Photo: Lawrence Sumulong
Michael Gordon’s Travel Guide to Nicaragua, an hourlong autobiographical work for chorus and cello, unfurls like a long bolt of rich woven cloth, with textures that get denser and then thin out, patterns that appear to return but keep subtly evolving, colors that intensify and recombine. “My father ran a store in downtown Managua where he sold textiles,” the singers inform us. “I would jump on the long rolls of fabric and run around the store talking to everyone.” This wordy and plush reverie seems to have sprung from that fragment of memory.
Written for the virtuosic vocal ensemble the Crossing and the cellist Maya Beiser, Travel Guide has little to report about Central America. It’s not stitched through with postcard folklore or local rhythms. Though it narrates a dramatic tale, juxtaposing horrific world events with private losses, it does all that without the aid of showstoppers or arias, but rather with matter-of-fact serenity. Gordon first made his reputation with loud, serrated music brimming with aggressive urgency, but the beauty of this score lies in that refusal of big gestures and its preference for the telling detail, the musical equivalent of a camera zooming in on a narrator’s expressive hands.
The piece takes the form of a spotty family memoir. In plain language, it recounts the half-remembered saga of a Jewish family’s migrations from Poland to Cuba, New Jersey, and Nicaragua. The text, accompanied by photographs, doles out vignettes: Gordon’s grandfather’s emigration to Cuba, his grandmother’s transatlantic pursuit of her husband, his father’s early childhood in Poland and dumb-luck escape just before Hitler’s army exterminated the town’s Jews.
The characters’ names are omitted, their personalities hazy, their motivations impossible to reconstruct. That patchiness can be frustrating, like so much family history. “My sister says the story of our sister is important, so this is it,” the chorus announces, but it’s never quite clear which siblings are which, whose story it is that matters or why. Evocative snapshots from another age don’t bridge the gulf of years but only accentuate the mysteries that census records and ships’ manifests leave open: Who were these people? What did they think, how did they feel? Would I have liked them?
To Gordon, those voids are material, useful precisely because they lead him to explore the friction between vividness and vagueness. The Crossing enunciates the text — really a series of captions to the photos clicking through on the screen above the singers’ heads — with their trademark clarity. The voices are clean, clear, and natural. And then the music leads them into stretches of pixelated shimmer: They sing in unison and then break into two dozen separate lines. Or else they slip intentionally out of phase so that you can’t distinguish the holler from its echo. Lean triads bloom into chords that glisten with dissonance. And through it all, the cello keeps urging and exhorting, a leader cutting through the crowd’s murmurs hoping to draw its attention. Gordon offers no explanation of the cello’s role, but I hear it as a stand-in for himself, the memoirist sifting through all the scraps of lore, trying to re-create his own operating system.
Michael Gordon’s Travel Guide to Nicaragua
- Advertisment - 
Recent Comments
on CONCEPT ART: New Details Revealed for Disney Cruise Line Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point Destination
on “Completely Knocked Me Out”: Rob Lowe Recalls Boxing Match With Tom Cruise On 1983 Brat Pack Classic
on CBS Sports announces Matt Ryan will join NFL studio show. Longtime analysts Simms and Esiason depart
on Carlos Sainz’s Soccer Fanboy Emerges as Spaniard Shares Defining Moment With This Real Madrid Legend
on Biden: ‘At this point I’m not’ planning to visit East Palestine, Ohio, after toxic train derailment
on ‘Best Intention’: Chris Kirk Has Absolute Trust in Jay Monahan and PGA Tour’s Widely Debated Model
on Ahead of big sports weekend, dispute with Disney leaves millions of cable subscribers in the dark
on A heavy wave of Russian missile attacks pounds areas across Ukraine, killing at least 4 civilians
on 2024 Super Bowl: CBS Sports Network and CBS Sports HQ to combine for 115 hours of weeklong coverage
on 2023 NFL All-Rookie Team: CBS Sports draft expert, former GM unveil league’s best first-year players
on Army vs. Coastal Carolina live stream, how to watch online, CBS Sports Network channel finder, odds
on AL Rookie of the Year Julio Rodriguez Spreads Joy and Sportsmanship to the Youth of Loma de Cabrera
on After UFC Fallout, Conor McGregor Offers a Valuable Piece of Advice to Free Agent Francis Ngannou
on Dubai International Airport sees 41.6 million passengers in first half of year, more than in 2019
on Devout athletes find strength in their faith. But practicing it and elite sports can pose hurdles
on Despite strong Lunar New Year holiday data, consumer spending in China isn’t roaring back just yet
on Dave Portnoy: Taylor Swift’s security should ‘drag Kim Kardashian to jail’ if she attends Eras Tour
on CONCEPT ART: New Details Revealed for Disney Cruise Line Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point Destination
on “Completely Knocked Me Out”: Rob Lowe Recalls Boxing Match With Tom Cruise On 1983 Brat Pack Classic
on CBS Sports, Serie A announce new TV rights deal; Paramount+ to air over 400 Italian soccer matches
on Cam Newton’s Violent Public Incident Draws Hilarious Reaction From 3x All-Star: “Where Do I Sign Up
on Boston College vs. Army live stream, how to watch online, CBS Sports Network channel finder, odds
on Angel Reese Launches Foundation Dedicated To Empowering Women Through Sports & Financial Literacy
on A weaker dollar, skyrocketing prices and ‘record’ visitor numbers: Good luck in Europe this summer