don't like to feel perfunctory," he said. He is gratified to think that he is doing his bit to "continue the canon" by adding works to it.
But while these pianists may be driven by a mission, they have won more than their share of attention, opportunities and critical praise. And the reason is simple: new music is, by definition, news. And young artists who play new music compellingly make news. One question aspiring young musicians often ask of music journalists is how they can attract the attention of a critic. My answer is to emphasize that I work for a newspaper and cover the news. Young pianists, even exceptional ones, presenting themselves in a standard program of, say, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and Ravel, may play very beautifully. Still, such programs put critics in an awkward position, in which they are essentially compelled to compare the new performances of the
standard works with the great legacy of performances from the past, which is unfair to the young artist. But if that performer includes an intriguing new or recent work or two, then a critic has news to report. It takes the pressure off the standard works. You can write about an exciting
performance of a new piece and then add: not only that this gifted pianist gave a quite fine account of a Chopin sonata.
McMillen and Gosling did not choose this path as a savvy career strategy. Both had relatively conventional musical upbringings until they were hooked by new music. Mc-Millen went to high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, where he listened to Stravinsky records and learned some works by Bartok, but basically studied the standard repertory. Excited by rock, jazz and rhythm and blues, he played in high school rock bands, including a wild jam band, "kind of like Phish," McMillen said.
At Oberlin College in Ohio, where he had a double major in music and history, he was recruited into a contemporary music ensemble. "A friend asked me to help out in a performance of a difficult new piece by Steven Stucky," he explained. "I said I'd give it a try." The work was a demanding score for a large ensemble with "some 10-against-7 rhythms between the right and left hands, and things like that," McMillen said, "I did it, though I don't know how or why, and the conductor was very impressed."
Later, as part of graduate work at the Juilliard School, he was put through the rigors of the standard repertory. But he continued playing in contemporary music ensembles. "I try to bring the energy of exciting rock and jazz to my playing of contemporary scores," he said. "I'm really drawn to pieces that have this visceral energy." Gosling, who attended a boarding school in Manchester, England, with a
special program in music, showed an early affinity for works like Messiaen's preludes. Percussion was his secondary instrument and he also played in rock and jazz ensembles. The closest thing he had to an
epiphany about contemporary music, he said, occurred when he was 15. "I came across Tashi's recording of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, and that pretty much sealed the deal on exploring life outside the stan-dard repertory," he said. He joined a contemporary music ensemble at his school, which he remembers as the first time he was required to lean in and pluck the piano strings. Another product of Juilliard, Gosling went right through the program, the "long haul," he said, getting his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees there. Young musicians should note that Gosling's involvement in contemporary music brought him an enviable number of performance opportunities at Juilliard, including a remarkable four
appearances as a concerto soloist with school orchestras in works by Stravinsky, Schnittke, John Corigliano (whose concerto he performed with Leonard Slatkin conducting at Avery Fisher Hall) and Paul Schoenfield.
There is precedent for the career paths these artists are following. For example, in the late 1960s and 1970s in New York, Gilbert Kalish, Paul Jacobs and Ursula Oppens first made their names as authoritative performers of contemporary music -- though they played standard repertory as well -- and eventually won acclaim for the full breadth of their work. (Jacobs died at 53 in 1983.) Gosling and especially McMillen have expressed interest in expanding their careers over time into standard repertory. But they are in no hurry. McMillen produced his own CD, called Soundings, which offers gripping and impressive performances of Liszt, Debussy, Scriabin and Copland, as well as more recent works by Morton Gould and William Bolcom.
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