The contemporary performing arts in New York have no better friend than GWEN DEELY.

A former staff member of the music publisher C.F. Peters and also Composers Recordings, Inc., Gwen wrote her masters thesis at Hunter College on John Cage.  For 22 years she coordinated an annual New Year’s Eve marathon reading of Gertrude Stein’s massive novel “The Making of Americans” at the Paula Cooper Gallery.  She also founded the annual John Cage Birthday Tribute, which has been going for 17 years now.  Gwen is in her fifth year as a member of the Stonewall Chorale and also currently sings with the Dessoff Symphonic Choir and at St. Joseph’s Church.

So for the rest of this post, I turn it over to Gwen and Her Big Gay Ears (and eyes, as well, since most of the photos are her own)…

WHAT BETTER PLACE ON EARTH to go to concerts than New York City? None, I say! Since I don’t particularly like my job, I spend much of my days planning my nights — at concerts!

Here are some 2009 highlights, great and small:

THE YEAR STARTED with Robert Ashely’s trilogy of operas at La Mama, an exquisitely intimate environment for his “Dust,” “Celestial Excursions,” and “Made Out of Concrete.” Done with minimal sets and maximum musical talent — Sam Ashley (Robert’s son), Robert Ashley, Thomas Buckner, Jacqueline Humbert, and Joan La Barbara, with Blue Gene Tyranny on keyboards in Dust. The operas evoke Gertrude Stein in rhythmic repetitions with mesmerizing layering of voices and the ensemble often swirling around the ruminating voice of the narrator. The audience itself was filled with luminaries, and it was a terrific start to the New Year.   (Steve Smith’s review for the Times: “Layered Dialogues on Effects of Old Age”)

IN FEBRUARY, pianist Nurit Tilles performed at Tenri, an art gallery friendly to musicians, with flutist Don Hulbert and cellist Arthur Fiacco. Their program included two songs related to animals, the quirky “Secret Life of Fish” by Gerald Busby and the equally quirky “(Unlikely) Aspirations” for flute and imaginary creatures by Kirk Nurock (who has also written pieces like Sonata for Piano and Dog). But the tour de force performance of the evening came in Alexandre Tansman’s Sonata No. 2 for piano, a knockout piece requiring exceptional musical chops of which Nurit has plenty! The audience literally gasped throughout at her technical wizardry.

IN MARCH, Meredith Monk’s “Ascension Variations” was performed at the Guggenheim Museum. I had the enormous good fortune to be part of it all because the Stonewall Chorale (the nation’s first gay and lesbian chorus) was invited to be part of the chorus (we have performed with Monk several times). The piece was performed twice in one day and we had several rehearsals at the Guggenheim when it was closed. (Night at the Museum-esque! It was rather surreal.) Monk referred to it as her “Ben Hur experience” since there were 120 participants including chorus, instrumentalists, dancers, a string quartet, performance artists, and her own ensemble.  Here she is with the Stonewall:

The experience defies description.  Working with Monk is exhilarating and life altering. She is as vibrant and creative as ever. It was rough rehearsing in the museum as we were all spread out through the spiral levels, but it came together without a hitch and was a glorious event for both audience and participants. (Gia Kourlas’ review for the Times: “Guggenheim Spirals, in Sound and Motion” And for photos, go to Flickr.)

APRIL WAS A STELLAR MONTH for events with BAM a beehive of activity for “Merce Cunningham at 90.”  Forever young, Merce invited Sonic Youth and John Paul Jones to join him (he performed with music of Radiohead and Sigur Ros a few years ago). There was a gigantic pod-like structure on the stage for the musicians, which seemed to dwarf all else, but it was an amazing experience nonetheless. Merce took bows in his black velvet jacket from a wheelchair. (Review and great photos at Brooklyn Vegan.)

Also at BAM was Jonathan Miller’s unorthodox stage production of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, sung in English (Robert Shaw’s eminently singable translation) with the finest freelance choral singers in the city who were dressed in casual clothes with the 2 choirs facing each other.  The listener is drawn into the drama of 2000 years ago as though it were taking place for the first time in front of their eyes.

AND AT CARNEGIE HALL in April, Terry Riley’s “In C” was performed for its 45th anniversary.  I had a bird’s eye view from a box seat. Let me tell you, there were a lot of leftover hippie men (bald with ponytails!) in the audience and on the stage. The highlight for me was watching the luminaries perform. Having been specially gathered by the Kronos Quartet in honor of the 45th Anniversary of the piece, they included Philip Glass, Jon Gibson, Terry Riley, Lenny Pickett, Stuart Dempster, and Wu Man, among many, many others. The main keyboardist, Katrina Krimsky, was decked out in her notorious long black gloves, and was the original pianist in 1964. She didn’t miss a beat, which is not easy to sustain for 94 minutes straight.  (Steve Smith’s review: “Complex Patterns Within a Simple Key”)

I HAD THE PRIVILEGE in June of singing in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic as a member of the Dessoff Symphonic Choir.  It was Lorin Maazel’s last concert as the orchestra’s conductor. There were many tedious rehearsals leading up to it; James Bagwell is a demanding and exacting rehearsal conductor, but also one I respect tremendously. The work is actually so demanding that during one rehearsal he strained his arm so much that he had to use ice and a bandages for a few weeks afterwards. Yet that is how strenuously we all worked. The dress rehearsals were quite amazing (the stage was extended, it is after all the “symphony of a thousand”) and witnessing Maazel’s last rehearsal and last concert was historic. A conductor of great technical expertise and calm demeanor, we had only to watch the tip of his baton and all was revealed. Though we sang the symphony four times, I never tired of it.  Here’s a photo from one of the rehearsals:

THE GREAT MERCE CUNNINGHAM passed away on July 26. The week after that, the MCDC performed two free concerts in the River to River festival. Hundreds of people (many of them alumni of the dance company) flocked to witness what was an extremely emotional event. There were two platforms for the dancers, but if you sat in the right spot you could see both platforms at once (like his recent events at DIA Beacon). The dancers themselves were obviously shaken but resolved to perform. In the middle of the site-specific event, they performed 4’33” in honor both John Cage and Merce Cunningham. It was a stunning and emotional tribute.

IN AUGUST, Rhys Chatham’s “Crimson Grail” was finally performed in a free concert in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park.  (Last year it was canceled due to torrential rains, when I alone sat in the downpour and waited and waited but to no avail.) The work is massive — scored for 200 guitars plus one high-hat, which kept everyone locked on the same rhythmic strums. There were also four conductors placed strategically throughout the vast space. The audience (it was) was maxed out and overflowed into the streets. It was visually as well as aurally spectacular because the stage was swathed in pink (ie crimson) lighting. It was a quintessential New York City event.  (Review and photos at the Brooklyn Vegan.)

ON JOHN CAGE’S BIRTHDAY (September 5) the 17th annual John Cage Birthday Tribute took place at St. Mark’s Church, in association with the Danspace Project. This year was elegantly simple: guitarist Kevin Hufnagel performed an improvisational piece for prepared guitar, Nurit Tilles performed the legendary 4’33,” and then David Vaughan (Merce Cunningham’s archivist) gave an eloquent introduction to the evening’s full length film “Cage/Cunningham” by Elliot Caplan.  The heat and humidity did not prevent the space from being filled to capacity, with people waiting outside for the opportunity to get in if anyone left. It was a fitting celebration in honor of two legends who spanned two centuries.  Here’s a video of Kevin’s performance.

GOD BLESS BETTY. They’ve been around over 20 years performing an idiosyncratic fusion of rock, jazz, and blues and are still going strong in spite of some members’ health setbacks. I saw them once again on September 24 at the Highline Ballroom. Gloria Steinem (braless!) was on hand to introduce them and Lesley Gore made a brief guest appearance singing the theme from the “L Word.” It was an absolute hoot. The highlight of the evening, however, was the encore where they invited an older woman from the audience onto the stage while they sang the Beatles tune “I Wanna Be Your Man.” I almost died laughing, enjoying it so much.

WE ROSE AGAIN IN OCTOBER as Meredith Monk’s “Songs of Ascension” had another performance, this time at BAM. The space was very different and it required a different mindset from the Guggenheim performance, but was equally as transformative. Video projections by Ann Hamilton enveloped the audience as well as the contemplative sounds of the percussion, Todd Renolds’s String Quartet, and the Monk Ensemble. (Allan Kozinn’s Times review: “Bending Melodies on the Way to an Otherworldly Quest”)

DURING NOVEMBER Bang on a Can’s co-founder Julia Woolf celebrated her CD new “Dark New Ride” in a unique way: working her way from downtown to uptown, playing selected pieces from the CD in different venues — for free and all on the same day. I was able to get to the last stop, Faust Harrison Pianos on West 57 Street, for her piece for six pianos, based on a tiny piano riff from the opening bars of Aretha Franklin’s classic hit, Think. It was an intensely physical performance with its relentless driving rhythms of rock. The piece was over 20 minutes long, the audience was ecstatic.

Also last month, Bora Yoon gave a phenomenal concert at the historic Church of the Ascension with New York Polyphony. Tracing the transcendental properties of sound from early music to today’s experimental new music, Bora uses a huge battery of instruments:  vox aeterna, shruti box, mutant horned, Stroh violin from the turn of the century, organ, carillon church bells, lyrical voices, sonic sundries, and all of music between. If you’ve never heard her, run do not walk  to anything she does.  (Here’s a review by Harry Rolnick from ConcertNet)

AND FINALLY there was Phil Kline’s reinvention of holiday ritual, “Unsilent Night.”  As is tradition, we met at the arch at Washington Square Park, boom boxes and iPods in hand. But this year we were delayed because Phil left his daughter’s stroller somewhere by mistake and had to find it.  Once things got going, the magic was everywhere. Phil’s been doing this event since 1992 and this year we even had a police escort.  Here’s a good video montage of the experience from YouTube:

The crowd was quite big, and we wended our way through Washington Square Park, eastward down 8th Street, and into Tompkins Square Park. The best way to describe the event, which anyone can join, is that the crowd becomes a walking sonic sculpture with cascading shimmering bell-like effects plus a hint of cantus firmus. And, I admit, I like my cantus firm!

Happy New Year everybody!!!