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Who says top ten lists need to be created at the end of year?  Here is a list of my personal favorite performances in Kansas City from last season broken into two categories: Local (top 10) and Visiting (top 5).  I hope this serves as a refresher as the groups launch into their 2010–11 seasons.

Local  

10. Octarium’s Masstiche – Aggressively progressive and with audacious programming, Krista Lang Blackwood’s ensemble-of-one is a vocal force to reckoned with.  Their Masstiche program was the entire history of vocal music in three heaping spoonfuls.  (February 2010)


9. KcEMA @ Electronic Music Midwest – With Kansas City as a hotbed of electronic composition, it makes sense that KcEMA has seen a meteoric rise in appearances at hip venues like La Esquina and City Center Square Studios.  As guest ensemble at Electronic Music Midwest this collective of sound, visual, and movement artists displayed their academic and creative credentials as well as artistic.   (November 2009)


8. Owen/Cox Dance Group’s Nutcracker and the Mouse King – Not your grandmother’s Nutcracker but you should bring her along and watch her reaction as Brad Cox subverts Tchaikovsky and Dana Owen’s choreography brings wit to the entire affair.  Luckily you'll be able to as Owen/Cox is performing the work again this season. (December 2009)


7. Yu-Chen Wang with newEar – The highlight of the concert curated by Chen Yi and Zhou Long were those works featuring zheng phenom Yu-Chen Wang (Chen Yi's Song in Winter, Liu Sola's Flying Shadows, and Qin Wen-chen's The Sun Shadow IV). Her fingers danced over the Chinese zither like ten fairy ballerinas producing sounds that stuck with me long after the concert ended.  (March 2010)


6. Simon Carrington Chamber Singers perform What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach? – As if Philip Spooner’s testimony for marriage equality before the Maine State Senate wasn’t moving enough, Melissa Dunphy’s winning composition provocatively set his text and was sung in a commanding performance by the Simon Carrington Chamber Singers.  (May 2010)


5. Fountain City Brass Band and Hymn of the Highlands – Quite possibly the award-winningest ensemble Kansas City has to offer (3 major titles last year alone); FCBB showcases exemplary dexterity, precision, balance, and power. Not to mention their low and mid-brass sections are the best in the world.  Yep, I said it.  (February 2010)
 

4. UMKC Conservatory Choirs and Orchestra combine for Brahms’ Requiem under Joseph Flummerfelt – One of the greatest pieces ever written?  Check.  Venerable big-name choral conductor?  Check.  200+ energetic and extremely talented student musicians on stage? Check.  A standing-room only White Recital Hall and ensuing thunderous applause?  Oh you better believe it.  It was a concert of pure aural bliss. (March 2010)

3. Gil Shaham with the Kansas City Symphony – Gracing us with not one, but two concertos, the stellar Gil Shaham showed it doesn’t always have to be about finding the next big talent when you are the best talent.  Backing him our symphony sounded better than they did all season and their Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 was blistering and blustery – just as it should be.  (January 2010)


2. KCRep’s Venice – The national kudos were deserved; great hooks in a musical that is timely and timeless.  While some of the numbers needed tweaking, there was no denying that Venice ruled the season.  (April 2010)


1. Civic Opera Theatre of Kansas City/Kansas City Chamber Orchestra Purcell’s Fairy Queen – The finest essence of collaboration on a shoe-string budget that yielded a wonderfully staged, sung, and played production.  (October 2009)

Visiting

5. Alarm Will Sound at the Mizzou New Music Festival – In the inaugural year of Mizzou’s new music festival, guest ensemble Alarm Will Sound performed seven newly composed works by emerging composers from around the country.  Though some pieces were more successful than others—Amy Beth Kirsten’s Drink Me was the stand-out piece—it was evident that festival was well organized and executed, resulting in a great experience for the composers, performers, and audience.  (July 2010)


4. Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott’s Shostakovich Cello Sonata – Fearlessly performed by seasoned pros as part of the Harriman-Jewell Series, Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata was the emotional backbone to Ma and Stott’s marvelously musical recital.  (March 2010)


3. Kronos Quartet’s Encore – Is it fair to include an encore on this list?  Sure is, especially when it was as vital to the performance as all their programmed works.  Ram Narayan's "Alap" from Raga Mishra Bhairavi brought the concert full circle in meditative serenity. Sometimes the clearest music, played exquisitely, can be the most effective.  (April 2010)

2. Charlemagne Palestine’s Schlingen-Blängen and Sarah Cahill’s performance of Eve Beglarian’s Night Psalm at the 2nd International Conference on Minimalist Music – The two pieces and performers could not have been any different.  Palestine’s Schlingen-Blängen was three hours of a slowly constructed sonic wall performed by the colorful composer himself surrounded by his alters of stuffed animals.  Beglarian’s Night Psalm was a short sonic sorbet performed by the seemingly demure Cahill.  The duality of these two works displayed the richness of minimalist music.  (September 2009)

1. David Parson Dance Company/East Village Opera Company’s Remember Me – Perfection of motion, music, and staging by one of our most talented native sons.  (November 2009) (Top Picture: David Parson Dance Company with the East Village Opera Company singer, Tyley Ross)

By Lee Hartman

Editor-in-Chief; Traditional and New Classical Contributor

Lee Hartman holds degrees from the University of Missouri-Kansas City (D.M.A., M.M.) and the University of Delaware (B.M.). At the University of Delaware, he received a Dean's Scholar position enabling him to pursue an individually designed academic program combining music education and composition. At the University of Missouri-Kansas City he served for three years as the Assistant Director to Musica Nova, the conservatory's new music ensemble, while teaching a variety of composition classes.

In 2007 he was invited to both the Iceland Academy of the Arts in Reykjavík, Iceland and the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China to give lectures and master classes in composition. In the summer of 2009, Hartman served as an orchestra manager for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Aspen Opera Theater Center for various performances. He serves on the National Executive Committee of the Society of Composers, Inc. as Submissions Coordinator. His primary composition instructors include James Mobberley, Chen Yi, Zhou Long, Paul Rudy, John Beall, and Jennifer Margaret Barker. He currently teaches music theory at the University of Central Missouri and general music classes at Park University having previously taught at UD (2007–08) and UMKC (2006–07).

His compositions can be found at http://www.leehartmanmusic.com

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