Apollo 14
LUNAR MISSION AS OPERA SUBJECT NOT
A LOONY IDEA
Source: NORA VILLAGRAN, Mercury
News, Published on May 8, 2002, Page 1F, San Jose Mercury News (CA)
New York City Opera Composer-in-Residence Mark
Adamo and Artistic Director of Vox 2002: Showcasing American Composers,
talking about Apollo 14 and the Showcase series. "The opera is very unusual.
To take a 20th-century subject and put it in an ancient form is very
fresh. No other submission [to the New
York City Opera Showcase program] was like it; that's I want that's why I
wanted it for our final piece. There is
also something about the notion of the moon journey and leaping into space
that's a lovely way to end our series."
[In the "Toccata di Luna" from Apollo
14,] Meckler created a marvelous ensemble and vocal pattern effect with
his techno-patter technique.
William Susman, "Fresh Choice," 21st
Century Music, November 2001, p. 4.
Piano Trio, A Hazardous Similar Harmony
Picasso Ensemble Shines at Spring
Recital, Chris Sentieri, The Voice,
Cabrillo College, April 30, 2004
... the Picasso Ensemble
presented a rare and exciting treat as they premiered a new work, composed for the
ensemble by contemporary composer David Meckler. The composition, titled A
Hazardous Similar Harmony, was fresh and, at times, quite
cerebral. Meckler's complex sense of
dissonance and unusual treatment of dynamics seemed to fit the ensemble like a
glove. This modern composition was a
suitable vehicle for the Picasso Ensemble; the broad tonal strokes, sudden
crescendos and colorful flurries of notes seemed to invoke images of the
group's namesake.
San Francisco Classical Voice Website
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW, 17
March 2000
Heart, Body And Soul, All On
Percussion
By Thomas Goss
. . . If Cage and [Michael] Gandolfi dished up heart, and Rouse body,
David Meckler provided the soul with Bliss, an instrumental
transformation of the "Accomplishment" aria from his Apollo 14: A
Space Opera and an oasis of serenity between the Cage and the Rouse. The
percussion was restricted to a simple back-and-forth ostinato of two intervals
of a seventh, while a solo cello emoted deeply felt, cautiously unveiled
conviction. Part love song, part prayer, it soothed while stirring, underlining
the expressive abilities of cellist Victoria Ehrlich. http://www.sfcv.org/arts_revs/adesso_3_21_00.html
Novae Gives Voice To Promising
Composers
Review by PETER LEFEVRE
Special to the Register
Orange County Register
. . . Also on the program were David Meckler's "Stuck Piano I
& II," a stark and gruesome piece given a
technically polished reading by
[Nelson] Ojeda, and "Before Silence," a brass quartet by David Dieni
that created fascinating textures
while showing a bit too much fondness for discord.
Oh well! In 20th Century Music, Thomas Goss called a
performance of Stuck Piano I by Sarah Cahill balm for the ears. Op. 415 Marathon, San Francisco.
Compositions By Students, Master
Reflect Impact Of Their Times
By HERMAN TROTTER New Musk Critic REVIEW June 10, 1990
June In Buffalo VII Final concert in the University at Buffalo's
annual student-faculty festival.
Saturday evening in Slee Hall, UB
North Campus in Amherst.
. . . The students' works may
have lacked Wuorinen's assurance of form, but they compensated with music that
had more immediate sonic appeal. David
Meckler's Symmetry Jumps, for wind quintet, was conducted by
Jesse Levine. It proved a playful and sportive work, yet somehow serious too,
moving from parallel homophonic phases through polyphonic expression to a
region of pointillist textures, long roulades and pensive incantations for solo
instruments. Meckler threw a nice curve with a quote from "Tristan." Levine conducted [a] superb performance of
Meckler's work . . .
Not about my music, but rather my
words about music . . .
View
from the Gap
by
Kyle Gann
Review
of UCSD Emerging Voices Festival, Village Voice, 21 March 1995
Ph.D.
candidate David C. Meckler, in a paper titled "Tis a Gift To Be Simple,
but It Takes Courage to Be Painfully Obvious," pointed out that new music
composers avoid dialogues with living pop figures and plunder only the dead, as
in the Kronos Quartet's arrangement of "Purple Haze." As if on cue, the [Bang on a Can] All-Stars
played a Nirvana tune as an encore, with Maya Beiser wailing the vocal line on
cello. Meckler further complained that
fans to take Hendrix and Nirvana seriously feel insulted by new music groups
that marginalize rock songs as "fun pieces" for encores. [Actually, I only suggested that fans might
feel that way, and I wasnt really complaining . . .] Fair enough . . .
.
. . given the usual time lag before experimental music becomes eligible for
academic treatment, why did Meckler undertake his discriminating analysis of
passages by [Steve] Martland, Michael Gordon, and other young New Yorkers
decades ahead of schedule? . . .