Music Reviews : eXindigo Delivers Recent Works at Barnsdall Park

Perhaps it was fitting that Steve Reich was the one major composer represented on Saturday’s program at Barnsdall Park. While the three relatively new works on the program delivered by the new-music ensemble eXindigo! are not strictly minimalist, each shows minimalist traits.

In the middle movement of “Walking on an Apple” (for mallet percussion), for instance, composer/percussionist Ron George uses driving ostinatos as an attractive minimalist foundation over which he improvised--to fine effect. He revealed his fascination with bell-like sounds in the outer movements, but a dearth of substantive material renders these movements feckless. To make matters worse, George’s prerecorded sounds (also mallet percussion) were cranked up to oppressive levels.

Soprano Sun Young Kim made a strong case for Ted Peterson’s “Dr. John Wants to Talk to Dolphins,” delivering the odd text with incisiveness and haunting resonance. Intermittent, quasi-minimalist percussion accompaniment provided an interesting but often incongruous backdrop, and the rambling, 30-minute work can be considered only a partial success.

But Peterson’s strident “Voluntaries,” minimalist only in its repetitiveness, completely lacks any rhythmic drive, melodic inventiveness or harmonic appeal; it probably made the five brass players suffer as much as the listener.

Reich’s “Piano Phase,” a work of remarkably simple design--a seven-note pattern is performed by two musicians who, by speeding up slightly, bring their respective parts in and out of phase--manages to engage the listener for 20 minutes. Originally for pianos, it was effectively performed by marimbists Ron George and Deborah Schwartz.