cubeensemble.com Blog

Here’s a short-subject blog on Wind Quintet Attacca’s performance at St James Cathedral Tuesday, 8/24.

They added a bass clarinetist, Emily Marlow, to the regular ensemble to be able to perform Leoš Janáček’s wind sextet, Mládí (Youth),
written when he was in his 70’s and inspired by a young woman acquaintance.

Attacca literally made the rafters ring at St James. Mládí is most famously known by the 3rd movement piccolo melody, piercingly played by Jennifer Clippert. This group deserves more notoriety because they always choose interesting music and perform flawlessly.

Here’s a blatant plug for their next performance at Nichols Hall on Sept 12th: http://www.musicinstituteofchicago.org/events_detail.php?eventid=843
–
Bruce

It doesn’t take too many rain drops to keep me from going out on the #3 bus to hear the concert at St James Cathedral. But that was the case today. Fortunately, WFMT is now broadcasting these concerts, so cool and dry from my couch, I could hear Xiaohui Ma sing and bow the strings of the erhu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhu

BTW, the erhu player at the Blue Line Jackson St stop or out by Adams & Michigan is the only street player I ever tip.
–
Bruce

Monday night I heard the best performance of the summer at Pritzker Pavilion. The Band was called “Lost in the Trees”, but they were way more than a band. By my accounting there two cellists, a voilin, a 12-string guitarist/singer, some drums, and a very versitile singer, accordianist, french horn and glockenspiel player, and a tuba/bass guitarist. WOW! There was very much foot-pounding and toe tapping by me. I have to shout out to Chapel Hill NC for this ensemble

http://www.lostinthetrees.com/

–
Bruce

This lunchtime, 8/16, at the Cultural Center were two ex-Soviets from the Ukraine, Cellist Nazar Dzhuryn and pianist Tatyana Stepanova who played works by Ligeti, Frank and Prokofiev. The Ligeti cello solo was pretty mild by Ligeti standards, but judging by his facial expressions, Nazar takes this very seriously. Caesar Frank’s cello and piano sonata drew applause after the first part and then even more at the end. This is a fairly familiar work, but hearing/seeing it so enthusiastically performed was great. The (anti-clamatic) finisher was a short work “Valse” from the “Stone Flower” by Prokofiev.

Neither of these artists had any vodka on hand to celebrate a wonderful performance. When I thanked Nazar backstage, he at least considered adding a place in his cello case for a small bottle.
–
Bruce

Yes, and the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus dug up this gem to present Friday 8/13 and Saturday 8/14 in Millennium Park. After hearing it for the very first time in my 50 years of concert going, I’d rank it up there with Brahms and Verdi. The chorus, soloists and orchestra were excellent. There weren’t any particular Czech Dvořák-isms to be heard though. It’s as if Verdi slipped the score under the door with a note saying “Here, Antonín, you publish this one and I’ll go with my original”. But’s that’s not to take away from the power of this 1-1/2 hour work.

The finale of the Agnus Dei was met with drizzle Friday night, so there was a distracting exodus. But if you stayed to the end you’d be both very damp but not too bothered by it.
–
Bruce

by Janice Misurell-Mitchell

For my third day at the Theatre Communications Group National Conference I decided to move from the more politically-oriented sessions to a morning session on new play development and an afternoon session on teens in theatre.

The discussion on new plays began on ways to support playwrights financially (this sounded about as supportive as the commissions most composers get, i.e., not enough to live on while you’re working on the piece). However, shortly after, the facilitators asked how many playwrights in the room were looking for theatres to show their work, and how many theatres were looking for new plays.

The room exploded! Hands went up all over, and a fascinating list, put up on an easel for all to see, ensued. What was particularly interesting was not the presence of playwrights, but the excitement of theatre directors who were looking for new plays. Many represented smaller theatres, like The Cutting Ball Theater in San Francisco, but there were also larger ones such as the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis. One was reminded here (painfully) of the difference between theatre and visual arts, and music: enthusiasm for the newly created is so much more prevalent in the other arts. This situation would need a much longer discussion, but one that I think we in contemporary music need to work on perhaps even more strongly than we do now.

The next session I went to was possibly the very best: “Fostering the Next Generation of American Theatre Audiences.” The session was facilitated by Hallie Gordon, of Steppenwolf Theatre, who ran it tightly, so that almost everyone in the room of 60 people who wanted to speak had the opportunity to do so. The primary speakers were a group of about fifteen students, ages about 15-18 (more young women than young men), who were in theatre programs in Chicago (Goodman and Steppenwolf) and Berkeley (Berkeley Rep). There was a short film on the Berkeley Rep that focused on their programs for attracting a teenage audience, especially those who never had gone to theatre.

All three theatre programs had acting classes, special information sessions on the plays being given, and student-run productions overseen by Teen Councils at the theatres. Many of the teens came from neighborhoods (both urban and suburban) that either didn’t have theatre programs or didn’t offer theatre on the level that the repertory theatres did. Not all the teens in the room planned to go on to professional theatre, but all agreed that the experience had been a major one.

“Pop-up Performances” from Chicago Theatre Ensembles: Les Enfants Terribles (who sang Beatles songs)

They talked about having to deal with today’s emphasis on grades, and that their experience in the teen theatre programs helped them refocus, finding support in values that they believed in more than those of achievement. They loved the feeling of a theatre “family” that resulted from working on productions together. They also had suggestions about how to interest more teens in theatre, and how to get them away from their computers or iPods. Some of them suggested that their friends could be drawn in by getting them to go first to the big shows, like Wicked; the idea was to persuade them to try something a little more adventurous next. Peer pressure can work here.

I found that attending the Conference was a fascinating experience, and I’m very happy to have been able to report on it.

by Janice Misurell-Mitchell

The morning sessions on Friday, June 18, began at Steppenwolf Theatre, one of the major innovators in the theatre scene, not only in Chicago, but in the entire USA. Steppenwolf opened its five performance and rehearsal spaces to the 900 attendees for the Morning Manifestos, presented on Thursday and Friday. The idea behind the manifestos was to present short descriptions of projects that would deal with contemporary situations, such as producing theatre during a bad economy, new opportunities, and the one I chose, “Making the Invisible Visible”. I was unable to get there for the first part, which contained the actual presentations, but luckily the notes of the session were being recorded “live” on a screen. When I got there the room, holding at least 300 people, was filled with breakout groups leaning forward in intense conversations.

The session was moderated by consultant and community organizer, Caron Atlas: “Art, culture and democracy are closely intertwined…who gets to be on a [culture] map? Who is left off?”

The Invisible was about performance groups that didn’t have recognition beyond their immediate communities, and some of the neighborhoods discussed were in Brooklyn and Harlem. Atlas talked about a piece created by Danny Hoch, Taking Over, about gentrification, and how the Public Theater in New York hosted a hugely successful forum with audiences for the show; this led to a discussion about gentrification with City Council members.

Some comments I heard from the breakout sessions or saw onscreen:

“Branding—does theatre need to be coded as ‘American’ or ‘Continental’?

Re: kids and theatre—”there’s less reading these days…”

Re: cultural literacy—”can we promote this without providing it?”

“We don’t have a free market economy…someone is making decisions on what is subsidized.”

“In the UK it [theatre] is an entitlement—it’s fundamental to our engagement as citizens…In America it’s something separate, not an essence or entitlement.”
I had an interesting conversation with MK Wegmann, a resident of New Orleans and President and CEO of the National Performance Network, about the connection between hiphop, dance, and theatre. She sees the hiphop culture as a new source for American theatre. Although I recorded this, there was too much noise surrounding us, so here is an excerpt of what she told me:

“The group Universes which is based in the Bronx, started out as poets, reading their poetry publicly. They now are a theatre company: they tour their work, and they’re making plays with music. They knew they needed to learn about the conventions of theatre. Yes, they use narrative. Their most recent production is called Ameriville, a fabulous piece, and it builds on the hurricane Katrina experience. They went to New Orleans and collected stories and made a play that is touring: Southern Rep, which is one of the major theatres in New Orleans, performed it.”
Raelle Myrick-Hodges, Artistic Director of Brava Theatre in San Francisco

In the afternoon I went to the “Race in the 21st Century” session, hosted by Asian American playwright Philip Gotanda. The discussion centered around efforts to promote plays of African American, Latino, and Asian playwrights to create a theatre scene that more accurately describes the US. Kristopher Diaz, a young Latino playwright stressed the rising economic power of all these groups, and said white audiences could learn more about the different kind of Latino populations groups through theatre. There was a long discussion, initiated by Adam Thurman, Marketing Director of Court Theatre in Chicago, about bringing in audiences of color. “And if you have your ‘black play’ one year and it fails, the next year you’ve got to have two, and give it a chance. And it shouldn’t always have to be a play by August Wilson—there are so many others!”

Raelle Myrick-Hodges, Artistic Director of Brava Theatre in San Francisco talked about how your board and staff should reflect the audience you want to bring in. She also supported the idea of community theatre, storytime studios run by playwrights, and getting out into the community to meet the people you want to bring in—going to their restaurants, places of entertainment.

There was a complex discussion of whether identity politics was the best way to go, or if color blind casting was more successful in getting minority actors onto the stage. Directors of smaller theatres talked about how a lot of grant money goes to larger theatres for outreach, while the smaller theatres in the minority neighborhoods get very little. This was a wonderful, lively session, with the room jammed with people of many backgrounds and a wide range of ages and experience.

My first day at the Theatre Communications Group conference was a bit truncated: I had my own musical-theatrical performance and recording that evening, and so I was unable to go to the Opening General Session presented by Jonah Lehrer, contributing editor at Wired and the author of How We Decide. Lehrer discussed “How We Decide: the New Science of Decision Making.” The theme was in keeping with the progressive agenda of the conference, which had four main motifs: artists and artistry; race and gender; the arts learning continuum; and creative ecology.

Earlier that day, I was able to attend the session “Acting Together on the World Stage: Theatre in Conflict Zones II,” run by Daniel Banks of DNAWORKS, and Roberta Levitow, from Theatre Without Borders. The session showed ways in which theatre can function very powerfully to develop new understandings of sensitive political situations in communities. There are two examples I’d like to talk about.

The first was about a Hindu and Muslim section of Calcutta that had had horrendous violence in 2002. Ruth Margraff, a playwright (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) worked with the assistance of the US State Department to create a peace work, Hidden Fires, about the massacre in Gujarat (Calcutta). She involved street kids, women’s groups, neighbors, the police. The actors, all amateurs, learned to take on the parts of the opposite side; the work helped create greater understanding of the other group’s point of view.

Ruth stressed that it is never simple to work in these situations, and that it is important to recognize the prejudices and concerns of all sides, including those in the government (India’s and ours), and dangers the participants may face by being involved in a project that articulates threats to various powers.

The second piece, discussed by playwright Lisa Schlesinger (Columbia College, Chicago) was about an effort in 2009 to circumvent the wall constructed by the Israelis between Palestinian and Jewish communities in Ramallah and Jerusalem. Lisa had hoped to create a play at the checkpoint between the two cities, with the idea of having half the play on one side and half on the other. The Israeli authorities turned down the request, so Lisa and her colleagues from the Theatre of the Oppressed, among others, brought the Bread and Puppet Theatre to work with the youth of Ramallah and to create a parade of something they desired: to be able to go to the sea (not easy, with the current barriers). Lisa showed the resulting artworks: fantastical sea creatures, waves, etc. all in a parade through the main street of Ramallah, to the joy and puzzlement of the older people on the sidelines.

There are two other works I’d like to mention that are related to Lisa’s experience, both of which use theatrical expression to articulate the difficulties of split communities. The musical one is The Shouting Fence, created by British composer Orlando Gough, about a Syrian Druze community that was split as a result of the 1967 war.

The second is from “Artists without Walls,” which in 2004 installed two video cameras on either side of the wall near Jerusalem and filmed scenes from each side, which were then projected simultaneously on the other side. Thus the wall became “transparent” for several hours. (If you go to this site, be sure to scroll all the way to the right, to get the entire story plus photos.)

Tuesday’s Rush Hour Concert at St James Cathedral was very entertaining. Third Coast Percussion performed Paul Lansky’s “Threads” for a mixed combo of pitched and plain old percussion. Threads was conceived as series of ten parts, but is played with only a few pauses while 3rd Coast shifted gears between great vibrant tunes and get-down drum pounding. After they played, I never saw so many of the audience on stage for the “percussion petting zoo”. My favorites were the bunch of 1/2-inch iron pipes cut-to-size to play the scale and some beer and liquor bottles of appropriately sized to fit into the score. And of course there were clay flower pots to be hit, but that’s to be expected for 3rd Coast.

Threads was written by Lansky for So Percussion in NYC, but the our men here on the Third Coast proved they can bring it home.
–
Bruce

This Monday the Chicago Chamber Musician’s developmental group, Wind Quintet Attacca, played a wonderful concert at the Chicago Cultural Center. I’d say no more development is necessary. This is the best wind quintet in the area. Jennifer Clippert plays flute, Erica Anderson plays oboe, Jeremiah Frederick is on horn with Colin Anderson on bassoon and Barb Drapcho on clarinet.

Their first piece, “Quintet for Winds” by Robert Muczynski, was unknown by me, but the sound under Tiffany dome held my attention.
Piece #2, “Tangram” written by Attacca bassoonist Colin Anderson, based on the slicing and dicing of Igor Stravinsky was a new treat to the ears. The ensemble’s final was an arrangement of “Le Tombeau de Couperin” by Gunther Schuller. It included the infrequently heard fugue and toccata of the original work.

The next time we can hear Attacca is Tuesday 8/24 at St James Cathedral around 5:30, when they will play Janacek’s Mladi with bass clarinetist Emily Barlow.
–
Bruce