Eighth Blackbird- Zelasko and Duvall Concert reviewed by Julia W. Rath

Review of the Matthew Burtner and Jocelyn Zelasko Concert

Highly Recommended **** With her stirring operatic voice, Jocelyn Zelasko teamed up with Matthew Duvall on mixed percussion to perform composer Matthew Burtner’s environmentally inspired music in a one-hour concert on Thursday, June 17, 2021, from the Chicago Artists Workshop (CAW) facility on Chicago’s Northwest Side. This online presentation featured three highly distinctive pieces, entitled: “River”, “Song for a Low Tree”, and “We Sink into the Singing Snow.” Burtner is a brilliant composer who combines live music, acoustic novelty, and his own unique form of music theory into a seemingly effortless artform, which he terms ecoacoustic, such that these three compositions share an electronic/computer track filled with sounds gathered directly from nature.

The composer’s interest in ecological sounds began when, as a child, he lived in a remote southwestern Alaska location called Bristol Bay, where water descends from the ice mountains into the ocean. Various Alaskan peoples, Native American tribes, and Russian villagers would come together in this multicultural locale to share in the salmon fishing and take in the crisp, clean air, water, and topographical beauty. This is an area of melting glaciers where scientists are now studying climate change, and today Burtner accompanies these researchers into the field to get inspiration for his music and to collect natural sounds first-hand. It is a different kind of research on the global environment, having to do with mood, resonance, and sonification, as compared to the work of the hard scientists, who are busily collecting data and samples for their ecologically-based research papers and journal articles.

While Zelasko’s voice is absolutely thrilling and Duvall’s percussion is brilliant and spot-on, several microphone problems plague the performance throughout. The worst occurs during the song “River”, when Duvall uses the same microphone for his voice and his instruments, making it difficult to understand Burtner’s original prose and poetry. His words are dreamy and meaningful, and we shouldn’t have to strain to make them out. The sound mixer, to their credit, tried very hard to compensate for this sound design flaw by increasing the gain on Duvall’s microphone. But it didn’t help much when the percussionist would move closer and farther away from the mike as he played various instruments. I would suggest that in future performances, a separate individual should be given a solo microphone dedicated to reciting the words in a voice entirely different from Duvall’s. His unfortunately lacks the right expression and tambre for the occasion; maybe a vocally-trained bass voice would better serve to contrast with Zelasko’s gorgeous soprano.

The videography is great and nicely focused on all the artistry. The wealth of percussive instruments (e.g., glockenspiel, wood blocks, rattles, gongs, cymbals, cowbells, and various types and sizes of drums, etc.), makes the audio varied and meaningful. Burtner’s compositions are especially successful in capturing the sounds of nature: from the cries of whales and other animals to the rushing of water, the breathing of the trees, and the cycling of the seasons. All these things which expand our awareness of being a part of nature and the earth add to the soothing ambiance. Feeling these things emotionally on a gut level allows us not only to revere our planet’s natural splendor but recognize just how much our environment is being threatened by a steadily warming atmosphere. Taking in Burtner’s specially crafted music is not just a delightful listening experience but helps raise our consciousness from deep within our soul.

For more information about this concert and future offerings by the Chicago Artists Workshop/Eighth Blackbird, please visit https://www.eighthblackbird.org/.

Tickets for this one-time livestreamed event were sold on a per-household basis at the suggested price of $20 or whatever you are able to pay. Also consider becoming a donor to the organization. Please go to the donate section on the Eighth Blackbird website to help support their mission of promoting performing artists in Chicago and the Midwest.

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