Joel Phillip Friedman

ADORNO is delighted to feature composer Joel Phillip Friedman, who teaches extensively on the Beatles and is faculty at Santa Clara University, Notre Dame de Namur, and the Stanford University’s Adult Extension courses. Friedman has always had the spirit of collaboration at the core of his musical activities whether serving as co-composer for the award-winning Off-Broadway and London West End hit musical Personals, or working directly with a soloist, like former New York Philharmonic principal violist Paul Neubauer for the ASCAP Young Composer Award-winning Concerto in the Form of Variations premiered at Carnegie Hall which Andrew Porter described in The New Yorker as “beautiful and intelligent” and James Oestreich described in The New York Times as “brilliant.” Upcoming projects continue in this collaborative vein and include the chamber music theater piece Fallings featuring Susan Narucki and the Contrasts Quartet and a recording of his Pas de Deux with cellist Fred Sherry and pianist Stephen Gosling. Joel holds Composition degrees from Boston University and Columbia University, but the prelude to this formal educational included years performing in jazz and rock bands on trumpet and electric bass, experiences that have helped to inform and shape his music and collaborative approach.

ADORNO will feature his multi-movement work, Elastic Band. Here are some words on the work from the composer himself:

Elastic Band was conceived as a fun, divertimento-like work. The title refers to both the elastic nature of the work - which happily straddles the Classical, 20th Century, and Pop music worlds - and to a pun: the ensemble writing is often more reminiscent of a jazz “little big band” than a traditional chamber ensemble. The scoring for clarinet and string quartet has classical resonances. But, add percussion to the mix, and a decidedly jazzy-rock tinge emerges: the Mozart Clarinet Quintet… with a twist, if you will.

I wanted all three music worlds to co-exist and co-mingle within the piece. Among the Classical elements are: the clarity and symmetry of phrases, and the modified fastslow- fast three-movement design (a more serious-toned opening movement in sonata form, the quirky “Ellingtonian” scherzo second movement, and the lighthearted rondo-like third movement). However, the free chromatic writing, quick tempo shifts, and irregular meters and rhythms are 20th Century concert music. That said, much of the work’s detail - the rhythmic, harmonic, and gestural language - comes from jazz or
its cousin, funk-fusion music.

Growing up playing jazz, rock, and classical I was always struck by how the harmonic and rhythmic materials found in some 20th Century music, e.g. Stravinsky and Bartok, resembled the sound worlds of jazz and funk. Elastic Band is steeped in that favorite scale of the 20th Century: the eight-note octatonic (an alternating pattern of whole and half steps). By selecting only parts of the scale I could make a “filter.” “Tightening” the filter created familiar, “tonal” jazz harmonies. “Opening” the filter, using more of the scale, allowed for denser, more chromatic sounds. Probably the most striking element in both Stravinsky and Bartok’s music was their fantastic sense of rhythm. Like jazz and funk, their music heavily employs rhythmic syncopation against a clear, strong pulse - something that is important to me as well.

The first movement of Elastic Band is cast in a tight sonata form and is a good example of the previously mentioned “filtering effect.” The tenser, more chromatic opening theme is opposed by the more expansive and tonal-sounding second theme. Motivically the movement is very organic: almost everything heard is thematically related to either the clarinet’s opening melodic idea - a falling perfect 4th followed by a rising major 2nd- or the brief, seemingly improvisatory rock-style drum breaks that periodically explode during the movement (and which later reappear in the pitched instruments).

For the musical detectives in the audience: these drum breaks echo a figure used by Ringo Starr in his only commercially recorded Beatles drum solo (here’s a hint: it’s on Abbey Road). At the center of the movement is a brief moment of repose - the eye of the storm - that also marks the beginning of a terse development section that gradually re-gathers momentum driving towards the return of the opening themes. The movement ends with a perpetual motion coda. - Joel Friedman