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PRESS (AS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF MONDAY EVENING CONCERTS
"In the invigorating seasons that Jonathan Hepfer has headed it, Monday Evening Concerts has become a revelatory experiment in not underestimating his public — a public that, like him, is open to astonishment. Hepfer is quickly building trust: If he’s interested in something, it’s bound to be interesting and the performances can be counted on to thrill. The new generation in the hall let a special experience from a series, begun in 1939 and newly revitalized, sink in. I know nothing like it." (Mark Swed, LOS ANGELES TIMES) "Monday Evening Concerts, the venerable Los Angeles new-music series, has experienced a spectacular creative surge under the direction of the percussionist and conductor Jonathan Hepfer." (Alex Ross, THE NEW YORKER) “Hepfer has managed to bring in startlingly young and diverse audiences; Monday Evening Concerts events resemble Arts District gallery openings more than they do academic concerts.” (Alex Ross, THE NEW YORKER) ”The long-standing curse of the new-music concert is a tendency toward miscellany. A bunch of pieces in disparate styles are thrown together, leaving the audience to pick and choose favorites. Hepfer, a former punk-rock drummer who fell in love with John Cage’s music at the age of seventeen, searches out connections, even when the works in question lie centuries and continents apart. He has a keen sense for the myriad entanglements of Los Angeles cultural history. The fact that M.E.C. came to life in a space designed by a pioneer of residential modernism, with a bevy of artists and writers looking on, is a model for his thinking.“ (Alex Ross, THE NEW YORKER) |
Photo: Mario de Lopez (2019)
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Photo: Myung J Chun (2019)
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PRESS (AS A PERFORMER)
GEORGES APERGHIS – LE CORPS À CORPS “In his program note, Hepfer described Aperghis’ solo percussion piece “Le Corps á Corps” as “a schizophrenic melodrama,” and he turned it into a schizophrenic tour de force. Playing a zarb, a Persian drum, Hepfer was a percussionist at war with himself as he fluttered on the drum while reciting a surreal French text about a motorcycle racer losing self-control…Sometimes the drum acted as a therapy tool for the vocalizing drummer. Other times it disrupted thought. The film’s image of a head disconnecting from the neck wouldn’t go away. As for Hepfer’s performance, the only possible response was: How did he do that?” (Mark Swed, LOS ANGELES TIMES) TREVOR BACA / PAUL GRIFFITHS – ( H A R M O N Y ) “Baca's ( H A R M O N Y ) was conducted by the Monday Evening Concerts' artistic director, Jonathan Hepfer. Like everything on the program, it was brilliantly performed.“ (Mark Swed, LOS ANGELES TIMES) ROLF RIEHM – HAWKING “The piece ends with a big bass drum solo. The outstanding percussionist Jonathan Hepfer was hidden behind his instrument in the back of the hall. Its source obscure, the unstoppable sound went through the floor, through the ears, through the stomach.” (Mark Swed, LOS ANGELES TIMES) |