Ed Harkins (left) and Phil Larson (right),
aka
[THE]
This clip comes to us pirated from Ed's retirement concert last spring. It gives a reasonable idea of what they're about, but I've seen more better footage of them in their glory days (ahh....the late 80's...when Laurie Anderson was making pieces based on the concept of binary code), and this doesn't really compare.
Still, it's weird enough.
Could THIS be the future of Opera Cabal? Only time will tell.
(n.)
11.15.2007
Tonight : New
More new. Some old.
Come see.
UCSD Mandeville Recital Hall 8:00
***
Church Car by Charles Amirkhanian
Nicholas Demaison and Kathleen Gallagher, performers
Arc Flicker by Benjamin Sabey
Reiko Manabe, flute
I seem to be a verb, by Ian Power, text by R. Buckminster Fuller
Ian Power, performer
-Brief Pause-
Appel Interstellaire (from Des Canons aux etoiles) by Olivier Messiaen
Amanda Tabor, horn
- alt. fl / vla - by Nicholas Deyoe
Reiko Manabe, flute
David Medine, viola
onanspasautonomotor by Clinton McCallum
Clint McCallum, electric guitar and voice
Come see.
UCSD Mandeville Recital Hall 8:00
***
Church Car by Charles Amirkhanian
Nicholas Demaison and Kathleen Gallagher, performers
Arc Flicker by Benjamin Sabey
Reiko Manabe, flute
I seem to be a verb, by Ian Power, text by R. Buckminster Fuller
Ian Power, performer
-Brief Pause-
Appel Interstellaire (from Des Canons aux etoiles) by Olivier Messiaen
Amanda Tabor, horn
- alt. fl / vla - by Nicholas Deyoe
Reiko Manabe, flute
David Medine, viola
onanspasautonomotor by Clinton McCallum
Clint McCallum, electric guitar and voice
11.13.2007
All that remains
Nearly a month has elapsed. On my way out of the shell-shock, I noticed that I had a handful of unpublished photos from the fiasco. These mostly come from Thursday before the first show, starting with Phyllis's pianos.
Peter Martin's diatonic tubaphone.
***
Rob and Phyllis set up "Stage 1." I was even more impressed on Saturday with the move to Hyde Park than I was on Thursday at Zhou at how many great toys they had and how quickly they set it all up.
****
EVERYTHING you need to create an opera festival.
(...except, apparently, for a public presenters license.)
(n.)
Peter Martin's diatonic tubaphone.
***
Peter Martin embedded.
**
**
Rob and Phyllis set up "Stage 1." I was even more impressed on Saturday with the move to Hyde Park than I was on Thursday at Zhou at how many great toys they had and how quickly they set it all up.
***
Brett and Drew Baker. Art by Brett Baker.
*****
*****
And a handful from the Asylum performance:
Todd Hill- Bass, Brendan Connors- Sax, Dan Siakel- Percussion.
I can't tell if these are artistically out of focus or just plain blurry.
Todd Hill- Bass, Brendan Connors- Sax, Dan Siakel- Percussion.
I can't tell if these are artistically out of focus or just plain blurry.
****
EVERYTHING you need to create an opera festival.(...except, apparently, for a public presenters license.)
(n.)
11.06.2007
Alex Ross at the University of Chicago
Or was it Dante in Hell?
Alex Ross was the guest speaker at a colloquium yesterday at the University of Chicago Music Department, part of a series sponsored yearly by the Visiting Committee. Ross's new book, *The Rest is Noise* (based on the name of his long-running blog) has just come out and from the sounds of it (I haven't read it) is probably a breezy & idiosyncratic tour through the 20th century's highlights-according-to-Ross. In other words, it's the 200-page version of what makes an Alex Ross article a good read.
Now, I will say that I do not always like Alex Ross's articles in the New Yorker, but my reactions to his prose are inevitably colored by jealousy--Ross isn't a musicologist, but he can play ball with musicologists. He just chooses not to. This was the elephant in the room yesterday. I was about to ask Ross if he actually reads any musicology when the bell rang (pink-shirted Andrew Patner signaled that it was time to adjourn). New Yorker articles--somewhat shockingly to someone used to painstakingly sorting through CMS style citation procedures--never, or rarely, contain footnotes, and Ross can pretty much write what he wants (with a bevy of fact-checkers to support his lack of citations). Of course, this never hurt a New Yorker article. In fact, it makes them a marvelous good read, which is where Ross's New Yorker style departs in due course from the general musicological essay.
In my time as an academic, I have run across two people who write interestingly enough that they could probably tackle the "general audience" problem with as much grace as Ross (I'm thinking here of Larry Kramer at Fordham, who's an English professor anyway, and Daniel Albright at Harvard). And, well, there's Charles Rosen who frequents the pages of the New York Times (where Ross began his illustrious career as superjournalist) and Dicky Taruskin, who above all else will be damned if he doesn't write interestingly. Anyway, the point here is not that musicologists are incapable of writing well. Some of them are excellent craftsmen & -women. It's just that the subjects we choose are in general so arcane that they would elude even the most intellectual but still general audience. But here's the sticking point: I think most of us adhere to the textual and referential arcaneness EVEN THOUGH we would probably give it up if we thought what we were saying had the possibility of reaching a broader audience. I mean, my gosh, if somebody said to anyone in musicology, "Why don't you come write for the New Yorker, starting tomorrow?" my guess is they'd hit the pavement.
If poor Alex Ross found himself a sheep among wolves yesterday (he noted he was "properly intimidated") my guess is he was probably just wondering why he'd stepped into the trap of coming at all if only to be hounded by intellectual questions, the usefulness of which to his project he'd given up on long ago. Strangely, the room refrained from pointed questions and Ross avoided saying much of anything. Part of his speech was just a giant disclaimer: no, I didn't really write this book for you guys. He wasn't sarcastic, he wasn't even very polished. He simply got up and announced, "look I've written this book and I think it's possible you may enjoy a read, but it's not going to tell you anything you don't know," and the room stared back at him with half-hate and half-longing. I wonder if any of the musicologists tried to slip into Ross's suitcase at the end of the night. I hear it's nice working in the Condé Nast.
(m.)
Alex Ross was the guest speaker at a colloquium yesterday at the University of Chicago Music Department, part of a series sponsored yearly by the Visiting Committee. Ross's new book, *The Rest is Noise* (based on the name of his long-running blog) has just come out and from the sounds of it (I haven't read it) is probably a breezy & idiosyncratic tour through the 20th century's highlights-according-to-Ross. In other words, it's the 200-page version of what makes an Alex Ross article a good read.
Now, I will say that I do not always like Alex Ross's articles in the New Yorker, but my reactions to his prose are inevitably colored by jealousy--Ross isn't a musicologist, but he can play ball with musicologists. He just chooses not to. This was the elephant in the room yesterday. I was about to ask Ross if he actually reads any musicology when the bell rang (pink-shirted Andrew Patner signaled that it was time to adjourn). New Yorker articles--somewhat shockingly to someone used to painstakingly sorting through CMS style citation procedures--never, or rarely, contain footnotes, and Ross can pretty much write what he wants (with a bevy of fact-checkers to support his lack of citations). Of course, this never hurt a New Yorker article. In fact, it makes them a marvelous good read, which is where Ross's New Yorker style departs in due course from the general musicological essay.
In my time as an academic, I have run across two people who write interestingly enough that they could probably tackle the "general audience" problem with as much grace as Ross (I'm thinking here of Larry Kramer at Fordham, who's an English professor anyway, and Daniel Albright at Harvard). And, well, there's Charles Rosen who frequents the pages of the New York Times (where Ross began his illustrious career as superjournalist) and Dicky Taruskin, who above all else will be damned if he doesn't write interestingly. Anyway, the point here is not that musicologists are incapable of writing well. Some of them are excellent craftsmen & -women. It's just that the subjects we choose are in general so arcane that they would elude even the most intellectual but still general audience. But here's the sticking point: I think most of us adhere to the textual and referential arcaneness EVEN THOUGH we would probably give it up if we thought what we were saying had the possibility of reaching a broader audience. I mean, my gosh, if somebody said to anyone in musicology, "Why don't you come write for the New Yorker, starting tomorrow?" my guess is they'd hit the pavement.
If poor Alex Ross found himself a sheep among wolves yesterday (he noted he was "properly intimidated") my guess is he was probably just wondering why he'd stepped into the trap of coming at all if only to be hounded by intellectual questions, the usefulness of which to his project he'd given up on long ago. Strangely, the room refrained from pointed questions and Ross avoided saying much of anything. Part of his speech was just a giant disclaimer: no, I didn't really write this book for you guys. He wasn't sarcastic, he wasn't even very polished. He simply got up and announced, "look I've written this book and I think it's possible you may enjoy a read, but it's not going to tell you anything you don't know," and the room stared back at him with half-hate and half-longing. I wonder if any of the musicologists tried to slip into Ross's suitcase at the end of the night. I hear it's nice working in the Condé Nast.
(m.)
11.03.2007
The Chicago Reader Says ...
A review of Delusions in the Chicago Reader (with an emphasis on city politics ... )
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/thebusiness/071101/
(M.)
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/thebusiness/071101/
(M.)
11.01.2007
New color scheme
It seems that we've taken to putting up more text posts. Hopefully the new color scheme is easier on the eyes.
(n.)
(n.)
Whither taste? (A Review Pondering the General Idea Motivating the Continued Existence of the Lyric Opera of Chicago)
I have to say that I never in my life have been to the Lyric Opera of Chicago and left thinking, I should do that again. And yet, I continue to go periodically, when I've forgotten how much my butt hurt last time, and how I could've done a load of laundry instead. Folks, it's that good.
[Yes, it's another angry review from Majel. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.]
When I assistant dramaturged at the Lyric back when they did the operatic version of poor (now dead) Robert Altman's *A Wedding* (which then became *The Wedding* for no discernible reason), I became familiar with the uselessness of dramaturgy to the whole Lyric enterprise, and the effectiveness of bad jokes and slapstick on the house's forever aging subscriber base. It may sound strange, but this is an audience that loves it some har-har humor--in fact, the more it seems the opera was engineered by Ellen Degeneres, the more they howl.
When I saw Aida at the Lyric a few seasons ago, I thought I was done forever. Not only did the captured Ethiopians look like a starved pack of mongrel humanoids, they were wearing BLACKFACE. Now, I've seen some effective use of what is currently considered a rather embarrassing component to the past history of black minstrelsy, but it needs to be carefully deployed--Spike Lee's Bamboozled, say, which really did a number on the meaning of careful, would be on the list. Not on the A-list? Blackface in the Lyric's Aida, which was simply not thought out. Worse, no one in the audience seemed to notice.
Now, Philip Morehead, who is about the nicest guy I've met in the last month, offered me a ticket to the Giulio Cesare this past week, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pass over a completely free ticket to anything, especially more butter or brownies. But I gotta say, Lyric Opera of Chicago, you surprised me this time. Now look, I get that opera, historically, that entertainment, period, historically, has often been about slapstick, about gags, and laughs and that dressing opera up as a completely serious venture might be our misguided 21st century version of how we want opera to be. So maybe in some universe out there it would be okay to put Cleopatra in a flapper wig and have her show up in Africa to do a striptease for a group of soldiers in some colonial environment. (I'm afraid I was never quite clear on McVicar's costume choices. Pompey's wife Cornelia seems to be in some Southern mourning get-up viz. the Civil War era, but my guess is the dramaturg for the production didn't get as far as defining an actual location for the opera beyond the suggestion that wherever they are it's perhaps a bit hot out??) But then one would need to make a firm argument for the whole of the opera as an embedded burlesque (in which case the strangely Renaissance line dance at the end of the 1st Act would be decidedly the wrong genre). The slow-mo entrance of the diminutive dancers who act as palace minions at the outset of the opera seemed initially to be a stroke of genius. The dancers, combined with the slowly rolling water-like backdrop suggest a moment where--perhaps just at the moment of Pompey's death--the clocks have all stopped, time is at a standstill. Or better yet, perhaps slow-moving dance is the dance of Opera itself, stopped in time: a living, yet dead, art form. But with Daniels' confused entrance (why he needed to stagger in at this point is beyond me), the dancerly pace disappears, only to reemerge later in Act I for no apparent reason at all. (Why are they moving slowly again? What does it mean?)
I've said nothing at all about the singing, partly because it's upsetting to me that every time I've ever gone to hear David Daniels sing, he's marked. But mostly, I found the rest of the first act, which is as far as I made it, utterly BAD. I couldn't listen to the music.
Lyric, thumbs down.
-Majel
[Yes, it's another angry review from Majel. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.]
When I assistant dramaturged at the Lyric back when they did the operatic version of poor (now dead) Robert Altman's *A Wedding* (which then became *The Wedding* for no discernible reason), I became familiar with the uselessness of dramaturgy to the whole Lyric enterprise, and the effectiveness of bad jokes and slapstick on the house's forever aging subscriber base. It may sound strange, but this is an audience that loves it some har-har humor--in fact, the more it seems the opera was engineered by Ellen Degeneres, the more they howl.
When I saw Aida at the Lyric a few seasons ago, I thought I was done forever. Not only did the captured Ethiopians look like a starved pack of mongrel humanoids, they were wearing BLACKFACE. Now, I've seen some effective use of what is currently considered a rather embarrassing component to the past history of black minstrelsy, but it needs to be carefully deployed--Spike Lee's Bamboozled, say, which really did a number on the meaning of careful, would be on the list. Not on the A-list? Blackface in the Lyric's Aida, which was simply not thought out. Worse, no one in the audience seemed to notice.
Now, Philip Morehead, who is about the nicest guy I've met in the last month, offered me a ticket to the Giulio Cesare this past week, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pass over a completely free ticket to anything, especially more butter or brownies. But I gotta say, Lyric Opera of Chicago, you surprised me this time. Now look, I get that opera, historically, that entertainment, period, historically, has often been about slapstick, about gags, and laughs and that dressing opera up as a completely serious venture might be our misguided 21st century version of how we want opera to be. So maybe in some universe out there it would be okay to put Cleopatra in a flapper wig and have her show up in Africa to do a striptease for a group of soldiers in some colonial environment. (I'm afraid I was never quite clear on McVicar's costume choices. Pompey's wife Cornelia seems to be in some Southern mourning get-up viz. the Civil War era, but my guess is the dramaturg for the production didn't get as far as defining an actual location for the opera beyond the suggestion that wherever they are it's perhaps a bit hot out??) But then one would need to make a firm argument for the whole of the opera as an embedded burlesque (in which case the strangely Renaissance line dance at the end of the 1st Act would be decidedly the wrong genre). The slow-mo entrance of the diminutive dancers who act as palace minions at the outset of the opera seemed initially to be a stroke of genius. The dancers, combined with the slowly rolling water-like backdrop suggest a moment where--perhaps just at the moment of Pompey's death--the clocks have all stopped, time is at a standstill. Or better yet, perhaps slow-moving dance is the dance of Opera itself, stopped in time: a living, yet dead, art form. But with Daniels' confused entrance (why he needed to stagger in at this point is beyond me), the dancerly pace disappears, only to reemerge later in Act I for no apparent reason at all. (Why are they moving slowly again? What does it mean?)
I've said nothing at all about the singing, partly because it's upsetting to me that every time I've ever gone to hear David Daniels sing, he's marked. But mostly, I found the rest of the first act, which is as far as I made it, utterly BAD. I couldn't listen to the music.
Lyric, thumbs down.
-Majel
Upcoming San Diego Concerts
Short update about some concerts in San Diego in the near future:
La Jolla Symphony
Saturday Nov.3, 8pm
Sunday Nov.4, 2pm
Mandeville Hall
John Luther Adams: The Light That Fills the World
A great big mass of sound for about 12 minutes. I'll be playing keyboard. No. I am not a pianist.
Philip Glass: Cello Concerto (American Premier)
As Steve's assistant I'm probably not allowed to publicly talk trash about any of our repertoire.
Lv Beethoven: Symphony 4
That's the one with the unison string opening in Bflat that's really dark and angsty and the second movement that has parts that sound like they were lifted straight from Das Rheingold (...wait a minute....). I have to say, as well, that I've been listening to this orchestra (and Steve) grow into this piece over the last couple months, and yesterday's rehearsal was downright suave. They seem to particularly enjoy the rhythmic wackiness in the third mvt.
And yes, this concert is in fact competing with San Diego Symphony's rendition of Mahler 3. All I can say is I head Jahja do Mahler 2 in Cleveland a few years ago and it was very...nice. Yup. Nice...and...pretty. So go ahead...go to a very...nice...version of Mahler 3 on Friday or Saturday, and THEN spend Sunday afternoon with John Luther Adams holding your head under a giant iceberg that gives no sign of succumbing to global warming - in a good way.
Nick & Kathleen
perform Church Car
on the Grad Forum
Thursday Nov.15
8ish maybe?
Mandeville Recital Hall
Kathleen and I will, in the very near future have a name for our little performance duo. We keep getting requests from composers to do weird performance arty stuff and we keep saying yes. Maybe we'll even get a website.
Capella Chamber Choir w/ San Diego Master Chorale
Friday Nov.16
Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla
8pm perhaps?
Capella will present part of its set of old English carols and then join with SDMC for the Dona Nobis Pacem of Bach's b-minor Mass
Nick & Kathleen Redux
on the Grad Forum
Tuesday Nov.20
Mandeville Recital Hall
probably 8pm
New piece by Carolyn Chen
Bizarre. I promise.
and in the not too distant future:
La Jolla Symphony
Mandeville Hall
Dec. 8/9
8pm/2pm
Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ
Aint no Messiah here. When's the last time you heard the L'Enfance??!
Capella Chamber Choir
Dec. 12 & 14 7pm
San Dieguito United Methodist Church, Encinitas
Capella's winter concerts with the other choirs of North Coast Singers. English Carols and a couple of more recent pieces. I might have a little little something of my own on these concerts.
(My big Capella project has been shifted over to the spring concert because I occasionally have a small problem with meeting deadlines.)
And if all of that's not enough, maybe have a look at the Pacific Symphony's Mozart Requiem next weekend (Nov.8-10) Also on that concert is Golijav's Dreams and Praryers of Isaac the Blind. Sweet sweet accessibility.
(n.)
La Jolla Symphony
Saturday Nov.3, 8pm
Sunday Nov.4, 2pm
Mandeville Hall
John Luther Adams: The Light That Fills the World
A great big mass of sound for about 12 minutes. I'll be playing keyboard. No. I am not a pianist.
Philip Glass: Cello Concerto (American Premier)
As Steve's assistant I'm probably not allowed to publicly talk trash about any of our repertoire.
Lv Beethoven: Symphony 4
That's the one with the unison string opening in Bflat that's really dark and angsty and the second movement that has parts that sound like they were lifted straight from Das Rheingold (...wait a minute....). I have to say, as well, that I've been listening to this orchestra (and Steve) grow into this piece over the last couple months, and yesterday's rehearsal was downright suave. They seem to particularly enjoy the rhythmic wackiness in the third mvt.
And yes, this concert is in fact competing with San Diego Symphony's rendition of Mahler 3. All I can say is I head Jahja do Mahler 2 in Cleveland a few years ago and it was very...nice. Yup. Nice...and...pretty. So go ahead...go to a very...nice...version of Mahler 3 on Friday or Saturday, and THEN spend Sunday afternoon with John Luther Adams holding your head under a giant iceberg that gives no sign of succumbing to global warming - in a good way.
Nick & Kathleen
perform Church Car
on the Grad Forum
Thursday Nov.15
8ish maybe?
Mandeville Recital Hall
Kathleen and I will, in the very near future have a name for our little performance duo. We keep getting requests from composers to do weird performance arty stuff and we keep saying yes. Maybe we'll even get a website.
Capella Chamber Choir w/ San Diego Master Chorale
Friday Nov.16
Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla
8pm perhaps?
Capella will present part of its set of old English carols and then join with SDMC for the Dona Nobis Pacem of Bach's b-minor Mass
Nick & Kathleen Redux
on the Grad Forum
Tuesday Nov.20
Mandeville Recital Hall
probably 8pm
New piece by Carolyn Chen
Bizarre. I promise.
and in the not too distant future:
La Jolla Symphony
Mandeville Hall
Dec. 8/9
8pm/2pm
Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ
Aint no Messiah here. When's the last time you heard the L'Enfance??!
Capella Chamber Choir
Dec. 12 & 14 7pm
San Dieguito United Methodist Church, Encinitas
Capella's winter concerts with the other choirs of North Coast Singers. English Carols and a couple of more recent pieces. I might have a little little something of my own on these concerts.
(My big Capella project has been shifted over to the spring concert because I occasionally have a small problem with meeting deadlines.)
And if all of that's not enough, maybe have a look at the Pacific Symphony's Mozart Requiem next weekend (Nov.8-10) Also on that concert is Golijav's Dreams and Praryers of Isaac the Blind. Sweet sweet accessibility.
(n.)
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