tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-316731132024-03-13T12:37:19.844-05:00JAMES ROEMusic, Art, Poetry, and Occasional Insomnia in New York CityJames Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.comBlogger235125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-59963060743622282862019-07-22T09:40:00.002-05:002019-07-22T15:58:50.577-05:00POEMS 2005-2017<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">WHAT HOPPER KNEW<br /> <br /> Again, here.<br /> After midnight<br /> At the bar<br /> And the weight of<br /> All those famous paintings<br /> <br /> Cannot equal the<br /> Course of each life.<br /> <br /> ----<br /> <br /> ZINC<br /> <br /> Spring was cool and summer never shook the chill, <br />but as September climaxed<br /><br />in unnatural heat,<br /> You took your quiet leave.<br /> Three weeks is too long to go without speaking.<br /> <br /> Somehow now in mid-October, winter’s icy<br /> fingers already grasp at the city streets.<br /> My phone is a dead weight.<br /> <br /> Another meal at Café Luxembourg.<br /> There are a few things I would like to tell you.<br /><br />-----<br /><br /> APHRODISIAC<br /> <br /> Last night, we served<br /> quivering plates of oysters.<br /> Each briny draught brought<br /> a death by dinner party.<br /> <br /> One large shell caught<br /> the corner of my mouth at<br /> that point where lip meets<br /> lip and is almost cheek.<br /> <br /> So thin, that delicate line of lip,<br /> so effortlessly severed by the ancient<br /> creature’s last line of defense.<br /> I dabbed my own blood the rest of the night.<br /> <br /> Today, the bright<br /> pang that bites each smile<br /> recalls the beast’s sharp shell,<br /> not its cold, strange meat.<br /> <br /> ---<br /> <br /> AWAKENED<br /> <br /> Making a hasty retreat, sleep’s<br /> bellicose company silently slips<br /> through prattling window panes<br /> on wafts and whiffs of wintry air.<br /> <br /> Why is it so cold this spring?<br /> Ravenously ticking,<br /> the red bedside clock<br /> devours the seconds in steady gulps.<br /> <br /> (A guppy will eat her fry . . . )<br /> The alarm is set, but I<br /> did not wind the beast before bed.<br /> <br /> Sometime tonight it will silently stop<br /> timing time and not a soul<br /> will be alarmed.<br /> <br /> ----<br /><br />APRIL FOOL’S EVE 2008 — A 90th Birthday Party Remembered the Next Morning<br /> <br /> Aileen, Aileen, you take the cake,<br /> which was, last night, a tart<br /> —ahem—and make<br /> <br /> us toast five years hence,<br /> glasses raised, bifocals lowered,<br /> smiles gathered up and gleaming.<br /> <br /> In all our sprawling tomorrows,<br /> how we wish to spend<br /> the best of them with you!<br /> <br /> ---------<br /> <br /> IN LEME - Rio de Janeiro, August 2005<br /> <br /> Green-shadowed streets,<br /> air thick with salt, unseen<br /> the sea whispers to the shore.<br /> <br /> Waves on sand,<br /> familiar caresses coaxing<br /> improbable embraces.<br /> <br /> The women in white arrive<br /> with their evening tribute,<br /> champagne and candles<br /> <br /> for their forbear<br /> lost to aquatic union.<br /> Is it mourning or seduction<br /> <br /> that toss in the tide<br /> while unlit waves arch<br /> to kiss the night horizon?<br /> <br /> ------<br /> <br /> LOST CHOREOGRAPHY<br /> <br /> I wish<br /> I could<br /> remember every<br /> word you said to me<br /> and then dance<br /> among the letters:<br /> <br /> Tracing their curves<br /> and corners,<br /> teasing each ounce<br /> of meaning from their<br /> archaic<br /> shapes.<br /> <br /> -----<br /> <br /> GYPSIES<br /> <br /> Time expands<br /> and contracts<br /> like an accordion.<br /> <br /> Weezing<br /> squeezed<br /> melodies<br /> from between<br /> its fingerboards.<br /> <br /> ------<br /> <br /> ITHACA IN AUGUST<br /> <br /> And here we<br /> uncovered a country<br /> of love, surprised to be stung,<br /> bees strumming, wings on<br /> weeds, flowers in sun.<br /> <br /> The field is full of sharp sticks,<br /> and tics, and cold stones:<br /> each a tiny, insurmountable boulder.<br /> Our picnic blanket is thread-bare<br /> in all the wrong places.<br /> <br /> But what displaces us<br /> and places us here,<br /> sprawling in gleaming,<br /> green fields?<br /> <br /> Our blanket rolls<br /> in checkered folds,<br /> and the cold dew<br /> promises sprawling<br /> tomorrows on<br /> tomorrows.<br /> <br /> Each weedprick folds<br /> me more into you, as fields<br /> of gleaming green fall faster<br /> and faster from<br /> the vaulting blue sky<br /> and we tumble faster<br /> than meaning itself,<br /> bumping and kissing<br /> and knowing that rolling we, dizzy,<br /> will face each face, and eye each I,<br /> and love-stained by earth and sky,<br /> <br /> will bump and roll down<br /> terrible terrains of radiant green,<br /> holding on, holding on,<br /> to the shining country of<br /> our love.</span>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-83046926671931316942012-07-06T21:50:00.002-05:002012-07-07T10:04:17.406-05:00The Knights at the Naumburg Band Shell<b id="internal-source-marker_0.3589608380571008" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Knights at the Naumburg Band Shell</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Central Park, New York, NY</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">July 10, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eric Jacobsen, Conductor</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Julia MacLaine, Cello</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wagner </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Siegfried Idyll</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Schumann Cello Concerto in A Minor, op. 129</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Debussy </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adès <i>Three Studies from Couperin</i></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jacobsen/Aghaei <i>Ascending Bird</i>: Introduction and Dance for Orchestra</span><br />
<br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9932495651300997" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thoughts on the program by James Roe.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Program Overview</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9932495651300997" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I must try for something else.” --- Robert Schumann</span></b></div>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9932495651300997" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></b></div>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9932495651300997" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“new inspiration on every page” --- Thomas Adès</span></b></div>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9932495651300997" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The incredible alchemy of an orchestra concert is achieved through its array of collaborative elements. Composers—whether living or from the past—endeavor to represent the musical sounds they hear in their imaginations with written notation. Performers, in turn, use the decidedly physical act of playing musical instruments to reach through the printed notation for the composer’s voice. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In each of the works on tonight’s program there is an additional collaborative element, an inspiration outside the composer through which he reaches to us. For Wagner, it was a private musical gift to his wife. Schumann’s was the voice of the cello, an instrument he briefly attempted to learn after an injury prevented him from playing the piano. Debussy created a musical “impression” of Stéphane Mallarmé’s symbolist poetry. Thomas Adès’ inspiration was the keyboard music of François Couperin. Colin Jacobsen and Siamak Aghaei based “Ascending Bird” on a traditional Persian folk song.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Richard Wagner</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">b</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Leipzig, May 22, 1813; </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">d</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Venice, February 13, 1883)</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Siegfried Idyll</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Composed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 1870, Tribschen</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Premiere</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: privately, December 25, 1870, in the home of Cosima and Richard Wagner</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instrumentation</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: flute, oboe, two clarinets, bassoon, two horns, trumpet, strings</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Duration</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 17 minutes</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Siegfried Idyll</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> offers a glimpse into the intimate world of Richard Wagner. Never intended for public performance, the work was written as a birthday gift for his wife Cosima, daughter of Franz Liszt and former wife of conductor and champion of Wagner’s music, Hans von Bülow. Cosima bore Wagner three children while still married to Bülow, daughters Isolde (1865) and Eva (1867), and their son Siegfried (1869). Cosima and Bülow were divorced in July of 1870 and she married Wagner a month later in Lucerne.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the morning after Cosima’s 33rd birthday, December 25, 1870, Wagner assembled a chamber orchestra on the stairs leading to her bedroom. She awoke to the premiere of a work written for her alone, based on musical themes important to the couple, now at long last, husband and wife.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She wrote in her diary:</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A sound awoke me which grew ever stronger; I knew I was no longer dreaming, there was music, and what music! When it had died away, R. came into my room with the five children and gave me the score of his ‘Symphonic Birthday Greeting’ - I was in tears, so was everybody in the house. R. had placed his orchestra on the staircase, and thus our Tribschen is consecrated for all time.”</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The work opens with a gentle, arching melody that Wagner originally conceived for a string quartet dedicated to Cosima. In the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Idyll</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, he gives us a sense of how that unrealized work might have sounded, as the strings play alone for a full two minutes before the woodwinds enter. The appearance of the fresh orchestral color, first the flute, and then oboe and clarinet, is magic. One can imagine Wagner painting a musical picture of Cosima’s first stirrings on the morning of the premiere. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The work is disarmingly tender and personal. British music scholar and Wagner specialist, Ernest Newman, referred to it as “a series of domestic confidences.” It can come as no surprise that Cosima cried when it was sold for publication to help raise needed funds. This, the most private of Wagner’s musical creations, has become his most performed instrumental work.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robert Schumann</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">b</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Zwickau, Saxony, June 8, 1810; </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">d</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Endenich, near Bonn, July 29, 1856 )</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cello Concerto in A Minor, op. 129</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Composed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: October 10-24, 1850, Düsseldorf</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Premiere</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: posthumously, April 23, 1860, Oldenburg, Ludwig Ebert, soloist, Großherzolighen Hofkapelle, Karl Franzen, conductor</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instrumentation</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: solo cello, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Duration</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 25 minutes</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 1850, Robert Schumann moved from Dresden to Düsseldorf to become the municipal music director. Though it would soon become apparent that he was ill-suited for this position, the move initially ushered the composer into a brief but truly happy period. His Cello Concerto in A Minor was written in a two-week burst of creativity soon after his arrival in the new city. It is one of the major works to emerge from his final years of mental decline, and the last he saw all the way from composition to publication. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Schumann’s reasons for writing this piece are not known, but once it was completed, he was unable to interest cellists in performing the work. After being rejected by the publishing houses, Friedrich Hofmeister and Carl Luckhardt, Breitkopf & Härtel finally agreed to publish the work in 1854. Schumann even made a version for cello and string quartet, which was refused publication and is now unfortunately lost. With no cellists willing to play the piece, Schumann rewrote it as a violin concerto and presented it to violinist, Joseph Joachim who accepted the score without ever performing it. The violin version was only discovered in 1987.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Schumann once wrote, "I cannot write a concerto for the virtuosos. I must try for something else.” With the Cello Concerto, he achieves that elusive “something else” by deftly wedding virtuosity to musical substance. Originally titled, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Concertstück für Violoncell mit Begleitung des Orchesters</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (“Concertpiece for Violoncello with Orchestral Accompaniment”), the work is three movements played without break. In character with Schumann’s late style, themes are recalled throughout the work creating a distinctly narrative effect, with the soloist taking the role of storyteller. In 1850, his wife, Clara wrote, “Robert composed a concerto for the violoncello that pleased me very much. It appears to be written in the true violoncello style. The romantic quality, the flight, the freshness and the humor, and also the highly interesting interweaving of cello and orchestra are, indeed, wholly ravishing — and what euphony and what sentiment are in all those melodic passages!”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the publication of this work finally came, Schumann was entering the final phase of his mental illness. Hallucinatory voices haunted him. Seeking solace, he threw himself into proofreading the final drafts of the work. Eventually, his mental torment led to a suicide attempt. He leapt into the Rhine in February of 1854 and was subsequently moved to a sanatorium at Endenich near Bonn, where he lived out his remaining two years. The Cello Concerto finally received its premiere four years later, just shy of what would have been Schumann’s 50th birthday. As it happens, this evening’s performance is two days after the 202nd anniversary of the composer’s birth.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Claude Debussy</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">b</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> St Germain-en-Laye, August 22, 1862; </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">d</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Paris, March 25, 1918 )</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [after the poem by Stéphane Mallarmé]</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Composed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 1891-4, Paris</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Premiere</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Paris, December 22, 1894, at the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Société Nationale</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Gustave Doret, conductor</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instrumentation</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two harps, crotales, strings</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Duration</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 10 minutes</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Languid, sensual, exotic, and seemingly improvisatory, Claude Debussy’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was his first major masterpiece and introduced the world to a new musical language. In the 1890s, Debussy became a regular at the Tuesday salons hosted by symbolist poet, Stéphane Mallarmé, who invited the young composer to write a musical component to a theater piece based on his poem </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">L’après midi d’un faune</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The work famously opens with an unaccompanied flute, representing the flute of Pan. The melody begins on a sustained c-sharp, a note played on the flute with all the fingers raised, no keys depressed. Debussy, the musical colorist, knew the gauzy diffuseness the flute could produce on this note and used it to great effect, subtly blending the beginning of the piece with the silence preceding it. The flute’s melodic arabesque defines no key, only mood. Winds and harp answer with diaphanous harmonic clouds. Then, just moments after the music begins, Debussy writes a long measure of six slow beats with no sound; only the music of silence is heard. (Wagner, whose music was a strong influence on the young Debussy, had used a similar device in his Prelude to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tristan und Isolde</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.) In Debussy’s music, the relationship of sound to silence is imbued with new possibilities. Silence seems to belong to Debussy’s music like that of no other composer until John Cage. When the music resumes after the six beats of rest, it is a wash of harmonies yearning for resolution but finding only suspension. The pleasure of this music is in the delay of resolutions, and the pleasure is palpable.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Debussy described the work as “a very free rendering of Stéphane Mallarmé’s beautiful poem. It does not purport to contain everything that is in the poem. It is rather a succession of scenes in which the desires and dreams of the faune pass through in the heat of the afternoon. Then, tired of chasing the frightened nymphs and naiads, he gives in to intoxicating sleep.” Should we find any significance in the fact that the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prélude</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> comprises the same number of bars as there are lines in Mallarmé’s poem?</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thomas Adés</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">b</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> London, March 1, 1971)</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three Studies from Couperin for Chamber Orchestra</span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 18pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Les Amusemens</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Les Tours de Passe-passe</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">L'Âme-en-peine</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Composed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 2006</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Premiere</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: April 21, 2006, Basel, Switzerland, Kammerorchester Basel, Thomas Adès, conductor</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instrumentation</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: two flutes (also playing alto and bass flutes), clarinet, bassoon, two horns, trumpet, percussion, two string orchestras</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Duration</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 13 minutes</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My ideal day would be staying at home and playing the harpsichord works of Couperin—new inspiration on every page.” The Couperin to which Adès refers is François (1668-1733), known as “le grand” for his impressive keyboard prowess. One of the most important French musicians of his day, Couperin assumed the post of organist at St. Gervais in Paris in 1685, and in 1693 was chosen by Louis XIV to be organist at the royal chapel.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Couperin produced four books of solo harpsichord music, comprising over 200 works, most of which carry charmingly descriptive titles, as evidenced by those Adès chose for his three studies. Couperin’s titles could be enigmatic, even to his sophisticated court audiences. He took some delight in this as he explained in the preface to his 1713 collection, “In composing these pieces, I have always had an object in view, furnished by various occasions. Thus the titles reflect my ideas; I may be forgiven for not explaining them all.” The first movement of Adès’ </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three Studies</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> translates easily. The second movement, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tours de Passe-passe</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, means “sleight of hand” and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">L’Âme-en-Peine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is “the lost soul.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In his Three Studies, Adès retains all the notes of Couperin’s keyboard works, colorizing them with great inventiveness and unalloyed affection. That these versions sound so fresh speaks to the creative powers of Couperin himself. Wanda Landowska said, “What is this elusive anguish that Couperin provokes in us? He does not speak of love, sensuousness, or sorrow, in the same manner as does Bach or Handel. Couperin’s music permeates our subconscious, agitating its levels. It burrows into the depth of our inner life.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Colin Jacobsen </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">b</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 1978, New York City)</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Siamak Aghaei</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">b</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 1973, Ahwaz, Iran)</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ascending Bird: Introduction and Dance for Orchestra</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Composed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 2010</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Premiere</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: September 26, 2010, Caramoor, Katonah, NY, The Knights, Eric Jacobsen, conductor</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instrumentation</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: flute, piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, trombone, bass trombone, percussion, strings</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Duration</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 7 minutes</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Knights regularly perform works written by its members, and tonight’s program closes with Ascending Bird: Introduction and Dance for Orchestra, written by Knights co-founder and co-artistic director, Colin Jacobsen in collaboration with his friend, Iranian musician, Siamak Aghaei. The piece is based on a Persian folk song that tells the story of a bird attempting to fly to the sun. Twice the bird fails, but on the third flight the creature takes leave of its physical body, embracing the sun in state of spiritual transcendence.</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Colin first encountered this folk song in 2004 while he and violist Nicholas Cords visited Siamak Aghaei in Tehran. One afternoon, Siamak played a recording of the folk song that would become Ascending Bird. Colin and Nick were captivated by the sound of the unusual instrument playing the melody. When Siamak explained to them that it was constructed of fused bird bones only a few inches in length, it was as if myth took physical form through the act of music making. The transcendent bird had no use for its skeleton; yet in the hands of the musician, the bones told the bird’s story. It brings to mind the Latin phrase that Baroque instrument makers often inscribed on the wooden lids of their harpsichords: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dum vixi tacui, mortua dulce cano</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “Living, I was silent; in death, I sweetly sing.”</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The story has profound resonance for musicians. In the finest performances, tools become secondary, like the bones of the mythical bird. Each concert is another opportunity to fly into the sun.</span></b><br />
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</div>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-18656672426355910142012-01-01T18:20:00.015-05:002012-01-31T09:45:28.248-05:00<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 255); font-style: italic;font-size:130%;">The Knights Celebrate New Year's Eve 2011 </span><div><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 255); font-style: italic;font-size:130%;">at The 92nd Street Y</span><br /><br /><div>Henry Purcell (1659-1695)<br /><i><span>Fantasia upon One Note</span></i><span> (<i>c</i> 1680)</span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">Terry Riley (b 1935)<br /></span><i><span style="mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">In C</span></i><span> (1964)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)<br /></span><span>Symphony no. 5 in C Minor, op. 67 (1807-8)</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span>------</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span>NOTES ON THE PROGRAM<br />by James Roe</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.75in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">“There was a time (time out of mind)”<br /></span><span></span><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>— James McCourt, opening line of </span><i>Mawrdew Czgowchwz</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.75in"><span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span>“Time past and time future<br /></span><span>What might have been and what has been<br /></span><span>Point to one end, which is always present.”<br /></span></span><span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre; "> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span><span>— T. S. Eliot from “Buirnt Norton” no. 1 of the </span></span><i><span>Four Quartets</span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.75in"><span>“Make a joyful noise”<br /><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>— Psalm 100</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><b><span>“The Joy of C”</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span>Happy New Year! </span><span> </span><span>Tonight’s Knights concert features three radically different (and radical) pieces that each focus on the note C. </span><span> </span><span>Through these works, we will explore the ways in which music enhances, disrupts, and even suspends our perception of time. </span><span> </span><span>New Years Eve—a time of heightened consciousness of time past, passing, and yet to come—is ideal for this exploration.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>In our concept of tonight’s concert, the note C and its continual presence throughout the music, represents time. The music’s relationship to this note changes throughout the concert just as our experience of time changes across any specific moment, hour, day, year, or lifetime.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Music only exists in the passage of time. At the very moment a musical sound is created, it is instantly consumed by the listener and transformed into emotion and memory. Music cannot be held. The intricacies of its beauty cannot be examined in the present tense. Music is always in the past or in the future. Memory and anticipation dance while music plays.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><b><span>Why C?</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>The note C is a fundamental sound in Western music. Middle C divides the piano keyboard between soprano and bass, right hand and left. The music student’s first lessons are always in C. Schumann described C Major as “simple, unadorned.” Schelling wrote that, “concerning the physical expression of this key, it appears to be completely pure.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Composers have gone to the key of C for major musical statements. Two of Schubert’s last completed works are in C Major, his Ninth Symphony, “The Great,” and the monumental Cello Quintet. Mozart set the complex splendors of his “Jupiter” Symphony in C. The gripping narrative of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is dramatized in the progression from C Minor to of C Major. (More on this later.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>One of the most famous C Major chords in all of music is in Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation.” After the overture, which depicts the chaos before creation, the chorus quietly intones the words of Genesis 1:3, “God said, let there be light, and there was light.” On the final word “light,” the orchestra and chorus burst forth with a fortissimo C Major chord. An eyewitness to the premiere, wrote that the “enchantment of the electrified Viennese was so general that the orchestra could not proceed for some minutes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span>The note C has pride-of-place in the world of music. It is a starting point and destination, beginning and end, foundation and culmination.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">Purcell: <i>Fantasia upon one Note<br /></i></span></b><b><span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">“Preserving a moment in music”</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span>Henry Purcell was the preeminent English composer of his day. </span><span> </span><span>In about 1680, he wrote a group of Fantasias for string ensemble, which demonstrated the 21-year old’s mastery of the current compositional techniques.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>The fantasia—or “fancy” as it was called in England—was popular during the 16th and 17th Centuries, and as its name suggests, it showcased a composer’s imagination and wit. These works were intimate entertainments, their principal preoccupation being the harmonious presentation of multiple, equal voices, a compositional technique called counterpoint. The counterpoint of Purcell’s Fantasias achieves an idealization of human interaction in the context of sophisticated musical conversation.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>In Purcell's <i>Fantasia upon One Note</i>, a middle C sounds through the entire piece. The other four voices harmonize around this gentle drone, traversing an wide array of sentiments. Listeners may lose track of the sustained C from time to time, but it is there, quietly reminding us that though we may feel time has stopped, it hasn’t. This brief work could make you wish Purcell’s moment lasted forever.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">Terry Riley: <i>In C<br /></i></span></b><b><span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">“Mind altering music”</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Terry Riley’s seminal minimalist masterpiece <i>In C</i> erupts with pulsating octave Cs in the piano. The work shimmers and radiates. It can subsume both listener and performer in its trancelike spell.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">In his book, "The Rest is Noise," Alex Ross described Terry Riley as, “an easy-going character of the rural-hippie type [who] grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.” Le Monte Young, the maverick pioneer of musical minimalism, introduced Riley to the mind/time altering influences of marijuana and mescaline. According to Riley, Young also introduced him to the “concept of not having to press ahead to create interest.”</span><span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><i><span style="mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">In C</span></i><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;"> is written on a single sheet of paper. It has no specified length or instrumentation, rather it consists of the repeating octave Cs and fifty-three short melodic “events” that he called modules. The modules are played consecutively with each performer having the freedom to determine how many times they repeat each one before moving to the next. The work's improvisatory and interactive elements ensure no two performances are alike.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>“Terry Riley’s <i>In C</i> is one of the definitive masterpieces of the 20th Century,” wrote music critic Alfred Frankenstein in <i>High Fidelity</i>. His <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i> review of the premiere offers a brilliant description of the piece: “Climaxes of great sonority and high complexity appear and are dissolved in the endlessness. At times you feel you have never done anything all your life long but listen to this music and as if that is all there is or ever will be."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">Beethoven: Symphony no. 5 in C Minor<br /></span></b><b><span style="mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;">“Joy follows sorrow”</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Beethoven's Symphony no. 5 in C Minor does not begin with a C. Its first sound is silence. This, the most famous work of classical music, begins with a rest.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span>Contained in that diminutive unit of silence is the last moment of calm before fate intervenes, the last second before learning life-changing news. It is the end of innocence before Beethoven’s famous four-note motif launches the obsessive, anxious, fateful first movement.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span>Beethoven was preoccupied with the idea of Fate. </span><span> </span><span>This is not surprising, as early as 1801 (three years before his first sketches for the Fifth Symphony) he began informing his friends that he was going deaf. </span><span> </span><span>In the <a href="http://www.beethoven.ws/heiligenstadt_testament.html">Heiligenstadt Testament</a>, his will in the form of a letter written to his brothers that Beethoven closely guarded throughout his life, he wrote, “But what a humiliation when one stood beside me and heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing. </span><span> </span><span>Such incidents brought me to the verge of despair; but little more and I would have put an end to my life; only my art held me back.” </span><span> </span><span>Yet he attained a kind of personal resolve in the face of his condition. “I will seize Fate by the throat," he wrote, "It will not crush me entirely!” </span><span> </span><span>It is striking that, in the face of deafness, Beethoven begins this monumental symphony with a silence.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span>The Fifth shows Beethoven's full mastery of symphonic form, harmonic narrative, and rhythmic propulsion. </span><span> </span><span>Variations of the opening four-note motif sound throughout the work, as the music responds to the tension established by the first movement.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span>The Scherzo leads directly into the Finale through an extended, murky passage in pianissimo.</span><span> </span><span>Here, static harmony and melodic fragmentation create an aural haze with quiet echoes of the opening four-note motif in the timpani. </span><span> </span><span>From this, the lowest point of the symphony, a dramatic eight-bar crescendo ensues, culminating in the joyful fortissimo C Major of the Finale. </span><span> </span><span>Piccolo, trombones, and contra-bassoon expand the ensemble to create a brilliant burst of orchestral color. </span><span> </span><span>It is Beethoven’s “Let there be light” moment, and the upsurge of emotional and musical energy can be transcendent. </span><span> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span style=" mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latinfont-family:Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span>Just as the transformation of fate to joy is nearly complete, the murky Scherzo music makes a disquieting reappearance in the middle of the Finale. </span><span> </span><span>These dark clouds last only a moment before the triumphal music from the opening of the movement returns. </span><span> </span><span>The symphony ends with an impressive fifty-five bars of C Major played by the full ensemble.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span><o:p> </o:p></span><span>“Many assert that every minor [tonality] piece must end in the minor,” Beethoven wrote to his student Archduke Rudolf, “</span><i>Nego</i><span>! On the contrary, I find that … the major [tonality] has a glorious effect. </span><span> </span><span>Joy follows sorrow, sunshine—rain. </span><span> </span><span>It affects me as if I were looking up to the silvery glistening of the evening star.”</span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--></div></div>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-24028886533799590522010-12-08T07:41:00.004-05:002010-12-08T07:45:28.363-05:00<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 204, 255); font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Hugues Cuenod (1902-2010)</span><br /><br />It was impossible to feel down around <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/arts/music/08cuenod.html">Hughie</a>. <a href="http://urbanmodern.blogspot.com/2007/09/bist-du-bei-mir-wqxr-96.html">Remembering</a> him this quiet, bright morning, I am grateful <a href="http://urbanmodern.blogspot.com/2007/06/with-nimble-voice-happy-birthday-hughie.html">to have known this musician</a>, whose irrepressible <a href="http://urbanmodern.blogspot.com/2008/03/advice-to-young-singers-from-hugues.html">joy in life and art</a> expanded the humanity of everyone he met.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfxTvltBzKMoV_rhf5bSi_a-LFo8oApZaZTCjpl6x2DD-zxtl2EftsiCwEIXHX7tjp7gi63KXRClBctf7TO_00G1_odNEVfS7-6NLtTAilH4u_o9WXWQQqJ_f5IfP1W3AkChup/s1600/Cuenod+NYU+concerts+1970s.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfxTvltBzKMoV_rhf5bSi_a-LFo8oApZaZTCjpl6x2DD-zxtl2EftsiCwEIXHX7tjp7gi63KXRClBctf7TO_00G1_odNEVfS7-6NLtTAilH4u_o9WXWQQqJ_f5IfP1W3AkChup/s200/Cuenod+NYU+concerts+1970s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548290938995228418" border="0" /></a>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-37723164854602328612010-12-02T16:24:00.001-05:002010-12-02T16:29:11.279-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.helicon.org/celebration"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 271px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkkW3vllzz3Cx7oISjJPHVPQ6OIcre6FJpw1ehEGFNMhSkUMtLtqalcMXpTck_odPsXeAbXBRAS7jindz4NxYNfp24uBtmv-U5VPjVXUYjnMRILxbvOXNnotDrLSeOhS-P4FMI/s400/-1.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546199844668495890" border="0" /></a>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-73665203933856628532010-09-29T15:38:00.002-05:002010-09-29T15:40:04.631-05:00<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 255);font-size:180%;" >German Knights</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.theknightsnyc.com">Die Ritter</a> is headed to Germany. Home on 9 October.<br /><br />See you then, or there!James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-87050135440007189422010-07-31T16:46:00.012-05:002010-08-02T09:19:42.346-05:00<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 153, 255);font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:180%;" >Two Summer Knights</span><br /><br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >There are </span><span style="font-size:100%;">two upcoming Knights performances next week in New York City. </span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" ><br /><br /></span><strong>Tuesday • 3 Aug • 7:30<br /> Naumberg Bandshell, Central Park at 70th Street<br /><br /></strong><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >After being </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/arts/music/24knights.html">rained out in June</a></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" >, The Knights return to the </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.naumburgconcerts.org/artist.php?view=cal&cid=4427">Naumburg Bandshell</a></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > with a free concert perfect for a New York summer night in August. It's been a distinct pleasure to rehearse this week with </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.helicon.org/musicians/vera_beths">Vera Beths</a></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:100%;" > who will both lead as concertmaster and play the solo part in Beethoven's eloquent Romance in F Major.</span><br /><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> </p> <p style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.theknightsnyc.com/">The Knights</a><br /><a href="http://www.jacobseneric.com/">Eric Jacobsen</a>, </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >conductor</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><a href="http://www.helicon.org/musicians/vera_beths">Vera Beths</a>, </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >violin</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><br /></b><b><br /></b>Rossini <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55G7T8VdWEs">Barber of Seville Overture</a><br />Beethoven Romance for Violin and Orchestra in F Major, op. 50<br />Shostakovich <i>Two Waltzes</i> (arr. <a href="http://www.ljova.com/">Ljova Zhurbin</a> for the Knights)<br />Debussy <i>Children's Corner Suite </i>(arr. Mouton)<br />Haydn Symphony in D major, No 101, "The Clock"</span></p><p style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:100%;">-----<br /></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><strong>Wednesday • 4 Aug • 7:00<br /> AppleApple Store, SoHo</strong><br /><br /> The Knights<br />Lara St. John, violin soloist<a href="http://www.helicon.org/musicians/eric-jacobsen"><br /></a>Eric Jacobsen, conductor </p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This concert celebrates the release of a <a href="http://www.larastjohn.com/landing/lsj_Mozart.html">new CD of Mozart Violin Concerti</a> played by Lara and Scott St. John with The Knights conducted by Eric Jacobsen.</p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNAwxoqCadvWwmc898EnB_hxuOr4_YugIQwh88oeAo1A0Xvcx_Rz02HnoiNkr-q6kg1qPLz5Gn9Zmqm80tYiBEZsOW-U_0ghkv8pq1o1roGjDBsrz4HCnqLM7rG7CsjJo-Y9Vs/s1600/Screen+shot+2010-07-09+at+3.03.09+PM.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 309px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNAwxoqCadvWwmc898EnB_hxuOr4_YugIQwh88oeAo1A0Xvcx_Rz02HnoiNkr-q6kg1qPLz5Gn9Zmqm80tYiBEZsOW-U_0ghkv8pq1o1roGjDBsrz4HCnqLM7rG7CsjJo-Y9Vs/s400/Screen+shot+2010-07-09+at+3.03.09+PM.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5500467814263000834" border="0" /></a></p>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-17540529486198414592010-07-06T08:59:00.011-05:002010-07-06T10:35:12.953-05:00<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 255);font-size:130%;" >Koolhaas & Lohengrin in a Beijing Taxi</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Heading to the Beijing airport, our taxi driver spoke no English (and we no Mandarin), nevertheless, he was determined to </span>give us a parting tour of the city. We spoke back and forth in different languages, the conversation moving quickly and incomprehensibly, articulated with brief moments of clarity.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgsZq3HMo3IEik4Osqm3yFpvxO5DCbtPlJglIJ-ew9rVx4E8sDOAA-9FC_TCq3uK150DQcEtJg07kkbI5BiFl0mMdzDEkZ-SoX6SVh_MJeS91yH-_E17L95oNHDXljUTexwaV/s1600/Koolhaas_CCTV.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhgsZq3HMo3IEik4Osqm3yFpvxO5DCbtPlJglIJ-ew9rVx4E8sDOAA-9FC_TCq3uK150DQcEtJg07kkbI5BiFl0mMdzDEkZ-SoX6SVh_MJeS91yH-_E17L95oNHDXljUTexwaV/s200/Koolhaas_CCTV.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5490796327429448930" border="0" /></a><br /><br />"Rem Koolhaas, CCTV."<br /><br />Our driver said as we passed the Dutch architect's delirious addition to the Beijing skyline. It was not the most practical vocabulary, but we were glad he knew it.<br /><br />Then we passed a caravan of cars covered in ribbons. Our driver honked and waved and smiled and told us many things in excited Chinese.<br /><br />We weren't getting it.<br /><br />He wrinkled his brow for a moment and then sang, <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qJ756DSVp8">Treulich geführt</a>. Of course! Gamely, we all sang along and waved at the be-ribboned wedding procession passing us on the highway.<br /><br />As we sang, my mind raced between other instances of this melody in my life, from Beijing to Lima to backstage at The Metropolitan Opera.<br /><br />Years ago, I played with an opera company in Lima founded by my Juilliard classmate, <a href="http://www.miguelharth-bedoya.com/">Miguel Harth-Bedoya</a>. Some members of the opera orchestra were hired to play a wedding. In Peru, Mendelssohn's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVjyLbTItmw"><span style="font-style: italic;">Hochzeitsmarsch</span></a> is played as the bride processional, while Wagner's march accompanies the newly-minted couple's first stroll down the aisle on the way out. Richard Wagner and Felix Mendelssohn combined with South American Roman Catholicism in a Peruvian Baroque cathedral; playing "Here comes the bride" at the end of the wedding only enriched the admixture.<br /><br />Years later, I would play in the stage band for <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/11/arts/opera-review-robert-wilson-adds-theater-to-lohengrin.html?scp=1&sq=lohengrin%20wilson%20voigt&st=cse">Robert Wilson's contoversial production of Lohengrin at The Metropolitan Opera</a> based in part on Japanese Noh Theater. The stage band musicians wait to play late into the night, there are hours between entrances. (It is actually possible to leave the theater and play a different concert during these breaks.) When the time finally comes, the musicians gather in the dimly-lit wings to play strains of <span style="font-style: italic;">Treulich geführt.</span> Pretty lofty for "wedding gig," I thought, walking up the stairs backstage at The Met, another cathedral in its own right.<br /><br />How could I have expected to find myself singing Wagner with a Chinese cabbie in Beijing, but I hardly could be surprised. <br /><br />Would Wagner?James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-86915045637574892092010-07-04T08:53:00.010-05:002010-09-02T14:42:05.282-05:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 204, 255); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana,serif;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">Happy Fourth of July</span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 204, 255);font-family:verdana,serif;" ><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Surprise parade on the East River.<br /><br /></span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT8d7ch5yEozYjdjKeyEOm-UCHhptW1muVgs28nRdvHEC-7wUfb56GBsX7mr1mI4IewDpQ78_dcqqrIanRVTAphP7jkFubnvI2wx80HeHy8GopRXviyqi0pyUvHMoIcXEW8_QV/s1600/IMG_3635.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT8d7ch5yEozYjdjKeyEOm-UCHhptW1muVgs28nRdvHEC-7wUfb56GBsX7mr1mI4IewDpQ78_dcqqrIanRVTAphP7jkFubnvI2wx80HeHy8GopRXviyqi0pyUvHMoIcXEW8_QV/s400/IMG_3635.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512402913860250098" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br /><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQmPUOeR6wh-tqEN1KcQSQiyq6T8FHOG7rwSRtwdUV1TvklngXU21r8uTmVK3EmxvzF5QCb1PS26cWBDDjNpCYna2ZKrFgyTx71Y8_8LV4qjoQkxTKEDDLu7dQ76yPKPauOnUU/s400/IMG_3636.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512151169215622290" border="0" /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyYdDL1GU6hEvhQkT7mX4aILVEuQ3mJw640a6Z8_YQ9YsJQ9fKic_B5RfgSma3g7unldIppa4zfO7FRCELNtxtRIa_Z8T2cgKVQ2m6SBQKzZ0VoE_FHXeD2sz_c7R0N6YiPFtT/s1600/IMG_3637.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyYdDL1GU6hEvhQkT7mX4aILVEuQ3mJw640a6Z8_YQ9YsJQ9fKic_B5RfgSma3g7unldIppa4zfO7FRCELNtxtRIa_Z8T2cgKVQ2m6SBQKzZ0VoE_FHXeD2sz_c7R0N6YiPFtT/s400/IMG_3637.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512403241185331154" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLJ1WaCJjqRJCNWQpufpu1e7rARqFPYnVc_bC_46ZX5GDqTxMoJWTkJXK2USx_sRFZWNG9Rot1fuRnXLkKu_6SVWpo3xUycG6RBCLJklbGINg7QTJTVNemJorNXZ3zSOCtKhE5/s400/IMG_3639.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512151561924996354" border="0" /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipto9JG3jXbfKYTZDgPOpVQtDNHjPjgVmuKg1iPzbaFk84Ai6Mpfe6tflxAODfAx4uqqVqS5oUT8iJFZvNZ88e0G4A2uiCRu6lhlATWVKMNbsB9PxvvRa02sv5jdlf8vN9zetJ/s1600/IMG_3638.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipto9JG3jXbfKYTZDgPOpVQtDNHjPjgVmuKg1iPzbaFk84Ai6Mpfe6tflxAODfAx4uqqVqS5oUT8iJFZvNZ88e0G4A2uiCRu6lhlATWVKMNbsB9PxvvRa02sv5jdlf8vN9zetJ/s400/IMG_3638.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512403667858577266" border="0" /></a></div><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD8PS0SzAaM4RPzK1FLYCZCXeXi2_RqoEXHbINCAA6FbXYj5Z6sskHZtlRwlGANPWzgNiODF3zC4JVrCXfRTwld3M_8h98mLmt1McyNaFFfD2oJMyrMU9-CLay_455sIRG7PZ8/s400/IMG_3640.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512151742935917490" border="0" /></span></div>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-42976939637819122042010-06-15T00:07:00.004-05:002010-08-24T10:56:33.238-05:00<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255); font-family: trebuchet ms;font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Seven Four</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Waiting on the subway platform at 14th Street for the F train to Brooklyn, I heard a young woman in full-Williamsburg hipster regalia playing the accordion.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Her selection? "Ring of Fire" from </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRlj5vjp3Ko">Johnny Cash</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> and </span><a style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2x6xs529dw">June Carter Cash</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I love this song for so many reasons, but leading them is the instrumental refrain in seven-four time. Count it out. Once the entirely unexpected Mariachi trumpet passage starts, the song is in seven. (Da-dut da dah dah dee dah daaa - 5 - 6 - 7, </span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Da-dut da dah dah dee dah daaa - 5 - 6 - 7</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">) I'm not sure which is more surprising the meter or the orchestration.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Maybe fifteen years ago, I heard Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash at Irving Place. Wonderful, amazing concert. They came with the best sidemen in the biz; country-western 2/4 back beat was elevated to poetry.<br /><br />If you listen to June Carter and the Carter Family, you'll find a flexible metrical music that easily moves through odd-number bars and playfully skips over an eighth-note here and there.</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> <br /><br />Seven-four on the subway platform. I love New York City.</span>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-60384105117611626392010-05-17T10:53:00.002-05:002010-05-17T10:59:31.351-05:00<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">China!</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Zéphyros Winds is</span> headed to Beijing as part of the the National Centre for Performing Arts' 2010 May Festival.<br /><br />Click <a href="http://www.chncpa.org/n457779/n457834/n516566/3708006.html">here</a> for details . . . and tickets!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJtbVwWNlySecRHaut5ez2n1bDWfDZyAfx_1YVQPCjuJCc44egVU71jd7fNCFj5M6zRjigGn-C152GTZuKITw7L1MWhjr5ezer57PRoTNWgqguI_UD_3jOsUJq_TrCm0fZVDxo/s1600/5493_127364895772_548815772_2962686_117905_n.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 195px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJtbVwWNlySecRHaut5ez2n1bDWfDZyAfx_1YVQPCjuJCc44egVU71jd7fNCFj5M6zRjigGn-C152GTZuKITw7L1MWhjr5ezer57PRoTNWgqguI_UD_3jOsUJq_TrCm0fZVDxo/s320/5493_127364895772_548815772_2962686_117905_n.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472268983229209042" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">photo by <a href="http://www.bellsoto.com">Bell Soto</a></span></span><br /></div>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-56385654924948031012009-09-08T07:55:00.001-05:002009-09-08T07:57:30.071-05:00<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 255);font-size:130%;" >Questions of Vacation</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Questions Of Travel</span> by Elizabeth Bishop <br /><br />There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams<br />hurry too rapidly down to the sea,<br />and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops<br />makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,<br />turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.<br />--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,<br />aren't waterfalls yet,<br />in a quick age or so, as ages go here,<br />they probably will be.<br />But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,<br />the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,<br />slime-hung and barnacled.<br /><br />Think of the long trip home.<br />Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?<br />Where should we be today?<br />Is it right to be watching strangers in a play<br />in this strangest of theatres?<br />What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life<br />in our bodies, we are determined to rush<br />to see the sun the other way around?<br />The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?<br />To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,<br />inexplicable and impenetrable,<br />at any view,<br />instantly seen and always, always delightful?<br />Oh, must we dream our dreams<br />and have them, too?<br />And have we room<br />for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?<br /><br />But surely it would have been a pity<br />not to have seen the trees along this road,<br />really exaggerated in their beauty,<br />not to have seen them gesturing<br />like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.<br />--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard<br />the sad, two-noted, wooden tune<br />of disparate wooden clogs<br />carelessly clacking over<br />a grease-stained filling-station floor.<br />(In another country the clogs would all be tested.<br />Each pair there would have identical pitch.)<br />--A pity not to have heard<br />the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird<br />who sings above the broken gasoline pump<br />in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:<br />three towers, five silver crosses.<br />--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,<br />blurr'dly and inconclusively,<br />on what connection can exist for centuries<br />between the crudest wooden footwear<br />and, careful and finicky,<br />the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear<br />and, careful and finicky,<br />the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.<br />--Never to have studied history in<br />the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.<br />--And never to have had to listen to rain<br />so much like politicians' speeches:<br />two hours of unrelenting oratory<br />and then a sudden golden silence<br />in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">to imagined places, not just stay at home? </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Or could Pascal have been not entirely right </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">about just sitting quietly in one's room? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Continent, city, country, society: </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">the choice is never wide and never free. </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home, </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">wherever that may be?"</span>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-86382665111854160412009-08-10T22:54:00.011-05:002009-08-11T07:42:36.272-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhm5LzW62I7QDDiHBnXUC0_aIxA7HRK4mmXTTURA3Ey6MhCEyDlqfdG95tkajde3jf9JqDIWtnM_Q8geq4OIoI9GsR9pVYX1e4gHgyNFOrYZiytazdrnr1NHfIRRl0sEJ7usFG/s1600-h/IMG_1799.JPG"></a><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#9999FF;">IN CAMERA</span></span></b></i><div><br /></div><div>A dear flutist friend stopped by for dinner tonight and wanted me to listen to her play a Bach unaccompanied sonata in preparation for upcoming performances. She played from memory and gave me the score, but I didn't follow along, I wanted to watch her play and enjoy this private performance from my couch.</div><div><br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhm5LzW62I7QDDiHBnXUC0_aIxA7HRK4mmXTTURA3Ey6MhCEyDlqfdG95tkajde3jf9JqDIWtnM_Q8geq4OIoI9GsR9pVYX1e4gHgyNFOrYZiytazdrnr1NHfIRRl0sEJ7usFG/s1600-h/IMG_1799.JPG"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhm5LzW62I7QDDiHBnXUC0_aIxA7HRK4mmXTTURA3Ey6MhCEyDlqfdG95tkajde3jf9JqDIWtnM_Q8geq4OIoI9GsR9pVYX1e4gHgyNFOrYZiytazdrnr1NHfIRRl0sEJ7usFG/s200/IMG_1799.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368556346223890722" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px; " /></a><div>There regularly is music in my place. I <a href="http://urbanmodern.blogspot.com/2007/05/practice-rehearsal-among-my-civilian_30.html">practice</a>, but practicing often is repetitive ruckus, <a href="http://www.metronomeonline.com/">metronome</a> aclacking. I have chamber music rehearsals here, too, but what I heard tonight was a full-fledged performance: poised, eloquent, full of persuasive rhetoric. Even the finest hi-fi could not match the aural pleasures of a live chamber music performance in one's own home.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let me encourage everyone: <i>treat yourself</i>. (Eschew <a href="http://www.netflix.com/">Netflix</a> for a night.) Invite musicians to play chamber music in your living room. Offer a good meal (they will say yes) and invite just one or two special friends to share with you. Not too many. </div><div><br /></div><div>You will not forget the experience.</div>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-71094605567261415862009-08-05T09:26:00.005-05:002009-08-09T22:28:44.639-05:00<b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#9999FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">An Uplifting Proposal</span></span></i></b><div><br /></div><div>Right before Tuesday's Imani Winds concert at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park, the director of the series asked the ensemble whether a young man could propose to his girlfriend on stage during the concert. </div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Of course!</i></div><div><br /></div><div>He and his soon-to-be fiancée live in Atlanta and had met at an Imani Winds concert eighteen months ago. They had travelled to New York City for tonight's concert.</div><div><br /></div><div>Before the last piece on the first half, flutist Valerie Coleman told the audience that before we proceeded, there would be a special announcement. "Hello New York." the young man said into the microphone, his arm around his girlfriend. He calmly went on to explain that they were on stage to thank the Imani Winds for bringing them together and for their music which had continued to be an important part of the couple's eighteen-month relationship. And then he said good night and turned to leave the stage. We thought he had lost his nerve, but he swung back to the mic and said, "Oh, and one more thing . . . " whereupon he reached into his pocket and knelt. The audience exploded with applause and shouts of encouragement. The young woman, clasped her hands to her head, spun around, and before the question could even be asked, she yelled out: YES!!!</div><div><br /></div><div>The ring placed on her finger, the couple thanked each of the musicians. Everyone was feeling a bit giddy, the audience was nicely stirred up, and before we continued with the program I stepped up to the mic, and asked, "Is there anyone else?"</div>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-15406476722998632022009-08-04T09:26:00.012-05:002009-08-09T22:28:59.533-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaN2tO6ypVt-_irIolEzNarcWdIKidDPogLT-8D5M4NF4W3zsePHIWYhEmH4aYeZ5GzSGlxyxEBQMGKrgl0hoPBZ-K0FmKkC0XBClUa7JwvD7efT51LHzRET1ypz7DuMwppoch/s1600-h/gallery-12765.jpg"></a><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255); font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; ">IMANI WINDS in CENTRAL PARK</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:georgia, sans-serif;font-size:medium;"><br />It will be a beautiful night for a summer concert in the park.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:georgia, sans-serif;font-size:medium;"><a href="http://www.naumburgconcerts.org/">Naumburg Orchestral Concerts</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:georgia, sans-serif;font-size:medium;"><a href="http://www.naumburgconcerts.org/">104th Season</a> - <a href="http://www.naumburgconcerts.org/">FINAL Concert of 2009</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><a href="http://www.imaniwinds.com/">IMANI WINDS</a></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Tuesday August 4th, 2009 at 7:30 PM</span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">PROGRAM<br />Bozza </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Scherzo for woodwind quintet</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, Op. 48</span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Marquez </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Danza de Mediodia</span></i></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><i></i>Medaglia </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Suite Popular Brasileira</span></i></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><i></i>Schifrin </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">La Nouvelle Orleans</span></i></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><i></i>Ligeti </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Sechs Bagatellen</span></i></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><i></i>Barber </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Summer Music</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, Op. 31</span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br />The Naumburg Orchestral Concert begins at 7:30pm at the Naumburg Bandshell on the Concert Ground in Central Park located south of the 72nd Street cross-drive.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Admission is free.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial, sans-serif;"><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><a href="http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/graph/USNY0998?begHour=19&begDay=216&from=hrly_graph">No rain date</a>.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /><br /><a href="http://www.naumburgconcerts.org/">www.naumburgconcerts.org</a></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family:Georgia, fantasy;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaN2tO6ypVt-_irIolEzNarcWdIKidDPogLT-8D5M4NF4W3zsePHIWYhEmH4aYeZ5GzSGlxyxEBQMGKrgl0hoPBZ-K0FmKkC0XBClUa7JwvD7efT51LHzRET1ypz7DuMwppoch/s1600-h/gallery-12765.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaN2tO6ypVt-_irIolEzNarcWdIKidDPogLT-8D5M4NF4W3zsePHIWYhEmH4aYeZ5GzSGlxyxEBQMGKrgl0hoPBZ-K0FmKkC0XBClUa7JwvD7efT51LHzRET1ypz7DuMwppoch/s320/gallery-12765.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366512178590439362" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a><br /></span></span></span></div>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-12869516840330766322009-08-03T19:54:00.012-05:002010-08-30T10:07:28.021-05:00<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255); font-family: verdana;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The Rest is Silence</span></span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: verdana;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4ygSwV9GfD2VSo7hB57mwGdhWvaqVW4ztXECb2902Yyu3x1TYpgYnn45iYwKB2MBKNYTvYv-nEn4HQnAhOsX2rqIzHtn6WbJgkGeGF1zSOrEgRrk3bYv_0GEsSl_BgyfxtcF/s1600-h/eighth+rest.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 53px; height: 84px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4ygSwV9GfD2VSo7hB57mwGdhWvaqVW4ztXECb2902Yyu3x1TYpgYnn45iYwKB2MBKNYTvYv-nEn4HQnAhOsX2rqIzHtn6WbJgkGeGF1zSOrEgRrk3bYv_0GEsSl_BgyfxtcF/s200/eighth+rest.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365926624311660082" border="0" /></a><a style="font-family: verdana;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4ygSwV9GfD2VSo7hB57mwGdhWvaqVW4ztXECb2902Yyu3x1TYpgYnn45iYwKB2MBKNYTvYv-nEn4HQnAhOsX2rqIzHtn6WbJgkGeGF1zSOrEgRrk3bYv_0GEsSl_BgyfxtcF/s1600-h/eighth+rest.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 53px; height: 84px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ4ygSwV9GfD2VSo7hB57mwGdhWvaqVW4ztXECb2902Yyu3x1TYpgYnn45iYwKB2MBKNYTvYv-nEn4HQnAhOsX2rqIzHtn6WbJgkGeGF1zSOrEgRrk3bYv_0GEsSl_BgyfxtcF/s200/eighth+rest.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365926624311660082" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: verdana;">Two eighth rests, how long are they?</span><span style="text-decoration: underline; font-family: verdana;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">I have had such a good time this summer playing with the </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.imaniwinds.com/main/">Imani Winds</a><span style="font-family: verdana;"> while their oboist, </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.instantencore.com/Core/music.aspx?CoreType=Contributor&CId=5074136">Toyin Spellman-Diaz</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">, is on maternity leave. I've enjoyed learning new repertoire for our concerts, but there is something special about working on pieces I've played for decades with Zéphyros Winds now with new colleagues. In these works—Barber's "</span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://urbanmodern.blogspot.com/2007/05/samuel-barbers-summer-music-for-wind_6574.html">Summer Music</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">," Ligeti's "</span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://urbanmodern.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-am-in-prison_17.html">Six Bagatelles</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">," </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.paquitodrivera.com/">Paquito D'Rivera's</a><span style="font-family: verdana;"> "</span><span style="font-family: verdana;" class="sans">Aires Tropicales," and <a href="http://www.schifrin.com/">Lalo Schifrin</a>'s "<a href="http://music.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=music.singleplaylist&friendid=80334739">La nouvelle Oreleans</a>"—I reengage my ears to another set of musical imaginations.<br /><br />In these situations, a musician's opportunity to learn is ripe. And if we don't hear other players and play with other players, our various "chops" can atrophy for lack of attention.<br /><br />In 1998, I was hired to play a single performance of "Annie Get Your Gun." It was a benefit for Lincoln Center Theater featuring <a href="http://www.pattilupone.net/">Patty Lupone</a></span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.pattilupone.net/"> </a><span style="font-family: verdana;">and Peter Gallagher. The audience was filled with notables, Rosie was there, Barbara Walters seemed unpleasantly shocked by how politically incorrect the show was, Rex Reed was reported to have said, "Well, they didn't have to cut 'I'm an Indian, too.'" (Political correctness? And, yes, it did have to be </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmiw9_mary-martin-im-an-indian-too_events">cut</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">.) And the orchestra, contracted by </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=12676">Red Press</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">, was filled was the finest cats on the scene. I was pretty green (OK, very green). Out of Juilliard for just three years, I didn't know any faces in the band, but over the next decade I would come to. The first rehearsal began, naturally, with the overture. It looked pretty straight forward to me. Often in "tutti" sections (times when the whole orchestra is playing), orchestrators will give the oboe the same line as the first trumpet. The oboe doesn't make its most important contribution during these sections—you can't really hear it—so, we end up playing along with the loudest instrument, and that way we stay out of the way. Though I didn't know him at the time, one of New York's top lead trumpet players, </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.sultansofswing.com/band_millikan.html">Bob Millikan</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">, was on the job. The overture started and I began to play my part, pretty much exactly how it looked on the page, in other words, totally square. The lead trumpet was playing in such a different style, and with so </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: verdana;">much</span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> style, I had to just stop and listen. "How does he know how to do that?" He knew. I didn't, but wanted to, and here, I realized was my opportunity to learn how it really went.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Each year in his Juilliard class, Albert Fuller would pick up a violin part to a Beethoven sonata and ask the students what he was holding. Always someone fell into the trap, "It's music." "No," Albert replied, "you cannot hold music. You can only hear music." Bob Millikan's trumpet playing brought that point home.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Lalo Schifrin's wind quintet, "La nouvelle Orleans," ends with an elaborate oboe cadenza meant to imitate the sound of a blues harmonica. After several performances with the Imani Winds, their flutist, Valerie Coleman, asked whether she could offer me a suggestion for that solo. It was a small thing, she assured me, but it would really help. The oboe cadenza begins after a loud chord played by the whole ensemble. There are two eighth rests between the chord and the oboe solo. "Could you wait a little bit longer before you start?" Valerie asked. One of the most challenging sounds for a musician to make on stage is </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://urbanmodern.blogspot.com/search/label/silence">silence</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">. Modulating the right amount involves some risk. Concerts are about sound, after all. That night, I held onto those rests, the silence, just a little longer. The tension increased, and the solo landed with much more force.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">When I was performing with </span><a style="font-family: verdana;" href="http://www.issalight.com/Issalight/news.html">Issa</a><span style="font-family: verdana;"> (Jane Siberry) a few years ago for her Carnegie Hall debut, she was coaching me on passage I was improvising. Again her urging was for less sounds, fewer notes, and more silence.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Listening to Albert Fuller's harpsichord recordings, again and again I am amazed at the role silence plays in his music making; especially as a tool to highlight a particular musical moment. He prepares that moment with a break in the sound, the silence features the next music.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Those two little rests written by Lalo Schifrin, how long are they, then? It depends on knowing what you are about to say next.</span>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-82559521094972593012009-08-02T17:31:00.001-05:002009-08-02T17:32:47.775-05:00<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">On Whitman</span></span><br /><br />This passage opens the second chapter of Susan Sontag's "On Photography."<br /><br />As Walt Whitman gazed down the democratic vistas of culture, he tried to see beyond the difference between beauty and ugliness, importance and triviality. It seemed to him servile or snobbish to make any discriminations of value, except the most generous ones. Great claims were made for candor by our boldest, most delirious prophet of cultural revolution. Nobody would fret about beautify and ugliness, he implied, who was accepting a sufficiently large embrace of the real, of the inclusiveness and vitality of actual American experience. All facts, even mean ones, are incandescent in Whitman’s America—that ideal space, made real by history, where “as they emit themselves facts are showered with light.”James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-78578042482011235622009-07-21T10:10:00.018-05:002009-07-21T14:27:14.611-05:00<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">36 Hours in Aguascalientes</span></span><br /><br />Our concert in Mexico was a great success. We signed autographs and posed for pictures for at least an hour after the performance.<br /><br />The historic city center of Aguascalientes is a romanticized picture of Baroque, colonial decay mixed with 21st-century urban renewal. Low stucco buildings in pink, robin's egg blue, and pale yellow, impressive 19th-century French-style government buildings, and elaborate Baroque churches were interspersed with modern structures, cell-phone stores, and ATMs for world-wide banks. (North American chains were mercifully rare, the only exceptions were Starbucks and KFC.) Planted, manicured parks with fountains offered shade from the sun, and though the gardens were in the French style, the flora was decidedly Aztec.<br /><br />On Sunday morning, handsome couples strolled to church, looking like Italian socialites from the 50s. Cowboys brought their families for a day in the city. Children ran and played everywhere. The churches overflowed with congregants, their interiors clangorous in pink, blue, gold, and silver, and their hefty Baroque spires supporting weightless neon crosses that advertised the resurrection next to gleaming Coca-cola signs.<br /><br />In this part of the city, little poverty was in evidence, but when it came, it could be shattering. Walking back to the hotel after our concert we were approached by a man begging for money. He had no legs and was pushed in a low cart by a young boy. As they got closer, we realized that the man was made up as a woman, with a blouse, wig, and rouged cheeks. He spoke in an animated, hoarse falsetto. His elaborate appearance and gestures were in stark relief to the boy's <span style="font-style: italic;">affect</span>less silence. What did they need from us? From the world? They were headed out into the city square at twilight; their stage set, though the stakes were higher than any performance I've been involved with. How many pesos should I give them? The contents of my pockets? My wallet? My bank accounts? Do I have empathetic capacity enough to imagine their life? Perhaps for a moment this morning in my Manhattan apartment high above West End Avenue, but hardly equal to the relentless, Baroque difficulties of their lives.James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-20961709485427530362009-07-15T07:47:00.004-05:002009-07-15T08:10:45.471-05:00<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 255);font-size:130%;" >Guest Turn</span><br /><br />Last year, the wonderful oboist of <a href="http://www.imaniwinds.com/main/">Imani Winds</a>, Toyin Spellman-Diaz asked if I could cover her maternity leave this summer. I was thrilled. Imani Winds is <span style="font-style: italic;">the</span> indispensable wind quintet and one of the nation's cultural treasures. On top of that, the members are, to a one, wonderful people and excellent musicians. Often, when I mention my own quintet to someone, the response is, "Oh, aren't you in Imani Winds?" Their cultural penetration is so deep that they have put the genre back on the musical map and made it relevent to new audiences and exciting for the establishment. The evidence is their <a href="http://www.imaniwinds.com/main/calendar/">packed schedule</a>.<br /><br />The rehearsals this week have been nothing but fun. We have a number of concerts this summer, try to come if you're in the area.<br /><br /><table class="gigpress-table upcoming hcalendar" cellspacing="0"><tbody class="vevent"><tr class="gigpress-row active"><td class="gigpress-date"><abbr class="dtstart" title="2009-07-19 18:00:00">Sunday, July 19, 2009</abbr> </td> <td class="gigpress-city summary"><span class="hide">Imani Winds in </span> AGUASCALIENTES, MEXICO </td> <td class="gigpress-venue location">Festival de Música de Cámara</td> </tr> <tr class="gigpress-info active"> <td><br /></td> <td colspan="2" class="description"> <span class="gigpress-info-item"><span class="gigpress-info-label">Time:</span> 6:00 pm. </span> <span class="gigpress-info-item">Festival Opening Performance. PROGRAM Scherzo – Eugene Bozza; Danza de Mediodia – Arturo Marquez; Suite Popular Brasileira – Julio Medaglia; La Nouvelle Oreleans – Lalo Schifrin; Sechs Bagatellen – Gyorgy Ligeti ; Aires Tropicales – Paquito D’Rivera; “Freyleka” from Klezmer Dances – arr. Gene Kavadlo </span> </td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody class="vevent"> <tr class="gigpress-row gigpress-alt active"> <td class="gigpress-date"> <abbr class="dtstart" title="2009-07-27 19:30:00">Monday, July 27, 2009</abbr> </td> <td class="gigpress-city summary"><span class="hide">Imani Winds in </span> CHICAGO, IL </td> <td class="gigpress-venue location"><a href="http://www.nanm.org/" target="_blank" title="(opens in a new window)">National Association of Negro Musicians Annual Conference</a></td> </tr> <tr class="gigpress-info gigpress-alt active"> <td><br /></td> <td colspan="2" class="description"> <span class="gigpress-info-item"><span class="gigpress-info-label">Time:</span> 7:30 pm. </span> <span class="gigpress-info-item">PROGRAM Scherzo – Eugene Bozza; Danza de Mediodia – Arturo Marquez; Suite Popular Brasileira – Julio Medaglia; La Nouvelle Oreleans – Lalo Schifrin; Sechs Bagatellen – Gyorgy Ligeti ; Aires Tropicales – Paquito D’Rivera; “Freyleka” from Klezmer Dances – arr. Gene Kavadlo</span> </td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody class="vevent"> <tr class="gigpress-row active"> <td class="gigpress-date"> <abbr class="dtstart" title="2009-07-28 20:00:00">Tuesday, July 28, 2009</abbr> </td> <td class="gigpress-city summary"><span class="hide">Imani Winds in </span> BROOKVILLE, NY </td> <td class="gigpress-venue location"><a href="http://www.liu.edu/svpa/music/festival/" target="_blank" title="(opens in a new window)">C.W. Post, Long Island University Chamber Music Festival</a></td> </tr> <tr class="gigpress-info active"> <td><br /></td> <td colspan="2" class="description"> <span class="gigpress-info-item"><span class="gigpress-info-label">Time:</span> 8:00 pm. </span> <span class="gigpress-info-item">Masterclass 4-6. PROGRAM Scherzo – Eugene Bozza; Danza de Mediodia – Arturo Marquez; Suite Popular Brasileira – Julio Medaglia; La Nouvelle Oreleans – Lalo Schifrin; Sechs Bagatellen – Gyorgy Ligeti ; Aires Tropicales – Paquito D’Rivera; “Freyleka” from Klezmer Dances – arr. Gene Kavadlo</span> </td> </tr> </tbody> <tbody class="vevent"> <tr class="gigpress-row gigpress-alt active"> <td class="gigpress-date"> <abbr class="dtstart" title="2009-08-04 19:30:00">Tuesday, August 4, 2009</abbr> </td> <td class="gigpress-city summary"><span class="hide">Imani Winds in </span> NEW YORK, NY </td> <td class="gigpress-venue location"><a href="http://www.naumburgconcerts.org/artist.php?view=cal&cid=2993" target="_blank" title="(opens in a new window)">Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park</a></td> </tr> <tr class="gigpress-info gigpress-alt active"> <td><br /></td> <td colspan="2" class="description"> <span class="gigpress-info-item"><span class="gigpress-info-label">Time:</span> 7:30 pm. </span> <span class="gigpress-info-item">PROGRAM Scherzo – Eugene Bozza; Danza de Mediodia – Arturo Marquez; Suite Popular Brasileira; Julio Medaglia; La Nouvelle Oreleans – Lalo Schifrin; Sechs Bagatellen – Gyorgy Ligeti; Summer Music – Samuel Barber; Libertango – Pizzolla/Scott </span></td></tr></tbody></table>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-59955412458208237922009-07-09T10:40:00.000-05:002009-07-09T10:42:37.572-05:00<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">What Helicon Understands</span></span><br /><br />By Albert Fuller (November 1996)<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;">“It’s not enough for poetry and song to be beautiful; they must entice the listener’s soul to follow wherever they lead. Just as laughing begets laughter in others, likewise our face responds to the tears of another. If you want me to cry, then you yourself must grieve.” --- Horace, <span style="font-style: italic;">Ars Poetica</span>, lines 99-103, 23-20 BCE<br /></div><br /><a href="http://heliconfoundation.blogspot.com">Helicon</a> believes that art works are the principal recorded evidence of humankind’s consciousness. Existing from all periods of human life on earth, art works demonstrate the connectedness of the human family’s imagination in all times and all places.<br /><br />Helicon demonstrates this consanguinity with evidence of the sources of imagination by showing how the content and form of musical art works are arresting and lure the heart into profound imagination. Art not only offers a form of self-expression, it, in fact, creates an external, concrete vessel in which the souls of our lives can dwell and communicate with others. Just before his death, Albert Einstein noted to a friend: “To us [physicists], the concept of past, present, and future is only an illusion . . . albeit a stubborn one.” Einstein understood how humankind’s soul practices the arts to the benefit of all humankind, everywhere.<br /><br />Helicon’s musical activities seek to profit from our expanding knowledge of the many and diverse areas exercised by our own human nature. In the case of those composers whose creations strike us strongly and deeply, it is our specific intent to maintain the integrity of their affective messages by seeking musical results that reflect as closely as possible their creators’ expressive intentions. Unlike today’s normal performance practice, Helicon believes that music should be performed so as to preserve the affects of the composer. If the composer’s messages are not to the taste of the conductor, the performer, or the comfort of the audience, and, consequently, are changed to accommodate that, the composer’s intent is eroded if not actually betrayed. Therefore, the music we love must be understood as of greater value to us as a product of its own period, than if subjected to an attempt to bring it “up to date.”<br /><br />That is why Helicon so often employs the specific instruments (of the finest copies of them), techniques, and expressive interpretive styles that were the coin of our beloved composers. We do that for a single purpose: to recreate by approaching as best we can the emotional or affective content that the musicians form different times and places had in mind. The philosophy, demanding change and growth, has immeasurably enriched our artistic receptivity and experience. From this point of view, affective musical understanding are sharpened by observing them in historical context, integrating the meaning of music’s invisible—but not inaudible—messages with the other arts, and with the contemporary technological, philosophical, and socio-economic milieus of their times.<br /><br />All knowledge is based on the past; all work stands on what has gone before. However, present technology suggests to many that we are not connected with the same past that has brought us into being. Electricity’s new role in spreading information implies to some that we are only just now beginning to know. The flood of new information, carried around the world principally by the computer-satellite-television complex, has often obscured the role of feelings in human affairs. This leads a consumer-oriented society to care more for the agora than the individual; more for the package than for the content. But we must ponder about the resultant pride in today’s acquisitions and achievements, asking whether they have not led us to feel our inheritance is poor, and that only now are we beginning to pull out of dark-age ignorance.<br /><br />Sadly today, the role of feeling—of the soul in the life of the world—has temporarily dropped from general public consciousness, in spite of the fact that our souls are the prime source and stimulus of our imagination, the surest guide to mankind’s destiny.<br /><br />At Helicon we feel that when we ignore our souls we “are starving in the sight of supply” of the vast riches of knowledge and artworks that the human race has created in arriving at the present. Helicon intends to give witness to the strength of our inheritance by engaging in activities that demonstrate the affective, communicative power of those riches and our gratitude for having received them.<br /><br />Art creates an external vessel in which the souls of our lives can dwell and communicate with others. Musical art, not being concrete or tangible, is thus often misunderstood, and thereby, its central meaning betrayed. Helicon intends to maintain the integrity of composer’s affective messages by seeking musical performances that reflect as closely as possible their creator’s expressive intentions. By these means, we hope to recreate, as best we can, the emotional or affective content that composers from different times and places had in mind. Helicon is a kind of travel of the imagination through past time.James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-38394532531475011132009-06-27T23:16:00.003-05:002009-06-27T23:50:29.572-05:00<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 255);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Opera for All</span></span><br /><br />Congratulations to the beleaguered <a href="http://www.nycopera.com/">New York City Opera</a>. This week, the company that Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia nicknamed "the people's opera," brought three vibrant performances directly to the people of New York City in a series of free outdoor performances in conjunction with the <a href="http://www.rivertorivernyc.com/">River-to-River Festival</a>.<br /><br />From my seat in the principal oboe chair, I enjoyed watching the thousands gathered really engaged in the performances. Tonight, smiles spread throughout the crowd during <span style="font-style: italic;">Largo al factotum</span>. The audience could barely conceal their delight, basking in the joy of live performance.<br /><br />In the face of the company's very public missteps and a recent—and disgraceful—article in Times (no link supplied), this week the NYCO is working hard, directly focused on their mission. With The Met offering no operas in the park this summer, "the people's opera" has taken up at least some of the slack. And during the last three nights, there were rapt listeners, not picnickers, many standing through the entire performances.<br /><br />I, for one, am encouraged. The tables selling season subscriptions were swamped tonight. <a href="http://www.nycopera.com/subscriptions/">Why don't you subscribe, too? You don't want to miss out, do you?<br /></a><em></em>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-60120286429539750802009-06-20T09:21:00.005-05:002009-06-21T10:13:39.688-05:00<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Vivaldi's "Big Band" with The Little Orchesta Society</span></span><br /><br />Randall Ellis and I played Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Oboes in D Minor (RV 535) in <a href="http://www.carnegiehall.org/article/box_office/events/evt_13545.html?selecteddate=06162009">Zankel Hall</a> Tuesday night with <a href="http://www.littleorchestra.org/">The Little Orchestra Society</a> and Dino Anagnost conducting. The concert was nearly sold out and many friends were there.<br /><br />I was happy to read about it in the Times this morning. Vivien Schweitzer praised the "polished interpretation of Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Oboes in D Minor (RV 535) by Randall Ellis and James Roe, who both played with a clear tone and elegant phrasing." <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/arts/music/20vivaldi.html">New York Times, June 20, 2009</a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRXwe4FpkHKdm5rQgy74Quy_xTUNKW1CmXy7x35JGwqEbnQbrUo1FV6zzr4wH53nGPv5-cMdAa5T7mN0LGhqkwM7N92HNQjywHx6KCE86xj3nfNjtqKvn5UfGy4sYjteVSIeZD/s1600-h/R+J.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 264px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRXwe4FpkHKdm5rQgy74Quy_xTUNKW1CmXy7x35JGwqEbnQbrUo1FV6zzr4wH53nGPv5-cMdAa5T7mN0LGhqkwM7N92HNQjywHx6KCE86xj3nfNjtqKvn5UfGy4sYjteVSIeZD/s320/R+J.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349780000555698578" border="0" /></a><br /><img src="file:///Users/jamesroe/OLD%20Macintosh%20HD/Helicon/*HELICON%20PLUS/Jim/Jim&Randall.jpg" alt="" />James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-27662125882014728692009-05-30T09:15:00.004-05:002009-06-07T23:22:34.672-05:00<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 153, 255); font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Writing Jazz</span><br /><br />Please come to <a href="http://kaufman-center.org/merkin-concert-hall/event/writing-jazz-an-epilogue-on-influence/">Merkin Hall</a> <a href="http://newyork.timeout.com/events/opera-classical/286059/writing-jazz">tonight</a>. The <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Zephyros-Winds/79109276955?ref=mf">Zéphyros Winds</a> is joining forces with <a href="http://www.larkchamberartists.com/">The Lark Chamber Artists</a> and pianist <a href="http://www.bernsarts.com/demare/demare.htm">Anthony de Mare</a> for a program that ends with a world premiere by <a href="http://home.earthlink.net/%7Eziodavino/album1_001.htm">David Rakowski</a>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Stolen Moments</span> for winds, strings, and piano.James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-12736847080140119722009-05-13T10:04:00.000-05:002009-05-13T10:06:03.824-05:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpuEveHCcAF-l8uzd3e9YjH_I8D_v96Rhw_txXli2j1ePyoKH6it3Up6Vgiq65yBQArecRbnoVywlMDj2d_cf54xO0p_upZgTaE_ZtgumSuCgSPTEdXEyVfkbiuPEupZ1dFof/s1600-h/Red+Schubert+Poster+reduced.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 323px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzpuEveHCcAF-l8uzd3e9YjH_I8D_v96Rhw_txXli2j1ePyoKH6it3Up6Vgiq65yBQArecRbnoVywlMDj2d_cf54xO0p_upZgTaE_ZtgumSuCgSPTEdXEyVfkbiuPEupZ1dFof/s400/Red+Schubert+Poster+reduced.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335324829325709330" /></a>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31673113.post-53802401253677650472009-05-12T08:01:00.005-05:002009-05-12T08:38:04.979-05:00<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(153, 153, 255);">Knight after Knight</span><br /></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZAravOAJ8aR4Z4iInzJ9xJke7D4EUWYac8SWXWUsDl7Nzd4eS7QsA2-fj062BJ5LEK_wImJBQ7s9A3swIcN3HWd0afpgdRGj7ywDhl2S6ZUIHRcp7TxaH0JL_xysaRSkgWwfb/s1600-h/Schubert.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 107px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZAravOAJ8aR4Z4iInzJ9xJke7D4EUWYac8SWXWUsDl7Nzd4eS7QsA2-fj062BJ5LEK_wImJBQ7s9A3swIcN3HWd0afpgdRGj7ywDhl2S6ZUIHRcp7TxaH0JL_xysaRSkgWwfb/s200/Schubert.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334924890483881042" border="0" /></a>As part of the run-up for their first European tour, <a href="http://www.knightsmusic.net/">The Knights</a> are giving two performances in New York City.<br /><br />Please try to catch these fascinating programs on whichever side of the Atlantic you happen to find yourself.<br /><br /><br /><table class="table_dyn" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top" width="100"><span class="global_text">May 15, 2009<br />8:00 PM</span></td> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top"><span class="global_text"><strong><a href="http://www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/releases/detail/2646">Schubert and Solitude</a> with <a href="http://www.osvaldogolijov.com/">Osvaldo Golijov</a> - <a href="http://www.orensanz.org/home.php">Angel Orensanz Foundation</a>, NYC</strong><br />The New York Institute for the Humanities and the Humanities Initiative at NYU in association with In a Circle present "Schubert and Solitude" with Osvaldo Golijov, in conversation with <a href="http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/about/">Fred Child</a>.<br /><br />The Knights<br /><a href="http://www.jacobseneric.com/">Eric Jacobsen</a>, <span style="font-style: italic;">conductor</span><br />Tehila Nini Goldstein, <span style="font-style: italic;">soprano</span><br /><a href="http://www.brooklynrider.com/">Brooklyn Rider</a><br /><br />Golijov - <span style="font-style: italic;">She Was Here</span> (a cycle of four songs steeped in Schubert)<br />Works by Beethoven, Schubert, <a href="http://www.philipglass.com/">Glass</a>, and Ives<br /><br />Art Exhibition and Projections by <a href="http://www.lenniepeterson.com/">Lennie Peterson</a><br /><br />Free and Open to the Public<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="global_text"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">•</span></span></span><br /><span class="global_text"></span></div><span class="global_text"><br /></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top" width="100"><span class="global_text">May 16, 2009<br />8:00 PM</span></td> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top"><span class="global_text"><strong>Benefit Concert for Riverside Food Pantry - Riverside Church, NYC</strong><br />The Knights present a benefit concert for the Riverside Soup Kitchen. This will be the final concert before they head off to Germany and Ireland for their European tour!<br /><br />The Knights<br />Eric Jacobsen, <span style="font-style: italic;">conductor</span><br /><br />Bach (arr. by S. Beck) - <span style="font-style: italic;">O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden</span> (Chorale for Orchestra)<br />Copland - <span style="font-style: italic;">Appalachian Spring</span> (13 instrument version)<br />Songs of Golijov, Sondheim, Rodgers, and Bernstein<br />Beethoven - Symphony No. 7<br /><br />Suggested donation $10<br /><br />Riverside Church - <a href="http://www.theriversidechurchny.org/events/index.php?event=8186&filter=">www.theriversidechurchny.org</a><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="global_text"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">•</span></span></span><br /></div><span class="global_text"><br /></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top" width="100"><span class="global_text">May 20, 2009<br />8:00 PM</span></td> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top"><span class="global_text"><strong><a href="http://www.musikfestspiele.com/cms/en/program_tickets/program/?&no_cache=1&wb_item=&wbrq_filterDates=&wbrq_filterGenre=&wbrq_filterLocation=&wbrq_filterTheme=&wbrq_filterTerm=&wbrq_orderBy=&wb_action=2&wb_item=118">Opening Night</a> at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Dresdner Musikfestspiele</span> - Dresden, Germany</strong><br />The Knights, in their first European tour will open the <span style="font-style: italic;">Dresdner Musikfestspiele</span> with soprano Dawn Upshaw as their guest soloist at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Frauenkirche</span>.<br /><br />The Knights<br />Eric Jacobsen, <span style="font-style: italic;">conductor</span><br /><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14687191">Dawn Upshaw</a>, <span style="font-style: italic;">soprano</span><br /><br />Ives - <span style="font-style: italic;">The Unanswered Question</span><br />Golijov - <span style="font-style: italic;">She Was Here</span><br />Golijov - <span style="font-style: italic;">Night of the Flying Horses</span><br />Rodgers - <span style="font-style: italic;">He Was Too Good To Me</span><br />Sondheim - <span style="font-style: italic;">There Won't Be Trumpets</span><br />Sondheim - <span style="font-style: italic;">What More Do I Need</span>?<br />Bernstein - "Somewhere" from <span style="font-style: italic;">West Side Story</span><br />Bach (arr. by S. Beck) - <span style="font-style: italic;">O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden</span> (Chorale for Orchestra)<br />Beethoven - Symphony No. 7<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Dresdner Musikfestspiele</span> - <a href="http://www.musikfestspiele.com/">www.musikfestspiele.com</a><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="global_text"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">•</span></span></span><br /></div><span class="global_text"><br /></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top" width="100"><span class="global_text">May 21, 2009<br />8:00 PM</span></td> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top"><span class="global_text"><strong><a href="http://www.musikfestspiele.com/cms/en/program_tickets/program/?&no_cache=1&wb_item=&wbrq_filterDates=&wbrq_filterGenre=&wbrq_filterLocation=&wbrq_filterTheme=&wbrq_filterTerm=&wbrq_orderBy=&wb_action=2&wb_item=22">The Knights with Christina Courtin</a> at the <span style="font-style: italic;">Dresdner Musikfestspiele</span> - Dresden, Germany</strong><br />The Knights present their second concert at the Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Nonesuch recording artist Christina Courtin at the Alter Schlachthof.<br /><br />The Knights<br />Eric Jacobsen, <span style="font-style: italic;">conductor</span><br /><a href="http://www.christinacourtin.com/live/">Christina Courtin</a>, <span style="font-style: italic;">vocal</span><br /><a href="http://www.crystaltop.com/artists.htm">Ryan Scott</a>, <span style="font-style: italic;">guitar</span><br /><br />Ives - <span style="font-style: italic;">The Unanswered Question</span><br />Beethoven - Coriolan Overture<br />Glass - <span style="font-style: italic;">Company</span><br />Copland - <span style="font-style: italic;">Appalachian Spring</span> (13 instrument version)<br />Christina Courtin - Original Songs<br /><br />Dresdner Musikfestspiele - www.musikfestspiele.com<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="global_text"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">•</span></span></span><br /></div><span class="global_text"><br /></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top" width="100"><span class="global_text">May 23, 2009<br />7:30 PM</span></td> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top"><span class="global_text"><a href="http://www.nationalgallery.ie/html/gallerynews.html#dawn"><strong>The National Gallery in Dublin, Ireland</strong></a><br />The Knights continue their European tour in Dublin with soprano Dawn Upshaw and <a href="http://www.nonesuch.com/">Nonesuch</a> recording artist Christina Courtin.<br /><br />The Knights<br />Eric Jacobsen, <span style="font-style: italic;">conductor</span><br />Dawn Upshaw, <span style="font-style: italic;">soprano</span><br />Christina Courtin, <span style="font-style: italic;">vocals</span><br /><br />Bach (arr. by S. Beck) - <span style="font-style: italic;">O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden</span> (Chorale for Orchestra)<br />Glass - <span style="font-style: italic;">Company</span><br />Golijov - <span style="font-style: italic;">Night of the Flying Horses</span><br />Rodgers - <span style="font-style: italic;">He was Too Good To Me</span><br />Sondheim - <span style="font-style: italic;">There Won't Be Trumpets</span><br />Sondheim - <span style="font-style: italic;">What More Do I Need</span>?<br />Bernstein - "Somewhere" from <span style="font-style: italic;">West Side Story</span><br />Copland - <span style="font-style: italic;">Appalachian Spring</span> (13 instrument version)<br />Christina Courtin - Original Songs<br /><br /></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top" width="100"><span class="global_text"><br /></span></td> <td class="td_rep" align="left" valign="top"><span class="global_text"><strong></strong></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>James Roehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00059657108260355124noreply@blogger.com0