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Review

Bonk Festival opens with mild-mannered note

The Bonk Festiva l continues with a concert at 8 tonight at the Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg. $5-$10.

By JOHN FLEMING
Published April 2, 2005

TAMPA - The Bonk Festival has always been an ornery beast, presenting new music with a take it or leave it attitude, but it seems to be mellowing in its 14th year. How else to explain the sweetly soporific quality of new works by Eric Lyon, a Bonk regular and snarkmeister of the first order, in the festival's opening concert Friday night at the TECO Theater of Patel Conservatory.

As one of Lyon's composer friends remarked to him after his piece, The Lancaster Overture, it sounded as if he had channeled Leroy Anderson. Oh, well, at least the work showcased new music's favorite flutist, Margaret Lancaster, noodling away with the University of South Florida Percussion Ensemble.

Taking Liberties, another new Lyon work, was similarly innocuous, warmly played by the excellent Confluences, whose members are Tom Brantley, trombone; Jay Coble, trumpet; and Corey Jane Holt, piano.

More in the bomb-throwing tradition of old was Lyon's White House 1980, sung by baritone R. Wayne Woodson with Holt. It's a setting of a mishmash of political text, including a mash note to Jodie Foster from John Hinckley, and it wound up like a stirring Anglican hymn, only Woodson was belting out a line by philosopher Elias Canetti: "God is power, and whoever has it is his prophet on earth."

One of the major works of the evening was David Rogers' Berceuse, with Lancaster joined by another fine flutist, Kim McCormick, and the USF Percussion Ensemble under its indefatigable leader and champion of new music, Robert McCormick. At times the flute duo played over intricate, soft percussion in passages that were mesmerizing in their sheer loveliness, and then the ensemble would explode in a deafening din that included not just every manner of mallet on metal but unexpected touches such as celesta, a couple of sirens and large clock spring.

Two other works were strikingly good, both written for Confluences. Drew Krause's Sputter combined a jazzy freedom with classical exactness to dreamy effect. And give Zack Browning's propulsive Flaming Walls the prize for best inspiration, with the "Magic Square of Mars" providing its framework, according to a program note. Holt laid down expert support for the exciting, jagged rhythms.

Confluences also played Directions by Werner Heider. With Brantley and Coble using a variety of mutes, it exuded a heavy seriousness and never took flight.

Bonk, usually a weeklong affair, is abbreviated this year. The festival finale tonight at the Salvador Dali Museum features Lancaster. The flutist's program includes works written for her by Robert Constable, Nicholas Brooke, Paul Steenhuisen and Francis Schwartz.

[Last modified April 2, 2005, 01:02:17]