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11/15/09

I’ve been on a quest for the grail since seeing a German video of Bernstein’s “Mass” decades ago. And alas, by chance I saw a poster at Northwestern for the Theatre and Music school a few months ago for a student performance in November.  After excluding all my conflicts, I was left with the Sunday 11/15 (and last) show. 

For me it was Nirvana. Parts from it are rarely even played on WFMT. I did manage to find an MP3 posted on the internet, but seeing it live in all it’s glory made me regret I didn’t get all my friends  to experience one of the most moving musical theater events ever. There was a marching band, two orchestras, choir, children’s choir and a half a dozen soloists. I imagine Mahler would’ve liked it’s efficiency with only about 1/5th the musicians than in his 8th. 

It’s timeliness hasn’t faded since it was commissioned by Jackie Kennedy and premiered in 1971. Lenny did a superlative job depicting dissent against religious dogma. I’m surprised that he got away with it back then. But then again, that was a more liberal era. There is an extremely inspiring, hopeful coda, and I walked out humming one of the most glorious Bernstein melodies.

 Lenny created three of the musical productions that I love most: Mass, West Side Story and Candide. It’s been my luck that over the last two seasons that I’ve seen them all. West Side story was done by Columbia College in 2/08 at the 11th Street Theater. (Coincidentally scaffolding was featured in that set as it was in Mass.) In 11/08 Porchlight Theater did Candide at the Theater Building of Chicago. 

These creations can only add to my great appreciation of his genius as a conductor and educator. I miss him.

Bruce Oltman

Hey, who knew that the national instrument of Puerto Rico is the Cuatro? Not me.  It’s a 10 stringed half-guitar, half-mandolin with a little zither sound thrown in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuatro_(Puerto_Rico)

 Saturday night the Harris hosted a multi-”grupo” show sponsored by the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance of Chicago. The theater was sold out!

 I thought the music was wonderfully lively and all of it was performed without any sheet music. The tunes seem to be so natural to the performers that they don’t no stinkin’ music stands

 Of course, my Spanish is limited to ordering off a menu, so I missed all of the announcements, jokes and banter with the audience, but I liked the spirit of it all.

 The basic Cuatro band consists of one or more Cuatros, congas, bongos, guitar, string bass or electric bass guitar, vocalist(s) and one of those grooved gourds called the guiro. 

One of the most memorable things was the audience whistling like tree frogs at some points during the evening. Wow! This is a well-bonded community. This was the 11th annual festival, so I’ think I’ve missed a lot of fun shows. Here are two associated links if you’re curious:

http://www.praachicago.org/praa_cuatro_artists.aspx

http://www.myspace.com/luiscuatrista

Bruce Oltman

Certainly no lack of variety, loudness and drama at this one.  Wars and Wars and Circus and “Soledad”. 

 I’d heard and enjoyed Andres Carrizo’s “Fantasia Sobre “Soledad” for string quartet at Contempo’s concert last May. A second performance — what a treat.  I’d really like all the New Music ensembles in Chicago to play new compositions more than once.

 I’d also like someone to solve the “Image-Problem”.   It is really sad to see films and slides washed out by room and music stand and stage lighting. 

 It’s a mad mad mad world.   Laura Schwendinger honors a moment of circus fun time in contrast to the never-ending bad time of war war war that inspires Karim Al-Zand and Frederic Rzewski.  The personal tragedies that inspired Al-Zand’s work were clearly crafted and played –  a fine alternative if you do not want to play Barber again.  Let’s hear it again.  You can some more of Laura’s work at Four Score this Spring (Music Institute of Chicago) – mark your calendar.

 Rzewski was commissioned to write a piece for Eighth Blackbird plus a local string quartet and they have done performances half a dozen times around the country with the local quartet.  This was the first time Pacifica Quartet got to stick their tongues out.  (They have had opportunities to vocalize in the past).  Also, apparently, the time is right for classical musicians to destroy their instruments right in front of you — after all, we get to watch classical politicians and others try to destroy the world every day. More drama on this stage than we saw “at the movies” at Fulcrum Point earlier this week — no movie required.  What do we have to do to hear/see it again?

 Very good evening and good big audience!

Teddy Dean Boys

George & Rita Flynn gather together the tribe for an evening of some of the quietest music on the planet, played by Colin McAlister, guitar and Amy Briggs, piano.  The focus was on Juan Campoverde Q (the Q is new addition to his name to me) with Arvo Pärt bringing up the volume from pppp to ppp.   

A rough start: most of the lights are turned off as Colin appears. He announces that the backstage fan for the lighting system is so noisy and produces such a loud pure-tone hum that it was ruining his concentration; so the most of the lights had to be turned off in order to turn off the fan safely.  

Of course!, part 1   ——   then he can not see his score, nor can we see his face.  He has built a wall of tall music stands on which music stand lights are mounted, shining down, illuminating his scores on the typical very music stand you see many guitarists use.  The 3 footcandles of bounce light is all the illuminates his face.  His guitar is largely hidden behind the wall of music stands. 

Of course!, part 2:  —– the radiators decide to come alive, banging and wheezing. And there was more mechanical noise from the back of the hall. And the usual traffic noise. 

 He noted he would rather sound good than look good – he got his wish.  The sound system quality was good and they were very sensitive to the very delicate music, boosting the levels only slightly.   I just wanted to see what he was doing to make those fantastic sounds.  

The first half was all solo guitar music: Eric Simonson, Tristan Murail, Leo Brouwer in addition to JCQ.  All amazing music and all new to me except for the Murail, which Ruben Seroussi played at a MAVerick concert last month.  (Unbelievable – how often do you get to hear two performances of a contemporary work in 5 weeks). 

Following another JCQ solo guitar piece, Amy Briggs played most of the last half   – Part  early discovering-tintinnabuli works sandwiching a JCQ piano piece.  I appreciated the  variety in loudness levels and drama.  I was ready for a Flamenco interlude in the first half. 

Very good evening and good big audience!

Teddy Dean Boys

Within the span of one week, you could’ve heard two multi-media concerts by Fulcrum Point New Music project, one free and one for $30.

Last Friday, Nov 6th, they performed Betti Olivero’s score for a screening
of the silent film “The Golem” at a packed Claudia Cassidy Theatre.
I assume many attendees need a post-Halloween jolt from a clay man
brought to life.

Last night, Nov 12th, there four movie clips on the theme of “Inner Torments”, at the not-so-packed Harris Theater. Stephen Burns always shows great genius putting together very entertaining programs on rather profound themes.

The highlight from last night was a solo for violinist Rika Seko with electronics to accompany clips from a documentary about Tibetan refugees in India. Besides this poignant and haunting piece, the other three pieces contained carnality, profanity and humor. How could anyone not like that?

But I’m conflicted on multi-media performances. I enjoy watching musicians do their job and in some cases it’s difficult to divide my attention between what’s being shown and what’s being played. In the two cases above, the Golem was a total movie experience, like the opera, where the musicians could’ve been in a pit. But at the Harris, there were times when my eyeballs were bouncing around as if I were at a tennis match.

That however, won’t stop me from enjoying the whole experience.

Bruce Oltman

November 13, 2010

It’s November and as usual, even on a Thursday evening, there are too many choices. The CTA helps in the decision making. John Adams at 6:00 p.m.  at The Art Institute of Chicago followed by Fulcrum Point at the Harris at 7:30 pm.

As part of this year’s Chicago Humanities Festival:  Laughter,  John Adams gave the Third Annual President’s Lecture titled “The Vinteuil Sonata: Where Music and Literature Collide”.  A nice big crowd – est 600 – (the Main Floor and Side Arm were about 90% full, but the Balcony was nearly empty) gathered in Rubloff Auditorium and the first thing I think is:  “Why do these folk come to the lecture, but not to our concerts?”  I don’t think there was one person there that I see at New Music Concerts.

His paper was clever, but they chained him to the lectern, turned out all the lights except for one spot light and turned on an odd sound system, which broadcast from way over there, while he was, here, right in front of me — a lot of forgiving required.

At the end, you want to run out and buy Proust and Mann … again.  I’ve tried to to get through À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) and Doctor Faustus (Doktor Faustus) before… maybe I’m mature enough now?

I ran over to the Harris Theater for Fulcrim Point…

Half of this program was a second hearing / viewing: Randall Woolf’s “Holding Fast” and Jacob TV’s ” GRAB IT’ were part of Fulcrum Point’s program a couple of weeks ago at Evanston SPACE. These two worked better at SPACE than at the Harris — the musicians contributions were the focus there and the films seemed brighter. Too often at the Harris, I want someone to turn up the volume for the acoustic events. Same thing last night for the Muhly and Bartok.

One very nice discovery — Nico Muhly can write some lovely music (The Reader). The little that I have heard in the past has been on the unlovely side and appropriate for those compsitions. But you wonder what else is in this score – the selections were too much alike and finally, did not seem to belong to the film clips — surely not everything in this story is lovely.

What to pay attention to? Watching a film, the music is, usually, supposed to support the story and images. Watching a concert, shouldn’t the musician be the star? I struggled to pay attention to the music — distracted by the images. It would have helped if Jeremy Ruthrauff’s sax and Rika Seko’s violin had more punch – the sound tracks on those films dominated. (They had the punch at SPACE).

Teddy Dean Boys