this pale blade of grass
honors me by demanding
my full attention
29 February 2012
28 February 2012
27 February 2012
fun stuff I may or may not get to: March 2012
No offense to anything else I'm going to list here, but the biggest event this month, and possibly this year (with the possible exception of the upcoming Einstein on the Beach at Cal Performances), is the San Francisco Silent Film Festival's special presentation of Abel Gance's stupendous epic Napoleon, in a more complete version than ever seen before (all hail Kevin Brownlow), with a new orchestral score, and the spectacular three-screen finale. At the Paramount Theater in Oakland 24, 25, 31 March and 1 April. It is the ultimate in romantic spectacle and silent-movie dazzlement, and full details are here.
There's a new music pile-up at the beginning of the month: the Other Minds Festival is 1-3 March at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco; BluePrint at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music presents the premiere of Anosmia by Neil Rolnick, along with Stefan Cwik's Eight Miniatures for Chamber Ensemble and Philip Glass's Harpsichord Concerto (3 March); Volti presents new choral works by John Muehleisen (with texts by Gertrude Stein! *swoon*), Robin Estrada, Reena Esmail, David Conte, and Huang Ruo (2-4 March in varied locations; Carol Muske-Dukes, the current Poet Laureate of California, whose poem on the sudden death of her husband is used as the text for Esmail's piece, will attend the 2 March program in San Francisco); and 1-4 March mandolinist Mike Marshall joins the New Century Chamber Orchestra to perform his own Concerto for Mandolin and Strings while mandolinist Caterina Lichtenberg performs Vivaldi; the program also includes Shaker Loops by John Adams and several other pieces, in various locations as usual with NCCO.
Charles Dutoit leads the San Francisco Symphony in Stravinsky's Le Chant du Rossignol, Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (which should make a great showcase for the band), and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concert with Arabella Steinbacher, 1-3 March. The big event at the Symphony this month is the American Mavericks Festival, which opens 8 March. I'm not going to write about in much detail here except to say that it all looks great but I'm most looking forward to hearing Meredith Monk.
Earplay continues its "focus on Feldman" with its next concert, featuring works by Morton Feldman, Ellen Harrison, Charles Ives, and Erik Ulman, is Monday, 19 March, 7:30 at Herbst Theater.
San Francisco Performances offers: the Ebene Quartet playing Mozart, Borodin, and Ravel, on 8 March; Lera Auerbach on piano with Alisa Weilerstein on cello and soprano Lina Tetriani, performing works by Auerbach, on 14 March; Pierre-Laurent Aimard, playing Kurtag, Schumann, Liszt, and Debussy, on 27 March; and Ute Lemper and the Vogler Quartet, performing Weimar-era cabaret songs, on 31 March.
San Francisco Ballet presents Romeo and Juliet, choreographed by Helgi Tomasson to Prokofiev's score. They also have two mixed programs; Program 6, featuring Act 3 of Raymonda (Nureyev after Petipa), RAkU (Yuri Possokhov to a score by Shinji Eshima), and an Ashley Page world premiere (untitled both on the website and in the brochure; the brochure says the music is by John Adams, but the website says nothing about the music) looks particularly interesting, but this is an impossible month and who knows if I'm going to get to any of this.
West Edge Opera presents a manga re-visioning of The Magic Flute on 4, 9, and 11 March.
The Berkeley Playhouse presents what looks like a lively adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance at the Julia Morgan Playhouse, 25 February to 1 April.
Cal Performances has quite a full slate, including Wolfgang Holzmair singing Winterreise (4 March), Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, singing the Mass in B minor (10 March), pianists Murray Perahia (11 March) and Richard Goode (25 March), the Eco Ensemble playing Martin Matalon, Liza Lim, Aaron Einbond, and Nico Muhly (24 March); and Marin Alsop leading the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: on 30 March the program includes fanfares by Aaron Copland and Joan Tower, the Percussion Concerto by Jennifer Higdon, and Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony 5; on 31 March the program is Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light, accompanying Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, so you have two opportunities this month to see a great silent movie (this one as intimate as Gance's Napoleon is epic).
Shotgun Players presents The Coast of Utopia: Voyage, the first play in Tom Stoppard's celebrated trilogy about intellectual and emotional ferment in pre-revolutionary Russia, 14 March to 15 April.
The ACT Master of Fine Arts Program presents Will Eno's The Flu Season, 1-10 March, at the Hastings Studio Theater, 77 Geary Street, 6th floor. I haven't seen The Flu Season, but I've enjoyed the several Eno plays I've seen at Cutting Ball Theater, so this should be worth checking out. And speaking of the Cutting Ball, their current show, Tontawald, runs through 11 March. I hope to post a full entry about it soon, but right now I just have to say I really loved it.
The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players will be playing contemporary music in San Francisco on 26 March at Herbst, featuring works by Katharina Rosenberger, Brian Ferneyhough, Olly Wilson, Geoffrey Gordon, and Heinz Holliger.
The premiere screening of Lou Harrison: A World of Music, directed and produced by Eva Soltes, will take place on 6 March at the Castro Theater, with a special performance by Terry Riley before the film. The evening is a benefit for Harrison House Music & Arts. More information here.
The pile of brochures and print-outs I use to put these monthly lists together just seemed unending this month, like one of those fairy-tale porridge pots that keep giving and giving until everyone has more than enough porridge. So here is your jam-packed month: well, not jam-packed, but porridge-packed: pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot nine days old. . . . OK, I'm already getting loopy. Good luck to the rest of you with all this.
UPDATE: Can't believe I forgot Terry Riley at Old First Concerts, Friday March 23. . . .
There's a new music pile-up at the beginning of the month: the Other Minds Festival is 1-3 March at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco; BluePrint at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music presents the premiere of Anosmia by Neil Rolnick, along with Stefan Cwik's Eight Miniatures for Chamber Ensemble and Philip Glass's Harpsichord Concerto (3 March); Volti presents new choral works by John Muehleisen (with texts by Gertrude Stein! *swoon*), Robin Estrada, Reena Esmail, David Conte, and Huang Ruo (2-4 March in varied locations; Carol Muske-Dukes, the current Poet Laureate of California, whose poem on the sudden death of her husband is used as the text for Esmail's piece, will attend the 2 March program in San Francisco); and 1-4 March mandolinist Mike Marshall joins the New Century Chamber Orchestra to perform his own Concerto for Mandolin and Strings while mandolinist Caterina Lichtenberg performs Vivaldi; the program also includes Shaker Loops by John Adams and several other pieces, in various locations as usual with NCCO.
Charles Dutoit leads the San Francisco Symphony in Stravinsky's Le Chant du Rossignol, Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (which should make a great showcase for the band), and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concert with Arabella Steinbacher, 1-3 March. The big event at the Symphony this month is the American Mavericks Festival, which opens 8 March. I'm not going to write about in much detail here except to say that it all looks great but I'm most looking forward to hearing Meredith Monk.
Earplay continues its "focus on Feldman" with its next concert, featuring works by Morton Feldman, Ellen Harrison, Charles Ives, and Erik Ulman, is Monday, 19 March, 7:30 at Herbst Theater.
San Francisco Performances offers: the Ebene Quartet playing Mozart, Borodin, and Ravel, on 8 March; Lera Auerbach on piano with Alisa Weilerstein on cello and soprano Lina Tetriani, performing works by Auerbach, on 14 March; Pierre-Laurent Aimard, playing Kurtag, Schumann, Liszt, and Debussy, on 27 March; and Ute Lemper and the Vogler Quartet, performing Weimar-era cabaret songs, on 31 March.
San Francisco Ballet presents Romeo and Juliet, choreographed by Helgi Tomasson to Prokofiev's score. They also have two mixed programs; Program 6, featuring Act 3 of Raymonda (Nureyev after Petipa), RAkU (Yuri Possokhov to a score by Shinji Eshima), and an Ashley Page world premiere (untitled both on the website and in the brochure; the brochure says the music is by John Adams, but the website says nothing about the music) looks particularly interesting, but this is an impossible month and who knows if I'm going to get to any of this.
West Edge Opera presents a manga re-visioning of The Magic Flute on 4, 9, and 11 March.
The Berkeley Playhouse presents what looks like a lively adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance at the Julia Morgan Playhouse, 25 February to 1 April.
Cal Performances has quite a full slate, including Wolfgang Holzmair singing Winterreise (4 March), Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, singing the Mass in B minor (10 March), pianists Murray Perahia (11 March) and Richard Goode (25 March), the Eco Ensemble playing Martin Matalon, Liza Lim, Aaron Einbond, and Nico Muhly (24 March); and Marin Alsop leading the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: on 30 March the program includes fanfares by Aaron Copland and Joan Tower, the Percussion Concerto by Jennifer Higdon, and Sergei Prokofiev's Symphony 5; on 31 March the program is Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light, accompanying Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, so you have two opportunities this month to see a great silent movie (this one as intimate as Gance's Napoleon is epic).
Shotgun Players presents The Coast of Utopia: Voyage, the first play in Tom Stoppard's celebrated trilogy about intellectual and emotional ferment in pre-revolutionary Russia, 14 March to 15 April.
The ACT Master of Fine Arts Program presents Will Eno's The Flu Season, 1-10 March, at the Hastings Studio Theater, 77 Geary Street, 6th floor. I haven't seen The Flu Season, but I've enjoyed the several Eno plays I've seen at Cutting Ball Theater, so this should be worth checking out. And speaking of the Cutting Ball, their current show, Tontawald, runs through 11 March. I hope to post a full entry about it soon, but right now I just have to say I really loved it.
The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players will be playing contemporary music in San Francisco on 26 March at Herbst, featuring works by Katharina Rosenberger, Brian Ferneyhough, Olly Wilson, Geoffrey Gordon, and Heinz Holliger.
The premiere screening of Lou Harrison: A World of Music, directed and produced by Eva Soltes, will take place on 6 March at the Castro Theater, with a special performance by Terry Riley before the film. The evening is a benefit for Harrison House Music & Arts. More information here.
The pile of brochures and print-outs I use to put these monthly lists together just seemed unending this month, like one of those fairy-tale porridge pots that keep giving and giving until everyone has more than enough porridge. So here is your jam-packed month: well, not jam-packed, but porridge-packed: pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in the pot nine days old. . . . OK, I'm already getting loopy. Good luck to the rest of you with all this.
UPDATE: Can't believe I forgot Terry Riley at Old First Concerts, Friday March 23. . . .
26 February 2012
25 February 2012
24 February 2012
23 February 2012
world music, worldly music, a world of music
I’m now slightly embarrassed to admit that I barely knew who Regina Carter* was when I went to her SF Performances concert last Saturday, since she’s been here multiple times under their auspices and was their first jazz Artist-in-Residence; she also has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and was the first jazz artist, and the first African-American, to be allowed to play on Paganini’s own Stradivarius, now housed in Genoa – you'd think something of all that should have registered her name on my brain. I went because this was one of the concerts SF Performances offered to its subscribers in lieu of their usual free subscriber concert by the winner of the Naumberg Competition, and I don’t get to hear as much live jazz as I’d like and the timing worked out, so I figured why not, and I asked ABW (who also hadn’t heard of Carter) if she was free, and she was, so there we were at Herbst.
OK, we both now know who Regina Carter is, and will not be forgetting the name after that spectacularly enjoyable evening. Carter was joined by Will Holshouser on accordion, Chris Lightcap on bass, Alvester Garnett on percussion, and Yacouba Sissoko on kora, which is a twangly 21-string African harp-like instrument (Sissoko, who wore a long silky sky-blue African robe, was born in Mali and actually trained as a griot, but he also learned Western music, so he can play in more than one key; his instrument is a lovely thing made out of a very large gourd, with a special type of wood as the bridge, and fishing line as the wire – he gave us a brief and charming description of it, which is how I know these things).
The concert was based on Reverse Thread, Carter’s latest CD, which was on sale in the lobby for the bargain price of $10. I bought one even before hearing the concert (“He can’t not buy music,” said ABW, which is, sadly for my bank account, the truth; in fact I've already ordered her Paganini CD and have been eyeing a couple of others. . .) . This turned out to be a good decision because afterwards there was a crowd waiting to buy them, and the line to have Carter sign them was so long – snaking out of the theater lobby into the larger entrance lobby, the longest line I’ve ever seen at an SFP concert – that even I, who love signed things, decided not to wait.
The concert was about two hours long, with a brief intermission, so it couldn’t have been a simple recreation of the CD (which I haven’t listened to yet; I want the live sounds to linger a bit longer). The music is based on various influences on the Detroit-born Carter: not just the more obvious American or African ones, but also on music she heard in Detroit ethnic communities such as the Chaldeans, a group of Christian Arabs, and from those influences out to other groups, such as Ugandan Jews. We heard a couple of field recordings of some of the pieces, followed by the group’s arrangement of the material. There were extended improvisations and solos, as is the jazz way, and they all had their moment or moments to shine.
The world-music aspect may suggest something a bit trendy, or arbitrary, but the music itself feels lived in and loved. I never got that “Hey, listen to my cool new World Music CD that I got at Starbucks!” feeling that I sometimes get when Latin/African/Arabic rhythms are incorporated into predominantly Western styles. From moment to moment I was reminded of very different sounds – old French popular music (the accordion!), Celtic music, hymn tunes, African drumming, Django Rheinhardt’s jazz, brief snatches of My Country ‘Tis of Thee or When the Saints Come Marching In, Cuban bands – but it all feels as if all the layers belongs together; some of my favorite moments were when Carter played a stately hymn tune on the violin while a sophisticated African-style drumming pattern ran beneath her. ABW turned to me at the break and said, “It’s amazing how joyful this music makes me feel.” Yep, there it is.
Then on Sunday I traded in the kora for the theorbo and headed up to St Mark’s Lutheran for Magnificat’s all-Monteverdi concert. Based on his Eighth Book of Madrigals, the concert was called “Madrigals of War and Love,” meaning mostly Love as War. Artistic Director Warren Stewart was explaining all this as I walked in. His pre-concert talks are fairly interesting, from what I’ve heard of them, but their timing is a bit awkward, since I at least don’t like to clomp around looking for a seat while someone is talking and others are trying to listen (though, believe me, this doesn’t seem to bother some other people). I think I have yet to take advantage of the front rows reserved for subscribers, since I’m trying to be non-disruptive (and to find a seat by myself, I will confess). I am deeply grateful, though, that the talks are pre-concert, and not during the concert, when the music should speak for itself.
I’m counting the days until my insurance will cover an eye exam, since I discovered once again that I would not be able to read along in the text. So I have a vague but roughly accurate sense of what the singers were saying, even if I couldn’t map their expressiveness, as it were, from line to line (you read enough Renaissance poetry, you get the hang of it, and Love is a battlefield is not a sentiment unknown to our own troubadors). That’s fine too, I think; sometimes you need to let go of the annotations and let sound give you sense. I'm content to sit there and listen to ninety minutes of Monteverdi's variety.
St Mark’s looked more crowded than it has for the other Magnificat concerts this season, possibly because it was the final concert of their twentieth season (though the program did note that they would revive their production of Orazio Vecchi’s madrigal comedy L’Amfiparnaso on 8 June, as part of the Berkeley early music festival; tickets on sale February 29 at http://www.bfx.berkeley.edu/.) The audience gave them an enthusiastic, prolonged, and affectionate ovation at the end. This was the first season I’ve subscribed; better late than never, I guess, as I’ve enjoyed all three concerts very much. So thanks and appreciation to Warren Stewart and crew: Catherine Webster (soprano), Jennifer Paulio (soprano), Andrew Rader (alto), Paul Elliott (tenor), Daniel Hutchings (tenor), Peter Becker (bass), Rob Diggins (violin), Julianne von Einem (violin), Julie Jeffrey (viol), Elisabeth Reed (viol), John Dornenburg (violone), Nigel North (theorbo and viol), and Jillon Stoppels Dupree (harpsichord), and see you all next year, I hope.
* The link is to Carter's website, but be forewarned that music will start playing whether you want it to or not.
OK, we both now know who Regina Carter is, and will not be forgetting the name after that spectacularly enjoyable evening. Carter was joined by Will Holshouser on accordion, Chris Lightcap on bass, Alvester Garnett on percussion, and Yacouba Sissoko on kora, which is a twangly 21-string African harp-like instrument (Sissoko, who wore a long silky sky-blue African robe, was born in Mali and actually trained as a griot, but he also learned Western music, so he can play in more than one key; his instrument is a lovely thing made out of a very large gourd, with a special type of wood as the bridge, and fishing line as the wire – he gave us a brief and charming description of it, which is how I know these things).
The concert was based on Reverse Thread, Carter’s latest CD, which was on sale in the lobby for the bargain price of $10. I bought one even before hearing the concert (“He can’t not buy music,” said ABW, which is, sadly for my bank account, the truth; in fact I've already ordered her Paganini CD and have been eyeing a couple of others. . .) . This turned out to be a good decision because afterwards there was a crowd waiting to buy them, and the line to have Carter sign them was so long – snaking out of the theater lobby into the larger entrance lobby, the longest line I’ve ever seen at an SFP concert – that even I, who love signed things, decided not to wait.
The concert was about two hours long, with a brief intermission, so it couldn’t have been a simple recreation of the CD (which I haven’t listened to yet; I want the live sounds to linger a bit longer). The music is based on various influences on the Detroit-born Carter: not just the more obvious American or African ones, but also on music she heard in Detroit ethnic communities such as the Chaldeans, a group of Christian Arabs, and from those influences out to other groups, such as Ugandan Jews. We heard a couple of field recordings of some of the pieces, followed by the group’s arrangement of the material. There were extended improvisations and solos, as is the jazz way, and they all had their moment or moments to shine.
The world-music aspect may suggest something a bit trendy, or arbitrary, but the music itself feels lived in and loved. I never got that “Hey, listen to my cool new World Music CD that I got at Starbucks!” feeling that I sometimes get when Latin/African/Arabic rhythms are incorporated into predominantly Western styles. From moment to moment I was reminded of very different sounds – old French popular music (the accordion!), Celtic music, hymn tunes, African drumming, Django Rheinhardt’s jazz, brief snatches of My Country ‘Tis of Thee or When the Saints Come Marching In, Cuban bands – but it all feels as if all the layers belongs together; some of my favorite moments were when Carter played a stately hymn tune on the violin while a sophisticated African-style drumming pattern ran beneath her. ABW turned to me at the break and said, “It’s amazing how joyful this music makes me feel.” Yep, there it is.
Then on Sunday I traded in the kora for the theorbo and headed up to St Mark’s Lutheran for Magnificat’s all-Monteverdi concert. Based on his Eighth Book of Madrigals, the concert was called “Madrigals of War and Love,” meaning mostly Love as War. Artistic Director Warren Stewart was explaining all this as I walked in. His pre-concert talks are fairly interesting, from what I’ve heard of them, but their timing is a bit awkward, since I at least don’t like to clomp around looking for a seat while someone is talking and others are trying to listen (though, believe me, this doesn’t seem to bother some other people). I think I have yet to take advantage of the front rows reserved for subscribers, since I’m trying to be non-disruptive (and to find a seat by myself, I will confess). I am deeply grateful, though, that the talks are pre-concert, and not during the concert, when the music should speak for itself.
I’m counting the days until my insurance will cover an eye exam, since I discovered once again that I would not be able to read along in the text. So I have a vague but roughly accurate sense of what the singers were saying, even if I couldn’t map their expressiveness, as it were, from line to line (you read enough Renaissance poetry, you get the hang of it, and Love is a battlefield is not a sentiment unknown to our own troubadors). That’s fine too, I think; sometimes you need to let go of the annotations and let sound give you sense. I'm content to sit there and listen to ninety minutes of Monteverdi's variety.
St Mark’s looked more crowded than it has for the other Magnificat concerts this season, possibly because it was the final concert of their twentieth season (though the program did note that they would revive their production of Orazio Vecchi’s madrigal comedy L’Amfiparnaso on 8 June, as part of the Berkeley early music festival; tickets on sale February 29 at http://www.bfx.berkeley.edu/.) The audience gave them an enthusiastic, prolonged, and affectionate ovation at the end. This was the first season I’ve subscribed; better late than never, I guess, as I’ve enjoyed all three concerts very much. So thanks and appreciation to Warren Stewart and crew: Catherine Webster (soprano), Jennifer Paulio (soprano), Andrew Rader (alto), Paul Elliott (tenor), Daniel Hutchings (tenor), Peter Becker (bass), Rob Diggins (violin), Julianne von Einem (violin), Julie Jeffrey (viol), Elisabeth Reed (viol), John Dornenburg (violone), Nigel North (theorbo and viol), and Jillon Stoppels Dupree (harpsichord), and see you all next year, I hope.
* The link is to Carter's website, but be forewarned that music will start playing whether you want it to or not.
22 February 2012
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