BRATTLEBORO — As it begins now, with its Young Artists Program (YAP) and then its 2015 Summer Season with more than 30 public events between mid-June and early August, Yellow Barn Music School and Festival is presenting a performance that is unusual in two ways.
First, unlike most of their concerts, this one will not be performed in Putney. Second, in the strictest sense, it is not even a concert of classical music.
But what kind of concert it is exactly may be difficult to say.
On Friday, June 19, at 8 p.m. at the West Village Meeting House in Brattleboro, Battle Trance will perform Travis Laplante's Palace of Wind, a work that draws extraordinary energy from contemporary classical, avant-garde jazz, black metal, ambient, and world music.
A genre-bending saxophone quartet, Battle Trance is led by Laplante and includes Matthew Nelson, Jeremy Viner, and Patrick Breiner.
Last fall, Palace of Wind by Battle Trance was released to great acclaim on New Amsterdam Records.
The Brattleboro concert will begin with performances by Yellow Barn Young Artists Program instrumentalists, using techniques taught by Travis Laplante and melodies written by YAP composers as the building blocks of improvisatory works.
Palace of Wind is a 45-minute piece that transcends genres. LaPlante's musical background has primarily been jazz. In his youth he had been a member of a swing band and he played bebop. He and all the members of the quartet have college degrees in jazz music. One of LaPlante's great inspirations was John Coltrane, both his life and music.
“He opened my ears, mind and heart,” says Laplante. “Coltrane kept going in the direction he had to go, even if he lost fans along the way. In works like A Love Supreme, he was able to link spirituality and music.”
Nonetheless, Laplante feels that Palace of Wind is not jazz in the strictest sense. The work is predominantly composed, although there are sections within the structure to allow elbow room for improvisation.
LaPlante explains.
“The influences on the work are modern classical music, world music of indigenous cultures, and even some metal music. There is a lot there, so it is difficult to say the piece of music is this or that.
“This album-length composition pushes the four saxophonists to the limit, shedding new light on the saxophone as an ensemble instrument. It is a new kind of music and therefore modern, and yet it's absolutely primordial, the transformative act of human beings blowing air through tubes and producing something timeless.”
LaPlante composed Palace of Wind to highlight the talents of the specific musicians of Battle Trance, a quartet that consists of four tenor saxophonists dedicated to playing Laplante's music.
“Battle Trance had an auspicious inception,” LaPlante writes. “One morning, I literally awoke with the crystal clear vision that I needed to start an ensemble with three specific individuals: Matthew Nelson, Jeremy Viner, and Patrick Breiner. I was actually unfamiliar with their work as musicians and had only a minimal relationship with them as individuals.
“I was also aware that a band of four tenor saxophones could be the worst idea ever. In spite of this, I followed through and contacted Nelson, Viner, and Breiner. I gave them very little information beyond my morning experience. But no one hesitated – the ensemble formed that evening.”
LaPlante elaborated further for The Commons.
“To say that Battle Trance was formed organically is an understatement. Working on solo saxophone music for many years, I felt the need to start a group with these specific musicians. Getting together for rehearsal there was instant chemistry. After composing for a long time for the solo sax, I wanted to take the sonic environment into more ensemble music. I hoped to amplify my sound with the give and take of other musicians.”
As LaPlante writes, “The players use circular breathing to build continuous, hypnotic waves of sound; a multiphonics layer to create intricate textures that reflect an ancient time; and blisteringly fast lines seem to liquefy into each other. Unorthodox articulations and unusual fingerings are also part of the vast sonic vocabulary that the members of Battle Trance have painstakingly mastered.”
However, Palace of Wind isn't merely concerned with demonstrating the virtuosity of the ensemble, nor with impressing or entertaining the listener.
“Instead, it is meant to be a portal of resonance where there is no separation between the listener and the sound,” La Plante adds.
For many years, Laplante has made his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., but he is a native Vermonter. Laplante grew up in Woodstock, and he likes to claim that he spent most of his adolescence at the Vermont Jazz Center.
“Most every week in high school, my loving and supportive parents would drive an hour and a half so I could join the Wednesday jam sessions at the VJC in Brattleboro,” he says.
Now LaPlante hopes to return to living in southern Vermont full time.
“I am making Vermont my primary residence and intend to visit New York to perform and whatever about a week every month,” he says. “Things are going well with my shift in relocation and I feel confident that shortly I can tell people that I no longer live in New York full time.”
Most of LaPlante's energy these days is spent performing with Battle Trance.
“As I found out looking over my income tax records, just from September 2014 until the end of last year, Battle Trance played 30 concerts,” he says. “Since we prefer to play our music unamplified, Battle Trance can play anywhere. We have played in jazz clubs, churches, large concerts halls, public outdoor structures, dingy basements, and even a grain silo.”
However, LaPlante does more than perform. Currently, he is a guest faculty member at YAP, where he works with the young artists who specialize in classical repertoire to teach them how to incorporate improvisation into their music.
“Part of my mission is to make improvisation seem a little less odd to them, to get them to open up,” he says. “It is a mistake to think improvisation has no place in classical music. Everything literally can be an improvisation.”
LaPlante also is a practitioner of Qigong, an ancient Chinese health care system that integrates physical postures, breathing techniques and focused intention. “It is a healing arts, and is considered the mother of the more familiar tai chi,” he says. His wife is an acupuncturist.
These two sides of LaPlante's profession career - music and healing - do not seem disparate to him.
“Music is healing,” he says. “I am very inspired by ancient physicians who intervene between heaven and earth to restore someone's health. As I struggle to help someone, I use sound to make that person remember who they are, to release that which is blocked or obstructed.”
LaPlante believes his music can be spiritually healing, although he has some issues with the word.
“I dislike the modern idea of spirituality which means feeling good all the time,” he says. “Every ancient spiritual text makes clear that feeling good is not what spirituality is about. But rather it entails facing the fear and darkness in one's self.
“For instance, Palace of Wind locates itself, the musicians, and the audience in a purely spiritual space. But it is not relaxing meditative music. I believe my music is an opportunity to look inside ourselves. It is pure resonance that brings us together as human as it intimates a heart-to-heart with other people. Without using words, we can experience oneness.”
LaPlante concedes that he likes to play in churches, but not because they are spiritual halls.
“Since Battle Trance prefers to play its music acoustically, we need the dynamic space that suits us without amplification,” he says. “For us, acoustic is important for the music because, in essence, Battle Trance is simply about pushing wind through metal tubes modified by a piece of wood. That is, to take a primordial air stream and give it a human quality.”
LaPlante says that the response to Palace of Wind has been phenomenal.
“It's been amazing how it affects listeners,” he says. “Those with no prior exposure to the avant garde are moved by this music. Something about it goes beyond style. Palace of Wind is not just for people who 'know' about music. For any background, this work can induce a heart-opening experience.”
That also includes LaPlante himself.
“I can honestly say I have greatly benefited from the piece of music,” he explains. “Our playing and the public reaction to Palace of Wind has helped rid a certain cynicism in myself.”