April 10, 2025
“WindSync fivexfive”
Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH)
Houston, Texas – USA
Miguel del AGUILA: Sonata Flautisima for solo flute, III. Alegre
Viet CUONG: Six Canadian Scenes for solo oboe
Anni HOCHHALTER: Sonata for horn and electronics (world premiere)
Marc MELLITS: Discrete Structures for clarinet and strings
Akshaya Avril TUCKER: Variations on Care for bassoon and strings
Akshaya Avril TUCKER: What will you hold (world premiere)
Jean FRANÇAIX: Dixtuor, I. Larghetto tranquillo – Allegro
Lawrence Wheeler | 15 APR 2025
Founded 18 years ago in Houston, WindSync is a wind quintet known for its vibrant performances and diverse repertoire. Since winning the 2012 Concert Artists Guild and 2016 Fischoff competitions, WindSync has toured internationally and appeared at Carnegie Hall and the Library of Congress. The ensemble is committed to commissioning new works. Tonight, they presented three world premieres along with three other contemporary works. Usually appearing as a quintet, they also performed individually as soloists this evening.
The program began with the third movement, “Alegre,” from Sonata Flautísima for solo flute by three-time Grammy-nominated American composer Miguel Del Aguila (b. 1957). The movement features strong Latin flavor and mixed-meter motifs. Houston-based WindSync founding member Garrett Hudson played the leap-filled piece with energy but variable tone quality.
Viet Cuong (b. 1990) is a widely commissioned and performed composer with a large catalog of wind works. Canadian Scenes for solo oboe is an early work composed in 2009 when the composer was nineteen. Each of the six Scenes was inspired by a painting by a “Group of Seven” artist. Once known as the Algonquin School, this was a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920 to 1933 with “a like vision.” A Scene, based on a work by the seventh Group of Seven artist, was completed a decade later, but not included tonight.
Writing for a single instrument, Cuong follows a linear melodic path with harmony implied without vertical reference. Dissonant intervals and jagged rhythms give it the edginess of youth. The compositional style is far removed from one of his recently heard works that sounded non-confrontational and new-agey while adopting an enveloping and undulating aural sound world. Oboist Noah Kay used expressive tone color and deft technique to present the material ranging from lyrical to virtuosic.
Discrete Structures for clarinet and strings is one of eight iterations of the piece by Marc Mellits. The clarinet quintet version was commissioned by WindSync clarinetist Graeme Steele Johnson, who bravely admits that this instrumental combination is his favorite. Speaking eloquently to the MATCH audience, he explained Mellits’ credo that popular music and art music are essentially the same, and that historically they were. By offering immediacy and familiarity with echoes of Copland and Bernard Hermann, Mellits created a crossover genre that sounds distinctly American.
Joined by excellent musicians from Houston’s Kinetic Ensemble, Johnson et al. gave a polished performance of the ten Structures titled “Circular,” “Red,” “Survival,” “Gold,” “Blue,” “Tight,” “Clock,” “Liquid,” “Shiny,” and “Square.” Each movement was descriptive of the given titles—alternately inventive, intricate, expressive, or humorous—and discrete rather than continuous. Johnson’s beautiful tone projected freely and effortlessly. The string quartet was poised, accurate, and musical. A bit more first violin would have better balanced the clarinet and cello.
French horn player Anni Hochhalter served double duty as composer and performer in the world premiere of Sonata for horn and electronics. Following a standard sonata form of AB-AB-development-A, Hochhalter makes the piece sound novel by playing simultaneously with her own prerecorded horn sounds. Consonant harmonies of thirds are interspersed with minimal electronic sounds. On display was her rich and secure horn tone, with nary a bobble.
Akshaya Avril Tucker (credit: Khristián Méndez Aguirre)
Bassoonist Kara LaMoure presented the world premiere of the chamber music version of Variations on Care by WindSync 2025 composer-in-residence Akshaya Avril Tucker.
LaMoure has performed the work in two previous versions—solo bassoon and concerto with orchestra. It is notable for its liberal use of trills in the bassoon and tremolos in the strings. It covers the full three-and-a-half octave range of the bassoon and takes advantage of the instrument’s soulful quality.
LaMoure was joined by Kinetic musicians, this time with added double bass. This combination of bassoon and strings is likely the most successful version since it showcases LaMoure’s talent for interacting spontaneously and expressively with other musicians. A consummate performer, she draws the audience into the moment where the music is being created and not simply reproduced.
The five WindSync musicians joined forces to perform the world premiere of What will you hold for wind quintet, again by Tucker. It has three parts, which combined are: “What will you—Hold Sacred—In the Rain?” It originated with the middle section, “[What will you] Hold Sacred,” and grew outward from there. Well written, it features multi-layered rhythmic and melodic elements. The quintet provided some of the most cohesive playing of the evening.
In speaking to the audience, the composer explained how the work asks the highly personal question of what we would do when faced with external challenges or threats. Would we withdraw into a self-protective shell, or would we choose to reach out with acceptance and compassion? Given the current political climate, the question might become, “What will you hold sacred in the reign?”
The program concluded with a work by the only non-contemporary (meaning no longer living) composer, Jean Françaix. The combined forces of WindSync and Kinetic Ensemble (Five Plus Five) performed the first movement of the composer’s Dixtour (or Dectet). Composed in 1987 when Françaix was 75, it bears his signature references to Ravel and Poulenc. The musicians gave a tonally colorful and richly expressive account, concluding with a joyful dance accompanied by multiple smiles of enjoyment. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- WindSync: windsync.org
- Kinetic: kineticensemble.org
Read more by Lawrence Wheeler.
.png){kind=logo}