The People's Snob

2011-03-02T10:54:00.000-05:00

New posts are at Fair Hearing. Thanks for checking out both blogs!

RSO Metro Collection: frontier music

2011-02-07T23:25:00.000-05:00

Several weeks ago, I attended a Richmond Symphony concert in its Metro Collection series, which brings a smaller orchestra (e.g. 10 violins instead of 22; 1 horn instead of 5) to venues in the counties surrounding Richmond. My TD review is here, and it tells you all I'm going to say about the music except, dear Antonio, please forgive me-- by calling your piece "fluff," I didn't mean to imply it was disposable.

A few words about the space, though. The concert was held in a gym at Kingsway Community Church in Midlothian. At least I think it was a gym, because there were basketball court lines on the fake-wood floor, but no evidence of nets. You can sort of tell by this photo from the church's website that the room is shaped like a fan. It felt too wide for the size of the orchestra. And I can't have been much closer than most seats in the Carpenter Theatre.

At intermission, I chatted with the man sitting behind me, who said this was the closest concert to his home he had ever been to. I had been not-quite-grumbling about having to drive so far to it. I guess if the world isn't going to revolve me, it might as well benefit someone else along the way.

In fact, I really do like the Metro Collection concept, both because it invites a different sort of programming and because it puts the orchestra in settings that many people feel are more inviting or familiar. But I really hate the universal lighting that usually comes with these alternative territories. I don't care what the musicians wear--although I appreciate a subdued uniformity--and I don't care when people clap--as long as we do it alertly-- but please, please, at least dim the house lights so I can feel like the music is showing me something beyond myself. And, more realistically, so I'm less likely to be distracted by my surroundings.

From YouTube to Schoenberg in 3 simple steps

2011-01-24T09:51:00.001-05:00

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra has announced the musicians selected for its second concert, to be held in Sydney, Australia, in March. (The first, in 2009, was at Carnegie Hall)

Richmond Symphony Orchestra trumpeter Mary Bowden is one of the chosen. You can hear her perform the Haydn trumpet concerto on Feb. 19 in a free concert with the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Photo by Lydia Danmiller

But that's not the only Richmond connection. YTSO composer and behind-the-scenester Mason Bates, whose track suit is as handsome in real life as in the photos, is a Richmond native.

One of Bates' composition teachers here in Richmond was Dika Newlin. In 1997, I served her cocktails during a short-lived waiting stint, but I didn't realize until later who she was. I wonder what she would think of the YTSO.

And Newlin was a noted Schoenberg scholar, which brings us to the end of this blog post, almost.

This Wednesday at the Modlin Center, eighth blackbird and six UR faculty musicians will present a free concert of Schoenberg's chamber works, including the String Trio, Herzgewaechse, Weihnachtsmusik, Nachtwandler, and Anton Webern's arrangements of the Chamber Symphony No. 1 and Five Orchestra Pieces.

The RSO wonders if you love them now that they can dance

2011-01-20T12:09:00.000-05:00

My preview article about this weekend's concert featuring The Contours performing with the Richmond Symphony appeared in today's Times-Dispatch.

This was a last-minute assignment that I initially wasn't going to take, but I'm glad I did. I mean, why not? Well, because I don't always relish the idea of giving valuable print space to out-of-town groups. Sure, they're appearing with our own RSO, but here's the thing: why? I didn't get a call in soon enough to arrange an interview with RSO Associate Conductor Erin Freeman, but I wanted to ask her, "What will a full orchestra add to The Contours' sound? What really is the artistic point of this concert?"

It's not a purely provocative question; I'm sincerely curious about Freeman's answer. If there is something musical to be gained, I'd be willing to have her convince me. But maybe the only reasons for having this concert are extramusical--attracting new audiences, helping people feel comfortable with the RSO, demystifying the Carpenter Theatre, etc. Good. But is that enough? I don't think so, in fact.

Oh, okay. I'll conclude that the artistic point of putting The Contours and a symphony orchestra on the same stage together is have some musical fun. Why not?

Kelley Nassief, Richmond Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

2011-01-18T11:00:00.000-05:00

My review of Saturday's Masterworks concert appeared in Monday's Times-Dispatch.

I was surprised how small the audience was, and I'm curious if Sunday afternoon's was any larger. I thought people would like the concept--many short pieces in a sort of "best of opera" format. (To be clear, it was not marketed as a "best-of" concert, and the programmatic choices were thoughtful, not just a riffle through old cartoon soundtrack archives.)

I wonder if the symphony erred in not posting/announcing the detailed program ahead of time. When I checked the website about two days before the concert, nothing beyond the Britten and Ravel was listed. (But just now when I checked, the whole program is up... hmm.) People like to know what they're buying.

By the way, be sure to check the RSO's blog now and then. The entries are a little unpredictable in their tone and content, but almost always of some interest. Associate Conductor Erin Freeman's post about this most recent Masterworks Concert is excellent. A commenter remarked that she should be writing the program notes. That indeed would be wonderful, since not only is Freeman an excellent communicator, but in an ideal world all program notes would be written locally and specifically, placing each performance in context. The RSO's notes are currently procured from John P. Varineau, associate conductor of the Grand Rapids Symphony (I just looked this up), and are much better than they were several years ago.

Y'all come back to the land of sweets, y'hear?

2011-01-18T10:19:00.000-05:00

Richmond was giddy with delight at NY Times dance critic Alastair Macaulay's praise for Richmond Ballet's "Nutcracker." (here --and there's more! here)

I enjoyed mulling over his description of the production as "the one that follows its own internal logic with most unflagging consistency and detail." His next sentence is the start of a new paragraph, but is intimately related: "It’s also the one that seems most right for its theater and its audience..."

And speaking of related, here's another sentence from earlier in the review: "Just from the way people are greeting one another in the foyers here, I can sense I’m in the South: people take time over civilities here, and it seems as if half the people are well acquainted."

Isn't that nice? Bless our hearts.

Is this a sign that too many of the same people are always in the audience? (This isn't limited to the ballet's Nutcracker; I see this at Richmond Symphony concerts too.) Or just that the people who stand around talking to each other are more noticeable, because everyone else has already taken their seats?

Rhetorical questions are so easy to ask. I'm taking the cheap way out by ending here. (I was going to write more, but I'm already late in posting this.)

Repeat Button

2010-12-08T13:21:00.000-05:00

Tim Smith, classical music critic at the Baltimore Sun, in a review of a performance of David Lang's "A Little Match Girl Passion," writes:

The only disappointment, given the roughly 40-minute duration of the composition, was that it didn't get performed twice. I'm sure the sold-out crowd would have gladly stayed for a complete encore.

I'm glad to hear of someone else who thinks this is a good idea. A single listen is not really enough for most new music and music that isn't performed frequently. A repeat encore performance would give the audience more time to really listen to the music.

Oh-- you noticed that I used the word "most"? I'm thinking about how I read new poems twice, once for feeling and once for a little more discovery--except that I don't read everything twice. I can decide quickly, and for myself, whether I think a poem is worth repeating. It's a different situation in a concert hall, where a conductor or an ensemble must usually make that decision in advance, regardless of audience reaction, being aware that some people trapped in the middle of rows won't want to hear a piece again.

I say what the heck, just play new works under 8 minutes long twice no matter what, and at least consider it in other cases.

Central Virginia's Salvation Army School of Performing Arts

2010-12-02T11:33:00.000-05:00

Matt Sims turned a corner in the maze of basement hallways in the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club. Suddenly, a girl appeared at his elbow.

“Now?” she asked.

“Not yet, Naomi,” he said.

She lingered a moment, then drifted into a nearby room where a dozen kids practiced footwork in a hip-hop dance class.

Matt is the director of the Central Virginia Salvation Army's School of Performing Arts, a program that gives free music and dance training to kids in the greater Richmond area. It was a sunny Thursday afternoon in late fall, and the Boys and Girls Club buzzed with elementary and middle school kids doing homework, talking about doing homework, eating a hot meal, messing around, dancing, talking about dancing--and one persistent girl in glasses waiting for something else.

Matt was showing me around the rooms the arts program uses inside the club. I was on assignment for the Times-Dispatch, writing an article which would run in advance of an upcoming Salvation Army Christmas concert. (The article ran Monday.)

He led me back into the Instrumental Room, smaller than my sister-in-law's master bathroom, where several keyboards shared space with drums, milk crates filled with tap shoes, and a laundry basket with a packages labeled "Trombone Maintenance Kit."

We talked about the school's work a bit more, then Matt said with a half-grin, “If you want, the kids would love to perform on drums."

He stuck his head out of the room and flagged down a passing child to go round up the percussion students. Within a minute, Naomi popped in, along with three boys. Soon, each sat on an upended 10-gallon bucket, with another in front for drumming.

Matt settled down on a bucket. “Do you remember your parts?” he asked. After a quick review, he pointed at Gerald, the youngest, to set the beat. Music from the dance class down the hall worked at cross-purposes with Gerald, and Naomi looked up at me and pointed her chin at the door.

"Close that," she said. "It's distracting." Just straightforward, assured.

One by one, each child entered with a different rhythm. Matt led them through a tempo change and a few call-and-response shouts. Gerald bit his lower lip in concentration, Justin dragged sometimes. Brandon wavered between confidence and hesitancy, but Naomi was bright and on.

After the performance, I asked each kid to tell me about why they like drumming, or something along those lines. That's when I learned a bit about Naomi's family, which is in the T-D article. I bet there's much more to her story. Naomi strikes me as being a natural achiever; I really hope her story keeps on going, and whether or not music is always central to it, music seems to be having a crucial role right now.

Virginia Opera: Cosi fan tutte

2010-11-30T15:04:00.000-05:00

Confession: I am new to Virginia Opera. (The Times-Dispatch's regular freelance reviewer, Roy Proctor, was out of town, so I took on the post-Thanksgiving show.) But after this experience, I plan to return, and Lilian Groag's name will be an incentive. I'd like to see how she works with other operas.

I only wish VO would stretch a bit out of the canon. I guess it has figured out what works with the audiences it has, and has calculated there aren't any other audiences to be had (in profitable enough sizes). Some day, some day, I will get up to D.C. or elsewhere for opera that is my age or younger.

The Seasons Project: Venice Baroque Orchestra, Robert McDuffie play Vivaldi and Glass

2010-11-29T15:23:00.000-05:00

My review of this performance, here.

This concert was the perfect confluence of performers, composers and space. I left ready to swear off full-sized orchestras forever. No matter how talented the conductor or phenomenal the orchestra, the energy of a small, self-led group is unmatchable.

And though I can't extrapolate, this particular performance of the VBO was superior to the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra's Modlin Center performance last year, at least in terms of ensemble-playing.

RSO Masterworks: Shatin, Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Copland

2010-11-16T11:36:00.000-05:00

My review of this past weekend's RSO Masterworks concert ran in Monday's Times-Dispatch. Shatin's "Jefferson, In His Own Words" was the headline work; Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man," Saint-Saens' Cello Concert No. 2 and Dvorak's Symphony No. 6 were also on the program.

Re-reading my review, I'm not sure why I felt I had to make the point that Baliles spoke clearly; that should be expected. What I wanted to say, but didn't have the brainpower to formulate properly on deadline, had to do with the simplicity of his delivery. He didn't over-inflect, and didn't need to; we weren't children gathered round a chair at storytime. As I listened, I took a few moments to imagine what it might sound like if he had crafted a more dramatic--or perhaps one might say a more musical--narrative style, and that made me even more appreciative of his choices.

Probably imprudently, I also imagined what else the Dvorak symphony could have sounded like--thus my review's closing comment. I don't know the sixth symphony well enough to know what has or hasn't been, or should or shouldn't be done with it, but it seems to me if you're going to pick a composer to rough up a bit, Dvorak is a good candidate. Take some risks, show me the difference between playing music and just performing it.

Steven Smith and the Vision Thing

2010-11-15T12:41:00.000-05:00

Richmond Symphony Music Director Steven Smith delivered the talk at this past Friday's "Eyes on Richmond" series. I covered it for the Times-Dispatch, but the article, which ran Saturday, isn't posted online. You can read it at the end of this post.

His 25-minute speech rambled around in the Great Plans territory. There was a jackalope sighting ("a vision that we'll be able to put an instrument into the hands of every single young person"), and several trailheads were spotted but not confirmed to lead anywhere (vague references to desirable partnerships with regional institutions).

Okay, so I'm being too clever. But listen to the questions people asked in the Q&A session afterward:

-What is a conductor really doing up on stage during a concert?

-How do you respond to potential donors who say that they shouldn't have to pick up the government's slack when funding for music education is cut from public schools?

-When the symphony is planning a whole season, how do you decide how much/which new music to program?

-If you were to write a symphony that incorporated both "Give me liberty or give me death" and "I have a dream," what would it sound like?

Also, I ran into an acquaintance the next evening who had attended the lecture. He said he wanted to ask how the symphony could make good on Smith's expressed desire to make concerts "accessible"-- for people like himself and his wife, who have three children. (He meant ticket prices, mostly.)

For the most part, these people sought concrete information. Whether or not that day's disconnect between what Smith wanted to say and what people wanted to learn is representative of anything larger, I don't know. (But of course the fact that I wrote that sentence means I think it's worth considering.)

Smith did mention specific things the Richmond Symphony could do to "energize the tradition" and bring people together: hold post-concert talk-backs, invite writers or painters to be guest artists, and do something with VUU (a historically black college/university), among other ideas. However, it was impossible to tell which items, if any, were actually being planned and which were probably long-distant or even pipe dreams.

I wish he had told a story from his own experience that supported his claim, "Arts bring us together as human beings to allow us to explore world in ways we might not have otherwise thought of."

And y'know, I do think visions are important. If you really do dream of putting an instrument in the hands of every child, hopefully you'll start doing it one child at a time. (The RSO's Symphony at School program, for which the Nov. 21 Come and Play event is a fundraiser, does some instrument donation, and the Richmond Concert Band has been doing it for many years..)

Here's the article as I submitted it:

In a world that seems to have moved beyond the possibility of civil discourse, the arts can be a way to bring people back together, said Steven Smith, music director of the Richmond Symphony. He added that Virginia, home of history's greatest political and cultural discussions, is a natural place to “recapture” a spirit of cooperation. In particular, the Richmond Symphony can bring people together using the medium of music.

Smith spoke Friday at the Eyes on Richmond lecture series held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. The title of his talk, “Richmond Changes its Tune,” was assigned to him, he said, and he decided to approach it from the perspective of a composer.

When writing music, composers will change a tune by “playing around with it … turning it upside-down and backwards, taking it apart, playing with its structure or harmony.”

In that sense, the Richmond Symphony can change or “energize” its tune not by discarding a time-honored repertoire but by sharing music in new ways.

For example, it can program compositions that use influences from various musical traditions, create concert experiences that include art forms such as architecture, art and literature, and find community partnerships that result in “thought-provoking opportunities for everyone,” he said.

Smith discussed the importance of music and the arts in education. Participation in the arts can teach young people the same things as sports participation does, as well as nurture “creative health.” He said that arts institutions should be catalysts for promoting the value of the arts for learning.

Smith described three of the Richmond Symphony's education programs and said, “It doesn't have to stop there. I have a vision that we'll be able to put an instrument into the hands of every single young person” or give all children the chance to sing in a chorus.

To address the problem of polarization and the lack of civil discourse, arts institutions should use the arts to “explore aspects of critical thinking.” He added, “Arts bring us together as human beings and allow us to explore the world in ways we might not have otherwise thought of.”

The Richmond Symphony's challenge is to communicate this vision to new generations and a “much, much wider audience.”

Smith said he is looking forward to participating in the sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War, which he called an opportunity to bring people together. He also mentioned the orchestra's goals of giving more outdoor performances and creating more community partnerships, such as with Virginia Union University, MCV, history museums and other regional institutions.

“I believe the symphony can touch the life of every single person in this community,” he said.

Judith Shatin's "Jefferson, In His Own Words"

2010-11-11T22:55:00.000-05:00

Here's my article about the upcoming performance of Judith Shatin's "Jefferson, In His Own Words" by the Richmond Symphony, with former Virginia Gov. Gerald Baliles as narrator.

In the article, I refer to "Rotunda," a quite different work of Shatin's (with Robert Arnold) that combines video, music, recorded sound and voices. Here's an excerpt from that piece.

Charles Rosen, victim of careless program notes

2010-10-25T10:16:00.001-04:00

Generally, I think the discussion of applause at concerts is a horse that should go ahead and die, but the situation at Saturday's concert was so weird, I want to elaborate on a point I made at the end of my review, which appears in today's Times-Dispatch.

Here's a blow-by-blow:
-Charles Rosen takes the stage to applause.
-He performs R. Schumann's Intermezzo from "Faschingsschwank aus Wien."
-Silence. More silence.
-Rosen fidgets, takes something from his left breast pocket (glasses? but he's not using music), fiddles with it, takes something from his right pocket, puts both things back into the right pocket.
-He plays the opening chord of Schumann's "Fantasia in C," stops, grunts, fidgets and begins again.
-After the second movement of the Fantasia, a quarter to a third of the audience bursts into applause that lasts several seconds until people realize by Rosen's body language that he's not done.
-Rosen finishes "Fantasia," everyone applauds. Two rounds of bows, then intermission.

The absence of applause after the first piece was not because the audience didn't like the performance. I'll lay double my life savings on that.

Even though the program listing showed the Intermezzo, the program notes didn't mention it, diving instead straight into the middle of a discussion of the differences between the first published, revised version of the Fantasia and Schumann's original version. Dutiful note readers saw the titles of the 3 movements that Schumann originally gave the work (but no movements were noted in the program listing) and must have gotten confused about what was what. They counted three chunks of music, then clapped.

I'm still thinking about why I and other people who knew that the Intermezzo had ended didn't applaud. I guess I'm not used to being the first person to start clapping--I kind of like waiting a breath-length first--and then the longer the silence went on, the harder it became for anyone to be the first to clap. I started thinking that maybe other people knew something I didn't, like he was going to add the last movement of the Faschingsschwank.

In any case, the second half of the program probably erased the awkwardness of the first in the minds of most people. I'm just hung up on the program note thing, maybe because it's so fixable.

The two tenors of Tracey Welborn

2010-10-22T10:44:00.002-04:00

First, here's my review of an August concert by the Richmond Chamber Players. Even though I spent just as much space on the Clarke viola sonata as on "Ten Blake Songs" by Vaughn Williams, I was much more captivated by the latter. Tracey Welborn's voice was a perfect match for the music, words, oboe and space, which was a church sanctuary.

So I was looking forward to hearing him sing again, the tenor solo in Beethoven's Ninth when the RSO performed it in September. My review of that concert is here, but Clarke Bustard's has a more accurate analysis of what was happening with the Ninth.

My sense was that Welborn wasn't a good match with Kevin Deas, the bass. The first is wildflowers, the other lawn. And had the tempo been less "breathless," as Clarke notes, I think Welborn's voice wouldn't have given the impression that he was lost in the hall. I'm looking forward to hearing him sing again under different circumstances.

Erin Freeman's Advice for Conductors

2010-07-28T13:56:00.002-04:00

In May, I observed Richmond Symphony Associate Conductor Erin Freeman give Bobbie Barajas, classical music director for WCVE, a conducting lesson in preparation for the symphony's "Celebrity Maestro" fundraising event.

In the course of the hour-or-so lesson, Erin said, in effect: If things seem about to fall apart, a conductor should direct her attention to the section of the orchestra that is doing things right, not the section that's struggling. The musicians pay attention to what the conductor is paying attention to.

This made immediate sense to me, in that way that feels like you've known something all along, but didn't know that you knew it.

On the surface, the principle is counter-intuitive: Shouldn't a leader help errants correct their errors? Why wouldn't this mean that the conductor should turn to the section that's having trouble, make sure they can see her beat, her face, and her gestures?

Musicians listen as much as they watch, which is one of the reasons Erin's lesson works, but I think the bigger insight has to do with where the true power of a leader lies, and how leaders can use that power most effectively.

As it happened, the very next week I subbed for two days in a classroom of kindergarteners. I deliberately tried to apply Erin's advice. I can't say it helped in any immediate, practical way (probably because the kids didn't regard me as their leader), but its validity was evident when, for example, I was reading a book to the class. Previously in that same classroom when I'd stop reading to (firmly, kindly) admonish interrupters, it would take forever to get through a book and even the listeners would start to lose focus. This time, I just kept reading, paying attention to the book and looking in the eyes of children who were listening.

I don't know how far outside the concert hall this principle stretches. It's related to how sleight-of-hand magicians work, but isn't it more satisfying to reap insights from conductors of beautiful music than from sweaty men with cards on a TV dinner tray outside the second-run movie theater?

Metro Collection for 2010-11

2010-07-22T17:11:00.001-04:00

This preview of the Richmond Symphony's 2010-11 season ran in the Times-Dispatch last month. At that point--which was after brochures had been printed and subscription sales started--the Metro Collection series had not been announced.

I just checked the symphony's website-- the Metro Collection line-up is now posted. This is the series that takes a smaller orchestra--a large chamber orchestra, really--to locations in the surrounding counties. Each of the Friday night concerts is in a different location, while the Sunday afternoon concerts are all at Randolph-Macon College.

"Now I'm suddenly hungry for beef"*

2010-06-02T12:18:00.005-04:00

I once worked at an establishment that was next to a McDonalds and across the street from a little Jamaican restaurant. The McDonalds was often so busy at lunch time that what it served was neither fast nor, you might argue, food. On the other hand, I could walk into the Jamaican restaurant and out five minutes later with a veggie or meat pocket and a freshly made pineapple-banana smoothie. The cost was no different than a comparable amount of food at McDonalds. It was probably healthier, although the pockets were made with fried dough... mmmm.

Why were people willing to wait longer at McDonalds? Because they knew what they were getting.

"How do you know what you'll like if you won't even try anything?" asked Father.

Well," said Frances, "there are many different things to eat, and they taste many different ways. But when I have bread and jam I always know what I am getting, and I am always pleased."

Familiarity may breed contempt, but usually it first inspires loyalty. When we're busy, when we have to spend money, when we're tired, we don't want surprises.

Not that orchestras want to be like McDonalds, except, you know, it'd nice to be profitable.

At the first Lollipops concert this year, the Richmond Symphony performed "The Composer is Dead," written in 2006. It was sort of well attended. At the second Lollipops concert, they performed "Peter and the Wolf." The concert hall was nearly full.

So Frances' parents start feeding her nothing but bread and jam.

"Aren't you worried that maybe I will get sick and all my teeth will fall out from eating so much bread and jam?" asked Frances.

"I don't think that will happen for quite a while," said Mother. "So eat it all up and enjoy it."

(That's my favorite line.) By the end of the book, of course, Frances is eating "cream of tomato soup,... a lobster-salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread... celery, carrot sticks, and black olives, and a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery. And two plums and a tiny basket of cherries. And vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles."

If only it were so simple for orchestras.

The League of American Orchestras recently started a discussion site, where you can spend days reading various thoughts on--to grossly oversimplify-- what's wrong with orchestras and what to do to fix them. It's all very interesting, if not a little discouraging, once the reality sinks in that there is no single right answer.

While it's true that most people crave familiarity--and this applies to both the music and the concert-going experience (for whom is sitting quietly in a darkened hall feeling nervous about when to clap a familiar experience?)--I'm not suggesting that orchestras should only program Mozart or that they must rely on so-called big-name soloists to get attendance figures up. (Gil Shaham? Big name to maybe 7% of the U.S. population. Have some perspective.) I'm not actually suggesting anything, except that it would be foolish to forget the power of familiarity. Knowing what to expect gives a feeling of control to the lunch-eaters and the ticket-buyers--who wants to feel helpless and adrift?

Okay, a little suggestion. Post video clips--as long as is legally allowed, up to 4 or 5 minutes each-- of all the pieces on a program at the beginning of the season or as soon as possible. Show the November clips in the lobby during your October concerts. Put them on YouTube and start forwarding. Those depraved, money-making Hollywood folks may have hit on a good idea with their previews. [UPDATE: Not long after I wrote this, I learned that musicians' union restrictions would prevent such a plan. Somebody else can get into union territory... not me.]

*The title of this post is a quote from local Fox News anchor Ryan Nobles, who was the MC for the Richmond Symphony's "Celebrity Maestro" concert in May, after Susan Greenbaum conducted "Hoe Down" from Copland's "Rodeo." (Watch the first 15 seconds of the linked video--the woman who exclaims, "Yes! It is the beef song!" sounds so happy to be alive.)

Organ-ization

2010-05-20T12:38:00.001-04:00

My review of Saturday's Masterworks concert ran in Monday's Times-Dispatch. To be honest, it was not a concert I looked forward to. "Chorus" and "organ" just aren't appealing words to me on a beautiful May evening. But as I listened to the opening work, "Rainbow Body," (which uses neither chorus nor organ), I could feel the day's tension leaving my body; when "Gesang der Parzen" began, I thought, "Oh, that's right, I like Brahms!" And by the time the organ began playing in the Saint-Saens, I was completely relaxed and happy.

Mr. Van Pelt (see the comments below the review on the RTD site) contacted me personally to make sure I understood the location of the organ's pipes, which is pretty much directly behind the loudspeakers in the Carpenter Theater, hidden behind paneling, as pipes sometimes are. His correction clears up my confusion, and I was able to get more fascinating information from him about the Carpenter's organ-- for one thing, it's apparently made from parts of the organ that was originally in the building in the late 1920s.

I'm happy enough to blame Saint-Saens for writing an organ into an orchestral work; I think organs are best left to their own devices, of which they have many-- sort of the point, no? And I'm not going to spend the next 25 years grousing about the acoustics in the Carpenter Theater. It may not be the Schermerhorn, but it's no Dogwood Dell, either. (Plus, I've been to a concert in the Schermerhorn, in the balcony, and it was like watching a very good television. I'm fine with the middle ground between perfect acoustics and extreme intimacy that the Carpenter gives.)

The image, by the way, is of the only organ I've ever truly, truly appreciated. It's 25 years old this year and is installed in the chapel of Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas.

People who are far more dedicated writers than I am

2010-05-20T11:37:00.000-04:00

I filed this story on journaling with this sidebar in response to an assignment. It ran on the cover of the Flair section in the Sunday, March 21, Richmond Times-Dispatch, which is why there aren't any men in the article.

I had a hard time finding a locally owned bookstore that sells journals, but discovered that Precious Memories on Idlewood Avenue both sells blank books and conducts journaling workshops. The shop is currently only open by appointment or for workshops (of various kinds) and I still haven't visited in person. I had seen signs for it, coming off the Downtown Expressway near the Kickers stadium, and had been curious about it despite the saccharine name.

I'm glad I called. It was an inspiring encounter with a woman who seems to be making her own way in the world, doing what she loves outside traditional models of success.

Before I made the call, however, I had asked the owner of another local bookshop--one not even a mile away--if she knew whether Precious Memories sold blank books. She had not heard of the store. This surprised me, and I was left to speculate why.

They Like Him

2010-05-20T11:08:00.001-04:00

Here's an article about new Richmond Symphony Music Director Steven Smith. In print, it ran with a little sidebar that as I submitted it, went like this:

Steven Smith
In Four

1 Hometown
Toledo, Ohio

2 Schools
Eastman School of Music; Cleveland Institute of Music

3 Previous jobs (of many)
Assistant conductor, Cleveland Orchestra, 1997-2003; Faculty, Oberlin Conservatory, 2002-05; Concertmaster, Grand Rapids Symphony, 1985-88

4 Things he likes to do
Camp, garden, cook, study architecture

But the musical joke in the title was too subtle, so it ran without the title or the numbers.

Catching up on past reviews

2010-05-20T10:57:00.002-04:00

From the Old News Department, created in response to the Insanely Busy Spring employment campaign:

Here's my review of the Richmond Symphony's Masterworks concert with violinist Elena Urioste playing Tschaikovsky Concerto in D and Erin Freeman conducting Higdon's "Concerto for Orchestra." Metaphors don't get any weirder than the one I used about two-thirds of the way in. I still kind of like it. I wish I had mentioned Ms. Freeman's excellent introduction of the Higdon piece from the podium: simple, respectful, enlightening, succinct. It was exactly the sort of speaking one wants to hear from conductors.

On the other hand, I wish I hadn't mentioned the applause after the first movement of the Tschaikovsky, even non-judgmentally. People can clap whenever they want, as far as I'm concerned, and I don't ever want to make someone feel like they broke a secret rule and shouldn't come back to the concert hall. Ringing, beeping, clicking and flashing electronic devices... that's a different story.

Next, here's my review of the Jupiter String Quartet's performance in the Mary Anne Rennolds Chamber series. Clearly the Bartok Quartet No. 4 was my favorite. Dvorak, though... Dvorak is like the band R.E.M. They're indispensable contributors to their genres. I like--love-- their music. Yet if I were asked to name the one really outstanding piece by either, I'd stammer. Jupiter put the "I Can" in the "American," for sure.

More Dvorak in this review of the first concert in the Richmond Music Festival. You can't tell from the online version that the performance was at the First Unitarian Church. The other concerts, unfortunately, were on weeknights and I just couldn't make it out to them.

I'm also glad to have attended many things I didn't review, including "Othello" and "Elizabeth Rex" from Richmond Shakespeare, as well as their staged reading of "Merchant of Venice." This was far more staged than the last one I saw, and thinking back on it now, two months later, I can scarcely see in my mind's eye the scripts the actors held.

I was the project manager for Richmond Shakespeare's Bardathon, which involved 74 high school students from 11 different schools doing "Twelfth Night." After rehearsing one or more scenes ahead of time at their own schools, they all came together to put on the play. Some scenes were set on a Caribbean island, some in a vaguely Transylvanian setting; one was set in the '80s, another in a proto-Victorian period. Totally charming.

Beaten with a stick

2010-03-19T13:49:00.005-04:00

Here's my review of the Richmond Symphony's Masterworks performance on February 27, featuring then-candidate Maestro Steven Smith and pianist Jon Nakamatsu. (Berlioz, Beethoven, Shostakovich) Visually, a compelling argument for balcony seats.

"You hear the wood and felt and leather"

2010-03-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

The quote of this post's title is from "Why You've Never Really Heard the Moonlight Sonata" by Jan Swafford, in Slate. The first chunk is about Michael and Patricia Frederick and their library of pianos dating from the 1790s. The second chunk is about how the construction, and thus the sound, of pianos has changed over the years, and how the physical piano probably influenced the choices composers made. The final three paragraphs analyze why there's so little diversity in piano sound these days.

Listen to the audio clips for comparison! There's one of VCU's Dmitri Shteinberg playing an 1877 Erard piano.

Richmond Symphony Names Director

2010-03-04T21:15:00.001-05:00

It's Steven Smith.

Here's the link to my review of last week's Masterworks performance conducted by Smith. If I had had just a few more inches, I would have also mentioned the incredible pianissimos of the timpanist in every piece.

I had a few minutes on Wednesday and was near the downtown library, so I stopped in and wandered among the 800s of Mr. Dewey. My eye fell on a collection of letters written by the American poet Anne Sexton, so I picked it up and read here and there. This is one thing I learned:

In the early 1970s, Sexton convinced the Boston Globe to send her to review an Ella Fitzgerald-Count Basie concert on Cape Cod. Not only did the newspaper pay for tickets and a hotel room for her and a friend, they gave her 1200 words for the review.

Do you know how much easier it is to write 1200 words than 430 words?!

Exhibit: Artists in Exile

2010-03-03T09:55:00.000-05:00

Below is news about an exhibit I've been helping to bring to Richmond. The images that appear will be in the exhibit, but I don't have the artists' names at the moment.

On Friday, March 5th 2010 at 7PM

Common Humanity Presents the Opening Reception of:
Artists in Exile: Forgotten Iraqi Refugees in Syria
through March 25th in The Lucent Phoenix Resource Center downstairs at Gallery5.

Artists in Exile will showcase the work of 20 Iraqi refugee artists living in Syria. All are professionally trained artists from Iraq (mostly from Baghdad) who had to flee their country because of the pervasive violence following the U.S. invasion in spring 2003. The exhibit was organized by Common Humanity, a New York-based not-for-profit organization.

One of the featured artists, Ahmad AlKharkhi, will join us for the opening on March 5. By way of introduction, here is a short piece by NPR reporter Susan Stamberg which recently was broadcast on Morning Edition about Mr. AlKharkhi.

Gallery5 is located at 200 W. Marshall Street in Richmond and on the Web at www.gallery5arts.org. Gallery hours are Wed. – Sat., 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Without rights to formal employment, these artists -- along with some 1 million fellow Iraqis who fled to Syria -- are forced to eke out a marginal existence with the help of limited aid from international relief agencies, family members, and occasional work at minimal wages.

Each painting in the exhibit has been purchased directly from the Iraqi artist by Common Humanity. The sale of the paintings will help enable Common Humanity to repeat this process and therefore to continue contributing to the livelihood of these courageous refugee artists and their families. The paintings will be sold by silent auction with bids from the Gallery5 exhibit carried through to a second and final exhibit in New York which will end in late April. A box of 20 blank notecards featuring other paintings by artists in the exhibit will be on sale at Gallery5 for $20.

This unique exhibit is an opportunity to not only showcase 22 paintings by Iraqi refugee artists, but also to help bring attention to the vast needs of the nearly 2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled to neighboring countries with the majority in Syria. Another 2 million Iraqis have fled their homes inside Iraq.

Mel Lehman, Director of Common Humanity who traveled to Damascus to obtain the paintings, said, “Visitors to this exhibit will get a rare chance to see something of the heart and soul of several of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria who have been largely forgotten by us. This exhibit presents a unique opportunity to see Middle East artists who were influenced both by their study of modern Western art in school and also by the U.S. invasion of their homeland.”
Common Humanity seeks to build friendship, understanding and respect between the United States and the Arab and Muslim world. Common Humanity believe that the road to peace in these dangerous times is by moving past the stereotypes that separate us and by making efforts to gain deeper understanding of the common humanity shared by Americans with all of the people in the Middle East. Art is one such way to do this. In addition to organizing these art exhibits, Common Humanity also organizes an annual medical exchange to Syria by bringing doctors of various specialties to give lectures to Syrian counterparts.

For more about the work of Common Humanity visit our website at www.CommonHumanity.org. Common Humanity is one of only a handful of U.S. agencies which have direct involvement in Syria.
Common Humanity wishes to thank the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Damascus office for its help in introducing it to the Iraqi refugee artists.

Why We Work

2010-03-03T09:36:00.000-05:00

I bought this book at Narnia Children's Books yesterday. On the way home from school, my 6-year-old looked at it in the back seat. The first question she asked: "How much did it cost?"

"About $18" I said.

"Oh my gosh! That's a lot!" she said. There was a few moments of silence as she looked for the price on the slipcover to confirm that her mom wasn't lying.

"It's a hard cover," I said. "If it had been a paperback, it might have been around $8 or $10."

"Wow," she said, and then as if to herself, "Now I see why you need a job."

Any Day Now...

2010-02-28T13:16:00.001-05:00

.. and the Richmond Symphony will choose its new music director. Steven Smith will conduct this afternoon's Masterworks concert as the last of three finalists, the others of whom are Alastair Willis and Marc Taddei.

Oddly, I liked Smith much better last night (here's my review) than last year at his first appearance, while Taddei impressed me more at his first appearance than his second in January. (I just realized I haven't linked to that review yet. On my to-do list.) Then, he struck me as essentially conservative and unlikely to take exploratory risks. Possibly he simply thought that's what the audience and Board expected of him.

Willis had the advantage in September of conducting a megahits program to a sold-out house at the first Richmond Symphony concert in the new Carpenter Theatre. He's young, handsome and charming, has an English accent, and did a good job conducting. Did he do an absolutely top-notch job? Well... but is that even the question?

The question, of course, is who of these three has the whole package--meaning musical vision, the ability to sense the needs of the market, the charisma to be an effective ambassador to new audiences, etc. etc. This is not cynicism; it's what a music director does. All nine of the candidates had these qualities in different porportions.

I have heard, although only as second-hand news, that many of the orchestra musicians are disgruntled that Arthur Fagen wasn't a finalist.

One thing I don't know is whether Smith, Taddei and Willis were the selection committee's first choices, or whether it extended a finalist spot to someone else who, for whatever reasons, turned it down. It's possible.

I do know, however, that once the selection is announced and once the maestro settles in next year, most everyone in the audience will soon forget these two years of transition.

Virginia Commission for the Arts faces elimination by 2012

2010-02-22T23:39:00.000-05:00

The Virginia Commission for the Arts is a state agency that provides operational support for arts organizations and individual artists through a competitive granting process.

In light of Sunday's House Appropriations Committee vote to cut next year's funding by 50% and eliminate the agency by 2012, Virginians for the Arts, an advocacy group, calls for action.

Here's my letter to my delegate. I wrote a different one to the Times-Dispatch; may post it later.

Dear Delegate McClellan,

I have spent the past year being thankful that I only have to make tough money decisions that affect my own family, not the whole nation or the state, and I continue to repect the hard work of you and other elected officials who have to make these decisions.

Of course nobody wants to see any valued programs shrink or disappear, but I must speak up in particular for the Virginia Commission for the Arts, because I deeply believe that art both shapes and reflects our humanity. The arts are our common heritage and inheritance, not a luxury, and should be accessible to everyone.

VCA funding is crucial for the operation and programs of hundreds of arts organizations and civic entities around the state. The mission of most, if not all, of these organizations includes making the arts accessible to all people, regardless of income, background or education.

For example, Richmond Shakespeare, for which I am a volunteer, takes its educational workshops and performances to schools. Fees paid by students and schools more or less cover the cost of the workshop, but VCA funding helps support the position of Director of Education--one of only 2 full-time positions in Richmond Shakespeare--allowing her to create these programs, train the actor-teachers who lead them, and reach out to new schools and audiences, particularly in underserved populations. Without her, there likely would be no educational arm of Richmond Shakespeare.

To make matters worse, decimated funding for schools means arts education is in serious jeopardy. If the VCA is axed, arts organizations that could help fill in these gaps will not be able to offer affordable programs for students.

I could go on and on: for example, about how the economic impact of the arts is not just immedate (someone coming to a Richmond Shakespeare play supports the local actors and stage crew, the concessions workers, the building cleaning staff, the parking lot attendant), but also long-term, because the presence of vibrant, diverse, high-quality arts programs attracts businesses and residents and increases overall civic engagement.

Please take all these factors into account as you work on Virginia's budget. I ask you to preserve the existence of the Virginia Commission for the Arts and urge your colleagues to do the same.

Thank you,

Angela Lehman-Rios

Beauty and the Machine

2010-02-18T13:54:00.001-05:00

The Victrola was still several years shy of existence at the time of Cesar Franck's Piano Quintet in F minor, but its appearance in my review for the Richmond Times-Dispatch of the Shanghai Quartet with Yuja Wang makes metaphorical if not literal sense. I had never heard the Franck before and was struck by its idea, as I heard it, that the mechanical and the beautiful can co-exist, or are not any more different from each other than beauty and menace.

Orchestrating More Attendance

2010-02-04T23:10:00.000-05:00

Suggestions, continued:

The River Oaks Chamber Orchestra in Houston offers on-site babysitting for ages infant through 10 with music and movement activities during its 5 p.m. concerts. The 5- to 10-year-olds "receive humorous instruction in audience etiquette and visit the concert hall for one piece of music." Parents have the option of extending care so they can get dinner out after the concert.

I think there could certainly be demand for something like this in Richmond for symphony matinees. Young musicians in the Richmond Youth Symphony Orchestra could be hired in a work-study arrangement --they'd get their orchestra tuition paid, they'd get experience in music education, the Symphony would get more families into concerts, kids would feel not so much like they were being ditched at home.

The Seattle Symphony offers musical birthday parties -- they've got Soundbridge, kind of like a children's museum dedicated to music. But there's plenty that could be done just with the space and resources at CenterStage. Any parent of a 3- to 10-year-old has likely taken their kids to jumping parties, rock-climbing parties, science parties, skating parties, mouse parties (or is he a rat?), art parties... are there Civil War parties around here? Probably. Anyway, the market's huge. The Richmond Symphony already has an arrangement with a Music Together teacher who teaches group classes... this could be expanded into parties, maybe. Or get music ed majors from VCU.

I'd bet money that the RSO has already discussed these ideas but need the funding/staff power to get them going and market them. By the way, I just saw on their website today that they are having open rehearsals, and free at that, but in sort of a field-trip format for high school and college students by reservation only.

Harrisonburg's Arts District: Notes from the ArtWorks for Virginia Conference

2010-02-04T13:16:00.001-05:00

Last week I attended portions of the ArtWorks for Virginia conference, including four sessions on creating an arts district. Two were for the a statewide audience; two were for Richmonders. My conference summary article appeared in the Times-Dispatch. Here are some additional notes on the session with Harrisonburg's Brian Shull.

Shull is happy about the fact that the James Madison University campus is included in the arts district. He sees JMU's near-finished $90 million performing arts center (image, above) as a complement to the downtown district. Parking is free inside the district; someone asked about JMU students taking up all the parking. "That's a good problem to have," Shull said first, then said, "We're looking at ways to alleviate that." Later he said that the existence of the district has helped JMU be part of the life of the town.
Parks inside Harrisonburg's arts district were rehabbed with private funding but are maintained by the city.

Shull touted a large new "upscale apartments" building right near the center square. (image, right) Someone later asked about affordable housing for artists. (This is an element of arts districts in some cities across the country but by no means all.) Shull said, "no specific housing for artists yet."
The tax incentives used to create the district are "not an entitlement" Shull said, referring to the time limits on the incentives. "Don't put too much emphasis on incentives," he said later. "Local government should help [arts orgs and artists] get over the hump, then let marketing kick in. I would have put more emphasis on marketing at the start."
He said there were no big tiffs about where the district's lines were drawn, who did or didn't get defined as an "arts organization" for the purpose of receiving benefits.
Someone asked him if he had anything negative to say about the process or the result. He said no.
Harrisonburg "has not done a thorough economic impact analysis yet."
The Two Most Important Things I think Richmond can learn from Harrisonburg, despite our differences in size (Hburg plus Rockingham County is 120,000):

Have a big plan, but don't expect everything to get done at once. Nearly 10 years into this, Hburg is still plugging along, working on streetscape projects, trying to get more retail into the district.
A city doesn't automatically benefit from an arts district. It must be marketed, and this is most effectively done when the arts council, the tourism board and the downtown renaissance group cooperate (or whatever the equivalent orgs are in one's own city). There were audible gasps in the audience (from Richmonders?) when Shull revealed that city government gives the arts council $40,000 a year for marketing. Rockingham County has given around $25,000/year. Marketing includes, of course, promoting the district to local visitors and tourists--but also to businesses and industry and grantmakers.

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra: World Premiere by Maxwell Davies and other music

2010-01-31T10:58:00.000-05:00

My review of last Friday's concert at the Modlin Center by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra appeared in the Times-Dispatch. The heart of the program was "Sea Orpheus" by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, one of the six commissioned works for the orchestra's The New Brandenburgs project.

More on Orchestras and Tw... Tw... Tweeting (There. I said it.)

2010-01-18T08:53:00.000-05:00

What first got me thinking about orchestras and tweeting was the news this past summer that the National Symphony Orchestra tweeted during performance at Wolf Trap --that is, the conductor, Emil de Cou, prepared program notes ahead of time and symphony staff released them via Twitter in real time. Audience members who wanted to follow the tweets sat in a special section. Washington Post writer Anne Midgette's article before the event is top-notch. I haven't found any real post-event analysis of the experiment from the NSO's point of view.

Mostly, orchestras have used performance tweeting to communicate with people who aren't in attendance.

The Edmunton Orchestra hired this guy to live-tweet during a performance in April. His link to his tweets didn't work, but based on the blog post I linked here, my impression was that he had a very "man on the street" approach. I'm guessing that in the long run, most people would want something slightly more informed.

In November, the Modesto Symphony allowed (or hired? I don't know the arrangement) Modesto Bee arts writer Lisa Milligan to live-tweet during a dress rehearsal. I'm sure this is happening elsewhere -- the Modesto thing happened to turn up high enough in an online search that I found it.

Item #3 in this post from the League of American Orchestras describes several social-media tactics that performing arts groups in Columbus have tried/are trying. Opera Columbus had a Tweet-up: live tweeting during a dress rehearsal for Opera Columbus. The difference here was that several tweeters were doing this at once, providing different perspectives on the music (or the general experience). Again, they had to sit in particular reserved section.

This post by an independent arts promoter and artists' rep delivers thoughtful analysis of her experience tweeting during a performance. Keep reading, and you'll read what David Lang and Hilary Hahn have to say about it, too.

Finally, I offer a caveat on my own suggestion on audience participation through Twitter: this is definitely a limited-time idea. It will get old fast, and any orchestra that tries it will have to be very alert to how it's working. Maybe Richmond isn't ready for it yet; maybe another city is. Maybe Richmonders will like it for half a season, maybe two seasons; maybe another city will like it 2 or 3 times a season for two seasons. Tweeting may be a fad; using online media is not. In any case, it's too easy for orchestras to fall into habits of thinking that say: Because we play music that's timeless, we can't associate with fads.

Here's the final bit of Midgette's Post article:

What classical music audiences and administrators too often forget is that all these new technologies are mediums, not messages: How well they work depends entirely on how intelligently they're used in the service of what they're trying to communicate. The real point is that the message -- the quality of the music, not some watered-down version of it -- deserves to be disseminated widely, by any means possible.

Orchestrating Attendance: a few suggestions

2010-01-17T21:10:00.000-05:00

Not surprisingly, the latest issue of Symphony magazine addresses the issue of declining audiences for live orchestral music. One worrisome finding is that "participation rates have been declining within each generation as they age. So Early Boomers in their fifties are participating less (11%-12%) than they did when they were in their twenties (14%)."

In other words, people don't automatically start going to the symphony when they hit age 50. Especially not now, when there's so much great stuff online, like this blog, on which I will share my ideas for getting more people in the seats at symphony concerts. They're nothing revolutionary, and I'm sure they've been discussed or even tried somewhere in the world.

-Reserve a block of seats for Facebook fans and Meetup groups. Sure, social networking online is hot, but that doesn't mean people don't like to see each other in real life. Promote the section through online networks and let people request season seats or single-concert tickets there. If I knew I'd be sitting near people I recognized, I'd be more likely to go.

-Encourage tweeting. Not during the performance, Sweet Judith, no, but the moment intermission starts, let people whip out their devices and remark on the concert so far. Project real-time tweets on screens above the stage, in the lobbies and—even better—above the bars. Really, no one's going to be asinine: this is Richmond "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" Virginia.

Public tweeting might even improve the quality of intermission conversation, as people, including non-tweeters, could use the comments to spark or focus their own conversations instead of falling into timid chat about the weather or grocery stores. After the performance, invite people to go to richmondsymphony.com and vote for Tweet of the Night. Winner gets drink vouchers for the next concert they attend.

-Take the show online. According to research conducted by the League of American Orchestras, 40 million Americans listen to classical music broadcasts and recordings, including online. As a percentage of the population, this has increased over the past 25 years. Interestingly, people are more likely to listen to classical music broadcasts/recordings than broadcasts/recordings of musicals, although the reverse is true when it comes to attending live performance.

If the Richmond Symphony streamed its performances live online for free, would people stop buying tickets for the concert hall? No. Most people who attend concerts do so because they know the power of live performance. Some people would take the cheap route, some people would turn into concertgoers as a result of being able to try out the experience online. Unfortunately, there's no way to know the net effect ahead of time. (This is probably also the kind of thing that would work in some cities but not others.) But geez, why not try it? And that way, Karen Johnson's Aunt Martha in Phoenix could see her perform every time. (I made that up.)

-Have open dress rehearsals. The Richmond Symphony Orchestra League used to run these, pre-peripatetic era. Now that the symphony is back in the Carpenter Theatre, it's time to start them up again. Heck, make it crazy and let people roll the dice to get their price, $2 to $12 for adults, $1-$6 for kids. Publicize them more widely than ever before.

-Door prizes, coupons in the program, referral discounts. I'm not entirely serious, but I'm not really joking, either. I'm trying to make the point that the orchestra experience is about the music, not about the image. Why should some tactics be considered low-brow if they work to bring in new listeners who have been reluctant to spend money on something they're not sure they'll like?

The Rose Ensemble: voices from the past, maybe

2010-01-17T13:15:00.000-05:00

I was pleased to be assigned to review the Rose Ensemble's performance at the Modlin Center -- it wasn't a concert I had prioritized for review, since space is so limited for coverage of non-local, non-famous groups. Here's the link to my review of Wednesday night's performance. Please read and return here!

As it happened, earlier that day I had spent a good 30 minutes on YouTube listening to different performances of "It Ain't Necessarily So" and "Summertime" from Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess." The variety of interpretations was inspiring. I loved simply hearing the difference, for example, between Ella Fitzgerald's and Janis Joplin's voices.

I mention this as background to my assessment of the Rose's uniformity of vocal timbre, because this idea of variety was on my brain (although not specifically in expectation of the concert). Yes, they did employ subtle vocal differences among songs, and their stage presence (including expressions, gestures and body language) was notably communicative--maybe I should have made more of this in my review. But by and large, they were singing in what I think of as typical Western choral fashion: from the belly through the skull, O-mouths, warm sound.

Ensemble leader Jordan Sramek's solo on "Et Sha'are Ratzon," a Libyan Sephardic song for Rosh Hashanah, came closer in vocal sound to what I imagined several of the pieces on the program might have sounded like originally--a more penetrating, calling, upper-body quality-- and I liked it.

I tried to be careful not to say anything should sound a certain way--that's not the way I approach music, and in any case, the Rose Ensemble makes its professional decisions with far more information at hand than I have. I hope the point I got across was that at least one person is open to hearing sounds that are unfamiliar, foreign, ancient.

Here are two instruments I had the pleasure of hearing at the concert: the vielle, a 5-stringed medieval fiddle (at left), and the smaller rebec. We also heard an oud, harp, psaltery and 5 different drums.

Anticipatory Jubilation during the Dead of Winter

2010-01-11T22:52:00.000-05:00

I'm only giving you the first 5 lines of this poem. You have to go to Poetry's website to read the rest

Delirium

by Hailey Leithauser

Such green, such green,

this apple-, pea- and celadon,

this emerald and pine and lime

unsheathed to make

a miser weep, to make his puny

Read the other Hailey Leithauser poems while you're there, and please--do yourself a favor and read them out loud, the way poetry should be.

Fluted

2010-01-11T11:42:00.000-05:00

I missed posting this link to my review of the Baroque by Candlelight concert in December.

I was reminded of this concert this morning when a piece for flute and piano came on the radio. At once, I realized why the flute has never been a favorite of mine: it almost always sounds so prom queen, so toastmaster, so nice. The wooden traverse flute, on the other hand (such as we heard at the December concert), sounds more like a friend.

Picture this: a pale blue midwinter sky, seamed through with pin-straight jetstream and mottled with the fluff and lace of cirrus clouds. One's the sliver flute, one's the wooden.

Brahms' Requiem, Pools of Luck, and the Rainbow Connection

2010-01-08T14:52:00.000-05:00

One of the Top Ten Moments of My Life so Far was performing Brahms' "Ein Deutsches Requiem" with a 100+ voice choir and full orchestra in a college gymnasium in the middle of Kansas. The setting, of course, is not the important part, although the fact that it was so ordinary made the transcendent power of the music even more evident.

I remember, maybe two-thirds of the way through the performance, coming to the awareness that (a) much time had passed but (b) it didn't feel like it because (c) I was sitting in a pure shining pool of good luck to be alive, making this music with 150 other people.

Ah... I hear a high horse stamping outside my window. It's delivering a copy of an editorial I once wrote about how great music is for impractical things like feeling good. The Monteverdi Choir has just finished singing the Brahms on my stereo, so I'll go get the epistle and reproduce it below for your pleasure.

When [the children's music reviewer] and I were discussing [the magazine's music-review column], the issue of “educational value” came up. Heavy-handedly, I said I didn’t want to use that as a criterion for review. So you’ll see albums rated on how good they are for dancing or relaxing to, how well adult ears might tolerate them and how good they might be for months or years of play.

Why won’t you see a rating for how educational a recording is? I have two strong opinions on this topic, and since they’re a little contradictory, I will explain myself.

First, I believe all music is educational. Second, I believe “educational value” is overrated.

Especially for young children, music is educational in the same way that play is: stealthily. Exposure to melody, harmony and rhythm—whether by Rachmaninoff, Raffi or R.E.M.—lays the foundation for understanding language, numbers and turn-taking. It also develops discriminatory listening skills and encourages verbal and motor expression.

Further, music is so deeply a part of our humanity that we learn things which are more essential even than counting or clapping in time. We discover our individuality and our likeness to others at an emotional level. ...

Because this kind of learning is so hard to articulate and is non-quantifiable, I think it gets overlooked in favor of music’s more explicitly educational aspects. The value of playing Mozart to sleeping children can’t be quantified, either, but the potential benefits are usually described in quantifiable terms designed to make parents believe they’re creating geniuses by simply pushing “Play”: increased math skills, advanced reasoning, and so on.

Older children are subjected to music’s ability to accommodate lyrics about colors, weather, grammar, history, morality, insects, the alphabet and tooth-brushing. Now, I have nothing against Conjunction Junction, and I think music could be used as a vehicle for teaching classroom knowledge even more than it is.

But don’t place a higher value on this music than on, for example, the amazingly, horrifyingly, riotously uneducational music of Marvin Suggs and his Muppaphone! (In our house, we all love classic Muppet Show tunes. And sometimes, when the mood is right, I choke up over “Rainbow Connection.”)

“My Hair had a Party Last Night” by Trout Fishing in America—another household favorite—does not teach the importance of personal hygiene, thank goodness. Its only redeeming values are the great tune, the charming mandolin-picking, the bouncy bass thwacks and the funny lyrics.

Then there’s the classic craziness: “Here We Go Looby-Loo” or “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” What do they teach? Nothing!

So here’s to uneducational music! ...

Sorry, Emily, Madison, Jacob, Michael and Ethan

2009-11-25T09:29:00.000-05:00

Zachary Taylor was born 225 years ago on Nov. 24 in Virginia. I'm guessing that no child has been named after him, specifically, in the past 100 years. Nevertheless, the Virginia Historical Society is giving free admission to anyone named Zachary or Taylor between now and Jan. 3, 2010, during their mini-exhibition of documents and images related to the nation's 12th president.

So who will the VHS see taking advantage of this crr-aaazy offer? Statistics say it will be 17-year-old boys and 13-year-old girls.

According to http://www.ssa.gov/, Zachary was among the top 20 most popular boys' names from 1992-2002. In Virginia, it reached its peak of popularity, #9, in 1993.

Taylor has been among the top 1000 boys' names since at least 1880, when the SSA online records start. It peaked nationally at #51 in 1993.

Interestingly (if you're a nerd, I guess), Taylor as a girls' name didn't hit the top 1000 until 1979, but by 1993 had reached the top 10, where it stayed until 2000. In Virginia, it reached the zenith of #3 in 1996.

The thing is, people under age 18 never have to pay admission to the VHS anyway, so the museum isn't taking any big risks with this offer, while getting free and feel-good publicity at the same time.

Admission to the VHS is cheap anyway ($3-5 and free on Sundays), and it's an excellent under-appreciated museum, so visit no matter what your name is. I plan to get over there to see the John Brown exhibit soon.

Richmond Symphony Masterworks: Beethoven, Sheng, Franck

2009-11-18T13:03:00.001-05:00

My review of Richmond Symphony's most recent Masterworks concert ran in Monday's Times-Dispatch.

In discussing "Nanking! Nanking!" the phrase I use, "pounding the audience into shock," is not an exaggeration. The piece ends with about eight (I forgot to count) fortissimo repeated notes that made the word "rape" spring to my mind. (I later realized that the title "The Rape of Nanking" had been in my subconcious, though I've never read the book.)

I couldn't believe that was how the piece ended, and I suspect others in the audience had the same reaction. There was a pause of several seconds, and it wasn't until Fagen turned to Wei to shake his hand that applause began.

It's very hard to explain, especially in a written review that doesn't permit much, if any, first-person voice, the state of not liking a piece but being glad to have heard it. My not liking it was for two reasons, as was my gladness for hearing it.

I didn't like it because it didn't have anything especially new to add to the catalogue of music-that-imitates-violence, and because I'd just rather listen music that's more subtle, if not traditionally melodic.

I was glad to hear it for the reasons I mentioned in the article, and because, more specifically, it did have some very interesting aural pairings of the pipa with other sections and soloists the orchestra-- the pipa-contrabassoon duets, for example.

I still haven't answered the question, "Why the pipa?" Sheng writes that the solo instrument in "Nanking! Nanking!" has the role of victim, witness and survivor. Maybe giving this usually delicate-sounding instrument an often-violent line to play says something about the human capacity to adapt, to react, to act both basely and nobly, and about music's ability to reflect all aspects of our humanity.

Before beginning the piece, Fagen led three excerpts from "Nanking! Nanking!" with very brief remarks before each. I though the chosen bits were a little long, but I suppose that was necessary.

Fagen did an excellent job conducting the whole program, clearly composed and authoritative. However, the Egmont didn't have as much brightness to it as I thought it should. Is "new hall" still an excuse after 3 months? I don't know, not knowing what can be physically done to sharpen the sound and get rid of (or temper) excess boom and resonance.

"This Is How It Goes" Again

2009-11-13T11:46:00.000-05:00

On the radio this morning, I heard yet another reviewer use the word "uncomfortable" to describe "This Is How It Goes."

Maybe this is the best reason you should go see the play. If something's uncomfortable, shouldn't it be fixed or changed? If a chair was uncomfortable, we'd examine it to see why, and then we'd do something about it. Why would we do anything less for our response to our social/emotional/political world?

("This Is How It Goes" isn't just about race--see yesterday's post-- but this topic is probably the source of most of whatever squirming goes on.)

I wonder if the "white" people in the audiences generally feel any more uncomfortable than "black" people and other identified minorities might feel every day in the face of the benign ignorance of a majority.

Benign Ignorance: A Story.
I play pick-up soccer on various second-rate fields around the city. Once I was having a great game, then we switched sides at half time and I realized I had been running downhill the whole first half.

Why am I uncomfortable with _________? [Fill in the blank with just about any scene from the play.] That's a personal question., but for god's sake, ask it!!

Busy as Bees

2009-11-13T11:20:00.000-05:00

Apropos to my previous musings, this article in the Omaha Herald discusses the notion that conductors bring musical benefit to their orchestras by conducting more than one orchestra and/or taking many guest conductor jobs--a sort of cross-pollination effect.

Makes sense. But do the benefits outweigh the benefit that might be gained by having a conductor who identifies so strongly with a single orchestra that he or she is around town enough to truly represent the orchestra in the community? The answer, of course, will vary from place to place.

As much as I hate to say it, I doubt that orchestras will retain and build audiences in the 21st century on the strength of their musicality alone. It will also be their education programs, their advertising approaches, their special events or concerts... their collective "personality" as perceived by their city/audience. A conductor needs to be in one place at least enough to really "get" how the orchestral organization as a whole is working on this.

(Thanks, Clarke Bustard at Letter V for the link.)

Firehouse Theatre: "This Is How It Goes" on a dark and stormy night

2009-11-13T00:23:00.001-05:00

Today I got my email update from Firehouse Theatre and halfway down, after the blurbs, there was a note that tonight would be a special, rainy-night pay-what-you-will ticket deal for "This Is How It Goes."

All right! I took them up on it, since this was exactly the motivation I needed to go see a play I kind of wanted to see, but wasn't dying to attend. (I payed twice what I paid for a cup of coffee (bottomless) and a piece of chocolate pecan pie at Garnett's this afternoon. So today was a high-flyin' kind of day for me, and if you have any spare freelance writing jobs or substitute teaching gigs for me, please let me know.)

I refuse to discuss what this play is about. That's an exercise in reductivity; the play is a veritable smorgasbord of about-ness, so you can take your pick from the topic that hits closest to home for you. But does overdetermination make a play good? Sort of -- at least, I prefer plays that aren't excruciatingly simple.

What I truly liked about the play itself was its pacing and gradual revelation of information. It's got a story, and it's told well -- at least the "acting" bits are. Playwright Neil Labute chose to use a narrative frame involving the white male lead talking directly to the audience, although actually it feels like he's writing directly to the audience, as the character is a playwright supposedly, I think, writing the play as we go along, or some sort of worn-out post-anti-post-modern technique that, come to think of it, is rather like blogging.

I got tired of it, as you have of my discussing it.

The Firehouse website has links here to the Style Weekly, WCVE and Times-Dispatch reviews. I agree with the universal sentiment that the acting by Iacovo, Kennedy and Satterfield and direction by Patton are top-notch. It's the kind of production that makes me glad to live in Richmond, even though I wouldn't say the play itself is one I'd go see again.

A note on the set design, which at least two critics didn't like: My first thought on seeing it was the Malvina Reynolds song, "Little Boxes," a song which I think is only true enough to be a lie we want to believe in. Chew on that, if you've seen the play, eh? The music during the play matched the ticky-tacky perfectly. (It was the props I didn't care for; Cody and Belinda are wealthy, but the props didn't reflect that.)

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

P.S. Yes, that photo's from "Being John Malkovich." No, I can't explain why I thought it fit. Mostly, I'm just trying to use more pictures in my blog.

Fagen, Threnody and Cameo Appearances by Rocky and a Special Alt Character

2009-11-12T23:05:00.000-05:00

I was in Philadelphia this past weekend visiting an old friend (My daughter and her son were training; see photo) and forgot that the profile of final RSO director candidate, Arther Fagen, ran in Sunday's Times-Dispatch.

I'm particulary eager for this weekend's Masterworks concert because I want to hear "Nanking! Nanking!" by Bright Sheng, whose "Postcards" the symphony performed last year for a Metro Collection concert. The "Threnody for Orchestra and Pipa" was written for the memory of the 300,000 or more victims of the 1937 Japanese attack on Nanking, China. (A "threnody" is a song of mourning; I had to look it up.)

I'm also curious to hear how Fagen takes the Egmont. This is one of those Beethoven pieces that you've probably heard, even if you think you haven't. The überdramatic opening section can go slow, very slow, or very, very slow. Which will it be?!

Shape-Note Singing in Richmond

2009-11-04T12:20:00.000-05:00

This article brought back my memory of attending a sing -- maybe even in Singers Glen, VA -- with my parents many years ago. I was a distracted, if not sullen, teenager, but still vividly remember how the timbers of the log church seemed to glow and the sound filled every corner.

Having grown up in a church tradition of acapella congregational singing-- everyone sang-- it has taken me a long time to realize just how impressive the sound of many unadorned human voices can be, especially if you've never heard it.

I've never been a confident singer. I'm not ever going to solo. But people singing together is definitely something that should happen more often.

Richmond Symphony: Lollipops and Dead Composers

2009-11-04T11:57:00.001-05:00

Forgot to post the link to my review of the Richmond Symphony's first concert in its new Lollipops series, published in Sunday's Times-Dispatch.

Yes, "The Composer is Dead" is funny, and I don't think it's just "inside" jokes. For example, even if you don't really get why the part about the violas is funny, the music written for them sort of explains the joke.

This is the sort of piece that will certainly become standard repertoire for family concerts, if not for the occasional adult concert, too. (I think the grim humor of performing this piece on March 26, the date of Beethoven's still mysterious death, would be perfect.) What parent wouldn't rather take a kid to a show that they themselves will appreciate, too?

The symphony partnered with Radio Disney to provide publicity, I guess, and to help run the pre-show and half-time entertainment (costume contest, perky DJ). As much as I, the Snob, detest the Disney Channel (I'm guessing that Radio Disney is similarly detestable), I think this was a excellent move for the symphony. Advertise in the same places, you'll get the same people. Advertise in new places, you'll get new people. Maybe they've done RD partnerships before; I dunno.

By the way, speaking of funny, watch this video of Lemony Snicket and Nathaniel Stookey discussing "The Composer is Dead," in which Snicket compares it to a dead butterfly and a gateway drug, and makes the case for a hospitals to have house bands.

Alt Comix and Alt Characters

2009-10-30T09:46:00.001-04:00

My report on the the appearance of R. Crumb and Françoise Mouly ran in today's Times-Dispatch.

I'm not a Crumb fan, but I still felt a little awed and odd to see, in person, the man responsible for this, for example. He voice is a mild tenor, his manner almost sweet. He actually said, "Awww" without affectation when some photos of his children and wife were shown overhead. He was a little shy-and-awkward, yes, but not reticent. Mouly guided the conversation through prompts and didn't have to ask very many direct questions; Crumb was willing to tell little stories and deliver wry aphorisms.

By the way, the post title does not refer to attendees at the event but to this exciting page that shows how to make ç and ü and £ and even ☺, if you're so inclined.

Bad Medicine and the RTCC

2009-10-24T12:04:00.001-04:00

I attended the Richmond Theatre Critics Circle award program on Sunday evening and submitted my article on time the next day. But for various newspaper-y reasons, it didn't run until Friday and was cut slightly.

Here's the published version. The online version doesn't include the full list of winners, which did run in print. Here are a few additional remarks:

*Aaron Gilchrist captured the spirit of the evening [or maybe he set its tone] with his unaffected charm.

*Tuxes, yes—which is not to say the jacket-over-jeans or the man-in-a-dress looks were absent.

*Shawls and scarves, yes-- with a few evening gowns and a knock-out Rita McClenny of the Virginia Film Office in thigh-high boots and a teeny blue dress.
[Sure, these last two bits are throw-away lines, but isn't the clothing part of the fun? Plus, I'm so fashion unconsicous, I had to work really hard on those lines!]

*For some reason, I thought Ms. Squire's line was the funniest of the night, so I had to end the article with "And who doesn't need an escape from that?" But it's true, if I were the editor trying to make the article fit, I would have cut that line too.

Also, I had written a whole part about Tom Width's speech when he accepted the lighting design award on behalf of Joe Doran. (Mr. Width is now on my list of People I'd Like to Meet.)

Tom Width, artistic director of Swift Creek Mill Theatre, accepted the Artsy for lighting design on behalf of Joe Doran, who was in New York. Doran did the lights for the Mill’s production of “Altar Boyz.”
“Joe told me, ‘I need $60,000 for lights.’ I said, ‘Go buy a Mega Millons ticket,’” Width told the audience. He gave Doran a budget, and Doran borrowed and rented equipment, bought things off eBay and created a design for the Mill’s “Altar Boyz” production that “put $60,000 of lighting design on stage for $5,000.”

I thought the story was both charming and indicative of the resourcefulness, creativity, and energy of Richmond theater that was so evident throughout the evening. But I realized I couldn't send those paragraphs in for publication and risk readers interpreting it to mean the Mill is somehow unprofessional. (I know, nonsense!--but my eyes were opened last year when I read an online comment elsewhere. Someone wrote that a Richmond Shakespeare production was "shoddy"--it was clear that person thought the absence of thousands of dollars worth of costumes and set means a production is automatically not good.)

So what's with the title of this post? Well, isn't that what critics are? I opened the paper on Thursday, sure that my RTCC article would finally appear in the Weekend section. Alas, no. But there was a nearly half-page article about the Bon Jovi TV special!

Don't get me wrong: I think Melissa Ruggieri is a good writer, and statistics do support the notion that Bon Jovi is of more interest to a greater number of people than Richmond theater. But I consider it part of my job to grouse about such freakish injustice!

Richmond Symphony: Debussy, Prokofiev, Berlioz

2009-10-22T13:18:00.001-04:00

My review of this concert appeared in Monday's Times-Dispatch, but there's no appearance of it online, so I'll post here. Read through for a few additional thoughts at the end.

Imagine a cup filled so full that the water makes a dome above its brim. The liquid trembles, bulges—but stays within the cup’s edge, held in place by surface tension until some outside force intervenes.

Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is music that plays, metaphorically speaking, at the edge of the cup. The emotional tension was portrayed keenly on Saturday night by the Richmond Symphony and guest pianist Jeremy Denk, under the baton of conductor Christian Knapp, a candidate for the postion of music director of the symphony.

Written in C Major, but with melodies that quiver at the brinks of various minor keys, the concerto strains at the boundaries of simple categories like “happy” and “sad.” Denk’s performance showed this brilliantly. The piano cavorts into the first movement, but as the music spills over the edge of glee, Denk played with a near-vicious ecstasy. When a brooding equilibrium is reached, he didn’t let the music become complacent.

In introducing the concerto, Knapp remarked on Prokofiev’s fascination with machinery. The concerto does have passages of mechanical insistence, musical figures that get repeated like a step on the assembly line of sound, but Denk’s no automaton. He translated such moments into a manic playfulness that let the audience marvel at both his skill and the larger context of the music itself.

Denk performed with sensitivity to the orchestral voices, and the musicians played in harmonious partnership with him. At moments in the first and third movements, the violins and woodwinds seemed to have trouble hearing each other. Knapp worked quickly to bring them together.

The theme of tension at the threshold connected the first and last pieces on the program as well. “Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune” by Debussy and “Symphone fantastique” by Berlioz both explore the boundary between dream and waking worlds.

In Debussy’s dreamy afternoon, the surface shimmers, but doesn’t break. It’s easy to imagine the flute, oboe and other solo parts as light-footed fauns and nymphs. The musicians voiced these passages beautifully against the lush backdrop of harps and strings.

The opium-fueled dream Berlioz depicts is in sharp contrast to the languid eroticism of the Debussy. The music is by turns graceful, plaintive, violent and comic—and more—and requires quick mood shifts, which the musicians handled with ease.

Knapp directed emphatically, often using his full body, as if he were inside the dream himself. When the music ended, there were murmurs and sighs from the audience as we returned to the world of the concert hall to applaud.

Except that the sounds I heard were not so much murmurs and sighs as little gasps and burbles. That last movement's music is pretty crass, after all. But I couldn't use those words in a review, as they'd convey entirely the wrong meaning to readers who don't know the music.

(Burbles: you know, that sound some Educated People make when they laugh at something they think only Educated People realize is funny.)

I also deliberately didn't use the word "animated" to describe Knapp's conducting. It's such a cliche, and I worried some readers would read it as a positive commentary ("Yay! the conductor is entertaining!") or as a negative commentary ("Humph. Too wacky. Undignified.") depending on their inclination. I hope "emphatically" came across as purely discriptive.

There were several points in the Berlioz and even once or twice in the Prokofiev that I thought the music sounded bottom-heavy. (Were six basses really necessary?) Personally, I'm all for a conductor who likes cellos and basses, but they were occassionally distracting in this performance.

RSO Director Candidate: Christian Knapp

2009-10-13T10:22:00.004-04:00

My profile of Mr. Knapp appeared in the Sunday Times-Dispatch.

Our phone conversation lasted an hour, so as is always the case, much of the challenge of writing the piece was getting it down to length. He spent quite a bit of time talking about "reaching out" to the community and used some specific, interesting examples of ways in which other orchestras have done this. But every candidate says he wants to reach out. Duh! So I decided not to use any of that part of the conversation.

I did want to try to work in this remark of Mr. Knapp, though: "The worst thing a conductor can do is to show up for the concerts and then leave when it's over."

If Knapp is chosen, will he remember he pronounced this judgment? This is pretty much what Mark Russell Smith did, spending most of his time in Minnesota with his other orchestra (and family), and it's certainly what Knapp and most of the other candidates are doing right now, gigging as guest conductors.

I don't know how many conductors lead this fly-around life by choice, because they're invigorated by its variety and challenge, and how many do it out of necessity, because as orchestras shrink in size and programming schedules, they're simply hiring fewer people and for fewer hours.

The coattails conductor may be the "worst thing," but unfortunately it may be a reality. Can the Richmond Symphony afford the financial incentive it would take to get its first choice of conductor to move (including, perhaps, a family) to Richmond full-time? I don't know.

(But I bet we'll land in the middle ground between "show up and leave" and "send my kids to local schools.")

However, I don't agree with Mr. Knapp, who may be inclined to overestimate the importance of a music director to the life of the orchestra as an entire organization. I think the worst thing a conductor can do, from the public's perspective, is to disrespect the audience by not taking into account its variety, intelligence and sincere desire to support the symphony.

Certainly, a conductor needs to spend enough time in a city to understand an orchestra's audience (and potential audience), and certainly a dedicated conductor could make the difference between a good orchestra and a phenomenal orchestral organization.

Personally, I would be flattered and delighted if a conductor chose to live full-time in this city I love. But I've got enough faith in the musicians and the staff of the orchestra that I'm relatively unconcerned if our new conductor doesn't move to Richmond.

Fleck, Hussain, Meyer: Good Joke, No Beer

2009-10-07T08:11:00.002-04:00

Nine years ago, I volunteered at the Mayo Island Music Festival just so I could hear Bela Fleck. Unfortunately, I got stuck slinging Miller Lite from a beer truck at the back of the field when Bela Fleck took the stage. Immediately, the trucks were slammed. Fleck was apparently too quiet and too subtle for many attendees and they decided it was time for another beer. I missed almost everything.

Fortunately, I got to hear Bela Fleck on Sunday, along with Edgar Meyer and Zakir Hussain. Didn't have to serve cheap beer. Here's the review, which appeared in Tuesday's Times-Dispatch.

And here's a review by Taylor Barnett on Richmond.com.

Free!

2009-10-04T08:38:00.003-04:00

The Snob's household is feeling the effects of a downward adjustment of income this summer. Yuengling beer in bottles changed to Yuengling in cans, and recently the Snob's husband switched to Natural Light in cans. That's when the Snob started drinking more tea.

On a more serious note, what does one do when there's simply less money? We rarely eat out and we've postponed certain home-improvement projects. But some things that may seem superfluous to other people, we've decided are important enough to keep, as long as we're lucky enough to be able to. Both girls take violin lessons, though we've cut back from 45-minute lessons to 30-minute lessons. They each participate in one sport. I'm still committed to buying tickets to performing arts events, although not nearly as often as I'd like.

The good news is that Richmond is full of high-quality, free or cheap concerts, particularly at the universities.

If you don't know about the Modlin Center's "Free Spot," well, for goodness sake, here you go! www.modlin.richmond.edu, click on the "Free Spot" at the left. All their free events are sorted out into a handy calendar. The VCU music department's calendar doesn't indicate prices at a glance, but it's full of free or cheap faculty recitals and other concerts.

Here are two in the immediate future:

Sunday, Oct. 4, 4 p.m.
VCU, Singleton Center
Susanna Klein, violin, and Dmitri Steinberg, piano
$5

Monday, Oct. 5, 7:30 p.m.
University of Richmond, Modlin Center
Matt Albert (of eighth blackbird) and Andrew McCann, violins
Free.

And of course, the Richmond Folk Festival this coming weekend has free admission to everything! It such a fabulous deal that you really must go--and drop some bucks in the orange donation bucket, please. I'll try to post about the festival this week, after I spend some time today plotting my intended course. (I've yet to follow my own plans, but that's the beauty of the festival, that it doesn't matter--everything's wonderful.)

Critical Analysis

2009-09-30T13:01:00.007-04:00

There have been interesting exchanges over the past several days between readers and writers of the blogs Richmond VA Theater, by Style Weekly freelance critic Dave Timberline, and The Barksdale Buzz, by Barksdale Theatre Artistic Director Bruce Miller. So interesting, in fact, I'm going to join in. How'd you guess?

"What are critics good for?" is a fair paraphrase of the central question. Although some commenters would answer simply, "Nothing," the real discussion involves the role of a (theater) critic in relation to theaters, audiences and potential audiences.

One could argue that a theater critic, reviewing a play on the first night of an at-least-3-week run, has a different role than a music critic reviewing a one-time performance. (Since the Richmond Symphony switched to only Saturday night and Sunday afternoon performances, reviews don't appear in the Times-Dispatch until after they could affect attendance for that particular concert set.)

But in the big picture, I think none of us are critics so much as we are intermediaries between the artists and the vast, vast number of people who haven't ever gone to a live performance but who we desperately wish would. These are the people I write for.

To get more specific, I'll play a number game:

1,250,000
Number of people in the Richmond-Petersburg MSA.
1,000,000
Number of those people who are a lost cause as far as attending arts performances goes.
2,500
Number of people who actually attended the last Richmond Symphony concert set. (Bump that down by about 60% for the Modlin Center or other venue.)
7,500
Number of regular or occasional classical music patrons who may decide to attend a concert in the next month or so. (These are the people--less than 1% of the general population--that arts organizations worry will be put off by a "bad" review--which is reasonable, as they're the people most likely to read reviews.)
240,000
Everybody else. (I know, of course, that they're not all reading my reviews, but just play along with the game, please.)

These are the people I'm so eager to reach, because I feel deep in my sweet little optimistic heart that if only they would release their preconceptions, let down their guard, truly listen and watch with their emotional, human core, they would be, yes, converted.

They are people who probably do not know the setting of "Carmina Burana" and have never heard of Philip Glass, let alone Mark-Anthony Turnage. They don't know (as I didn't, really) the plot of "Children of a Lesser God" and, because they're reading the newspaper, they are very unlikely to look up any of these things.

That's why I spend some of my precious word count on description, even if I'd rather not. I recognize the need to put my comments in context, because little is more off-putting for me than feeling like I'm on the outside of some exclusive coterie--I feel sure I speak for a few other readers.

That's why, when I sort out my thoughts after a performance before writing a newspaper review (as opposed to my ramblings on this obscure blog), I ask myself, "What will catch the attention of the non-patron? What will most usefully prepare a potential audience member's expectations for a future performance?"

In short, I don't write for musicians or their bosses. I don't care if my words are blurbable or not. I don't expect to be helpful in any kind of technical or promotional way, although I'm delighted on occasion when I feel I can be.

A few other thoughts:

1. I wouldn't be reviewing, as a critic, any concert or production that wasn't professional. I work under the assumption that professionals know what they're doing. However, as an editor, I know that even the best article benefits from a set or two of fresh eyes.

2. The quality of professional performances in Richmond is high. The question is never "Was the performance good or bad?" Instead, I address questions such as "Does this particular interpretation seem to be communicating with the audience, starting with me?" "Does this performance help me reach beyond the little box of my existence? If so, how? If not, why not?"

3. I have a vested interest in getting readers to go to concerts--after all, they keep me in work, in an indirect way.

4. Did you notice those quote marks around the word "bad" up there? Partly that's because I believe any free publicity is good publicity. (Of those 240,000 people, several thousand of them have never even heard of your organization/group/company.)

But partly it's because, Richmonders, if you ever think you've gotten a bad review, you need to stay the heck out of New York City. Tosca at the Met? Try this choice review with its opening line: "The Metropolitan Opera opened its new season last night with a shabby new production of Puccini’s 'Tosca' and a soprano who fit right in." And later: "Bondy’s new production is short on tassels and ormolu. That would be fine, but it’s also short on sets and costumes and imagination. How did this dopey show get on stage?"

Wonder how many tickets that sold?!

Richmond Symphony: Carmina Burana

2009-09-30T12:45:00.001-04:00

My review of Saturday night's Masterworks performance ran in Monday's Times-Dispatch. Read it first, then here are a few more thoughts.

"Cignus ustus cantat," that roasting swan song, truly epitomized why live performance (by professionals) is alwasy better than a recording. What splendid avian agony from the oboe! What tortured misery from the tenor! Marcus Shelton was not on stage when the movement began... huh? He staggered on, smoldering (well, not literally) and hammed up the part, to the audience's delight. I'm just guessing, but it also seemed like Zeller, the baritone, felt more at home in his parts after Shelton's performance.

The problems with dynamic contrast that I mention were also evident in the first two pieces. I hope the review (as always, I only get about 400 words) makes it clear that I think this is primarily a matter of getting used to the new space, not a shortcoming of the conductor or the orchestra.

Likewise, I sometimes had trouble hearing the winds when the full orchestra was playing. I'm sure that was due to my seat in the sixth row. (Clarke Bustard didn't have that problem, but I don't know where he was sitting.)

Mr. Bustard also notes the reverberancy of sound in the hall. This is neither good nor bad, but it can present a challenge to work with, especially when there are so many elements, like in the "Carmina." A violinist I spoke to after the concert said that symphony staff were trying out all sorts of seating arrangements and placements during rehearsals and that the sound was incredibly "booming" without the 1700 bodies in the seats.

There were times, such as at the ends of some of the Carmina movements--when the sustained sound was perfectly dramatic. But at the end of the Brahms, the combination of a long sustain and Willis' perhaps nervous impatience meant he actually turned around to receive applause before the note ended.

Now for some wild tangents.

If I were a hard-core snob, I would complain that the program (Saint-Saens' Bacchanale, a "greatest-hits" sort of piece; Brahms' "Variations on a [Cute] Theme by Haydn"; and Orff's big-noise, Ozzy-adopted "Carmina Burana") was too familiar. But I'm the people's snob, so in addition to loving it, I'm also thinking about how all three pieces are, in the broadest sense, folk music.

In a strict sense, folk music is that which has no identifiable single origin, is associated with a particular culture or place, and can be played/sung without extensive techinical training. But for a while now, I've been thinking that only that last part should be retained. For one thing, modern obsessions with documentation and authorship/ownership have basically guaranteed that we know the origins of almost all music composed in the past century and a half. I think a better definition of folk music is simply music that folks can and want to recreate themselves, with more or less practice, from memory.

No, we didn't all go home and play the oboe solo from the beginning of the Bacchanale (oh, I wish). But all three works had easily identifiable melodies or melodic bits, stuff that folks could--and did--go home singing or humming. (The "theme by Haydn" is probably a folk melody from Austria. Did you click the Brahms link above?)

So humor me. It's kind of like folk music, right?

In any case, the program was a stoke of marketing genius--I'm saying this with admiration, not cynicism. Think about it: if you can hum the music, you'll remember it. If you remember the music, you'll remember the night you went to the Richmond Symphony. And if you remember that, you'll be more likely to go again. The symphony knew that the first Masterworks concert of the season in the new Carpenter Theatre would be very well attended. I do hope all of them return.

eighth blackbird: also appearing on toast

2009-09-21T11:52:00.007-04:00

Here's the online review published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch… and here’s the detailed review, in program order, of the eighth blackbird concert, "Spam," at the Modlin Center on Wednesday, Sept. 16.

The concert began with “Twelve Hands” by Mayke Nas (2008), a work “for six players on one piano,” which I discuss in the published review. Musically, it’s rather forgettable. So many different things happen in such a short time that I had a hard time forging any emotional connections to it.

But it is a perfect piece to begin a concert, providing a kickstart to imagination. Who knew that running a credit card up and down the edges of the keys would sound like someone snoring… or whatever you thought it sounded like? Did you know a piano laughs when you tickle its upper strings? What next, and et cetera?

I was much more drawn in by the next piece, “Toward the Flame,” a work for violin, cello, flute and percussion composed in 2009 for 8bb by Newport News native Shawn Allison. The first movement, “Tun ‘Tawu” is characterized by spurts and runs, the second by slow glides and glissandos. The flute’s voice is prominent but not dominant. The instruments at times echo each other, although it’s not an exact echo—more like an impressionistic retelling of another’s phrase.

In a concert that seemed glutted with small musical gestures—short phrases, tight turns around small intervals—the third movement, “Atlas,” stood out with its larger, almost violent, gestures. I say “almost” because I can’t think of a word that fits right between “passionate” and “violent.” Music, like nature, defies language, as it should.

Program notes explain that “Toward the Flame” takes “inspiration from moths” and that Atlas moths have the largest wing area of any moth, “prehistoric in proportion.” Listening to this music, I had no trouble imagining the flashes of the Atlas moth’s wings as it soars through a Southeast Asian jungle, knowing nothing of passion, violence or beauty. I felt transported to a place just beyond rationality.

The last movement, “Chrysalis,” has a slow, pulsing feel and a drone-like cello. A caterpillar spinning a cocoon around itself has no knowledge of what will come, no idea that there’s any “after” to the darkness. The music closes quietly.

(I see from looking up Shawn Allison that he’s got two earlier compositions that use texts from Gerard Manley Hopkins—am fascinated already.)

I just couldn’t help myself: I actually thought the word “creepy” while I listened to Bent Sørensen’s “The Deserted Churchyards” (1990). Introducing the music, Tim Munro described it as a sort of “aural fog” achieved, at times, by the voices playing the same thing but not quite at the same time. There were moments this was a little disconcerting in a bad way—you know that tense feeling you get when you’re afraid a performer is slightly off?—but mostly it was disconcerting in a good, creepy way.

Similarly uncanny, the violin sometimes used a practice mute (I think) that produced a delicate buzzing sound. The work ended with Munro switching to a slide whistle that sounded just right with the tonal decay of the piano.

My mind boggles at the thought of the incredible focus it must take to perform this music. “Fog” is a good word to describe the mood of the piece, but the music itself was actually incredibly precise. At times, the musicians played so pianissimo my skin was crawling with the drama of it all.

“Spam,” by Marc Mellits (1995), finds a groove and chews it up. Syncopated rhythms (bearing a resemblance to rock the way Spam bears a resemblance to meat?) carry melodies through three stages. What begins laughingly morphs into a section of agitated minor tonalities. Then the music is mollified, gradually slowing and becoming pared away until it ends on a single tone. The ’birds played with affectionate irony, and be honest: isn’t that how you feel about Spam? This is music everyone should love.

(Warning: the link above will take you to a Monty Python video which has absolutely nothing to do with the eighth blackbird concert, although it was the inspiration for this blog post title.)

One minute into “Catch” by Thomas Ades (1991), I had an attack of the post-nasal drip—darn cheapo store-brand antihistamines—so I had to flee to the restroom to cough in peace. The lobby monitor’s sound wasn’t good enough to really hear the performance, but I did see some of the choreography.

“Catch” is written for piano, violin, cello and peripatetic clarinet. (You have to read that last bit out loud.) It’s music as school-game: the voices tease each other, pass notes, assert dominance. The clarinetist walks in and out, shoves his instrument into the personal space of the others.

I had watched this 8bb rehearsal video before the concert, and I really wanted to listen for how (if) the sound of the clarinet was changed by its movement around the stage—a Doppler micro-shift that would be, I guess—and how that sound affected the blend of sound as a whole.

Mark-Anthony Turnage’s “Grazioso!” (2009) was generally inspired by the music of Led Zeppelin, according to the composer. I was listening for a Zeppelin-esque bass line, but there wasn’t really one—not that there should have been, but, you know, that was my other career choice, to play bass in an all-girl Zeppelin cover band.

In “Grazioso!” the bass clarinet was in such a low register I often had a hard time hearing it. I thought if Maccaferri sat away from the cello and the open piano (speaking of Doppler) that might help audiences distinguish the voices.

My first impression of the piece was of chaos, but then riffs emerged in solos or duets. This was probably my least favorite piece on first listen, but the first I’d give a second listen to, so as to hear Albert and Photinos nail some of the passages so fabulously again.

This was only my second eighth blackbird concert, so I can’t judge if its length of less than an hour of music, was typical, but I wished it had been longer. Not that $16 to $20 is outrageous for a ticket, but hey, why not love the fans and throw in an old favorite? The people who showed up by mistake already left at intermission. I heard the woman behind me “complaining” that the concert was over too soon. Next time, we’ll have to yell “Encore!” and see what happens.

eighth blackbird Times-Dispatch review

2009-09-18T13:30:00.003-04:00

My review of Wednesday night's eighth blackbird concert is in today's Times-Dispatch, but I can't find it online yet. I wanted my audience to be people who had never gone to an 8bb concert, either because they never considered it or because they didn't know what it would be like. With only 400 words, I had to keep it very general.

I've got way more than 400 words to say about the concert, of course, so I'll post here again after I can find the T-D link. (You've got to contribute to the page hits, you know, so they'll keep covering music like this!)

UPDATE: Here it is!

Meanwhile, here's my take on the 'birds concert last fall.

Grand Opening performance at Richmond CenterStage

2009-09-14T11:51:00.005-04:00

I arrived home Saturday night at 10:45 with a midnight deadline. As I sat down to type, I could hear whine of Richmond International Raceway, so I knew I had some time. (Yes, it was NASCAR for which the Times-Dispatch was holding the presses, not an arts performance.) An hour and a half later, I filed my story.

Naturally, the hardest part was deciding what to leave out. Go read the article, then come back here for a few more thoughts. I'll wait.

If you read the article, you know the Richmond Symphony was performing from the pit, even for their "solo" turns on Shostakovich's "Festive Overture," which opened the program (after the national anthem) and Bernstein's Overture to "Candide," which opened the second half.

Naturally, this dulled the dramatic effect of these two uber-dramatic pieces. In the section of the Shostakovich near the end where the brass return with a proclamatory theme, they were, incredibly, not loud enough. But otherwise, it was a good performance.

At intermission I went to the tech stand to ask about the camera work (you read the article, right?) and happened to find the head video guy, who told me that live video switchers were working with a symphony staff person in a room beneath or behind the orchestra pit. The symphony person had the score and told the video crew when to switch to which cameras, so the audience could see soloists and sections during their action. Why was I so surprised that Richmond could be this professional?

Here's why. Because 15 minutes later, Richmond was infuriatingly unprofessional--at least the audience was.

Richmond Symphony undoubtedly played the Bernstein just as smashingly as the Shostakovich, but it was hard to tell, since the audience talked fully half-way through the performance. Erin Freeman began the piece at some strictly pre-ordained time that should have been the end of intermission, but so many people were still in the lobby (gulping cocktails and buying souvenier T-shirts) that the ushers kept the doors open as they hustled people back to seats. The house lights stayed on, and even though the projected image of the symphony performing was clear, people wouldn't shut up. Emily, my 12-year-old daughter, had to share her Twix with me to calm my rage. Maybe it works for italics, too.

For the second performing group of the night, the curtain rose on eight members of the Richmond Jazz Society, with a beautifully understated setting of strings of little white lights hanging down in front of a blue-lit background. The performance was top-notch and typical -- Sinatra-style, with lyrics including, "CenterStage, the best is yet to come."

The best thing about African American Repertory Theatre portion--which included young people from City Dance Theatre-- was the total coherence of many different parts into a whole. Pastiche? No way.

Also, in case you've never considered how difficult it might be to do a Langston Hughes tribute without overdosing on all the sap that could potentially ooze from the word "dream," let me tell you: it's hard, but I saw evidence that it can be done, with physical action, tight segues and strong voices. So now let's take a poetry break. Here's Hughes' "The Dream Keeper," which AART performed emotionally, but not sentimentally.

Bring me all of your dreams,
you dreamer,
bring me all your
heart melodies
that I may wrap them
in a blue cloud-cloth
away from the too-rough fingers
of the world.

Opera: do people really just go for the costumes and the sets, or do they in fact like the music? There's no real answer to this question, of course, but it's certain that audiences expect the eye candy. Virginia Opera didn't disappoint, bringing in a huge set piece and full dress for their portion of the show. And hey, the music was good, too!

Under the direction of Peter Mark, singers and the symphony performed a duet, a solo and a quartet from Puccini's "La Boheme." The balance of voices and instruments was excellent, with the violins singing out their parts in equal measure. (Can you tell I'm more of an orchestra person than an opera person?)

The paired organization of Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV performed four flat-out different pieces, with live musical accompaniment by the RSO: "We're All in This Together" from "Disney's High School Musical"; a bolero called "Amores" that's part of the play "Boleros for the Disenchanted" by Jose Rivera; "Forget About the Boy" from the musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie"; and "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" from "The Sound of Music." That's pretty much the history of 20th-century music theater in the western world in 15-minutes. Whew!

I am a snob, after all, so I don't like musicals. Or so I thought. The song and dance number from "Millie" pretty much changed my mind. Tap dancing, synchronized desk-twirling, girls in outrageous wigs... What's so wrong about a little fun?

And who doesn't want to cry at the sight of little pretend waifs singing "Castle on a Cloud"? Or jump to one's feet and throw back one's head to "Do You Hear the People Sing"?! Gosh, I have to go out and rent a "Les Miserables" video right now while I wait until next summer for whatever SPARC performs then.

Elegba Folklore Society was next--I also mentioned them in the article, but I didn't mention the stilt-dancer who came on near the end. Having seen an amazing stilt performance at a recent Folk Festival downtown, I thought this one wasn't quite ready to go. The dancer's gestures were subdued (and he had to keep hitching up a slipping mask) and the footwork not confident. But women's dance ensemble and the drummers were excellent. They performed an excerpt from "Marketplace Suite."

I'm going to skip over the Richmond Shakespeare part for now, except to say that I wanted to mention them in the published article in the same context as the "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" performance (buty ran out of room). All the actors wore costumes from markedly different times and places. The effect could have been one of a little provincial theater stocked with costumes left behind from travelling productions, but as the program notes put it, "the costumes reflect the many eras influenced by--or [which] were influences on--William Shakespeare." I became convinced that this was a powerful visual statement of unity--but maybe a little too subtle for people who didn't read that program and don't know that Richmond Shakespeare does really think about these things.

I've only been to two other Richmond Ballet performances--a "Nutcracker," which hardly counts, and a Studio series night a couple years ago. As you know from the T-D piece, their performance of the last section of "Windows" touched me deeply. "Spectacle" is a word I sometimes use derogatorily, but I'd like to rescind all negative connotations for the moment, please. Sure, it's easy to be impressive with lots of people, and beautiful attire, and live music (oh, if only that could be true at every performance!)--but it's also easy, with all those same elements, to be sloppy, or crass. Every element of this performance was attended to with care, knowing that it was a spectacle--something to be seen, something calculated to inspire wonder.

So yes--a whirlwind tour, a traveling circus, a rich-folks dress-up party, a top-down-no-grassroots congratulatory orgy. Whatever it was, I laughed, I cried. It was better than a hole in the ground.

Why Johnny Can't Shoot

2009-09-02T22:47:00.002-04:00

On February 28, 2007, NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr ended his commentary on the national Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) with this remark:

Leave no child behind is a slogan that President Bush borrowed from the Children's Defense Fund and applied to his No Child Left Behind education program. Perhaps it could be applied as well to children's health. Or perhaps children's health should be redefined as a defense program, meant to ensure a supply of healthy young people for future wars.

Fast-forward to this morning, and read the Richmond Times-Dispatch's front-page article, "70 percent of young people are unable to enlist," excerpted below. It begins:

Money spent on early-childhood education today can help protect America's national security tomorrow, former military leaders said yesterday at a news conference in Richmond.
...
But a Washington-based group of retired military leaders called Mission: Readiness -- Military Leaders for Kids said that providing more at-risk children with early education would increase high school graduation rates, reduce crime and improve physical fitness among young people.

"The younger they start with education, the better they will be in the future," said retired Army Brig. Gen. Clara L. Adams-Ender of Lake Ridge.

And, Mission: Readiness said, that would increase the number of people who could qualify to volunteer for the armed services.

Nearly 30 percent of Virginia high school students fail to graduate on time or drop out entirely, said the nonprofit group, which is funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

"We cannot allow today's dropout crisis to become a national security crisis," said retired Air Force Gen. Richard E. Hawley of Newport News. ...

The article by staff writer Peter Bacque goes on to report that Mission: Readiness backs full funding of the Virginia Preschool Initiative, at $30-$35 million a year. Delegate Mamye BaCote, who joined the M:R people on stage for the conference, took a bit of the shine off the brass's enthusiasm. "I don't know where the money's coming from right now, but we'll find it if we can," the article quotes her as saying.

Well, yeah. If this were West Virginia, maybe we could sell some leftover F-22 parts. At the national level, the military always seems to get a huge chunk of the budget. Is it time to redefine early education as a defense program?

Of course, here in Virginia, we've got tobacco, a useful fundraiser as long as people keep smoking...

If you've got the time, here's the editorial I wrote for the August 2007 issue of Richmond Parents Monthly:

It’s a good thing I was sitting down when I read the news about the vote to raise federal taxes on cigarettes, because I just about fainted dead away from the stupidity of the idea.

The Senate Finance Committee voted on July 19 to raise the per-pack federal tax from 39 cents to $1 in order to expand health care coverage for uninsured children though SCHIP (see sidebar [below]). The bill will be debated in the full Senate; if it passes, it will go to the House for debate.

At first, I chortled. Yeah, tax the heck out of those coffin nails! Plus, save the children! Then I read farther into the article and realized that the twisted logic behind this bill may actually be detrimental to the health of children.

The article quoted Daniel E. Smith, president of the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, saying the move would “discourage youth and adults from smoking.” Presumably, Smith shares the same goal as Wyoming senator Michael Enzi, who, the article also reported, wants to eliminate national tobacco use in a generation. (He has introduced a different bill aimed at doing so.)

Now wait a minute. If the higher cost of cigarettes reduces the amount people smoke, will SCHIP funding goals be reached? If I’d like to see increased funding for children’s health care, should I start buying cigarettes? Could smokers someday feel good about lighting up, knowing that they’re supporting the nation’s uninsured children?

Even though a higher cigarette tax probably won’t appreciably affect the number of cigarettes sold in the short term, it’s clear that the two goals of this proposed tax bill are at odds with each other.

The biggest question is: Why seek to get funds from an activity you want to eliminate? If we truly believe that the health of our nation’s children is important enough to direct federal dollars to it, we need to stop treating it as an afterthought, trying to squeeze dollars from butts.

Using poorly thought-out reasoning to address a crucial issue only delays the real solution for uninsured children.

Money spent on children’s health care is an investment. If children receive regular checkups—at which their parents can receive health education, as well—and basic preventive care, savings will be realized in the form of decreased sick care costs later.

Politicians have a tough job. It’s hard to estimate how much, spent now, will result in savings later. And it’s hard take money away from something else to fund a program with results that aren’t immediately realized. But when our leaders start radically re-assessing the importance of children’s health, they will be able to see beyond the piecemeal tax tactic.

Back in February, I had another near-fainting moment related to the SCHIP debate when the most acutely cynical remark I’ve ever heard came zinging from my car radio. I had to switch it off and choke back tears.

Daniel Schorr, senior news analyst for National Public Radio, was assessing a National Governors Association meeting at which President Bush spoke mainly about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But many governors, Schorr said, wanted answers about the future of funding for SCHIP. The Bush administration had indicated it had no plans to increase the 5 billion federal dollars it spends annually on the program.

The amount, said Schorr, might be called “piddling” compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. defense budget. Maybe, he concluded, “children’s health should be redefined as a defense program, meant to assure a supply of healthy young people for future wars.”

Is that what it will take? If our country continues to rule by twisted logic, who knows?

[sidebar]
What is SCHIP?

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program aims to provide health insurance for children in families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but still can’t afford private health insurance.

The program is funded by national and state governments. Within broad federal guidelines, states design their own programs.

In Virginia, the program is called FAMIS, for Family Access to Medical Insurance Security. For more information, call 1-866-87FAMIS or see www.famis.org

Still Magic After All These Years

2009-08-05T22:34:00.008-04:00

From a dusty high shelf last week I pulled down some cassette tapes. My car contains the only functioning implement with which to decode these messages from the previous century, so today as I drove I listened to "Peter, Paul and Mommy."

I had the original 1969 PP&M record--the dust jacket folded open to reveal a 20-inch version of the front photo and the injunction to "Pin a mustache on Peter and Paul." I loved that record. When my older daughter was 4 or so, I bought the cassette for her, and she liked it, but I don't think she dreamed to it the way I did.

Listening to it again today, with my younger daughter in the back seat, I was amazed that I had liked these songs--many of them are quite adult, or at the least, sentimental. There are two lullabies, not counting Peter Yarrow's "Day is Done," which strikes me now as an obscene combination of adult angst and tender bedtime wishes. Here's a verse and the chorus:

Do you ask why I'm sighing, my son?
You shall inherit what mankind has done.
In a world filled with sorrow and woe
If you ask me why this is so, I really don't know.

And if you take my hand my son
All will be well when the day is done.
And if you take my hand my son
All will be well when the day is done.

After listening a little, Helen asked me to turn up the volume, and when we got to our destination she was sad that we had to turn off the car. (I explained that the music would start from the same spot when we turned the car back on. "But in Dad's car, the music doesn't stay where you left it," she said. She accepted my answer that a radio is different than a tape player, but clearly, the distinction between these ancient technologies was not a matter of concern for a 6-year-old child of the 21st century.)

On the return trip, as we were pulling up to the house in the middle of "Puff, the Magic Dragon," Helen asked with more sincerity than one would think possible in a child whose favorite song is quite possibly "Cat Flushing a Toilet," "Could you not turn off the car until the song is over?"

Oh, sweet child, of course I won't. This is the song I used to almost cry to. I had a private worry, each time, that somehow the words would have changed and Puff would slip into his grave instead of his cave.

Best of all, throughout the whole ride, she never once asked me to stop singing along.

I like to think that the absolute beauty of the music --the shifting melody and harmony lines among the three voices, the detailed guitar work-- are what touched my obstinate, opinionated, independent younger daughter. Maybe she was just in a mellow mood this afternoon.

Jose Marti: I Grow a White Rose

2009-07-21T11:47:00.003-04:00

One of the narrated poems in the "Son Corazon" performance (see previous post) was translated into English, alternating languages every two lines. I'm not a Spanish speaker, but I am a poet, and as I listened, I suspected the translation wasn't doing the original justice. Before we left at intermission, I glanced at someone else's program just long enough to see that the poem was by Jose Marti.

(Everything I know about Marti I learned from Pete Seeger's rendition of "Guantanamera.")

I looked around the Internet this morning and found that the almost-literal translation used at the performance is dismayingly common. But here's one that attempts to preserve the rhyme of the original.

I have a white rose to tend
In July* as in January;
I give it to the true friend
Who offers his frank hand to me.

And for the cruel one whose blows
Break the heart by which I live,
Thistle nor thorn do I give:
For him, too, I have a white rose.

CULTIVO UNA ROSA BLANCA... (Verso XXXIX)
Cultivo una rosa blanca,
En julio* como en enero,
Para el amigo sincero
Que me da su mano franca.

Y para el cruel que me arranca
El corazón con que vivo,
Cardo ni oruga cultivo:
Cultivo la rosa blanca.

*I think this should be "June," although "July" turns up in both Spanish and English versions on the Internet. It's amazing how mistakes turn into reality here. I need to find a reputable, actual book.

Here's another version. It seems, amazingly, to be from a publication called Military Review.

I GROW A WHITE ROSE
I grow a white rose,
In June as in January,
For my true friend
Who gives me his honest hand.

And for the cruel man who tears from me
The heart with which I live,
Thistle nor thorn do I grow:
I grow the white rose.

CULTIVO UNA ROSA BLANCA
Cultivo una rosa blanca,
en junio como en enero,
para el amigo sincero
que me da su mano franca.

Y para el cruel que me arranca
el corazon con que vivo,
cardo ni ortiga cultivo:
cultivo la rosa blanca.

The Body and Brain Rhumba

2009-07-21T10:41:00.005-04:00

The People's Snob doesn't appreciate good dancing. That is to say, I don't know the difference between good dancing and bad dancing. If the dancers wobble a little when they land, is that bad? What if I don't care? If a dance includes someone dramatically prostrating herself on the stage, is that good? Or bad? What if that particular move drives me bonkers? Would you believe this is not the last of the rhetorical questions this post will pose?

Of course, I do appreciate free dancing, so I was happy to go see a performance of "Son Corazon" by the Latin Ballet at Dogwood Dell last weekend.

I have a memory of seeing a Latin Ballet performance at the Children's Museum of Richmond, where the small space intensified the energy of the dancers and turned the experience of watching into something almost participatory. The large stage and amphitheater of the Dell diluted this feeling, but probably made for a technically better performance.

"Son Corazon" purports to be an "emotional and uplifting journey through dance based on the real stories of Cubans living in the United States," and had we picked up one of the printed programs, we might have followed the journey. (Also, we didn't stay for whole performance, as the young one was so tired that we left at intermission.)

As it was, it simply looked liked beautiful dances based on African and Spanish traditions, with fabulous costumes and a few hats.

Several of the dances included narration, some of which was in Spanish only, and some of which was also translated into English. This didn't strike me as dramatically necessary because it wasn't of a storytelling nature. (Maybe the second half included stories.)

So this performance made me uncomfortable in the same way that I usually feel uncomfortable at dance performances: I don't understand this hybrid of movement and narration, of body and brain. Why must a dance mean something?

Take away the program, the narration, the costumes. What's left is the dance. Movement alone tells the story of any conflict, love, and loss. If I had not known in advance that this performance was called "Son Corazon," that it had something to do with Cuba, would I have enjoyed it more, not struggling to create a historical narrative?

I know that throughout the ages, dance has been used as a means of storytelling, of perserving a people's history. But I don't want to have to try to understand a story; I want it either told to me or not. Am I too uptight--should I let the performance mean halfway?

I think that answer is yes, but I think a better way of asking myself the question is to say, "What can I do to help myself combine the intellectual understanding of a story with the physical understanding of dance, so that both halfway meanings make something whole?" And I suppose the answer to that is to go to more dance performances.

Richmond Shakespeare Upstages the Staged Reading

2009-05-14T22:46:00.003-04:00

My last experience with a “staged reading” was uncountable years ago and involved high stools, somber lighting and forced gaiety. But I couldn’t not go to Cymbeline, performed Tuesday night by Richmond Shakespeare as a staged reading directed by David White. (Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare’s later romances, was originally slated as the last play of the indoor season, but was replaced by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I groused about the switch here.)

As a member of POEM, I was eager to see Cymbeline because I had never read the play or seen it performed. Among other things, I wanted to test my perceptive powers: could I really follow Shakespearean English without having read the play?

Of course, this depends greatly upon the actors. And in this case, the actors were stellar.

I was flat-out impressed by how, using pretty much only their voices and faces, they transformed a bare stage into a coherent, captivating world. I especially liked Aly Wepplo’s Imogen, the heroine—played with just the right combination of feisty and sweet. David Janeski as Imogen’s beloved, Posthumus, was earnest but not uptight. And holy smokes-- Vicki McLeod as the evil stepmother Queen! I was actually glad she wasn’t in full-fledged production mode—she was so devious, I think a costume and set would have merely been encumbrances.

My comprehension was also aided by a few humorous costume props and a larger cast than usual, which saved me the effort of distinguishing among characters played by the same people.

The cast used music stands to rest their script folders on, and most of the time, this was done either discreetly or the stands were incorporated into the action or set. However, I wish a few of the actors had been directed to keep their stands either above the navel or below the nipples, because watching someone talk to the floor is no fun, and neither is not being able to see their mouths.

But that’s a minor point. The major point is that Richmond Shakespeare proves that “staged readings” are not snoozers. (Even if someone had wanted to fall asleep, he couldn’t have dozed off with all the noise of audience laughter.) So when you see the next one on the RS schedule—it’s going to be a regular feature next year when they move into CenterStage—you shouldn’t hesitate to get a ticket.

Hootenannies, Historic and Metaphoric

2009-03-27T13:48:00.010-04:00

I got a phone call at work this week that made me happier than any other call I've ever gotten at work.

"Would you cover a hootenanny we're having in May to celebrate Pete Seeger's 90th birthday?"

The sun came out from behind the clouds (the ones that now glower perpetually over the offices of every print media company) and a chorus of angels sang "Guantanamera."

I didn't know anyone else in Richmond cared about Pete Seeger. A few years ago, I mentioned his 1963 Carnegie Hall concert recording to a left-wing, banjo-playing friend and got blank stares.

(As I type right now, I'm getting choked up listening Pete lead hundreds of people in "We Shall Overcome" as he weaves his harmony over and under the voices.)

To hear the news that some folks have organized a three-hour, multi-performer, honest-to-goodness, bring-down-the-rafters hootenanny, featuring many of the songs Pete Seeger made famous, in honor of his birthday warms my heart like I can't describe.

I don't have the details with me, but here are the basics: May 3 at The Camel , 8-11 p.m. Ron Gentry and friends, Cheryl Warner and the Southside Homewreckers, and many other musicians will perform.

A hootenanny, of course, depends upon a willingly participatory audience, and that is Pete's legacy, no matter what your politics: he showed people how amazing it is to be one singing voice among many.

Metaphorically speaking, a hootenanny is what I went to last night. About 30 people gathered for a guided "grassroots conversation" about Richmond and its future. I was one of perhaps 4 or 5 people who did not personally know the organizer and leader, blogger John Sarvay (sultan of consultin' with his business, Floricane). We moved among small, random groups and discussed the ways in which each of us and Richmond were alter egos of each others.

Hmmm... well, not really. But it was all rather abstract and subjective, with no clear purpose. Or, rather: no measurable purpose. I think most everyone who attended was challenged (challenged themselves) to act on whatever intersection of self and city they discovered.

For instance, one mother of a young child wants to send him to the local public elementary school, at which most students come from low-income homes. She has already joined the PTA, but now wonders how to reach out to neighborhood parents who probably will send their children to private schools or apply through open enrollment to other public schools. This reaching out requires an extraordinary level of energy and bravery (one which I wasn't able to muster).

Throughout the evening, I was reminded that personal, passionate actions count, no matter how small. One (white) man goes to (black) Mosby Court every Sunday afternoon with a friend and spends a few hours shooting hoops, or talking, or passing time. He said, "I had to learn that this wasn't about looking for results." Yet he is hopeful--certain--that his actions will have positive future consequences.

But back to the hootenanny metaphor: Pete Seeger helps people see that when they sing together--joyfully, un-self-consciously--they don't need to be afraid of being quiet, raspy, loud or out-of-tune. And then it's very easy to transfer this confidence into action.

Last evening, as we were all talking to (not at) each other about a city we all love, I felt in myself the growth of the same kind of confidence. Speaking for myself only, I'm not sure what, or when or even if, action will result from the conversations. But I believe these talkin' hootenannies are important to have.

Barksdale Theatre: Children of a Lesser God

2009-03-17T22:18:00.001-04:00

I wrote this response on March 12, but somehow forgot to post it. "Children of a Lesser God" runs at Barksdale's Willow Lawn theater through Sunday.
---

Last night I fell in love with Sarah Norman. As played by Erica Siegal, she was so sweet and prickly and honest, I knew exactly why James Leeds (as played by Brandon Nagel) married her--and it wasn't to teach, protect or save her. As she pulled her anguish out of her heart, I wanted to grasp Sarah's shoulders and say, "Look, he LOVES you!"

But love--like anger, humor, courage, or silence--can't solve everything alone, no matter what I or any of the characters think. Sarah, by whatever twist of personal history, understood herself first as a deaf person and second as a lovable person.

The play begins with about 15 minutes of almost ridiculously fast-paced development. Between Sarah's entrance to her speech teacher James Leeds' classroom and his post-curfew entrance through her bedroom window, I had no sense of how much time had gone by. Days? Months? Did I miss something?

I understand the need for broad scene-setting and character-establishing strokes. Medoff's script accomplishes a lot without overexplaining (although James does have an awful lot to say about himself to Sarah seemingly within their first two days of acquaintance). I wonder if some visual cues, such as changed colors in lighting or costume, might have demonstrated elapsed time and slowed the pace. More moments of action without words would have also helped: for a play that deals with silence (at least in a physical sense), it sure has a lot of sound.

All the action takes place on the same set, with minimal movement of a few basic pieces (benches shaped, interestingly, kind of like the crooked fingers of an "air quote" mark)--and this keeps things moving along, too.

The pace of the script and the performance does slow as the play enters its most substantive territory, dealing with James' and Sarah's struggles to bridge, merge or separate their four worlds: external, internal, non-hearing, hearing. (No wonder there's no single way to solve everything.)

The four principal actors (including Richard Gregory as Orin Dennis and Michelle Mary Schaefer as Lydia) are wonderful together; I got the sense they knew each other as characters, not just as actors. I especially liked Schaefer's Lydia, who reminded me of a person or two I've known--assertive and brash, but still a vulnerable young woman, trying to figure out if she's desirable, measuring her desirability against the standards of others. Are some of those standards imposed by the hearing world--for instance, talking? Is the desirability of talking a standard to be rejected, as Sarah does, as James tries to?

"Children of a Lesser God" deals with these questions, and many more, without resolving them--thank goodness. Life's just not that tidy.

Richmond Shakespeare: Amadeus

2009-03-06T10:20:00.003-05:00

I know "Amadeus" is all wrong, but I love it anyway. It's one of the movies I find myself thinking about at least once a year, one scene or another flashing across my inner vision.

I detest Salieri, and I understand him. I despair of mediocrity, and I revel in the ordinary. I can't agree that talent is a gift entire, doled out by a mysterious or capricious God, but faced with something like the "Gran Partita" Serenade ("high above it-- an oboe--a single note--hanging there, unwavering") , the alternatives seem unlikely.

I've been anticipating Richmond Shakespeare's stage production for months, and I finally got to go last night. Performances by the entire cast were strong, and I didn't notice the period-inappropriate "manners and nuances" that Style Weekly reviewer Mary Buruss remarked upon. (Anachronistic gestures are a pet peeve of mine, too, but either I'm not as nuanced as she, or RS cleaned things up.)

Salieri (Andrew Hamm) and Mozart (Mike Hamilton) and Constanze (Liz Blake) take bows at the end of "Amadeus," but they're not the only main characters. The music is a presence so massive it functions as a separate character, and this notion is encouraged by Shaffer's script, which likens Mozart's music to God's voice, or God incarnate.

In Richmond Shakespeare's production of "Amadeus," the music is problematic. What to do, when the house (in this case, the chapel of Second Presbyterian Church) has limited production capabilities? There's no precise sound control, no way to bring sound in at different source points--no way, in other words, to give this character the independence it deserves.

I don't know what Shaffer's stage directions for the music actually are, but I feel RS erred on the side of caution. The several instances when music overlapped speaking worked just fine, and there should have been more of this, and more music in general.

I also don't know what liberties, if any, were taken with Shaffer's script, but there should have been more of those, too. Liberties, that is; to be precise: cuts. It's almost a joke to complain that there were "too many words," but that's exactly how I felt, especially in Mozart's dying moments but also in Salieri's opening monologue and various of his narrative advances. Richmond Shaekspeare can do silence well (their "Hamlet" was an excellent example), but if the script contains unnecessary words, lengthening the spaces between them isn't going to help.

RSO Plays Beethoven: It's Okay to Feel Good

2009-02-24T13:08:00.006-05:00

The People's Snob likes Beethoven, unlike other snobs who say they've outgrown him and his B bookends, Bach and Brahms.

The Snob especially appreciates Beethoven's music when it's programmed thoughtfully, as RSO candidate #5 Arthur Post did this past weekend, placing the First Symphony at the start of a program that moved on to Boccherini's cello concerto (Neal Cary soloing) and finished with Shostakovich's First Symphony. (The Snob can't stand it when Beethoven's music is over-dramatized in order to conclude a concert.)

Beethoven's First Symphony is reasonable, pretty, clever but not overbearingly witty; it's got tunes that can be hummed and tempos that can be tapped. In short, it's deservedly popular. At Saturday's performance, the slow second movement was the standout. The others galloped a little too much for me, and even with only 2 horns and 2 trumpets, the brass section was at times out of balance and flat, as in "blaat"--non-sparkling--not as in out-of-tune.

Likewise, the slow second movement of the Boccherini was my favorite. Neal Cary opened up his vibrato more than in the first movement... and it's just beautiful music anyway. Then, like all the extra cellists in the audience (see previous post), I had to hold my mouth shut so I wouldn't sing along with the third movement: it's the kind of giddy melody that lets even hardened snobs feel good about feeling good.

Listening to the Shostakovich symphony was like watching a building being constructed, and torn down, again and again, slightly differently each time. It's a monumental piece with many themes and voices. The performance was well-done, and like the Beethoven, not over-dramatized. Yes, it's a dramatic piece, and it ends loudly, but it deserves to. In its own way, it is just as reasonable as the Beethoven.

Cello to the Nth Power

2009-02-21T19:14:00.005-05:00

You'd think it wouldn't be so hard to count cellists--they sit to play, after all. But even from my front-row balcony seat, I kept losing track around 48. So I can't say for sure, but I think I attended a concert of 59 cellists Saturday.

It was a free, informal concert capping a day of workshops led by Julliard teacher and cellist Bonnie Hampton. The participants ranged in age from about 8 to 80, and were of all skill levels. They performed several short pieces arranged for four-part cello orchestra.

The "wow" factor was undeniable. My 12-year-old was very impressed, and I think my 5-year-old would've been too, had she not been more interested in trying to silently eat the bag of chips she'd smuggled in. (She turned a petulant ear to stage after I confiscated the snack.) It's too bad the audience numbered less than half of those on stage, because it was the kind of event that could impress and intrigue a young person into learning to play an instrument.

In any case, 59 cellos--give or take a few--make a gorgeous sound.

Roby Lakatos at the Modlin Center

2009-02-02T22:18:00.005-05:00

Once upon a time, a demon was exorcised from a player piano. It took up residence in Budapest at the seat of a cimbalom, and that is Jeno Lisztes.

Meanwhile, Charlie Daniels visited Hungary and lost his soul to a man with a black leather suit, a red handkerchief, and a violin. That is Roby Lakatos.

The Roby Lakatos Ensemble performed at the Modlin Center Saturday night, a concert almost entirely filled with devilishly fast, Gypsy-inspired music. Besides violin and cimbalom, there was an unfortunately overshadowed second violin, a guitar and a piano, both with several excellent moments of glory, and an underappreciated upright bass.

The Program
The cimbalom is played like a hammered dulcimer, but has a sturdier sound. At times, especially on sustained notes, it almost sounded like a brassy wind instrument. Its best moments were as a solo or in duet with violin or guitar.

Lakatos is an incredible violinist, no doubt about it--maybe a little too incredible. Although the ensemble managed major tempo and rhythmic shifts with ease, they had a hard time cohering melodically and harmonically when Lakatos was tearing up and down the neck of the violin.

This problem didn't bother me so much itself, actually, but it was a symptom of a bigger issue: the program could have used a little more variety. The second piece--"Papa, Can You Hear Me" from the movie "Yentl"--demonstrated that Lakatos could wander down lonely paths in dusk-laden forests, musically speaking, but he never went back there.

Most of the pieces alternated fast sections with slower--or at least calmer, duet-based--sections, but in general, a little more swagger and a little less sizzle would have helped me enjoy the concert more.

Richmond Symphony Goes Sweet and Low

2009-01-31T06:58:00.006-05:00

The Snob hasn't seen the letter from Richmond Symphony about changes for the next season that Clarke Bustard describes over at Letter V, but that won't keep her from sharing a few uninformed opinions!

Switching Monday night Masterworks concerts to Sunday afternoons: EXCELLENT! Given the move back downtown, this makes much more synergistic sense, since area restaurants and galleries can be open before and/or after the concert.
Cutting Friday night Masterworks concerts: UNFORTUNATE! but undoubtedly fiscally prudent. Or else the CenterStage operation has dibs on Fridays for other events. But RSO patrons are high-frequency events attenders, and taking away one of their options will more often force them to choose between Masterworks and Modlin, Masterworks and the Rennolds series, or any other one-time event that falls on a Saturday night. The Symphony holds the weak hand in this showdown, since it's "always here." Sunday afternoon will be an option for some, but not all patrons.
Creating a Saturday morning series of educational concerts, called "Lollipops.": STOMACH-TURNING! With a name like that, the RSO is staking claim to the 3- to 5-year-old demographic, which will expect actual lollipops to be distributed at the event. If the point is to create pleasant associations between the symphonic experience and sweet treats, why not something less infantile? The Bundt Cake Concerts. Soda Saturdays. Breath Mint Family Music. Sure, "Kicked Back Classics"--which this series replaces--was physically not so smooth to say, but it conveyed the spirit of the concert without limiting the audience to people so young they'll call it "Wah-wii-pops."

Gripes aside, I'm glad to see that RSO is continuing its outreach to family audiences and trying something new.

Although I don't know whether concerts by its 4 youth orchestras will be back downtown or in area schools (as they have been--and which might not be a bad thing to continue) I hope at least a few are held in the Carpenter Theatre.

The youth orchestra/family education program has sometimes seemed like an afterthought of the RSO--at least from a promotional standpoint. But young musicians attract and hold the attention of young people with a power that adult musicians--no matter how much more skilled--just don't have.

There are more changes starting with the 09-10 season--maybe they'll be posted on the RSO website soon.

The Hat is Passed

2009-01-23T14:17:00.003-05:00

Look, kids. I don't want your magazines, cookies or frozen pizzas. I don't want to sponsor you at a $1 a minute for your jump-rope-a-thon. If I support your cause, just ask me politely and I'll give you the money, straight-up, no commemorative key-chain required in return.

But this is different. The Richmond Symphony is holding a Music Marathon and yes, they want you to sponsor a musician, with donations going to symphony programs and general operations. It's happening Saturday, February 14, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Nordstrom's in Short Pump.

Why is this different? Because RSO invited the participation of anyone. This is a day when the "Richmond" in "Richmond Symphony Orchestra" will matter more than the "Symphony."

Lots of young people in their youth orchestra program will perform. Music teachers. College students. The Happy Lucky Combo. Me!

My older daughter and I will perform a Bach minuet as a violin/cello duet, and my friend Nina Conway and I will perform a canonic sonata by Telemann as a cello duet. If you'd like to sponsor either or both of our performances--pledge $1, $5, $50--send me an email at angelalehmanrios@yahoo.com.

Acts of Faith... and other factors

2009-01-17T22:02:00.005-05:00

Last night I attended the preview event for this year's Acts of Faith theater festival, and even though only 7 of the 14 participating productions actually presented bits of their plays, it was enough to whet my appetite and make me wish I had more time, money and reliable babysitters.

The two I'm absolutely not going to miss are Richmond Shakespeare's production of "Amadeus" and Barksdale's "Children of a Lesser God"-- but I would also love to see JFT's "The Chosen," Henley Street's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Swift Creek Mill's "Of Mice and Men" ... actually nearly all of them look promising.

Rock Me
Afterward, I asked Mozart (Mike Hamilton) what the musical plans for "Amadeus" were, because I was curious whether Richmond Shakespeare and director James A. Bond would filter some 20th/21st century music into the production as a way of adding shades of understanding to the play.

Mike, who's not a piano player himself, said he didn't know, but said he'd been looking into hip-hop music, as part of his character study, because it seemed like there might be parallels to uncover, including the tendency of the music industry to promote very young musicians as stars.

So Long, Cymbeline
During the preview, RS's Grant Mudge announced that the spring production would not be "Cymbeline," as planned, but "A Midsummer Night's Dream." He cited, first, "economic" reasons--meaning, I suppose, though he didn't say so, that not enough people would buy a ticket for a Shakespeare play they hadn't studied in high school. He also said that because RS has never performed "Midsummer" indoors, and because they'll be moving to the new, larger Center Stage theater next year, they wanted to do it in the intimate, warm wooden chapel of 2nd Pres. church.

That sure sounds like post facto justification to me. I'm sure "Midsummer" will be jolly and pretty --but heck, it always is. I was really looking forward to "Cymbeline," which I've never even read, let alone seen.

(I'm reminded of six years ago, when the Richmond Symphony quietly substituted Beethoven's 5th for the more-costly-to-produce Mahler's 3rd. If I remember correctly, it was their last Masterworks concert in the Carpenter Center before the two-year interruption for construction.... )

There's a wry comment waiting backstage about "Cymbeline" and acts of faith, but I'll sigh and understand. This midsummer night's dream better be psychadelically outstanding, though.

James Wilson: Bach Cello Suites 2, 3 and 6

2009-01-13T22:09:00.004-05:00

James Wilson began the Richmond Festival of Music 7 or 8 years ago when he lived in Richmond and played with the Shanghai Quartet, and the Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia, which presented this solo concert, is the current form of that project. I am a volunteer with CMSCVA.

For a Tuesday night performance of some of Bach's more esoteric music, this concert was remarkably well-attended -- proof, maybe, that once Richmond feels it has created a star, that star will always shine bright in our firmament.

Of course, Wilson IS an amazing cellist. I know all the Bach cello suites very well--but primarily through recordings. Hearing Wilson perform them live was revelatory. In his hands, each suite took on more personality than can be conveyed on a record or CD.

Wilson began with #3, a busybody of a work. He played it fast and thrillingly, but not melodramatically, like I've heard some recordings. The "Bourree" movement put me in mind of a beautiful hand-blown glass paperweight, perfectly formed and shining within itself. He played the final "Gigue" for a jokester, emphasizing the contrasts between heavy and light.

I've always heard Suite #2 as a cloudy-day piece, and I had been thinking of the first movement all day in anticipation. Wilson gave it even more complexity. Did you know dotted-note ryhthms could be sarcastic? You should his interpretation of the "Allemande." The "Sarabande" became a defiant youth who eventually softened and conceded kinship to the rest of the suite.

Bach wrote Suite #6 for a 5-stringed instrument that no longer exists. Playing the piece on a 4-stringed cello is hard. Wilson's sound was light and clean, with slightly slower tempos than in the other two suites. It occured to me--hearing this performance live--that this piece is somehow the most modern-sounding of the suites (they were written circa 1720) and the most early-music-sounding--while still unmistakably Bach-sounding.

Maybe because it was written for more strings, Wilson played #6 with more everything: the "Sarabande" was full of more love, the "Gavottes" and "Gigue" full of more dancing. But I think there was something else at work...

As a body of music, the Bach cello suites are like the 99 names of God, and a cellist can spend a lifetime meditating upon them, and will never learn the 100th name. They are simultaneously simple and demanding; infinitely renewable; enigmatic.

In his program notes, Wilson writes, "Because the interpretation of these pieces is so personal, when I perform them I feel more as if I am baring my soul than playing a concert."

This makes sense to me. I'm a cellist who has performed bits and pieces of Suites 1 and 3 (and let's be clear... I'm in the single digits when it comes to names of God). Before a Bach cello suite performance, the cellist worries: will they understand? But that is what the music itself is asking of the musician.

When a musician strives to truly, selflessly understand a piece of music, I think that's when the magic happens that makes the playing of it seem effortless to the audience. Tonight in the performance of Suite #6, even in the cunningly difficult last two movements, and more than in #3 and #2, Jim Wilson was making that magic. I think that love--which is not effortless--is somehow related to this, and maybe even works the same way.

Richmond Symphony: Sinfonia del Fuego

2009-01-10T22:47:00.005-05:00

Think of a synonym for "piercing" but without any negative connotations, and you're on your way to describing the sound of the bandoneon. It's sort of like an accordion with a Type A personality. It's an instrument with a keen sense of purpose, that purpose being perhaps to lure you down the path into the sensual delights of both pleasure and anguish. It's the sound of the tango.

The Richmond Symphony was joined by Latin Grammy-winning bandoneon player Raul Jaurena, as well as members of the Latin Ballet of Virginia, for a Pops concert at the Landmark. RSO Candidate #4, Marc Taddei, conducted.

Jaurena and his 1905 bandoneon didn't force their way into the performance, though. He played 6 of the 9 pieces on the program, and 2 or 3 of those were short dance numbers with the bandoneon simply fronting the orchestra rather than explicitly soloing. I almost wished we could have heard more solo cadenzas, or whatever they're called when a bandoneon plays them.

My two favorite pieces with Jaurena were "A Media Luz" by Edgardo Donato--which began with a beautiful bandoneon/oboe duet--and "Adios Nonino" by Astor Piazzolla, which also had elegant, narrative choreography by Latin Ballet Director Ana Ines King. (Dancers performed on all the same pieces as Jaurena, with as few as 2 and as many as 12 on stage.)

The orchestra also played Piazzolla's "Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas"/"The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires," with Concertmaster Karen Johnson soloing--another standout piece on the program. Oddly, even though the full orchestra sounded a little lost in the too-big Landmark Theater, their best sound came during the parts of this piece (and a few others) when a small group of musicians played a passage, concertante-style. All the Piazzolla works (they also played his "Concerto for Bandoneon") were the most interesting to listen to, with a more complex structure than a straight dance tune.

Taddei--who planned the well-put-together playlist--seemed capable enough but not extraordinary. In general, the orchestra could have done the snappy parts a little snappier, but it really was a hard space to work in. More than anything, it was simply a pleasure to listen the music, to watch the dancers, to allow my imagination to wander all over the world, and then to walk the 8 blocks home in a gentle rain, hearing the bandoneon in my mind while the streetlights glistened in puddles and made dance partners of the shadows of bicycles and signposts.

Contagious Good Will

2008-12-29T22:42:00.009-05:00

Chestnut, Part I
One bright blue day before Christmas, I turned on the radio in the car and heard Handel's "Messiah," one of those intricate and powerful choruses: "And He Shall Purify" I think it was. Right away, I was filled with pleasure--and regret. I had deliberately chosen not to attend the Richmond Symphony's annual performance of the "Messiah," thinking that I would be bored by this so familiar work.

Possibly the unexpected encounter was half the delight, but I resolved to attend a live performance of the "Messiah" next year--or maybe this Easter, if Richmond is lucky enough to see a good church performance at the work's rightful time of year.

Later in the day, recalling my happiness at hearing at least part of the piece on the radio, I thought that if I were to win the lottery, I would sponsor a RSO "Messiah" performance with free or pay-as-you-wish tickets. (I've never bought a lottery ticket in my life, so don't get your hopes up.) But I did consider calling the symphony to ask how much it would cost to sponsor one. I also wondered how much the symphony would take in if they just ditched the tickets and had an all-donation performance. Would the number of conscientious people of means make up for the number of people attending for free or cheap, who wouldn't have come otherwise?

Chestnut, Part II
On the Saturday after Christmas, my mother took my children and me to an afternoon performance of "A Christmas Carol" by the Theater of the Seventh Sister in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I had deliberately chosen not to attend Richmond Shakespeare's annual performance of the "A Christmas Carol for Two Actors," thinking that I would be bored by this so familiar work.

Guess what? I was re-delighted, of course! And re-regret-filled, since Richmond Shakespeare's (own, much different) version has finished an 11-year run and won't be back, I think.

And: the Seventh Sister production was pay-as-you-wish for its full run.

It was an excellent adaptation for about a dozen actors by TSS Co-artistic Director Gary Smith, using Dickens' original words almost entirely. The costumes were perfect; the set and props neatly, creatively adaptable; the actors enthralling. The house was slightly more than half full.

Smith introduced the performance with an explanation of the relationship between Dickens' message in the story and the pay-as-you-wish approach; that when times are tight, the better response is to open outward rather than curl inward.

There was no mercurial post-play request for donations--not even a discreet but visible donation box in the lobby on the way out. It was as if TSS had complete faith in the power of Dickens' words and their performance to spur people on to longer-term bigness of heart, rather than merely "I'll drop a few more dollars in because I feel good after the play."

I'm very curious about the outcome of TSS's ticket experiment. Did it prove what I wished it would prove, that generosity breeds generosity?

Another solstice come and gone

2008-12-24T16:18:00.003-05:00

I got a day of sunshine for my birthday on Monday, just in time to take a picture of the last leaves of the rose.

"Classics by Candlelight" concert

2008-12-14T22:36:00.007-05:00

Just the other night I went to a chamber music performance and already I've lost the program, but in a word: lovely.

This was the second in a series of 3 concerts put on by the Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia, two at the 1753 Wilton House and this one at Bon Air Presbyterian. Four musicians played, variously, trios from the span of 19th century.

The program was superbly planned by CMSCVA artistic director and cellist James Wilson-- the pieces increased in complexity of intent, each somehow leading to the next. So even though there were no really big musical ideas in any of them, the sum was more interesting than the total of the parts.

Of course, it helped that the performers were top-notch: besides Wilson, there was Mary Boodell on flute, Erin Keefe on violin, and Catherine Cho on viola/violin. Cho is an assertive viola player; a friend said to me afterwards, "If I were a young person attending this concert, she would make me want to play the viola." Boodell--maybe because she is a Richmonder, unlike the others--was especially good at communicating the music to the audience. There were a few moments when she seemed to be looking up as if to say, "Listen up--Here comes a good part!"

Here's what my memory, with help from Google, can reconstruct:

1. An "Allegro" movement of something by Schubert for violin, viola and cello: playfully charming.

2. Beethoven's Serenade for flute, violin and viola: charmingly playful.

3. Borodin's Trio in g-minor for 2 violins and cello: This was my first time hearing this piece. It's good music for early winter: not quite full of the anguish of the deepest, darkest St. Petersburg nights, but yet cut through with a beautiful chill, brought out by Cho on first violin.

4. A trio for violin, viola and cello by Carl Reinecke: This piece gave each voice more rhythmic independence than the others, and the melodic interplay was a little more complex. According to Wilson, it doesn't get played so often... but I don't know why not. For a trio, it's got substance.

Step right up, it's "Richmond in Ragtime"

2008-12-14T20:54:00.009-05:00

The chapter is an underappreciated literary device. At least, I failed to appreciate chapters until I began to read a book without one; then I realized how humbly crucial they are for showing the forward trajectory of a narrative and clarifying the relative importance of events and characters.

I had been floundering through the fascinating, well-written, but chapterless "Richmond in Ragtime: Socialists, Suffragists, Sex and Murder," by Harry Kollatz, Jr., when I went to a reading by Mr. Kollatz-- a performance, to be accurate.

He read several vignettes from the book, at times to the accompaniment of the Happy Lucky Combo.(This is probably the riskiest thing an author can do: have live, unrehearsed musical back-up to his reading. But when it works, it's delightful, as this was. Note: I am related to the accordionist.) And Mr. Kollatz, also an actor, is an excellent reader.

As he described the attractions of the 1909 state fair (first airplane flight in Richmond, pink popcorn, "huchy-kuchy," distilled spirits, etc.) I began to understand that the book "Richmond in Ragtime" is itself a carnival, a lit-up, cacophonous, sweat-steeped scatterment of sideshows and flapping tent doors.

In this one!: a quartet of underage drinkers "offering to put down 15 cents and the promise of a dollar next weekend" to purchase gin rickies!
In that one!: a 3,000-year-old mummified Egyptian princess rescued from a blazing dormitory!
And here!: muckraking ex-Mennonite gadfly Adon Yoder, editor of that weekly scourge of City Hall, "The Idea"!
What have they to do with each other? Who knows?! Who cares?!! Lay your money down and snap the dice across the felt!

I know from peeking into later vignettes that "Richmond in Ragtime" does have recurring characters and a few threads of plot (not that the book claims to have one). I still wish Mr. Kollatz or his editors had formed chapters with his material. But whether or not there's a main attraction around the next dusty corner, it was helpful to think of book-as-carnival; somehow understanding the form of a thing inclines me to like the thing.

What This City Needs is a Ferris Wheel

2008-12-07T21:51:00.004-05:00

A few years after we moved to Richmond, we attended a low-key carnival shoehorned into a spot between the flood wall and the canal near the turning basin. (Back then, it was a dingy parking lot and dumping ground for construction and railroad materials; now it's a multi-million-dollar condominium.)

The most memorable feature of the day was the witheringly hot blacktop on which we stood in line with 2-year-old Emily for this little ride or that little ride, only to have her nerve give out when it was finally her turn. Then, at last, we boarded a Ferris wheel, and that's when I fell in love with Ferris wheels.

As small as it was, that wheel lifted us up above the baking asphalt, above the flood wall, high enough to catch a breeze and see the city stumbling away in all directions from the river's banks. At the zenith, we were about the same height as the cars on the Downtown Expressway, rushing past not too far away--yet I felt in a different world: they had somewhere to go, apparently, and quickly; I had only a circle in which to go, and another, and another, none of them taking up any time at all, it seemed.

Ever since then, I've been convinced that Richmond's Canal Walk needs a permanent Ferris wheel. Sedate, tastefully lit, operated by someone's grandpa (who only smokes on official breaks, not while buckling children into their seats, which I've seen happen at the State Fair), accompanied by live big-band music at twilight on summer weekends, powered entirely by the James River....

This is on my mind because I recently learned that Kings Dominion is opening a "new" Ferris wheel this coming season--24 gondolas, each seating 6 people. (It's coming from the former Geauga Lake Amusement Park in Ohio, also the original home of KD's "new" Dominator ride.) We get up to KD once every two or three years; I dread it every time but often end up having a good time in spite of myself.

Next time we go, I'll make it a point to become good and irritated at the heat, the crowds, the cartoons, the plastic and the noise; that'll make the Ferris wheel ride all the better.

Richmond Symphony: Stravinsky's Psalms

2008-11-17T22:14:00.005-05:00

Maybe I was tired after a long week, or maybe the unexpected, chilly evening rain tempered my spirits, but Saturday's performance by the Richmond Symphony left me uninspired.

I was most eager to hear Stravinsky's "Symphony of Psalms" (with the Richmond Symphony Chorus) and curious about Barber's "Second Essay for Orchestra"--both of which I did not know--and anticipated being happy enough with Schubert's 9th symphony. And of course, I wanted to form an opinion about Director Candidate #3, Steven Smith.

The performance was the least precise I've heard by the RSO for as long as I can remember--which isn't saying much, as I'm happy to forget failings, and furthermore, they've been doing a lot of bombastic music recently, and it's much easier to hide imperfections when you're playing loud and fast. Both the Barber and the Stravinsky are quite spare, even austere in parts, with simple, exposed lines that have to be both accurate and beautiful. (And if you're singing in the choir, for Dominum's sake, get your "laudate"s together. I felt peppered with "d"s and "t"s.)

Stravinsky set Psalms 38, 39 and 150 (in Latin) to music, scoring for an intriguingly dark orchestra: no violins or violas. There were also 5 flutes, 4 oboes and no clarinets (as opposed to the typical 3,2,3. I didn't take proper notes, but there were bassoons, Fr. horns, trumpets and a trombone, and timpani.)

Dark, but not dismal. The psalms' texts move from plea to relief to praise, and the music is powerful without being sentimental. I especially liked the fugues in the second movement, with the oboe and the flute taking long-legged steps, as up a rocky mountain--enormous intervals between notes, creating a melody unsingable but ethereal: "And he led me out of the lake of misery, and out of the mire. And he set my feet upon a rock, and directed my steps." (Photo: Adrien Siegel)

Never having heard the Barber or the Stravinsky before, I didn't have anything to compare Smith's direction to, but my general impression was one of dryness. No note was sustained any fraction of a second longer than strictly indicated (I imagine) and no extra decibels milked from the crescendos or pilfered from the decrescendos.

Smith didn't seem to be drawing the best out of the musicians, but perhaps I was imposing my own lackluster attitude on the performance.

I did hear rumors earlier in the week, however, that nobody liked rehearsing the Schubert. I'll tell you one thing: it's not nicknamed "Great" because it's an exceptional piece of music; it's "great" because it's so blasted long. Actually, I'll tell you another thing: C Major must have been on sale when Schubert wrote the thing, because he sure does throw around that C Major key like beads on Fat Tuesday.

But it's a fine piece, and even if I haven't figured out yet how it fit on the program with the other two, I'm glad to have heard it again.

Richmond's Pump House: Go When You Get the Chance!

2008-11-07T23:22:00.004-05:00

On the most gorgeous of fall afternoons, I visited Richmond's historic Pump House, now part of the James River Park System. It's usually not open to the public, but park educator Lorne Field was giving tours last Saturday as part of the park system's effort to increase interest in restoring the building to serve as an interpretive center for the park.

We arrived barely half an hour before it was scheduled to be closed up again, and judging from the number of cars still there, people certainly are interested in the building.

I had no idea how impressive the Pump House is, nor how interesting its history is, nor even how extensive and beautiful the trails along the two surrounding canals are. (The park grounds are open to the public. Go now!: take the last right before the Nickel Bridge going south.)

You can see photos and get some history at the link above and more here, but briefly: the building was constructed in 1882, with additions in 1905, to pump water from the James River to the Richmond Reservoir, where it would run, mostly by gravity, into homes and businesses. The architecture of the building reflects the importance of a city water system. A dance floor built above the waterwheels and pumps reflects the inherent glamour of Public Works. (Really. Those Victorians were wild.)

Wealthy Richmonders would ride canal boats or carriages to dance parties, although when Richmond got its streetcars running all the way out to nearby Byrd Park, the riffraff started showing up, and the elegant dance pavilion got painted in multiple shades of blue and pink. The band probably started playing "Yes, We Have No Bananas," and in 1924, the Pump House ceased operations. (Okay, it wasn't the riffraff but the demand for city water beyond the pumps' capabilities.)

Turning the Pump House into an environmental and historical education center would be fabulous. It's a huge project and will require public and private funding... and, Lorne Field hopes, many volunteers with a preservationist vision.

As charming and funny as a dance floor above a water system is, it's a history that's almost exclusively white. The more significant history of the Pump House is its coexistence with the canal system and its role in improving public health.

Anyway, if you ever hear that they're giving tours of the Pump House again, Foxtrot on over.

Halloween is the New Christmas

2008-11-07T22:26:00.005-05:00

Several years ago, I was complaining to a neighbor about the frivolity of Halloween and its high sugar content. "Nobody needs candy," I said, or something like that.

Marta said, "I love Halloween. I think it's great that one night out of the year, everyone gives something to their neighbors." (I paraphrase, of course, because my memory's not THAT great.)

She changed my life. I love Halloween more every year. I know the holiday has its devotees of the macabre and its lovers of the freedom a costume provides, but I'm charmed simply by the many tiny acts of unselfish generosity that happen all up and down the streets of my neighborhood. Actually, I've been starting to think that Halloween is more Christian than Christmas.

(Please don't talk to me about kids with one lousy bandanna and two bulging pillowcases. I don't want my idyllic vision littered with Chompo Bar wrappers.)

The other reason I've been loving Halloween more and more is that for three years now, we've had an exuberant parade through our neighborhood streets, thanks to Bread & Puppet, All the Saints, and revelers too numerous to mention, or to photograph, though you can see a few here from Tess at Flickr.

Witness to a Century

2008-11-07T21:55:00.002-05:00

Last week I watched the pre-release version of "Witness to a Century," a documentary produced by the Virginia Historical Society and WCVE public television which will air Nov. 10 at 9 p.m. It features excerpts of interviews with a dozen or so Virginian centenarians, several of whom attended the screening at the VHS. Additionally, narration and photos lead viewers through the 20th century.

The interviewees' personal stories--which include simple recollections of using a hand-operated washing machine ("better than a washboard!") as well as accounts of housing and job discrimination-- are fascinating, but not particularly unique. The value of the project is in the sound and sight of the actual interviews. So much was said between the words, in the glance downward after a sentence, the pause before a carefully chosen phrase.

I love reading oral histories, but man--hearing and seeing them is so much better. If you, like I, are not much of a TV watcher and miss the documentary the first time around, you might be able to check it out of a library next year, since plans are in the works to sell it as a DVD.

Pearls! Pearls! PEARLS!

2008-10-30T22:55:00.001-04:00

The other night, I turned on the record player to make it feel wanted, and the disc that happened to be on the turntable was the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Recording of "Fiddler on the Roof," Side 3.
Let me tell you: if you've ever seen the musical performed by your local high school or college ensemble, you may think you know the songs, but you haven't truly heard "Tevye's Dream" until you've heard Fruma-Sarah belted out by Ruth Madoc. (I think--I've lost the original liner notes. And actually, the Fruma-Sarah at my college's production was almost better, but I can't remember who sang it.)

My parents took me along to this movie when I was 3 years old. I still remember the dried leaves swirling as Fruma-Sarah returned from the grave. Then I dove under the seat, but no sticky little fingers in the ears could keep out that mighty shriek. Had nightmares for a long time after that.

For 99 cents, the pleasure can be yours!

Violists and Editors

2008-10-29T22:25:00.008-04:00

Yesterday evening, I gave a talk to a class of older adults. I've pasted below the text I prepared, although of course it didn't come out exactly as it is reproduced. (I neither talk like I write nor write like I talk; I couldn't stand myself either way if I did. But I did have to put my lecture into written language so that when it came time to speak, I didn't just blab on.)

How is an Editor Like a Violist?

Last year, Morning Edition, the NPR program, ran a series of essays called “Musicians in Their Own Words.” One gray morning, I happened to catch Cynthia Phelps, the principal violist of the New York Philharmonic.

Now, the viola section rarely gets the melody in orchestral music—and when they do, it’s usually just for short passages. But Phelps talked about how violas shape the sound of the entire orchestra. They play the “notes behind the notes” that provide the backdrop, the context for the melody. They influence how listeners perceive the mood and even the tempo of the music.

Cynthia Phelps didn’t hesitate to say that one of the reasons she likes being a non-melody-getting viola player is that she has control at the very foundation of the music. I don’t think she means that this control is like a dictatorship, though. The power of music is a collective power—musicians working together; it also involves the listener.

Are you starting to see where I’m taking this?

So, of course Phelps didn’t call herself a dictator, or even a leader. She called herself a mediator. The radio feature ended with her saying, "I try and create a balanced middle ground. It really resonates with the way I am as an individual."

An editor, too, is a mediator, a liaison for the readers and the writers and the publisher. If I only printed what writers wanted to write, [one of the publications I edit] would be very different. (They all seem to love to write about cancer survivors, octogenarian athletes and small business owners.) And although I’m lucky to have a publisher who truly values good writing and reporting, in general, a publisher’s concerns are not precisely the same as the readers' or the writers'.

If I only printed what readers wanted to read… well, I don’t know what Readers want, exactly, but I do know (because I’m a reader myself) that they want to be informed, entertained, and above all, respected.

So the editor is the pivot point, the mediator. The editor gets the writers to think of the readers. I hope by choosing topics and assigning articles that cover a wide range of experiences, I get readers to think about our community and our world.

---
There was more, but I drifted away from the violist/editor analogy. It was hard--and probably not necessary-- for me to express how epiphanic the moment was for me, when I heard Phelps declare that the role of a viola in the orchestra fits her understanding of herself as a mediator. It was deeply pleasing to hear someone else say this, the same thing I feel about my role as an editor. I had never bothered to imagine that a musician might see herself this way.

Thomas Mapfumo and Blacks Unlimited at the Modlin Center

2008-10-24T22:42:00.006-04:00

Not one minute into this concert, I was crying from the beauty. Something about the sorrow-and-joy sound of the music caught me right in the middle of vulnerability, and it took me three songs to come round and experience the concert from other perspectives than the weepy one.

Thomas Mapfumo started making music when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, a former British colony struggling for independence. He's credited with blending traditional Shona songs and instruments with contemporary electric rock music, and is recognized as a cultural leader in the revolution. He's now stridently anti-Mugabe, living in exile in Oregon and making music with his band, Blacks Unlimited.

As for this music, simple and complex beats are layered to produce a thick foundation of rhythm, on top of which melodic cycles and riffs flow in and out. Mapfumo's voice isn't strong, but intense and perfectly balanced with the instruments: drums, percussion, bass, tenor and alto sax, mbira and guitar. It's music to sit and soak up or to dance to, and a little bit of the latter did, in fact, occur in the sedately carpeted aisles of Camp Concert Hall.

If you're not familiar with Zimbabwean music in particular, or African music at all, this is an excellent show to start with. Good thing they're playing again, Saturday night... get a ticket now!: Thomas Mapfumo and Blacks Unlimited

Richmond Symphony: Brahms's Butter & Barber's Brilliance

2008-10-14T22:19:00.003-04:00

My older daughter says she once saw a cooking show in which Paula Deen mixed butter, mayonnaise and breadcrumbs, rolled something in the mixture, deep fried it (whatever the base food was didn’t seem to be the point), then dipped it into mayonnaise to eat it.

Brahms’s cooking show—I think he had one—was similar. If he didn’t, his music, at least, was created on the principle, “Try more butter.” This is why you should never listens to Brahms on a Sunday afternoon without a pot of coffee and an open window.

But I like Brahms, even in serving sizes as large as a symphony, such as his Number 2 in D major, with which the Richmond Symphony ended its performance last night at St. Michael’s. I could have used even more butter, so to speak. Partly that’s because I think any time the cellos get a gorgeous melody, as in the first and second movements here, everyone, including the conductor, should drop to his knees and weep.

Daniel Meyer, auditioning conductor #2, (who did not drop to his knees) was an expressive but not excessive director for the whole program, which began with a piece from 1994, “Javelin” by Michael Torke.

This sprightly music was full of shapes and gesticulations; the only melody of more than a few repeated notes was inspirational in nature. As a whole, it was a pleasantly invigorating listen. Lest you think this too much faint praise, here are Torke’s words, which I saw in the program notes after the piece was over: “What came out was a sense of valor among short flashes and sweeps… The piece’s fast tempo evokes the generally uplifting, sometimes courageous, yet playful spirit.”

So, in fact, the composition and its performance was a rousing success, as defined by communication of intent.

Second on the program was Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (Op.14); concertmistress Karen Johnson soloed. (I had never heard this piece before, but I like the Barber music that I know.) As at times in the Brahms, it seemed as if the orchestra wasn’t responding the way Meyer wanted. Especially in the first movement of the Barber, a lush Allegro, the big parts could have been bigger, the small parts smaller.

I think, however, this was mostly a factor of the St. Michael’s in-the-round arrangement and compartmentalized ceiling. When the average audience member is only 12 feet away, it’s practically impossible for an orchestra to play a good piano or pianissimo. And—though I don’t know much about acoustics—the forte parts seemed to go straight up and get stuck in the cross-shaped ceiling.

Also, Johnson had her back to my section, and it was sometimes hard to hear her. (This was my first ever and last ever St. Michael’s concert.)

In the second movement, Andante, the music descends from introspection into lethargy. You hear the self trying to rouse; by the end of the movement, resolution is reached, but it seemed like Meyer wanted to get to that point of awakening sooner than the RSO.

"Presto in moto perpetuo” is as brilliante as it sounds on paper. Listening to the third movement is like a riding full-tilt up the Empire State Building in a glass elevator with a fast-talking Manhattanite jacked up on sugar pointing out representative bits of American culture.
Just when you think the elevator and your tour guide couldn’t possibly go any faster, you smash through the roof and everyone jumps to their feet clapping.

In the music, snatches of vernacular whip by, a whirlwind tour of American music up to 1939. It’s truly giddy, and about half a minute before the end I did worry that something was going to fly apart. When Karen Johnson started her last lick, I thought, “My god, I don’t think her fingers are going to make it!” But they did, and so did she!

"Eurydice" at the Firehouse

2008-10-09T22:19:00.003-04:00

"Eurydice" is nearing the end of its run at the Firehouse Theatre, and if you missed it, that's a shame, because it really is that good. The acting was wonderful, but I suspect they were inspired to greatness by Sarah Ruhl's script, which I thought was flat-out good writing. (Although I wanted the play to be a little longer, with a little more development given to Eurydice's individuality, I figured Ruhl wanted to keep the pace fairly brisk in the middle.)

I took my 11-year-old daughter tonight, and because I was lame and didn't buy tickets ahead of time, we almost didn't get to see the show. We had to sit on opposite ends of the theater and I felt sad that I couldn't see her reactions as the play progressed. Afterwards, she said she was glad we went. Maybe she was just as happy not sitting with me.

P.S. Only in the Underworld do fathers and [absent] brides walk down the aisle to Glenn Gould's meditation on corporeality that is the Goldberg Variations Aria. Thank you, Bryan Harris, for teaching us this. In fact, I think it was the Bach that called Eurydice to her father.

Performance as Gift

2008-09-28T21:14:00.003-04:00

Several years ago, my daughters and I attended a dance performance at the Children's Museum of Richmond. Half a dozen or so young Chinese dancers, on tour to the States, performed folk-style dances with great athleticism.

Of the hundreds of thousands of dancers there must be in China, they weren't the best, I'm sure, but as I watched, I was struck by how sincerely they seemed to view the act of dancing as a gift to the audience. It was a gift they felt honored to give, and in turn, I felt honored to receive.

I had never thought so directly about how important this attitude is to performance. When a musician or dancer or actor is so wrapped up in his or her own experience of the work (because she's struggling to do it well; or because she looks down on the audience as being merely bourgeois; or because she loves her own pleasure more than the audience's), the performance may be decent, but it won't be lasting, because it wasn't given. It just disappears in the space between.

This sounds awfully dreamy, I guess. And it's not the final, or the only, word: performances can make permanent impressions on individual, receptive audience members, whether or not the performers have this "spirit of giving." But I think as a generality, it's true.

Richmond Symphony: Tchaikovskyyyyyyy!

2008-09-21T21:28:00.009-04:00

Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony is one crazy work--loud, fast and forceful. A pizzicato third movement is less playful than perverse. By the fourth movement, the music is wound up so tightly, one might worry that a single wrong touch could send the whole contraption spinning out of control, springs and cogs aloft. (If you've never heard it... it's impressively nuts, all the strings playing together at breakneck speed.)

One might worry--and one did, last night at the Richmond Symphony's performance of the symphony under directorial candidate #1, Mikhail Agrest. I didn't worry much, though, because I didn't really believe RSO would lose it in a piece everyone's played before. Possibly the very intent of the piece is to incite anxiety.

I was sitting in the balcony and had a clear view of two violists heaving sighs and brushing hair off their brows during a rest in the last movement. A violinist later told me s/he felt the piece was awfully close to falling apart because Agrest wasn't on top of things. My impression of Agrest in general was that he trusted the orchestra to perform well and sensibly; he wasn't autocratic. Maybe he should have been, at least from one violinist's perspective.

The RSO also performed a trombone concerto by Christopher Rouse, a piece that deserves more play than it probably gets. It begins and ends with thoughtful, at times somber movements; the second movement is dramatic, loud and violent. Agrest introduced the piece with an extended chat, guiding listeners' thoughts toward war, but I was more reminded of nature's power, rather than humans' might. The concerto is made up of many little waves of sound--crescendos and decrescendos--and, taken as a whole, is itself wave-like.

Although the trombone solo was capably played by Michael Mulcahy of the Chicago Symphony, I didn't come away feeling a new appreciation for the trombone--that is, it's not a showboat piece. In fact, sometimes I thought the trombone could have played above the orchestra a little more. Mostly, though, the solo and the orchestra were intentionally collaborative.

I don't think Rouse broke any astonishing new ground, but this concerto moved me. Like an ocean that flattens villages or lulls a raft, music's power comes in many forms.

eighth blackbird + one = strange imaginary remix

2008-09-17T23:19:00.003-04:00

As a volunteer usher at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ Fast Forward series in 1994, I attended a performance by Philip Glass playing his own solo piano works. After the concert, the two women seated in front of me stood up and one said, “I have been a music teacher for 30 years, and THAT was NOT music!” The conversation continued in that vein, and I chuckled—but not too much. After all, I hadn’t really liked the music myself, especially since I’m not a huge piano fan to begin with. But I wasn’t… backwoods. Was I?

So I was a little nervous tonight as I attended my first-ever concert by eighth blackbird. What if I hated it? What if I couldn’t hear the music?

Eighth blackbird was joined for this concert, titled “strange imaginary remix,” by Dennis DeSantis on laptop. The premise that a musician on a computer belongs in an ensemble is a barrier I’m still tunneling through with a tuning fork. For one thing, the laptop musicians I’ve seen are so absorbed in their computers they can’t interact with the ensemble or the audience.

DeSantis was a little better in this regard, yet his position on the side of the stage, often behind the backs of all the other musicians, symbolically excluded him from the ensemble. (Plus, somebody needs to get that boy a higher table so he doesn’t hurt his back hunching over his keyboard, mad-scientist-style.)

DeSantis added sounds, clips, echoes, beats, notes and memories of notes to the music of the other instruments. I often found myself wondering if the sound I was hearing came from a “real” instrument or from the computer, but by the end of the concert, I was trying to figure out why I thought that mattered. If one sound is real, is another imaginary? Music, I guess, is sound that we imagine into sense.

Likewise, at first I thought it was entertaining to watch the musicians—oh, those antics over in the percussion! the gymnastics at the piano!—but eventually I just looked up at the ceiling. I wanted the music to find me, rather than the other way around.

Did it? Yes. It’s music I’m glad I heard. It’s music I will never listen to on a CD. It’s music I may want to hear again, but I’m not sure yet.

Sometimes I felt as if the music were looking back at its own tracks, only to find that it had been walking on ice, on which the faint impressions of warmth and force quickly disappear. Phrases were rarely sustained or shaped in traditional ways (i.e., good luck finding a melody), and forward momentum often didn’t seem to have a destination.

My favorite pieces were “Indigenous Instruments” (Steven Mackey) and “Friction Systems” (David Gordon), partly because I could recognize the passing of musical elements among the members of the ensemble and partly because both pieces are very tonally and rhythmically interesting.

Thanks to the program notes, I know that both used quarter-tone tuning. I thought this was especially effective in “Friction Systems”: the bass clarinet and cello sounded like one organism, acting on and being acted upon by an outside force.

The program notes also told me that Mackey called his piece “a kind of vernacular music from a culture that doesn’t actually exist.” Are the instruments are indigenous to the imagination? Or maybe the imagination is the instrument itself.

In any case, I’m pretty sure those ladies at the Glass concert couldn’t have imagined this music.

The full program: “Powerless” (DeSantis), “evanescence” (Gordon Fitzell), “Dollars and Cents” (Radiohead/Colnot), “Indigenous Instruments (Mackey), “strange imaginary remix” (DeSantis) and “Friction Systems” (Gordon).

What Would Pandora Play?

2008-09-03T22:41:00.000-04:00

I have been educating myself over at the school of Pandora. I am an appreciative student, having had virtually no education in popular culture and its varieties of music for the years spanning 0 to 1989 and 1992 to 2008.

Yet I'm not sure I approve. Really, the Music Genome Project is to music as lepidoptery is to butterflies.

I type in "Cesaria Evora" and get an entire channel of music sung in nothing but Portuguese; I was looking for music that makes me feel wild with longing for something that's slipping from my fingers, a feeling which is not stirred in me by the Portuguese language in particular.

Or say I want a channel called "Music That Makes Me Weep." Pandora doesn't give me that option. I have to settle for songs with "mellow rock instrumentation," "subtle use of vocal harmony," "use of a string ensemble," "prominent organ" ... wait, that's not what I had in mind. (Pandora has not heard of double entendres, apparently.)

In theory, I despise the MGP for sucking the soul out of music, but I still listen to my Pandora channels. "What will they think of next?"

Liner Notes As Ink Blots

2008-09-01T22:18:00.000-04:00

This is the last paragraph of the anonymously written notes that accompany a recording of Schubert's Trout Quintet by the Endres Quartet with Rolf Reinhardt:

"It is amusing to note how almost every commentator, severely picking holes in the formal structure of the Trout, abjectly surrenders to its musical charm. In short, Schubert may not have made the greatest intellectual or emotional contribution to music with the Trout Quintet--but he went ahead and composed a work of genius, one that is so spontaneous, so lyric and free-flowing, that criticism remains pedantic and impertinent."

You may guess for yourselves why these are my all-time favorite liner notes, with the italics-added portions standing as your clues.