My eyes scraped the ceiling, searching for memories, lessons… For hopes and dreams
caught in the rafters…

A honeycomb of acoustic panels soared overhead, coating the wall, spilling onto a bright wooden stage where a piano stood – cast in handsome light…

A tryst of its own… with an audience yearning for that same sweet embrace…

I sank into an orange chair, plastic and familiar. Seats filled in around me, peppered
with bodies, young and old – music students, Lewiston locals, supportive faculty…

These concerts are free to students and the public – offering a chance for class credit,
culture, and world-class entertainment…

***

Gratitude earned is gratitude shown… Giving thanks, paying it forward – essential in the business of the arts. Reciprocity is a chance to meet, to greet… to oil connections and make
new friends… Sometimes on stage, other times in a chair… Sometimes playing, sometimes listening – sacred sides of the same coin.

So, after a beautiful performance of my own, I was called to Bates College the following evening, intent on supporting two of my dear mentors:

Carl C. Bettendorf and Hiroya Miura – Featured composers for a beautiful night of
music, hosted at the Olin Arts Centre – a pilgrimage of exploratory, solo piano… right
in the heart of Lewiston.

Two hours of contemporary chamber music, performed by the marvelous Yumi
Suehiro – a Brooklyn-based savant, master of ‘new music,’ and wife of Carl Bettendorf
– joined in musical matrimony.

C. C. Bettendorf is a world-class composer and conductor from Hamburg, Germany. He first came to America via the German Academic Exchange Service – taking up doctoral studies at Columbia University under Wolfgang Rihm (1952 – 2024) and Tristan Murail. Despite more traditional forays into chamber music and opera, Bettendorf’s original work is unconventional, inspired by postmodern techniques like ‘spectral’ music and ‘serialism’ – pushing the Western classical tradition to its limits…

On the other hand, Hiroya Miura is also a world-class composer, conductor – and
pianist…

He first came to Montreal from his native Japan as a youth – attending high school in
the historic city before pursuing undergraduate studies at McGill University. After
completing a degree in civil engineering, he took six months to play and record with
the acclaimed electronic outfit, No One Receiving. H. Miura then moved to New York
City and enrolled at Columbia University to pursue a Doctor of Musical Arts.

After earning his D.M.A., Miura headed to Maine, accepting a teaching position with
Bates College. Since 2005, he has set the standard for musical education in a liberal
arts environment – fostering growth and passion, expounding rigorous scholarship,
and forging an erudite understanding of music across time and cultures…

He challenges students to grasp the ‘What, Why, and How’ of a musical life, before em-
barking on one… As Chair of Composition and director of the Bates College Orchestra, Miura’s impact on the program cannot be overstated.

***

The lights dimmed, and Yumi Suehiro walked on stage, sitting at the piano… A rainbow of emotion, Suehiro tore apart the keys, leaving black and white shrapnel at her feet… Her fingers roared like thunder, then settled – poised, waiting…

Lithe fingers with their bent chicken necks, attacking the spread of black and white
keys…

She devoured long, winding passages then halted – as a dancer caught on pointe…
breathing life into soft sounds and stolen moments…

The program opened with Appello (1976) – a four-part suite of subtle, challenging
movements – written by celebrated American composer Barbara Kolb (1939 – 2024).
A close friend and mentor of Suehiro’s, the magnitude of her performance shook the
room… Emotion and reverence colored each note, the tension palpable…

As the applause faded, Suehiro drifted away into H. Miura’s 2007 opus, atardecer/a…
retraced – a delicate piece – almost drunk, meandering… A tender sketch of two voices
– frail and understated… Melting like snow in the warm Winter sun…

A celebrated artist who helped shape Montreal’s post-rock renaissance of the 1990s,
Hiroya’s minimalism captures the spirit of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, A Silver
Mount Zion, and Set Fire to Flames… More obvious influences might include the
gentle works of French pioneer, Erik Satie (1866 – 1925) and Japanese ambient icon,
Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952 – 2023).

Suehiro then tumbled into Klavierstück V, “Nachklang” (2018) – the latest in a three-decade series of piano pieces composed by Carl Bettendorf… A far cry from Miura’s lilting bleed, “Nachklang” is a jarring composition – a storm of tempestuous, roiling music and angular rhythms…

C. C. Bettendorf’s musical heritage draws deeply from 20th-century post-tonal movements, like the coveted (and contentious) Second Viennese School – led by Austrian composer and music theorist, Arnold Schoenberg (1877 – 1951) – whose bold, ‘expressionist’ approach helped legitimize atonal music in a tradition still dependent on J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart…

Vital considerations, like ‘resolutions,’ ‘cadence,’ ‘relative major,’ or ‘relative minor’
are abandoned in favour of something restless, backwards…

‘Serialism’ (or 12-tone composition) is a technique that abandons conventional, ‘functional harmony’ in favor of ‘tone rows’ – various pitches that are bundled together and assigned a number between 0 and 11… The original sequence of 12 tones, or the ‘Prime’ – is altered via the
Retrograde (going backwards from 11 to 0); the Inversion (opposite movements from
the Prime row); and the Retrograde Inversion (opposite movements and sequence
from the Prime row)…

Serialism can be awkward, abrasive – not the familiar catharsis of Strauss or Brahms…

Instead, the result is scathing, provocative, and often cerebral.

Bettendorf’s work is largely ‘Spectral,’ as well – a style of composition that employs
‘microtones’ – or pitches that exist between the black and white keys of a piano – that
cannot be expressed on a traditional fretted instrument – like guitar, mandolin, bass
guitar, or banjo…

Instead, these notes ‘exist’ in the space between, only accessible by the human voice
or fretless instruments (double bass, violin, cello, oud…). These microtones resonate in
the natural world – but are historically absent in the canon of popular music here in
the West.

Despite the maelstrom of biting dissonance, “Nachklang” was beautiful – exhausting
yet infectious… The main motive circled back again and again, anchoring not just
Suehiro, but the audience – a lighthouse, shining through the dark…

There are plenty of musical martyrs hanging from Bettendorf’s ‘family tree,’ swinging
in the wind… Influences, including another fiery Frenchman – Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992) – celebrated composer, organist, and ornithologist, who famously transcribed
(listening to and notating) bird song – another example of ‘microtonal’ music; and the German rebel Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 – 2007) – dubbed the ‘father of electronic music,’ and a pioneer of graphic score (altered musical notation)…

As the last notes of “Nachklang” died out, the audience erupted into applause. Yumi’s smile filled the room as her eyes found Carl, and together they stood and bowed, savoring the moment – the debut of this incredible piece on American soil…

***