by Kevin McLaughlin
As is often the case, the February 7 No Exit Presents concert featuring LIGAMENT demanded close attention.
The modest forces and the intimate setting of Praxis Fiber Workshop placed the focus squarely on vocalist Anika Kildegaard and bassist Will Yager, in a program of works by Stefano Pierini, Ruby Fulton, James Dillon, Amy Beth Kirsten, and Katherine Balch. The duo, careful shapers of sound, drew listeners into worlds that were by turns surprising, unsettling, and utterly absorbing.
The evening opened with a brief set by the Cleveland State University Percussion Ensemble, led by Katalin La Favre, establishing the concert’s emphasis on quiet listening. With the lights lowered, the first of three works — a solo for acquarian — introduced a xylophone-adjacent instrument with glass bars mounted on a wood and stone frame. Without resonators, the instrument’s sound remained hushed, rarely rising above mezzo piano. Colored light shining from beneath the instrument lent the scene a dusky, piano-bar atmosphere.
This week, No Exit presents pianist Jenny Lin featured in METROPOLIS Reimagined at Heights Arts at 7:00 pm on Friday, February 13. The concert is free.
Asked at the post-concert talkback about her musical influences, composer Kamala Sankaram described an eclectic hodgepodge — Kaija Saariaho, Radiohead, and the Cameroonian electronic musician Francis Bebey, to name a few. “For the most part, things that I write sound very different from each other,” she said. “So it’s interesting that these two pieces sound kind of similar.”