PORTLAND, Ore. — The big draw of a concert by musicians from the ensemble 45th Parallel Universe was the world premiere of Andy Akiho’s Copper Variations, but the concert also included a kaleidoscope of minimalist-influenced works by Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Daniel Wohl.
45th Parallel Universe takes its name from the latitudinal line that runs through the state of Oregon. Akiho, who moved to Portland from New York a few years ago, is the only composer to be nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Classical Composition category for three years in a row — 2022, 2023, and 2024. His virtuosic talent as a steel pannist and percussionist has informed his music, which often involves sophisticated rhythmic patterns that undergo a minefield of changes.
In his introductory remarks for the Jan. 28 concert at The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, the composer noted that Copper Variations is associated with the number 29, which happens to be the atomic number assigned to the element copper.
Written for an ensemble of 14 musicians, Copper Variations features two thematic lines, but the number of beats for each bar of changes from one bar to the next. With conductor Raúl Gómez-Rojas functioning as a human metronome, the musicians accented the music’s playful character despite its underlying motoric feel.
The piece transitioned through pizzicato segments and passages that leaned more on the melody. The one-movement composition marched to a heavily rhythmic finale that seemed to conclude the musical journey with a different pattern, as if arriving at a new location.
From a melodic standpoint, the most satisfying work on the program was Glass’ Metamorphosis II. Created in 1988 for solo piano, the piece was deftly arranged for percussion by Sergio Carreno and Stephen Kehner. With Kehner playing xylophone and Carreno and Ian Kerr keeping a steady pulse on marimba, Metamorphosis II created a lovely, hypnotically meditative state that could have put one into a trance.
In 1998, Reich wrote his challenging Triple Quartet for three string quartets, but the 45th Parallel Universe concert offered the popular alternative that involved one quartet and pre-recorded tracks. Consisting of violinists Ron Blessinger and Greg Ewer, violist Amanda Grimm, and cellist Marilyn de Oliveira, the group interacted with click-tracks, portraying the work’s jumpy, angular, and propulsive motifs. In spite of one short segment that was quiet, most of the piece ranged from mezzo forte to forte, which made the music less interesting.
Although the concert title proclaimed “New Year, New Akiho,” the longest piece on the program was Wohl’s Holographic. The work, completed in 2016, almost overloaded the audio and visual senses through projected imagery that constantly changed. A string quartet shared the stage with video artist Daniel Schwarz, and composer Wohl sat behind laptops. Schwarz reacted to the music by cuing the video live to the music. Wohl played synthesizer parts intermittently.
The foursome of violinists Blessinger and Vijeta Sathyaraj, violist Grimm, and cellist Oliveira performed a variety of patterned phrases for many sections of Holographic. Sometimes they played a smooth series of chords, and at other times they generated a drone. It all fused seamlessly with the video. The electronic music echoed like a mechanical whirligig — sometimes emitting a rusty groan but mostly popping and bopping playfully.
Much of the work’s imagery were abstracts, but one section of music featured urban areas in the Middle East from a bird’s-eye perspective via Google Earth. These images frequently dissolved into wet globs, signaling an ominous atmosphere. In just a few seconds toward the end of the segment, that feeling was supported by a brief clip of two military men loading a bomb that would be dropped.
The last segment of visual imagery sped up and, accompanied by a sonic blur, created a hallucinogenic effect that, back in the 1970s, would have caused concertgoers to exclaim, “Heavy man; far out!” Perhaps it was déjà vu for some of the audience, who reacted to the experience with immediate, loud applause, and that was stimulating enough.
Although the concert was billed to last one hour, it required almost two. A few people left during the final number, but the majority stayed. Some of the performers looked dazed at the end of the Holographic. Maybe it was too much of a good thing.
