Curtis Curtis-Smith
Curtis Curtis-Smith is a living American composer with a large volume of works in many genres and with numerous awards. Yet he is unknown to most people.
Jason Hardink hopes to change that. Hardink, artistic director of the NOVA Chamber Music Series and an ardent voice for contemporary music, is a tireless champion of Curtis-Smith’s music. Hardink has programmed some of the 72-year-old composer’s works in the past and the audience at Sunday’s NOVA concert will once again get a chance to hear a couple of his works.
As many composers of the second half of the 20th century have – John Cage and George Crumb, for example, to name only two – Curtis-Smith has explored expanding the sonic possibilities of the piano. “In the 1970s he was looking into ways to extend and enlarge the sonority of the piano,” Hardink told Reichel Recommends. “What Curtis did was invent bowed technique.”
Bowing the strings of the piano might not seem like much, especially given Cage’s prepared piano works, but no one before Curtis-Smith had done it. The main hurdle with this was finding a bow that would enable the technique. Violin bows – or cello or double bass bows for that matter – didn’t work, so Curtis-Smith had to design his own. “He did a lot of experimenting,” Hardink said. “He now makes his bows with fishing line and rosin.”
The two pieces by Curtis-Smith on Sunday’s program – 5 Sonorous Inventions for violin and piano, and Unisonics for alto saxophone and piano – not only utilize bowing but also an expanded plucking technique. “Curtis has three different ways to pluck the strings,” Hardink said. “He writes his music in traditional notation plus his own symbols [for the special effects]. It’s like having to learn a new instrument. It’s daunting.”
Inventionsis also challenging for the violinist, Hardink said. There is one movement in which the pianist has to manipulate the tuning pegs on the violin while the violinist is playing. And there are passages in the same movement that require a flat bridge allowing the violinist to play all four strings at the same time.
Jason Hardink
Hardink discovered Curtis-Smith’s music as a student at Rice University while doing research on modern music. “I found a recording of his Rhapsodies [for solo piano]. I didn’t have a score and I just couldn’t figure out how to create the sounds I heard. I said to myself, ‘Who is this guy?’” When Hardink finally got a copy of the work he saw how the composer was able to come up with these new sounds. He also found out how to make a bow.
As a pianist, Hardink was fascinated and became hooked on this music, to the point that he is in the middle of recording all the works for bowed piano. “There are four pieces in all,” Hardink said. “We’re working on the recording now and hope to have it ready for release in the fall.”
Hardink is a true advocate of Curtis-Smith’s music. “I really believe in the greatness of this music. The technique is amazing. It’s not gimmicky. It’s genuine.”
For Sunday’s concert, Hardink has paired the two Curtis-Smith pieces with two works by Maurice Ravel – the Sonata for Violin and Cello and the String Quartet. He sees a connection between the music of both composers. “There are impressionistic qualities in both composers, although they both could resent being called ‘impressionists,’” Hardink said. In any case, the two composers do have that element in common. “And I think Curtis takes impressionism to another level. It’s hallucinatory and dark. It’s not ethereal but rough and, for a lack of a better word, masculine.”
Joining Hardink at the concert will be Utah Symphony violinist Stephanie Cathcart, saxophonist Taimur Sullivan and the Fry Street Quartet.
- CONCERT DETAILS:
- What: NOVA Chamber Music Series
- Venue: Libby Gardner Concert Hall
- Time and Date: 3 p.m. April 21
- Tickets: $18 general, $15 seniors, $5 students (free for University of Utah students)
- Phone: 801-463-5223
- Web: www.novaslc.org