by Angela Sutton
(Photo: Misha Kaufman)
An enthusiastic crowd turned out for Sunny Knable's program of his own compositions at Merkin Hall on Thursday night. Mr. Knable, clearly a traditionalist at heart, displayed in these works a fine ear for instrumental sonority and a wealth of thematic invention. A native Californian, Mr. Knable brought West Coast geniality to his works that blunted edges and rounded corners. While this made for pleasant listening, it often melted many striking moments into disappointing sameness as the works progressed. And progress they did, with several pieces clocking in at over twenty minutes. Although these large-scale works are welcome from a young composer, the music at times overran its own logic, with concluding sections that felt like extras.
That said, only one of the pieces on the program truly fell flat: the "Harlem Cycle" for voice and piano, setting seven Langston Hughes poems. Mr. Knable breezed by Hughes' deep irony and occasional menace, painting instead a fairy-tale Harlem Renaissance where everyone just had a good time at the jazz club. The last line of "A Dream Deferred" – "Or does it explode?" was marked by an overly-literal blow-up on the piano, but Mr. Knable blunted even this somewhat undercooked idea, tacking on another minute or so of calming, jazzy nostalgia in direct contrast to Hughes' hanging question.
Knable's instrumental music was far more satisfying, and complex. His "Variations", in fact, was so dense that Mr. Knable called upon his former teacher Richard Cionco to perform it. My personal favorite, however, was "Grimm's Hood" for two trumpets, percussion, and piano: a concise and clever depiction of Little Red's fateful trip to Grandma's. A product of the Iron Composer's Competition, in which composers are given five hours to compose a piece of music, it was a tightly-organized drama with all of the story's actors represented.
With all of Mr. Knable's gifts as a composer and performer, his progress will be worth watching.
It was a wonderful concert, my dear one. Your college president (from the AAron Copeland Queens…) seemed most impressed and your friendship with audiences grows. I loved your insisting on being able to shake hands with anyone who wanted to, at the door. Your music, heady with intelligence but accessible to the emotions, affected us as always.
It was a wonderful concert, my dear one. Your college president (from the AAron Copeland Queens…) seemed most impressed and your friendship with audiences grows. I loved your insisting on being able to shake hands with anyone who wanted to, at the door. Your music, heady with intelligence but accessible to the emotions, affected us as always.
It was a wonderful concert, my dear one. Your college president (from the AAron Copeland Queens…) seemed most impressed and your friendship with audiences grows. I loved your insisting on being able to shake hands with anyone who wanted to, at the door. Your music, heady with intelligence but accessible to the emotions, affected us as always.
It was a wonderful concert, my dear one. Your college president (from the AAron Copeland Queens…) seemed most impressed and your friendship with audiences grows. I loved your insisting on being able to shake hands with anyone who wanted to, at the door. Your music, heady with intelligence but accessible to the emotions, affected us as always.
It was a wonderful concert, my dear one. Your college president (from the AAron Copeland Queens…) seemed most impressed and your friendship with audiences grows. I loved your insisting on being able to shake hands with anyone who wanted to, at the door. Your music, heady with intelligence but accessible to the emotions, affected us as always.
It was a wonderful concert, my dear one. Your college president (from the AAron Copeland Queens…) seemed most impressed and your friendship with audiences grows. I loved your insisting on being able to shake hands with anyone who wanted to, at the door. Your music, heady with intelligence but accessible to the emotions, affected us as always.