Austin: Mozart Requiem–Undead
I’m a bit OCD about arriving on time. My wife is laid back about these things, but I just can’t be late. Can’t. Be. Late. So even though I arrived a good fifteen minutes prior to the scheduled downbeat of Mozart Requiem: Undead, when I came upon a line of about 100 people I got nervous. I thought, “I knew I should have gotten here when the doors opened an hour before the show, but we’re at the French Legation Museum…How many people could possibly show up?”
Built in 1840, the French Legation Museum is a sprawling outdoor affair featuring some of the oldest surviving structures in town, and it’s surrounded by huge lawns and six-foot stone walls. The place is so big nobody’s filling it up, especially with concert music.
As I shifted from one foot to the other, I noticed that several people around me had the same worried look, and soon a guy walked past saying, “We’re not getting in. They are contacting the Fire Marshall to see if more people can be allowed in, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.” I poked my head over the wall and saw this:
You know how it is when you’re trying to take a picture of something huge and the photo just can’t do it justice? See above. You can see a bit of the orchestra and maybe ¼ of the main lawn. On a Wednesday. After seeing that, I knew something had to be done. Suffice it to say I finagled my way in to see what was happening on the other side of that wall.
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Mozart Requiem: Undead is the brainchild of Graham Reynolds, Peter Stopchinski, and Brent Baldwin. The trio commissioned Glenn Kotche, Caroline Shaw, DJ Spooky, Adrian Quesada, Kate Moore, Todd Reynolds, Petra Hayden, and Justin Sherburn to “finish” the Requiem based on a computer analysis of the original manuscript that “definitively separated out what Mozart had written.” The composers were asked to keep the original vocal parts intact, but otherwise all bets were off. Of course, putting this all together requires a marshalling of considerable musical forces. Reynolds and Stopchinski’s Golden Hornet Project was joined by Baldwin’s Texas Choral Consort, Texas Performing Arts, Fusebox Festival, and Convergence Vocal Ensemble to put on the event. Presented as the kickoff for the 2014 Fusebox Festival, the performance featured over 200 artists (including the chorus, full orchestra, rhythm section, and electronics).
Twelve movements and ten composers—in addition to the commissions, Reynolds and Stopchinski took a few movements—make for a very full plate, and the arrangements ranged from full re-imaginings to more subtle alterations. Todd Reynolds “Dies Irae” was one of the former, with whispers building to shouts and a smattering of hi-hat on half-time drums. Pizzicato strings held the power of the work in check for a time, but the chorus would not be denied, belting out the lines until the final moment when they all fell down. Which they did (all fall down, that is). Glenn Kotche’s “Rex Tremendae” came in like a lamb with marimba, crotales, and shaker, the drum kit entering as Rex along with big choir roars before the whole thing drifted away in the wind. Stopchinski’s “Lacrimosa” had a Middle-Eastern flavor and featured violin soloist Roberto Riggio performing twists and turns over drones accompanied by strings and organ. DJ Spooky laid some beats over “Hostias” while Justin Sherburn (of Okkervil River) and Adrian Quesada brought a rock vibe to the proceedings. It was the loosening of an already colorful tie when Quesada and his band took the stage, strapped on their guitars, and began doling out the power chords to a wildly diverse festival crowd, complete with little kids doing cartwheels in front of the stage.
Many in the new music community are preoccupied with broadening the audience by changing venue and ceremony, and at times it seems a bit forced, like parents trying to be cool. When Golden Hornet Project puts a show together, there’s never any of that “Try it, you’ll like it!” earnest convincing going on, they just lay it out there and see what happens. The confidence that comes from curating hundreds of events in many shapes and sizes really shows when you see them pull off something this big. From the diversity and geographic range of the composers to the breadth and depth of performers to the ginormous attendance, the whole thing stood as an example of what you should do if you’re trying to reach a wider crowd.
And what a crowd it was. Seeing people of all stripes enjoying adult beverages while kicking back on blankets before an outdoor orchestra is one well-worn thing, but seeing them on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of a school/work week attending a concert featuring a single tune is another. Granted, the Requiem is a big old piece, but still. Graham, dressed in a suit and ten gallon hat, and Peter in a tux with tails provided just enough funky formality while Brent Baldwin ran the whole thing like a champ. Notable also in this endeavor is that the whole thing was free. This year’s Fusebox Festival, once a ticketed affair, is now accessible to all. As board member Joe Randel explained, “We felt that making the festival entirely free was important in order to facilitate the discovery of new work for the audience, but that was just part of our goal. There is a common misconception that if people buy tickets to a performance, they’re “covering the tab,” so to speak. In reality, the box office receipts rarely cover the cost of presenting this kind of work, and they don’t even begin to recognize the artist’s costs associated with creating the work, so we hoped to stimulate a broader conversation about the reality of those costs.”
Free concerts combining hundreds of artists in town with some of the best composers from Austin and across the country? I want to have that conversation every day.