For more information about the Meridian Arts Ensemble, please contact us. Meridian Ensemble shines in wide latitude of styles Friday, October 29, 1999 by Donald Rosenberg, Plain Dealer Music Critic They played. They screamed. They vocalized. They entertained. They are the members of the Meridian Arts Ensemble, which presented a program Wednesday at the Cleveland Museum of Art's Gartner Auditorium that was as ear-filling as it was intriguing. The music wasn't to everyone's taste, which one player was quick to acknowledge after intermission. "Thanks for sticking around," he said. For those who did so, the Meridian proved an eclectic whirlwind that basked in myriad styles and went wildly avant-garde. These superior instrumentalists - a brass quintet and percussionist - think nothing of dipping tonal toes into the classical, pop, jazz, rock and ethnomusic fields. They juxtapose idioms and negotiate complex ideas with dashing nonchalance. So many works. So many notes. The Meridian exults in adventurous musical realms, including scores written by their own and their friends. Ensemble hornist Daniel Grabois contributed "Migration," which is said to be based on a Schubert theme but explodes with so many feisty jazzy rhythms that dear old Franz must take a back seat to the 1990s activity. The haunting "Nansi Imali," which is Zulu for "Here is the Money," was performed in an arrangement by Stephen Barber that included chants, spoken phrases and trombone swoops. Another brief encounter was Cuban-born composer Tania Leon's "Saoko," which is named for a Cuban drink made of rum and cocoa. The piece certainly sounds inebriated, with all sorts of quirky and spicy tidbits and a few vocal outbursts near the end. David Sanford borrows formal aspects of the baroque cantata for his six-movement work, "Corpus," and then heads in every conceivable musical direction. The writing is brash and breezy, full of outlandish riffs and quizzical patterns. The players use myriad mutes to achieve a spectrum of colors. It is a high-energy, occasionally lyrical jam session where just about anything goes. The Meridian musicians spent their second half in equally varied company. Tomas Genet's "Little Buddha" claims an engaging swing feel. The classical and big-band worlds meet one another in John Halle's "By All Means" by way of layered textures and rhythmic vigor. By all means, the night's most surprising piece was Su Lian Tan's "Moo Shu Rap Wrap," which is as tantalizing and strange as the title suggests. The work evokes Chinese hip hop in a panoply of tonal whoops, conflicts, spoken gestures and instrumental challenges (a trumpeter playing trumpet and fluegelhorn at once). Neat, bizarre, raw and whimsical, you might say. Jason Forsythe's "Sanctity" takes a much more traditional route, unrolling a lovely gospel tune until a surprise ending. The Meridian played this piece with the same care for phrasing, attack, interplay and sonic color as they did everything else, including four irresistible pieces by Frank Zappa that ended the night with a sonic punch. E-mail: drosenberg@plaind.com Phone: (216) 999-4269 top of page This website and all content copyright © 2006 Meridian Arts Ensemble