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‘Contemporary Landscapes’ D Fuchs Point of Tranquility Platt Symphony in Three Movements Svane Oboe Concertob Wang Jie The Winter that United Us a Henry Ward ob Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra / JoAnn Falletta Beau Fleuve (D • 59’)

Each of these works was commissioned by the Buffalo Philharmonic, and each showcases the excellence of the orchestra and the absorbing narratives that are a hallmark of JoAnn Falletta’s style.

Wang Jie’s dazzling The Winter that United Us was inspired by ‘the warm orange color of Kleinhans’ interior’ – the orchestra’s home. Gifted to the orchestra and conductor to celebrate the city of Buffalo, it begins with a tease from Also sprach Zarathustra before finding itself along a delicious Danubian rivulet that eventually closes with a Wagnerian roar. Kenneth Fuchs’s Point of Tranquility begins with an optimistic fanfare leading to a wonderful Impressionist flourish in a radiant, peaceful mood; the effect is of an exhilarating spiral like one of Morris Louis’s magnetic Color Field paintings that inspired the music. Russell Platt’s relentlessly intriguing Symphony was inspired by the paintings of the early American modernist

Our monthly guide to North American ensembles Zeitgeist

Clyfford Still at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Gallery, transforming their intense, emotional lines and dark colours into vivid orchestral strokes that particularly show off the woodwinds and brass. The second movement, ‘Chaconne’, is an unstoppable tour de force. The three movements of Randall Svane’s gentle Oboe Concerto create a continuous harmonic fabric. The orchestra’s principal oboe, Henry Ward, is at his finest in the slow movement’s gorgeous core and the third’s magical trilling.

The sound captures the warmth and wide soundstage of the hall in audiophile splendour, with awesome drum thumps, and a ‘you are there’ sense of acoustical space. Laurence Vittes

Founded 1977 Home Anderson Center, Red Wing, Minnesota

On a stage covered with multiple newly invented instruments, two musicians ascend the exterior of a 17-foot-tall pendulum, hammering upon it with mallets. Five chefs create a seven-course meal, each food item accompanied by a corresponding piece of music that complements it. A path through the forest is lined with two dozen double bassists performing a score born from the marks on a piece of birch bark.

These are among the adventurous performances offered by Minnesota-based Zeitgeist. Established with the aim of presenting pieces by modern composers whose works couldn’t be found amid the Twin Cities’ more mainstream programming, Zeitgeist has always embraced the offbeat.

Its genesis came at St Paul’s Macalester College, where a handful of musicians first started presenting concerts full of music by composers influenced by the minimalist movement. Within a few years, Zeitgeist had winnowed its membership down to a core quartet of two percussionists, a reed player and a pianist.

That group started commissioning new works from composers who shared their boundary-bending aesthetic, such as John Cage, Harold Budd and Fred Ho, in addition to launching multi-decade collaborations with Terry Riley and Frederic Rzewski. And it continues to assist emerging composers in developing their voices and improvisational imaginations, with programmes for students in kindergarten through high school, an annual amateur composition contest and multi-day summer workshops.

Zeitgeist’s discography includes albums full of music by Budd, Riley, Rzewski and Eric Stokes, as well as a collection of pieces by female composers including Eleanor Hovda, Pauline Oliveros and Yoko Ono.

There’s long been a theatrical bent to the group’s presentations, leading to creative collaborations with dance companies, sculptors and a coalition of instrument builders that led to that 17-foot-tall pendulum found in Paul Dresher and Rinde Eckert’s Soundstage.

A staple of the ensemble since 1990 has been Heather Barringer, who can usually be found wielding mallets and sticks across the stage from her fellow percussionist, Patti Cudd. Between them at most concerts is multiple-reed player Pat O’Keefe, breathing a singing sonority into a percussive soundscape that’s completed by pianist Nicola Melville.

After decades at its intimate Studio Z venue in downtown St Paul’s artist-filled Lowertown neighbourhood, Zeitgeist has recently moved about 45 miles down the Mississippi River to Red Wing, Minnesota, where it’s now a resident ensemble at the Anderson Center, a nonprofit dedicated to the creative process situated on a century-old estate with an 11-acre sculpture garden.

The move brings the group closer to Barringer’s organic farm in western Wisconsin, where Zeitgeist annually presents a ‘Festival at the Farm’. Among the pieces performed there have been that work for 24 bassists on a forest path – Eve Beglarian’s A Murmur in the Trees – and Kyle Hutchins’s even as i must go, which was written to be performed on a freshly mowed field at dusk.

Last summer, the festival featured a farm-inspired suite by Pamela Z that concluded with a percussive duet of vegetable chopping by Barringer and Cudd. As the audience (seated on hay bales inside a barn) erupted into applause at its conclusion, Barringer offered her palm for a high five from Cudd, who declined while displaying a blood-covered hand. Just another entry in the lore of the always adventurous Zeitgeist. Rob Hubbard gramophone.co.uk

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