This New York Times review covers Seth Parker Woods's multimedia performance, "Difficult Grace." The performance, premiered at the 92nd Street Y's Kaufmann Concert Hall, blends classical cello with spoken word, dance, and electronic sounds.
The review highlights the innovative nature of the performance, noting that Woods uses the cello as a metaphor for a journey beyond classical confines. However, it also points out that the spoken word sections were difficult to understand without projected supertitles.
The cellist Seth Parker Woods presented an evening-long, multimedia program titled “Difficult Grace” Saturday evening at the 92nd Street Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall. It was the full staging’s world premiere, but, as Woods remarked, he had premiered a “nucleus version” in February 2020 in Seattle; the coronavirus lockdown gave him the opportunity to rework his concept into its current form.
Woods was already a cellist of prodigious technical gifts and sharp intellect. This program has stretched him even further into performing as a spoken word artist and singer as well as instrumentalist.
Aided by the choreographer and dancer Roderick George — a childhood friend from Houston — “Difficult Grace” was a feast for the ears, eyes and mind.
In one portion of Freida Abtan’s “My Heart Is a River,” the audience sees a prerecorded video projection of two dancers as Woods plays live in front of the screen. The dancing figures straddle a cello that they are reimagining as a boat. The performer in front — actually Woods himself, with dancer Tamzin O’Garro behind — is wielding the cello bow as an oar. It’s a marvelously apt metaphor: Woods is an artist rooted in classical music, but whose cello is a vehicle that takes him, and his concertgoers, on wide-ranging journeys.
The program included works by a large roster of composers, many of whom used electronic sound design as well as live acoustic cello: Fredrick Gifford, Monty Adkins, Nathalie Joachim, Abtan, Ted Hearne, Devonté Hynes and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay. (In addition to Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, who died in 2004.)
Gifford’s piece “Difficult Grace,” which lent its name to the entire program, included projected artwork by Barbara Earl Thomas and was inspired by Dudley Randall’s poetry. Regrettably, it was difficult to discern from the auditorium seats much of what Woods was saying during long spoken-word stretches. (Projected supertitles would be a welcome addition.) The same was true during Hearne’s work with an unprintable title, with texts by the poet Kemi Alabi. Within the most riveting section of Hearne’s piece, Woods sang and played R&B-flavored harmonies atop hip hop-inspired electronic beats.
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