“It’s pronounced teh-track-tiss,” explains Stuart
McLeod shortly before a rehearsal for Tetraktys, named after
a glyph that the followers of Pythagoras believed had mystical powers.
Crammed with the six musicians of SIL2K (Strategic Improv
Laboratories) into McLeod’s studio, I observe a read-through of
this rhythmically charged piece.
Melding video, narration, improvisation, and composition,
Tetraktys is a kind of atheist’s oratorio. Set to a spoken text,
De Rerum Natura (“On the Nature of Things”) by the Roman
philosopher Lucretius, lines like “the universe was simply not created
for us by Divine Power” mesh well with the collaborative process
brewing among the performers. How often do you hear a composer exhort
musicians to treat the score as a grid instead of a firm guide? Early
in the rehearsal, McLeod reminds everyone, “Don’t feel like you have to
play every single note.”
Later, McLeod tells me that the tetraktys—a triangle made out
of 10 dots in four rows—represents the four elements (earth, air,
fire, and water) as well as symbolizes numerical unity, a
fixation of form-obsessed composers for millennia.
I can hear the numbers in the music: Urgent pulses of four, five,
and seven permeate the various movements in Tetraktys.
Electronic squiggles, ringing Tibetan cymbals, keyboards, and cello
drop in and out of the score, droning, accenting, and propelling an
undercurrent of sound that accompanies and sometimes floods narrator
Rachel Lissman.
Two stalwarts of Seattle’s experimental electronics scene close the
show. Billed as “Intonarumori versus inBOIL,” the two one-man
projects perform short sets and then join their distinct sound worlds:
Intonarumori deploys extended loops that molt strange, gently
shadowed flickers of distortion while inBOIL amplifies small
granules of sound, scooping them up and stretching them out with
filters, delays, and other sonic processes. 
Catch Tetraktys Fri Nov 7, Rendezvous, 2322 Second Ave,
441-5823, 7:30 pm, $5, 21+.
Thurs 11/6
PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET
Despite my love for Steve Reich’s music, I’m not too keen on his
1986 work Three Movements for Orchestra. It’s the symphonic
equivalent of an oak table—sturdy, well built, and, after a
glance, boring. Unlike Reich’s big hits (Music for 18 Musicians,
Tehillim, etc.), which use timbre and pulsation to tilt you
toward an unexpected harmonic horizon, Three Movements just
chugs along with no destination in sight. Yet movement can decipher
musical relationships that stationary ears miss, so I hope
choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s 3 Movements reveals something
new about this overlooked item in Reich’s catalog. Other pieces in the
“New Works” program include M-Pulse with music by Juilliard grad
Cristina Spinei and Mark Morris’s A Garden. Through Sun Nov 16;
see www.pnb.org for a complete
schedule. McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St, 441-2424, 7:30 pm,
$25–$155.
TUNING THE AIR
I can’t decide what is more impressive about Seattle Circle: their
collective precision or the seating arrangement of eight guitarists
surrounding the audience. It’s like being inside a giant zither;
strums, chords, and melodies not only sail over your head, they tilt
and rotate around you. 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, and progressive
rock. Arrive early for a plum seat in the center. Every Thurs through
Dec 18. Fremont Abbey Arts Center, 4272 Fremont Ave N, 789-8481, 8
pm, $10.
Fri 11/7
SARA GAZAREK
Steady touring and a spate of festival appearances have ripened this
vocalist, a graduate of the jazz program at Roosevelt High School. Sara
Gazarek keeps getting better, honing her near-pinpoint phrasing and
accruing some world-weary grit in her falsetto. Kirkland Performance
Center, 350 Kirkland Ave, 547-9787,
8 pm, $10/$29.
MESSIAEN ORGAN CYCLE
Commemorating the centenary of Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992),
the fourth installment of this cycle continues with the Livre du
Saint Sacrement. For his final work for the organ, Messiaen stuffed
the Livre with teetering clusters in the “Adore te,”
roof-rattling chords, spacey synthlike tones cribbed from Tangerine
Dream (especially in the movement “La Manne et le Pain de Vie”), and
roaring fanfares that portend a galactic apocalypse. The 17 movements
of the Livre also testify to one of Messiaen’s key contributions
to the 20th century: the transmutation of a forgotten backwater of
classical music—the organ recital with its attendant “symphonies”
and improvisation—into a transcendent aural experience rivaling
(and sometimes trumping) the symphony orchestra concert. Subsequent
performances in the series are Fri Nov 21 and Sun Dec 7. St. James
Cathedral, 804 Ninth Ave, 382-4874, 8 pm, $15 suggested donation,
students and seniors pay as able.
Sat 11/8
SPACE IN THE HEART
Every year the Earshot Jazz Festival serves up at least one work
that busts across genres. Here, clarinetist Bill Smith premieres his
opera for three singers and jazz trio. When I interviewed Smith last
spring, he showed me part of the score to Space in the Heart,
which frames sung melodies with trio improvisation. Smith told me,
“It’s a love story set in space.” Jazz sage and Earshot magazine
guru Peter Monaghan penned the libretto. For a preview, catch the free
open rehearsal at noon. Also Fri Nov 7. PONCHO Concert Hall at
Cornish College, 710 E Roy St, 547-9787, 8 pm, $18.
Wed 11/12
COMPOSER SPOTLIGHT
Composers usually discover their overlooked progenitors before
anyone else, so I’m eager to hear Sean Osborn champion the obscure
clarinet pioneer Cyrille Rose (1830–1902). The composer and
clarinetist demonstrates Rose’s études as well as his pioneering
use of quarter tones. Jack Straw Productions, 4261 Roosevelt Way NE,
634-0919, 7:30 pm, free.
IL MONDO DELLA LUNA
This must be the week for extraterrestrial operas. Students from the
UW School of Music stage Haydn’s comedic opera set, in part, on the
moon: A quack astronomer helps a prince and his servant convince an
overprotective father to let them marry his daughter and her maid. The
lunar travel is a hoax—anyone remember O. J. Simpson and
Capricorn One?—and an excuse for hilarity rooted in
disguised identities. Also Fri Nov 14 at 7:30 pm and Sun Nov 16 at 3
pm. Meany Theater, UW Campus, 543-4880, 7:30 pm, $15/$25.
