Sometimes I wish we had cats

Ransom Wilson conducting Lauren Flanagan and Le Train Bleu at Galapagos, June 16, 2011

I attended one of the great concerts of my life last night, at Galapagos Art Space, Dumbo, Brooklyn. Ransom was conducting his new ensemble, Le Train Bleu, in their second public outing. It was a modern classical concert, featuring four pieces by living composers, all of whom were in the audience – that speaks volumes to the respect they have for Ransom.

It started with Larry Dillon's Appendage for soprano and six instruments: strings, woodwinds and piano. The incredible Lauren Flanagan, fresh from her triumph in New York City Opera's Séance on a Wet Afternoon sang the challenging, weird, funny and haunting vocal line. She was magnificent, as were the players. It's not a piece I'm likely to put on my iPhone, for it benefits greatly from a live reading, especially in this intimate and beautiful space.

Next came John Halle's Mortgaging the Earth, for two sopranos, ten players (strings, winds and horn) and video; it's a truly powerful musical and visual setting of Lawrence Summers’ infamous and disturbing 1991 World Bank memo about toxic waste and pollution. Chilling and intense are two words that come to mind.

One of the great things about Galapagos is that it is not a formal concert hall with rows of identical seats facing the same way and rows of nearly identical patrons acting properly and applauding dutifully. This is an multi-purpose arts space. There are tables on islands separated by water; there's a bar; there's dark and changing lighting and ambient music playing during breaks. Between pieces the audience erupted in excited chatter, presumably about what they had just heard. It is all the things that a New York Philharmonic concert at Avery Fisher is often NOT: high-energy, fun, unusual, and, most importantly, it attracted an audience that is essential to classical music's future. I was certainly one of the older people there.

After a short intermission we heard Martin Bresnick's My Twentieth Century and then Randy Woolf's Hee Haw for two sopranos, 15 instruments (!) and sampler. The Bresnick is for marimba, piano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello and spoken poetry and was the only piece I was familiar with, having listened to it many times. It's filled with driving rhythms and evocative and nostalgic verbal images made somehow more personal as each of the players takes a turn at reciting the words.

The Woolf piece that fittingly closed the show is a wild ride melding country fiddling to jazz-infused pounding rhythms and soaring vocal lines. It is a crowd pleaser and a real hoot. It's modern classical music at its most engaging and most fun.

The entire experience was exhilarating. And I'm looking forward to more, as Le Train Bleu has been named a house ensemble at Galapagos. A new star has risen!

And if we had cats? Well, then I could have stayed longer than the twenty minutes or so I spent saying hello to the composers and the musicians, and, of course, congratulating Ransom. I would have loved to hang out more and go eat a late New York supper.

But we have dogs and I had a train to catch.