V by L.A.-based collective Echo Society was performed at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on August 31. | Photo: Tim Navis A low bass rumbled through the packed 1,600-seat Ace Hotel theater, accompanied by a flickering green alien light. An audience member, dressed like a throwback from the Strokes days of New York, murmured an approval. Woah, whispered the woman next to him. For years, the world of classical music has tried to court a younger audience. This concert by the Echo Society, a squad of Los Angeles composers, might be the missing link.
Titled V: Spirit into Matter, this was the Echo Society's fifth concert since the septet of mostly film/TV/commercial composers - Rob Simonsen, Benjamin Wynn (better known as Deru), Joseph Trapanese, Brendan Angelides (Eskmo), Jeremy Zuckerman, Nathan Johnson, and Judson Crane - banded together in 2013. Each Echo Society concert is held in a different location, and each carries with it a different vibe. V was dark. For a little over two hours, a 40-person orchestra played new music by the Echo Society's seven members, as well as four special guests. And for the most part, the music suited the Ace Theater's Spanish Gothic architecture, skewing to the gloomier side, underscored by one of the Echo Society's special guests, the goth-metal songwriter Chelsea Wolfe. We're always reacting to the space a little, said Simonsen over the phone a few days after the concert.
V by L.A.-based collective Echo Society was performed at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on August 31. | Photo: Tim Navis
Reacting to the space went beyond the melancholy nature of the music. Simonsen's composition featured an ethereal chorus, dispersed in a quad formation around the theater, creating a hypnotic swirl of voices. It was Wynn's piece that ultimately inspired Simonsen. Wynn's arrangement centered around percussionists in the quads, playing unamplified brake and snare drums in intervals, creating a cacophonous rhythm in the room. The whole purpose was to create this psycho-acoustic phenomenon that we don't typically get from concerts, Wynn says. It's a way to engage our senses that aren't often engaged. The idea for the piece came from wanting to activate people's perceptions of space and the space around them.
It's no accident that the Echo Society's concerts are more ad hoc than most classical performances. The group, now a 501(c)3 nonprofit, was born out of frustration amongst friends fed up with the orchestral experience and its tendency to think inside the box. The solution, they decided, was to do it themselves. Though they were composers, their experience was mostly limited to studio work for film scores. A lot of us had very little experience [writing for certain groups of instruments], Wynn explains. Then imagine that we say, OK, let's write for these things that we've never written for maybe, and let's invite every single person we know - studio heads, agencies, music supervisors.' It can be very terrifying.
They used that fear, Wynn says, to fuel their creativity. There's nothing like trial by fire, he says with a laugh.
V by L.A.-based collective Echo Society was performed at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on August 31. | Photo: Tim Navis
Those first two concerts were held at Mack Sennett Studios in Silver Lake, where they sold 300 tickets. The third took place at Vibiana, a church-turned-production-space in Downtown L.A. - where Brazilian electronic musician Amon Tobin was a guest artist - and the fourth concert was in the warehouse space connected to MAMA Gallery in the Arts District, where they sold 750 seats. Each of these concerts was kept relatively secret, with no advertising or marketing, but somehow they continued to sell out. We've been wanting it to feel underground and word-of-mouth, Wynn says. But that show was also a lot of seats, so we've been lifting the curtains on it.
But that doesn't mean returning audiences won't be surprised. They are purposefully flexible, not adhering to any dogmatic rules that might create some kind of ethos. Our method is following our inspiration, and doing what really excites us, Simonsen says. It's all open and subject to change based on what we get excited about. Our method is that we don't have an executional method. It's more like, follow whatever turns you on.
This approach has led to great variation, particularly within the guest artists. For V, the guests included Wolfe, electronic musicians Clark and The Haxan Cloak, and renowned contemporary composer Ted Hearne, the latter whose vocoder-driven piece was a standout. I'm really proud that we've built this platform where all different kinds of genres can co-exist right next to each other, Wynn says. My piece was me being inspired by a very academic compositional style from the '80s in France next to a piece by The Haxan Cloak, who is an electronic artist doing this for the first time, next to someone like Ted Hearne. Our diversity is our strength.
Lighting design for Echo Societys V performance at the Theatre at Ace Hotel, August 31 2016. | Photo: Tim Navis
Another strength is the Echo Society's visual elements: those bright lights. Working with art director Anthony Ciannamea, L.A.-based lighting designer Tobias Rylander - who has done lighting for fashion labels Balenciaga and Calvin Klein, as well as musicians like FKA Twigs, the XX, and Fever Ray - created a strobing atmosphere of colored lights and projections that might have been worth the admission price alone.
For me, it feels natural to have a visual counterpart, because on most days, I'm working with music and picture, says Simonsen, who has worked on the scores for Foxcatcher, The Age of Adaline, Life of Pi, and (500) Days of Summer. When thos
