Pattern Is Movement, from Philadelphia, had passages of Broadway or operetta melody amid burly drum-and-keyboard workouts, and Villa Vina, from New York, veered between unison heavy-metal riffing and complex, meter-shifting counterpoint.
Mr. Hakmoun made up for throat troubles with sintir virtuosity in complex meters and with strutting, whirling dances.
You feel him seizing the audience with his glances, complex meters, fully three-dimensional phrases — even with an isolated finger.
It abounds in shimmering cluster chords thick with pungent dissonance; complex meters derived from Hindu and Greek rhythms; chantlike melodies; and skittish birdcalls.
It makes sense that a conductor so adept at executing the complex meters of contemporary music would make every syncopation, offbeat accent and rhythmic intricacy in this Brahms score so precise and telling.
The music draws from all elements of Messiaen's language: modal harmonies, cluster chords thick with tart dissonance, metrically complex meters based on Hindu and Greek rhythms, chantlike melodies and skittish bird calls.
In "Tema y Variaciones," for clarinet and piano, the Caribbean syncopations and complex meters are still there, but now as high-pep engines of musical form and wit rather than conveyers of local color.
Hedd Wyn's father wrote light verse, and when his son was 11 he bought him a "Yr Ysgol Farddol" (The Bardic School), a rule book of complex meters that had been codified in the 14th century.
