At 7 p.m., Jan. 23, the New York City-based chamber music group loadbang played six pieces written by Duke graduate students in Nelson Music room, an intimate venue for contemporary and classical concerts.
A novel mixed ensemble of trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet and baritone voice founded in 2008, loadbang is praised for its inventive, exhilarating and formidable style. Its original members include Adrián Sandí (bass clarinet), Andy Kozar (trumpet), Ty Bouque (baritone voice) and William Lang (trombone), with David Thomas Mather, a professional chorister in Boston, stepping in for Ty Bouque at the Duke performance.
The concert was covered the latest works of Duke graduate student composers pursuing PhDs in Music Composition: “Uno de los Posibles Ayeres” by Josué Collado, “In the Distance a Call” by Mozhgan Chahian, “Mosquitoes” by Erich Barganier, “Nguye” by Monthati Masebe, “Rhizome Study No. 2: Complete Disgust with All Biological Law” by Tyler Jordan and “A Thief Within the Mountain” by Ronja Mokráňová.
The concert began with Collado’s “Uno de los Posibles Ayeres,” a contemporary experimental piece evoking an everyday soundscape, blending atonic sounds into a harmonious tapestry. With a pre-recorded background electronic sound, “Uno de los Posibles Ayeres” demonstrated the possibility of sound: from a shattered glass to the momentum of liquids to jarring noise to musicality to an ultimate inquiry on music and temporality, presented through contrasts in tempo and vocal force. Toward the end of the piece, all sound — cacophonous or harmonious — fell silent, leaving the background music ringing, and finally everything faded into complete stillness.
“In the Distance Call” is based on 2 poems by Iranian contemporary poets Sohrab Sepehri and Ahmad Shamlou and presented as a call and response with two voices, one pre-recorded and one baritone. “In a Distance Call” evoked intimate emotions through its usage of sound, with stark contrasts in tempo and dynamics, made possible by utilizing mutes to reduce both the trumpet’s and bass clarinet’s timbre in the middle part of the performance. Chahian employed Iranian musical mode as well as Iranian folk syllabus for the vocals, combining traditional Iranian music and contemporary classical music. Chahian mentioned that she used “combinations of polytonality, quartal and quintal harmony, non-functional triads and triads with added notes with Iranian musical harmony.”
Following “In the Distance Call” was Erich Barganier’s “Mosquitoes,” a piece inspired by William Faulkner’s second novel of the same name. Barganier skillfully blended contemporary classical aesthetics with an eclectic mix of styles and techniques, including improvisation, blues tonalities and Mardi Gras second line traditions. The onomatopoeic sounds in the piece vividly captured the rapid, buzzing energy of mosquitoes, evoking a connection to Rimsky-Korsakov's “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Like the orchestral classic, Barganier’s work conjured imagery of erratic and frenetic motion, seamlessly integrating musical narrative with sonic texture.
“Nguye,” meaning “they are” in Zulu, includes elements of South African traditional music. With an overtone singing, called umngqokolo, the piece stands out in its unique vocalization and rhythmic motivity.
While “Nguye” shows a rare side of contemporary classical music, “Rhizome Study No. 2: Complete Disgust with All Biological Law” arrived at another level of experimentation and challenged institutional powers in the history of music. According to its composer Tyler Jordan, the piece contains “temporal reterritorializations sourced from fugues, arias, chants and musical treatises between the 4th Century and present day.” Jordan’s work is a reconfiguration of historical pieces: he scoured some of music’s most discussed and recommended pieces, combining a select few with other works he was interested in. This representation was, according to Jordan, “a critique of how art and music institutions uphold certain historical figures and the way in which this problem seeps into the individual.”
The concert closed with Ronja Mokráňová’s “A Thief Within the Mountain,” a dramatic retelling of a scene from “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien. The piece flexibly utilized sound to personify Smaug, a dragon and main antagonist in “The Hobbit” who is able to smell the scent of the hobbit and thus poses a threat to them. The piece is melodramatically written, centering Smaug’s point of view and unfolding his motion and thought process ironically through its auditory effects created by all instruments.
The concert showcased the remarkable creativity as well as the diverse perspectives of Duke graduate student composers, with each piece bringing its unique voice directly to the audience. As a up-and-coming ensemble, loadbang demonstrated their mastery with its virtuosic performance of contemporary classical pieces – post-tonal pieces that encompassed styles such as experimental, minimalist, serial and electronic music – making the concert a testament to the possibilities of contemporary composition.
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Tina Qian is a Trinity sophomore and an arts editor for Recess.