Space is a crucial and often overlooked element of performance; you
know a good space when you hear it. An acoustically lush venue can
bless the most careless musician with a rich sound that magnifies the
music, adding presence and depth. Of course, most venues have no
acoustic signature: Shrewd musicians compensate by fastidiously
arranging themselves onstage and calibrating their instruments.
Carefully considering the listener’s eyes and ears can make a good
space sound great.
Seattle Circle, an octet of acoustic guitarists, use space
masterfully. I caught their Tuning the Air concert series late last
year at CHAC and a few weeks ago at their current home, the Fremont
Abbey. Neither venue should win any prizes for design; both are boxy
and functional. The Fremont Abbey has a ceiling that somehow looks
lower than it actually is. Despite such flaws, Seattle Circle take
sonic command of the space. The ensemble sit on stools placed on
slightly raised platforms. All eight musicians ring the audience in a
tight circle and envelop you in music.
I can’t decide what is more impressive about Seattle
Circle—their astonishing collective precision or how their
seating arrangement transforms the music. It’s like being inside a
giant zither; strums, chords, and melodies not only sail over
your head, but tilt and rotate around you. The sound moves with
a method. Seattle Circle rely on virtuosic listening as well as on cues
such as eye contact and gently pushing the guitar’s headstock toward
one another to “pass” the sound around the circle.
The music ranges from winning covers of “Kashmir” and Brian
Wilson’s inconsolable lament “In My Room” to pieces influenced
by the classical guitar tradition, flamenco, progressive rock, and the
avant. Seattle Circle always open with “Tuning the Air,” a marvelous
Steve Reich–like tapestry of meticulously picked notes. If you
plan to catch the two remaining Fremont Abbey shows, arrive early
for a plum seat in the center. If Monday is too early in the week
for you, Seattle Circle will sound splendid in the spacious and
acoustically lush Chapel Performance Space. 
Seattle Circle perform Sat July 12, Fourth floor Chapel
Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N,
789-1939, 7:30 pm, $5–$15 sliding scale donation.
Tuning the Air continues every Mon through July 21, Fremont Abbey
Arts Center, 4272 Fremont Ave N, 789-8481, 8:15 pm, $10.
Thurs 7/10
HADLEY CALIMAN QUARTET
Once nicknamed “little Dex,” this friend and disciple of Dexter
Gordon is a Seattle tenor-saxophone treasure. Nearing 80, he remains a
robust and lyrical soloist; his regular quartet as well as his fine new
disc, Gratitude (Origin) features trumpeter Thomas Marriott.
Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave, 547-6763, 5:30–7:30
pm, free with museum admission.
SEATTLE SYMPHONY SUMMERFEST
Conductor Carolyn Kuan leads the band in Aaron Copland’s classic
slice of frontier Americana, the Appalachian Spring Suite. Maya
Beiser, a brilliant cellist who voraciously commissions and premieres
new music, shares the solo duties with Mark O’Connor in the latter’s
Double Concerto for Violin and Cello. I’m not a fan of
O’Connor’s orchestral music; it sounds too close to Copland and lacks
rhythmic bite. I’m not too keen on the work’s subtitle, “For the
Heroes,” either, but then the flood of 9/11 memorial pieces was
inevitable. Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 215-4747, 7:30 pm,
$17–$75.
COMMUNITY FOR NORMAL AND MENTAL HEALTH
Not a nonprofit org, but a volcanic quartet fronted by one of the
godfathers of freely improvised music in our burg, Paul Hoskin. He’s
joined by two mainstays of the weekly Sunday night jam session at the
Blue Moon: keyboardist Matt Norman and drummer Ethan Cudaback along
with longtime musical compadre David “Skip” Milford on bass and violin.
Expect, in Hoskin’s words, “an exploration of sound making that
redefines quartet form.” Beacon Pub, 3057 Beacon Ave S, 726-0238,
8–10 pm, free.
Fri 7/11
SHOUP/CAMPBELL/REES
Another godfather of freely improvised music in Seattle, alto
saxophonist Wally Shoup spars with two excellent improvising
percussionists, Bob Rees and Greg Campbell. Fourth floor Chapel
Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N,
789-1939, 8 pm, $5.
SCMS SUMMER FESTIVAL
Count on the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s annual monthlong
festival to mingle warhorses and standard repertory with alluring
obscurities. Here, Schubert’s massive yet gravity-defying “Trout”
quintet shares the bill with Three Nocturnes for Violin, Cello and
Piano by Ernest Bloch and Joaquín Turina’s “Circulo…,” a
fantasia for violin, cello, and piano. Beethoven’s Quartet for Piano
and Strings in E-flat major, op. 16 opens the concert. For the free
7 pm recital, Andrew Armstrong plays Mussorgsky’s stately and sometimes
quizzical Pictures at an Exhibition in the original piano
version. You can also tune in for free on KING 98.1 FM at 8 pm. Through
Fri Aug 1. Lakeside School, 14050 First Ave NE, 283-8808, 8 pm,
$8–$38.
SUSAN PASCAL QUARTET
Fluid stick work and coherent, compact solos make this vibraphonist
a delight. Tula’s, 2214 Second Ave, 443-4221, 8:30 pm, $15.
Sun 7/13
GREENWOOD CONCERT BAND
Clarinetist/conductor William Blayney helms a summertime outfit
stocked with members of the Seattle Symphony and other local ensembles.
Expect light classics, some John Philip Sousa, patriotic tunes, and
maybe a sea shanty or two. Ballard Locks, 3015 NW 54th St,
783-7059, 2 pm, free.
Mon 7/14
MICHAEL NICOLELLA
No other guitarist in town ranges as far and wide as Nicolella,
whose repertory spans J. S. Bach, Jimi Hendrix, and Elliott Carter.
This enterprising performer/composer teams up with odeonquartet for the
West Coast debut of Anthony Gatto’s Black Dog/Lucky Dog for
electric guitar and string quartet. Fluent and ferocious on both
electric and acoustic guitar, Nicolella digs into some Domenico
Scarlatti and Carter and then plugs in for pieces by Hendrix and Dutch
composer Jacob ter Veldhuis. String quartets of Malian kora virtuoso
Tunde Jegede, Marcelo Zarvos, and one of Seattle’s finest composers,
Ken Benshoof, round out the program. Fourth floor Chapel Performance
Space, Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave N, 789-1939, 7:30 pm,
$10/$15.
