Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 11, 2004
Zachary Lewis, Special to The Plain Dealer

Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Ensemble, Gilbert Galindo, Graduate Assistant and Conductor

Dressed completely in black, Stephanie Nilles strode quickly on stage, sat down at the piano, and began to play, her thick yellow hair tossing back and forth as she unleashed a burst of angry, rumbling chords at the low end of the keyboard.

Some thirty seconds later, the young pianist had stopped and was bowing to applause. In that short time Thursday night, Nilles had vented all of Christopher Rouse's "Little Gorgon."

Her brief performance might have seemed unusual had it not been part of a concert by the New Music Ensemble at the Cleveland Institute of Music on which fleeting musical moments were the norm. The hour-long program was called "Contemporary Music From Around the World."

Further surprises came in the "Air" by contemporary American composer Aaron Jay Kernis. Violinist Sarah Wood played the piece and traversed several strange landscapes with Nilles as her companion.

"Air" began pleasantly with a calm, slow-moving melody resembling an old English folk tune. The faintly dissonant piano part was almost expressive enough to stand on its own.

Gradually Wood's line morphed into a tender dirge that might have been appropriate to a funeral. But before returning to the familiar opening, "Air" posed the violinist with a slew of rapid, stormy, and decidedly un-vocal dashes up the scale, some of which proved troublesome to her at the top.

Four students were to perform Gyorgy Ligeti's early String Quartet No. 1 but "For an Actor: Monologue for Clarinet" by the Chicago-based composer Shulamit Ran filled the slot instead.

Clarinetist Bill Kalinkos delivered a performance as dramatic as any verbal Shakespearean soliloquy. He enunciated the opening four-note motif clearly and maintained its basic profile as the core of widely undulating outbursts and sometimes screeching hoarseness.

Kalinkos had an equally prominent role alongside contrabass and mallet instruments in the program's first work, "Ding," by the contemporary composer Zhou Long. His high trills interrupted low sighs and loudly plucked strings on Wen-Ling Shih's bass while percussionist Brian Sweigart entered the mix with chords and bended pitches on both xylophone and marimba. The trio settled now and then on a unison note but textures were primarily lean, evoking the traditional music of Long's native China.

"Around the World" concluded by moving further East to Japan with a work for chamber orchestra by Toru Takemitsu.

Like "Ding," "Rain Coming" accomplished much with spare material. Woodwind and brass sounds and a sudden gong crash stood out from shimmering, gently rocking string passages and the occasional silence. Ably conducted by Gilbert Galindo, the piece suggested water-like waves.

Fading out on a hint of tonality, it also contained the concert's final unexpected gesture.

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