Dumbarton's Drums

The Beers Family performs Dumbarton's Drums on an episode of Pete Seeger's TV show, Rainbow Quest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q53PGmI8F0

Brian Wilson to finish some George Gershwin songs -- latimes.com

Brian Wilson to finish some George Gershwin songs -- latimes.com

Posted using ShareThis

By Randy Lewis

October 8, 2009

In a surprise union of two quintessentially American composers from different eras, one the 1960s mastermind of "Good Vibrations," the other the Jazz Age creator of "Rhapsody in Blue," former Beach Boy Brian Wilson has been authorized by the estate of George Gershwin to complete unfinished songs Gershwin left behind when he died in 1937.

He plans to finish and record at least two such pieces on an album of Gershwin music he hopes to release next year.

The Gershwin-Wilson project may strike some as an odd coupling: one New York musician famous for sophisticated 1920s and '30s pop songs including " 'S Wonderful" and "Someone to Watch Over Me" as well as such expansive, classically minded compositions as "Rhapsody"; the other the driving force behind Southern California beach culture hits such as "Surfin' U.S.A.," "I Get Around" and "California Girls."
But their career paths and evolution of their artistry have common threads, noted people involved with the project and some independent scholars, and that gives the proposed collaboration logic.

Todd Gershwin, George's great-nephew and a trustee of the George Gershwin family trusts, said, "George for his time was a visionary. He certainly crossed genres and musical lines, tried things that hadn't been done before and Brian Wilson has done exactly the same thing."

For his part, Wilson, 67, described himself Tuesday as "thrilled to death."

"I'm proud to be able to do it," he said in an interview. "Hopefully I'll be able to do them justice."

Todd Gershwin said a collection of several dozen song fragments, ranging from "a few bars to some almost finished songs and everything in between" had been sitting virtually untouched for more than seven decades. He and other trustees began reaching out in the last year or two to find contemporary artists who might be interested in completing those musical bits and pieces.

Wilson, who says "Rhapsody in Blue" is his earliest musical memory, said the pieces he's working with are very likely to remain as instrumentals, and that they could easily wind up as three-minute pop songs. But he's also holding open the possibility of expanding them to more substantive pieces.

Wilson said many of them aren't easy to evaluate.

"I can't decipher the verse from the chorus from the bridge," he said, "so I'm going to try to insert some new music into them. I might even write some music for an introduction."

The Gershwin project grew out of a proposal to Wilson from Walt Disney Records for a two-album contract.

"I'm a massive Brian Wilson fan," label president David Agnew said. "I'd always wanted to do something with him, and the Gershwin angle was something I had always thought about. In so many interviews he has mentioned Gershwin as a big influence, and if you listen to his music, that influence is obvious."

Meanwhile, the Gershwin estate and Warner/Chappell Music, the Gershwin publisher, had been considering what to do with the many song fragments in their archive. A pianist working from manuscripts left by Gershwin recorded the music at the behest of the estate, according to Brad Rosenberger, senior vice president of catalog development and marketing for Warner/Chappell.

"When we did this, nobody had any idea that an artist like Brian Wilson was even thinking about doing something like this," Rosenberger said.

Todd Gershwin said Wilson is the first to move ahead, but some uncompleted songs also may be used in a Gershwin tribute album that veteran engineer and producer Phil Ramone is putting together with a dozen artists for release in 2010.

Gershwin, who collaborated on most of his hit songs with his lyricist brother, Ira, stretched music of the day far beyond the compact pop song of Tin Pan Alley to more ambitious compositions incorporating elements of jazz and the classics, including "Rhapsody," "An American in Paris" and the opera "Porgy and Bess." He died of a brain tumor in Los Angeles at age 38 while working on a movie musical.

Wilson was one of the prime forces behind the expansion of pop music's boundaries in the mid-'60s, taking the Beach Boys well beyond the frothy songs about surf, cars and girls. That culminated in the group's 1966 album "Pet Sounds" and its planned follow-up, "Smile." But "Smile" was shelved because of dissension within the band and lack of record company support, contributing to a psychological breakdown Wilson suffered in 1967. In 1999, he started on a career renaissance that led to the belated completion of "Smile" in 2004.

" 'Smile' is 'Rhapsody in Blue' circa 2004," Rosenberger said. "It's very experimental, very rich and very melodic and really pushed popular music."

Chris Sampson, associate dean of USC's Thornton School of Music, said a Gershwin-Wilson collaboration is not as far-fetched as it may seem, despite the vastly different musical landscape of the two eras.

"Where they both made their mark was extending the form," he said. "George Gershwin was the only composer of his time to make a mark with the popular style of the time and then successfully cross over to quote-unquote serious music by extending the form beyond the basic [pop song] structure, getting into operatic styles and things of that sort.

"Brian Wilson," Sampson added, "redefined the pop song form . . . . through his orchestrations that took music in an entirely new direction. They're coming from two very different musical styles to end up with what I presume will be something new. That's the exciting interaction I see in this."

Wilson joins some illustrious company in the scope of the Gershwin project. When Mozart died at age 35 in 1791, a consortium of his contemporaries worked to fill in the incomplete portions of his Requiem. J.R.R. Tolkien's son commissioned writer Guy Gavriel Kay to complete the novel "The Silmarillion" that his father hadn't finished when he died.

But even in such unusual cases it's been exceedingly rare that the person finishing the uncompleted work has been as prominent as the artist who left the work behind.

For many of those involved with the project, the prospect of one day seeing songs credited to "George Gershwin-Brian Wilson" borders on the enticingly surreal. "For me personally," Rosenberger said, "it's a weird dream come true."

randy.lewis@latimes.com

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

An American in Paris... and Hollywood

An American In Paris - Original MGM Trailer 1951

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xuo5nn7fkM

An American in Paris - Gene Kelly tells the kids, "C'est le time step?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmKCsmmsnZo

An American in Paris - Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron 1951

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYNErGGaXYA

"Palestrina"

Earlier this year the Bavarian State Opera presented a production of Hans Pfitzner's oepra, "Palestrina."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AWgG7FXr-o




Musical direction: Simone Young
Stage direction: Christian Stückl

Cast: Christopher Ventris (Palestrina), Michael Volle (Giovanni Morone), John Daszak (Bernardo Novagerio), Falk Struckmann (Carlo Borromeo), Wolfgang Koch (Graf Luna), Christiane Karg (Ighino), Gabriela Scherer (Silla)

Sand Animation to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons: Winter"

Hungarian filmmaker, Ferenc Cakó, has made a series of wonderful sand animations based on Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Here is his interpretation of "Winter."



Find out more about this talented film maker at www.cakostudio.hu

Jon Vickers sings "Niun mi tema"

Here is Jon Vickers singing "Niun mi tema" from Verdi's Otello.



And here, courtesy of http://www.archive.org/stream/otelloalyricdra00boitgoog, is the text of the opera's concluding scene.

Lang Lang plays Chopin's Piano Concerto #2 in f

October 1st at shortly after 1pm, WFMT will play a recording of the Piano Concerto #2 in f minor, opus 21. Zubin Mehta will lead the Vienna Philharmonic with pianist Lang Lang at the keyboard.

Til then, here are the final 4 minutes from the fourth movement of Chopin's Piano Concerto #2 in f, Op 21. Lang Lang is soloist with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, and the conductor is Fabio Luizi.

Enjoy,

Louise

Alicia de Larrocha

MADRID (AP) Spanish pianist Alicia de Larrocha who thrilled music listeners for decades with polished and enthralling interpretations of great classical works, has died aged 86.

Music producer and family friend Gregor Benko says de Larrocha died late Friday in a hospital in her native Barcelona.

Measuring just under 5 feet tall, and with unusually small hands for a piano virtuoso, de Larrocha won listeners over with the richness and robustness of her sound. Critically acclaimed for her polished technique in performing Mozart, Beethoven, Schuman and Rachmaninov, de Larrocha was also unrivaled in her interpretation of Spanish composers such as Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados and Isaac Albeniz.

De Larrocha retired from public performances in 2003, after 75 years as a pianist.

- From the Associated Press
(online at http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jj4yj37U9DWYfLMh8iNpt2MokknAD9AUT0880)

Read the New York Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/arts/music/26larrocha.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss


Fire Dance by Manuel de Falla

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unR6coI5rgI





Alicia de Larrocha plays Beethoven piano concerto no.1 with London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. This video is the rehearsal and discussion during the recording session, which Dudley Moore introduces.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy1oFrmt_UI




W.A.Mozart - Piano Concerto No.27 in B flat major, K.595 - III.Allegro Alicia de Larrocha, piano Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Nicholas Carthy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9IbJSMwjZQ

STEVE GOODMAN July 25, 1948 - September 20, 1984

THE BEST OF STUDS TERKEL this week features Studs Terkel's April 1976 conversation with singer-songwriter, irrepressible guitarist, and Chicago native, Steve Goodman. Born on the city?s north side in July 1948, Steve Goodman began writing, performing his songs, and attracting a dedicated following while still a teenager. At the age of 21 he was diagnosed with leukemia, the disease which would claim his life on September 20th, 1984.

You can listen to Studs and Steve and their musical conversation Saturday 9/19 at 7pm CST on 98.7 WFMT and also on www.wfmt.com.

Enjoy the videos,
Louise

~~~~~

A DYING CUBS FAN'S LAST REQUEST
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBxZGQ1dJk




SOUVENIRS (with John Prine) & YOU'RE THE GIRL I LOVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOTbg39-I5Q




THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS (with Jethro Burns)

Peter, Paul and Mary sing ?500 Miles?

Peter, Paul and Mary sing ?500 Miles?





More here: http://www.peterpaulandmary.com/

Copland Symphony Has Premiere Here

THIS ENTRY COURTESY OF www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/14/specials/copland-symphony.html

=========

In the one o'clock hour today, WFMT presents a broadcast of Aaron Coplands Short Symphony in a performance by Leonard Slatkin leading the St. Louis Symphony. The following review of this music appeared in the New York Times on January 10, 1944.

Copland Symphony Has Premiere Here
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Aaron Copland's Symphony received its first New York performance at the concert given late yesterday afternoon by the NBC Symphony Orchestra, under Leopold Stokowski, at Radio City, on the "General Motors Symphony on the Air" program. The work, sometimes known as the "Short Symphony" because it takes but fifteen minutes to play, is dedicated to Carlos Chavez, who conducted it twice in Mexico City with his Mexican Symphony Orchestra, but there seems to be no record of performances of it elsewhere in the past.

It was composed between the years 1931 and 1933, which accounts for the complexities and artifice of the score. In more recent years Mr. Copland has chosen to write in a much simpler and more direct manner, and always he has proved at his best when treating subjects of a programmatic nature. Abstract music, even today, does not seem to offer him the best opportunity to express himself convincingly. The symphony, being both abstract and in the less effective early style, cannot be reckoned among its composer's important contributions to the literature.

It is in three brief movements, played without break between them, and entitled, respectively, "Fast," "Slow," "Fast." The score is for strings; wood winds, including heckelphone; two trumpets, horns and piano. There is little to be said about the work, since it is all so manufactured and uncommunicative that it never gets anywhere in particular and leaves the impression of futile fragmentariness in general.
At one point the 'cello starts off a passage, taken up by the viola and gradually by other instruments, where it seemed for a moment as if the music was finally going to have something effectual to impart. But this passage turned out to be merely the transition to the finale and came to little, like the rest.

Doubtless the symphony meant something definite to the composer when he wrote it, but it was completely cryptic and enigmatic in its meanings at this performance. Despite its complexities, Mr. Stokowski led it with apparent ease. But, unless one had the score before him, it was next to impossible to tell how many of the seemingly
false entrances were actually correct and intentional in the cacophonous maze of
intricacies. The work, however, was warmly received.

Brahms Double Concerto in A Minor, Op 102

Composed in the summer of 1887, and first performed on 18 October of that year, the Double Concerto in A Minor, Op 102 was Brahms' final work for orchestra. Brahms, approaching the project with anxiety over writing for instruments that were not his own, wrote it for the cellist Robert Hausmann and his old estranged friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim.

Today in the three o'clock hour we have a performance of this epic work by violinist Isaac Stern and cellist Yo Yo Ma, and they're playing it with our home town band, the Chicago Symphony, along with conductor Claudio Abbado.

Thanks to the excellent video archivists at Medici.TV, here is an excerpt David Oistrakh and Mstislav Rostropovitch playing the Brahms Double Concerto, under the baton of Kirill Kondrashine.

Enjoy,

Louise

The Lark Ascending

This afternoon in the 2 o'clock hour WFMT offers a performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams' romance for violin and orchestra, The Lark Ascending.

For much of his life Vaughan Williams lived near Dorking, Surrey, not far from the poet, George Meredith. The composer expressed Meredith's imagery in music, and in so doing, managed to convey the idyllic mood of England before the first world war.

We've posted the text of Meredith's beautiful poem below.

Enjoy,
Louise

~~~

The Lark Ascending

George Meredith (1828?1909)

HE rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,
All intervolv?d and spreading wide,
Like water-dimples down a tide
Where ripple ripple overcurls
And eddy into eddy whirls;
A press of hurried notes that run
So fleet they scarce are more than one,
Yet changingly the trills repeat
And linger ringing while they fleet,
Sweet to the quick o? the ear, and dear
To her beyond the handmaid ear,
Who sits beside our inner springs,
Too often dry for this he brings,
Which seems the very jet of earth
At sight of sun, her musci?s mirth,
As up he wings the spiral stair,
A song of light, and pierces air
With fountain ardor, fountain play,
To reach the shining tops of day,
And drink in everything discern?d
An ecstasy to music turn?d,
Impell?d by what his happy bill
Disperses; drinking, showering still,
Unthinking save that he may give
His voice the outlet, there to live
Renew?d in endless notes of glee,
So thirsty of his voice is he,
For all to hear and all to know
That he is joy, awake, aglow,
The tumult of the heart to hear
Through pureness filter?d crystal-clear,
And know the pleasure sprinkled bright
By simple singing of delight,
Shrill, irreflective, unrestrain?d,
Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustain?d
Without a break, without a fall,
Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical,
Perennial, quavering up the chord
Like myriad dews of sunny sward
That trembling into fulness shine,
And sparkle dropping argentine;
Such wooing as the ear receives
From zephyr caught in choric leaves
Of aspens when their chattering net
Is flush?d to white with shivers wet;
And such the water-spirit?s chime
On mountain heights in morning?s prime,
Too freshly sweet to seem excess,
Too animate to need a stress;
But wider over many heads
The starry voice ascending spreads,
Awakening, as it waxes thin,
The best in us to him akin;
And every face to watch him rais?d,
Puts on the light of children prais?d,
So rich our human pleasure ripes
When sweetness on sincereness pipes,
Though nought be promis?d from the seas,
But only a soft-ruffling breeze
Sweep glittering on a still content,
Serenity in ravishment.

For singing till his heaven fills,
?T is love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes:
The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine
He is, the hills, the human line,
The meadows green, the fallows brown,
The dreams of labor in the town;
He sings the sap, the quicken?d veins;
The wedding song of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,
And eye of violets while they breathe;
All these the circling song will wreathe,
And you shall hear the herb and tree,
The better heart of men shall see,
Shall feel celestially, as long
As you crave nothing save the song.
Was never voice of ours could say
Our inmost in the sweetest way,
Like yonder voice aloft, and link
All hearers in the song they drink:
Our wisdom speaks from failing blood,
Our passion is too full in flood,
We want the key of his wild note
Of truthful in a tuneful throat,
The song seraphically free
Of taint of personality,
So pure that it salutes the suns
The voice of one for millions,
In whom the millions rejoice
For giving their one spirit voice.

Yet men have we, whom we revere,
Now names, and men still housing here,
Whose lives, by many a battle-dint
Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint,
Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet
For song our highest heaven to greet:
Whom heavenly singing gives us new,
Enspheres them brilliant in our blue,
From firmest base to farthest leap,
Because their love of Earth is deep,
And they are warriors in accord
With life to serve and pass reward,
So touching purest and so heard
In the brain?s reflex of yon bird;
Wherefore their soul in me, or mine,
Through self-forgetfulness divine,
In them, that song aloft maintains,
To fill the sky and thrill the plains
With showerings drawn from human stores,
As he to silence nearer soars,
Extends the world at wings and dome,
More spacious making more our home,
Till lost on his aërial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

Violin Partita #2 in d minor, BWV 1004 by Bach

In the 3 o'clock hour today. WFMT broadcasts Christoph Poppen's rendition of the Chaconne movement from the Violin Partita #2 in d minor, BWV 1004 by Bach.

Here is another version featuring Nathan Milstein in a vintage television program.

Pepe Romero discusses Rodrigo's "Concierto para una Fiesta"

In the 2 o'clock hour today, Kerry Frumkin will play a recording of Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto madrigal in a performance by the fraternal guitar duo, Pepe & Angel Romero along with St Martin's Academy under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner.

Although Rodrigo composed the work in 1966 for the husband-and-wife duo guitarists, Alexandre Lagoya and Ida Presti, it was the Romero brothers who gave the work it's premiere. That first performance took place in 1967 in a concert at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

In this video, Pepe Romero discusses -- in Spanish -- his interactions with Joaquin Rodrigo, and the development of another composition which Rodrigo composed for the Romero brothers, the Concierto para una Fiesta.



Enjoy,
Louise

Week 8 on the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and www.wfmt.com/santafe

''I felt ... that one day there must suddenly emerge the one who would be chosen to express the most exalted spirit of the times in an ideal manner, one who would not bring us mastery in gradual stages but who, like Minerva, would spring fully armed from the head of Jove. And he has arrived -- a youth at whose cradle the graces and heroes of old stood guard. His name is Johannes Brahms."

- Robert Schumann in Neue Zeitschrift

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Our 8th week of programs from the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival features music of Schumann and his great mutual-admirer Brahms.

Soprano Arianna Zukerman sings two songs of Schumann with Marc Neikrug at the piano: "Du Ring an meinem Finger" and "Der Nussbaum." After that, Jon Kimura Parker, Benny Kim, Cynthia Phelps, and Ronald Thomas team up to perform Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Opus 26.

Check out http://www.wfmt.com/santafe to find excerpts from Kerry Frumkin and Marc Neikrug's conversation about this week's program, the text for the Schumann songs, and a few other things, both related and tangential, which may be of interest. I particularly love the photographs of Robert and Clara Schumann, and a very handsome, young Johannes Brahms. And did you know that Sting and Trudie Styler have a new show in which they portray the Schumanns?

Hope you'll stop by http://www.wfmt.com/santafe and that you'll tune in Sunday at 8pm CST for some great music from Santa Fe....

Enjoy,
Louise

This week on the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and wfmt.com/santafe...

You might say Week 7 of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival radio series explores the theme of elegies. We have one by Gabriel Fauré for nobody in particular, one by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco for a very remarkable donkey, and also a work by Erwin Schulhof who died of tuberculosis in 1942 while interned in a concentration camp.

This program airs Sunday August 16 at 8pm CST on 98.7WFMT in Chicago. You can also listen for free via streaming at www.wfmt.com.

Here's a sampling of the clips and other things you'll find this week on http://www.wfmt.com/santafe That's where I share stuff I couldn't fit into each of these 13 programs. I hope you'll stop by and explore some of the program out-takes and other "web-extras" I've collected there.

Enjoy,
Louise

= = = = =


GABRIEL FAURÉ: Elegy in C Minor
Eric Kim, cello, Marc Neikrug, piano

Here is an excerpt from a vintage Bell Telephone Hour television special in which Gregor Piatigorsky performs the Fauré Elegy with an orchestral accompaniment.



- - - - -


ERWIN SCHULHOF: Concertino for Flute, Viola and Bass
Tara Helen O'Connor, flute; Daniel Phillips, viola; Marji Danilow, bass

?That?s a great bonus for our marriage?? Daniel Phillips talks about his musical collaboration with his wife, flutist Tara Helen O?Connor.

 

- - - - -


MARIO CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO: Platero y yo
Jonathan Richards, narrator; Simon Wynberg, guitar

Castelnuovo-Tedesco?s long association with guitarist Andrés Segovia inspired him to compose a significant number of works for guitar including Platero y yo. He wrote it in 1960, setting to music 28 poems by Juan Ramón Jiménez, the Spanish poet who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1956. In this program Jonathan Richards recites a selection of these poems while Simon Wynberg plays the guitar.

Simon recently went to Spain where he visited the town of Moguer and had his picture taken at the Jimenez Museum (with Platero's statue...) and Platero?s birthplace.

    

This week on the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival...

In Week 6 of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival radio series we have one baroque piece, Vivaldi's Piccolo Concerto in C Major, and two contemporary works: Piece for Pro Piano Hamburg Steinway Model D and Marimba One by Marc Neikrug the Festival's artistic director, and the String Quartet No. 5 of Béla Bartók.

Here's a sampling of what you'll find this week at www.wfmt.com/santafe...

Enjoy,
Louise

======

ANTONIO VIVALDI: Piccolo Concerto in C Major, RV 443
Tara Helen O'Connor, piccolo; Marji Danilow, bass; Kathleen McIntosh, harpsichord; Escher String Quartet: Adam Barnett-Hart and Wu Jie, violins; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Andrew Janss, cello

In the years around 1720, Vivaldi composed his concertos RV 443 through 445 for an instrument he called the flautino, a kind of baroque cross between a recorder and a piccolo. Here's what it sounded like when Tara Helen O'Connor played the piccolo for this performance.

- - - - - - - - - -

MARC NEIKRUG: Piece for Pro Piano Hamburg Steinway Model D and Marimba One (World Premiere)
Drew Lang, Marimba; Marc Neikrug, piano

Marc Neikrug's Piece for Pro Piano Hamburg Steinway Model D and Marimba One is an example of what can happen when two different sources come together to commission a new piece of music. The work was commissioned for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival by Margaret Cronin in honor of her husband, Dr. Richard Cronin, and Ricard de la Rosa, owner of Pro Piano, provider of great instruments to venues nationwide. In this excerpt from their conversation, Marc tells Kerry how a birthday celebration and a supplier of great instruments inspired this world premiere.

- - - - - - - - - -
BÉLA BARTÓK: String Quartet No. 5
Escher String Quartet: Adam Barnett-Hart and Wu Jie, violins; Pierre Lapointe, viola; Andrew Janss, cello

The String Quartet No. 5 by Bartók was commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge and is dedicated to her. It was premiered by the Kolisch Quartet in Washington, D.C. on April 8, 1935 and first published in 1936 by Universal Edition. In the following clip, Escher String Quartet cellist Andrew Janss talks about his ensemble and their connection to this piece.

Artheme Swallows his Clarinet

This in today from Arts Journal's daily e-newsletter...

Artheme Swallows his Clarinet, a brief, silent, French film made in 1912, is both surreal and amusing. It is a clever French Eclipse comedy digitally restored by Serge Bromberg. Artheme plays his clarinet in the park and makes people happy. He plays it for some furniture movers who are lifting a heavy chest, and they accidentally drop the chest on Artheme. The clarinet gets pushed halfway though Artheme's head. Amazingly, the clarinet still works! Ernest Servaes played Artheme in this series of comedies for the French Eclipse company from 1911 through 1916, and he directed the films in the series. Find it on the DVD set, Saved From the Flames.



Enjoy,
Louise

NYTimes: Isaac Stern's Great Leap Forward Reverberates

Pilfered with good will and respect. NYT is a great newspaper. Visit their web site for comprehensive news and terrific arts coverage such as the article below...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From The New York Times

July 5, 2009

By DAVID BARBOZA

BEIJING

THIRTY years ago this summer the violinist Isaac Stern created a sensation when he came to China for a series of concerts and master classes. His visit, richly documented in the Academy Award-winning film "From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China" (directed by Murray Lerner and supervised by Allan Miller), was credited with giving a boost to classical music here and helping foster cultural exchanges between China and the West.

This October Beijing will commemorate that visit with a concert by the China Philharmonic to honor Mr. Stern, who died in 2001 at 81, and to pay tribute to the remarkable strides this country has made in music since then.

Among those expected to perform will be Wang Jian, whose performance as a 10-year-old in the film eventually led him to Yale University, the Julliard School, Carnegie Hall and an acclaimed career as an international recording and performing artist.

"We've come a long way since then," Mr. Wang, now 40, said recently. Back then, when Stern came, "this was the only chance we had to hear a great master," he said. "People were fighting to get into the rehearsals."

Other young musicians like Li Weigang, Vera Tsu, Tang Yun and Ho Hongying who performed for Mr. Stern in 1979 have also gone on to perform in the world's great concert halls.

Since the days of Stern's historic visit, interest in and access to classical music has mushroomed in China. There are major orchestras in many cities, and an estimated 40 million students across the country study the violin or the piano. But there are not yet enough dedicated fans to support classical careers within the country, which is why, even today, Chinese musicians go abroad and now populate the world's leading orchestras, opera houses and music schools.

The Chinese composer Tan Dun and pianist Lang Lang are international recording stars. And last month the 19-year-old Zhang Haochen, born in China, shared the top prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth.

Few could have imagined such triumphs in 1979, when Beijing was a sea of bicycles and Mao suits, and the tallest building in Shanghai was a mere 24 stories.

Stern arrived here at a critical moment in the country's history, just as it was beginning to emerge from decades of self-imposed isolation, eager to turn the page.

The United States and China had just resumed diplomatic relations, and on his arrival with his family and the American pianist David Golub in June, Stern announced that the trip was less a concert tour than a "how do you do?" ? using music as a kind of passport to meet the Chinese people.

And so over the next two weeks Stern ? followed by a large film crew ? played the gray-haired philosopher with an easy smile and a deft hand at the violin. In Beijing he performed with the Central Philharmonic and toured China's top music academy, the Central Conservatory of Music. He played the César Franck Sonata in A before a full house at the Shanghai Concert Hall, but only after averting disaster. A day before the concert the piano prepared for Mr. Golub was deemed unplayable. At the last minute a suitable piano was found at a radio station.

Everywhere Stern went the reception was enormous. Music lovers traveled by train from distant provinces in China to catch a glimpse of one of the 20th century's great instrumentalists. Even rehearsals were packed with standing-room-only crowds that seemed to hang on Stern's every word.

One of the spectators in Beijing that summer was Zhao Pingguo, then an instructor at the Central Conservatory and later one of the earliest teachers of China's piano master Lang Lang. Today, at 75, he is retired.

"I went to almost every rehearsal and performance Stern gave," Professor Zhao said in a recent interview. "Friends and professors around me all talked about his visit. We were quite convinced that China was going to change dramatically."

One highlight of the two-week visit was a series of performances by some of China's best young musicians.

Mr. Wang, then a cello prodigy, played an Eccles sonata; Li Weigang, whose parents were both musicians, played Paganini's "Witches Dance"; and the 12-year-old Ho Hongying, wearing a school uniform punctuated by a red scarf, played a Tartini sonata in G minor.

"That was my exam piece," said Ms. Ho, now concertmaster of the City Chamber Orchestra in Hong Kong. "I was so nervous. There were 3,000 people in a hall that is supposed to hold 1,800. It was so packed."

But Stern and Golub noticed something peculiar about the sessions. Younger students who were 8, 9, 10 or 11 were impressive. But those older than 17 lacked something. What, the Americans asked, happened in between?

The answer came from Tan Shuzhen, then 72 and the deputy director of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, who said that during the decade-long Cultural Revolution China had tried to wipe out traces of Western influence. Music schools closed, teachers of Western music were harshly criticized, beaten and even jailed. And the playing of Western music was outlawed.

Conditions were so psychologically brutal, Mr. Tan said, that 17 instructors at the Shanghai Conservatory committed suicide.

Mr. Tan, who taught violin, said he spent 14 months starting in 1968 largely confined to a tiny, dark closet under a stairwell at the Conservatory. He suffered regular beatings and denunciations before being released to work as a janitor charged with cleaning the school's toilets.

In one of the most powerful scenes in the documentary, "From Mao to Mozart," Mr. Tan described the time his daughter and 7-year-old granddaughter had come to see him and he was briefly allowed out of confinement. He broke into tears when the young girl called out to him, "Grandpa."

"We were treated as criminals because we taught them Western music," he said in the film.

When the Cultural Revolution came to an end with Mao's death in 1976, music schools reopened, and the ban on playing Western music was lifted. Tens of thousands of young people applied to the top music schools, including many children who had had been playing Western music in secret.

One of those was Li Weigang, now a distinguished violinist who played for Stern in 1979 and later helped form the Shanghai Quartet.

"Like everyone else we played in secret," he said recently. "Or we played scales. No one knew what we were doing."

For Stern the biggest disappointment of the 1979 visit seemed to be the feeling that China's musicians, while technically adept, were stiff and colorless. He pressed them to play with more passion and to feel the emotion of the music.

"You must always listen as if you are hearing something very beautiful, and then you must learn how to do it in here," Stern said while instructing Ho Hongying. "Think in here," he said gently tapping on her head, "and play here," he said pointing to the violin.

Many musicians now say Stern's visit had a profound impact on the teaching of classical music in China. In the years after his visit other maestros and virtuosos arrived for similar tours, including the conductor Kurt Masur and the violinist Yehudi Menuhin.

And many of the talented children who performed for Mr. Stern during that sultry summer of 1979 subsequently studied abroad.

Tang Yun trained with Dorothy DeLay at the Julliard School and is now a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Vera Tsu also studied at Julliard and now performs in Beijing. And Pan Chun, who delighted Mr. Stern by performing Mozart's "Variations on 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,' " later studied in Russia. He is now a professor at the Central Conservatory in Beijing.

Wang Jian's journey out of China was particularly dramatic. An American businessman with roots in China named Sau Wing-Lam saw the film and a few years later arranged for the young Mr. Wang to travel to the United States and study music at Yale University.

"He wrote to my parents and said, 'Your son can choose any school, I will give him a cello,' " Mr. Wang recalled in a recent interview. "It's the same cello I have today."

That rare cello was produced in Italy, in 1662, Mr. Wang said.

In 1999, three years before his death, Stern returned to China and marveled at the changes he found in the quality of the students and the instruction.

While hardly representative of the spirit of his trip, one comment that Stern made during the 1979 visit stands out. At an athletic center in Shanghai he expressed amazement at the sheer ability and concentration of the young people he saw, and then joked, "Well, they can't play Mozart."

Stern's son Michael, now a conductor, said the comment was misconstrued. But whether it was or not, one thing is certain: The musicians in China today can play Mozart, and Brahms and Mendelssohn and Debussy.

Chen Yang contributed research.

Met Opera, stagehands strike deal

Pilfered with respect and gratitude from variety.com.
Article posted to Variety.com on Tue., Jun. 30, 2009, 7:03pm PT

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Salary increase postponed for union

By GORDON COX

The Metropolitan Opera and stagehands' union Local One have struck a deal, postponing a promised salary increase this summer in exchange for an extra year on the current contract, with the raise to come a year from now.

Met general manager Peter Gelb, who has worked to boost the opera's profile through attention-getting initiatives including a popular series of cinema transmissions, had earlier stated that he hoped to get a 10% salary reduction out of the union in order to help manage costs during tough economic times.

Local One, topped by James J. Claffey Jr., argued for a salary freeze versus a cut.

In the contract originally set to expire July 31, 2010, union members were slated to get a 2.5% raise along with a .5% benefit boost on Aug. 1.

Under the new deal, the raise has been pushed back a year and the benefit increase kicks in Jan. 1. The contract has been extended through July 31, 2011.

Deal allows the Met some cost relief on the production side while avoiding any diminishment of pay for union members.

The union, which in 2007 called a Broadway strike that shut down the majority of Main Stem productions for more than two weeks, voted 2 to 1 in favor of the contract modification.

Ojai 2009: The Kids Are All Right

This year's genre-busting choice, eighth blackbird [sic] – continues to provide a kind of built-in guarantee of self-renewal, from season to season.

The Chicago-based blackbirds, all born in the 1970s, represent the ascendant generation of postclassical music, and their programming reflected it. By bringing in a couple dozen of their friends – composers and musicians whose work shares little beyond an age demographic and a willingness to transcend genre boundaries – the four-day festival felt like a true 21st century American postclassical music party.

Ojai 2009: The Kids Are All Right
By Brett Campbell
MusicalAmerica.com
June 22, 2009

OJAI, Calif. – For 63 years, the Ojai Music Festival has been a West Coast beacon of new music. Its system of changing music directors – Stravinsky one year, Copland another, Boulez, Adams and, this year's genre-busting choice, eighth blackbird [sic] – continues to provide a kind of built-in guarantee of self-renewal, from season to season.

The Chicago-based blackbirds, all born in the 1970s, represent the ascendant generation of postclassical music, and their programming reflected it. By bringing in a couple dozen of their friends – composers and musicians whose work shares little beyond an age demographic and a willingness to transcend genre boundaries – the four-day festival felt like a true 21st century American postclassical music party.

Relentless pursuit of the new brings risk; some of the repertoire worked, some did not. Without exception, the most satisfying pieces originated from previous generations. In a nod to the al fresco setting, 8 bb (pianist Lisa Kaplan, violinist/violist Matt Albert, cellist Nicholas Photinos, clarinetist Michael J. Maccaferri, flutist Tim Munro, percussionist Matthew Duvall)opened the event on June 11 with gorgeously atmospheric music by John Luther Adams, born 1953 ("Dark Waves"), George Crumb, born 1929 ("Music for a Summer Evening") and the late Toru Takemitsu, born 1930 ("Rain Tree"), all of which blended beautifully with the Libbey Bowl's resident crickets, tree frogs and assorted creatures of the night.

Charles Ives's Piano Sonata No. 1 and J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations (the festival's annual token golden oldie) provided Saturday morning's repertoire, with Jeremy Denk managing to rescue both works from frequent interpretive weightiness. In his able hands, Ives's seemingly abrupt transitions from nostalgia into ferocity followed an emotional rather than narrative logic. And his emphasis on the Goldbergs' jaunty dance rhythms offered a lively antidote to the too solemn, often soporific interpretations that may stem from the questionable story of the Goldbergs-as-sedative.

Choreographer Mark DeChiazza revitalized Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire" in an intriguing new staging, performed Saturday night by eighth blackbird, soprano Lucy Shelton and dancer Elyssa Dole, successfully returning the prickly speech-song cycle to its expressionist musical theater roots. And Sunday morning brought a taut, rapturous rendition of Steve Reich's 1976 classic, "Music for 18 Musicians."

Pop/postclassical band Tin Hat's appropriately crepuscular music set the stage for the festival's big event: the world premiere of "Slide," by California born, Princeton based composer- performer Steve Mackey and the amazing librettist/tenor/actor Rinde Eckert. Co-commissioned by the festival, the work tells the story – in Eckert's characteristically allegorical fashion – of a psychologist named Renard, sung/spoken by Eckert, whose charismatic stage presence and conceptual creativity have produced some of contemporary music's finest combinations of music and theater. Still wounded by a fiancée who left him on their wedding day, Renard reminisces about an experiment in which he humiliated his subjects and now longs for the pianist in his chamber music ensemble, which may or may not really exist.

The staging uses minimal props– a lamp to suggest a living room, a woodblock as a cell phone, a cardboard box of files. Blurry, evocative images are projected on screens: a dog running, trees, a woman's indistinct face. Mackey was the occasional narrator, accompanying his lines with guitar noodling. His music, brilliantly played by the blackbird, mostly comprises short, jabbing phrases that underscore Eckert/Renard's description of the experiment in his clear, strong tenor that sometimes swoops into falsetto range. The electric guitar felt better integrated into the whole than some previous Mackey works for guitar and orchestral instruments. At one point, Mackey kicked into sludgy power chords, with Duvall pounding away, rock-drummer style.

The blackbirds moved around the stage often, each getting a moment downstage, sometimes interacting with Eckert, and each once donning a scarf and shades to participate in a one-sided phone conversation. Dressed in nondescript blazer, khakis and tie, Eckert's lonely character signaled breakdown by twisting into a spasmodic dance.

Still, such artificial injections never jolted this 11-song multimedia event to life. Nothing really happens, and we're given little reason to care about Renard either as character or archetype; he's just a passive, forlorn observer recounting action and back-story and never participating in real time. And despite some potent music, lovely shadowy imagery and Eckert's typically riveting physical performance style, his story never quite leaves his own retelling of it and finds its way to the audience. "Slide" feels like a work in progress.

The premiere of Chicago composer David M. Gordon's abrasive four-movement "Quasi Sinfonia" revealed considerable ingenuity and varied influences (including Javanese and other Asian music), but ultimately simply ground on and on with the grace of a leaf blower setting off a car alarm.

A late night bonus concert by the distaff German recorder quartet QNG was the surprise hit of the festival. In one piece by Paul Moravec (probably the most familiar name among the half dozen composers – all still living – on their program), the virtuosas deployed 20 instruments, some of them taller than the women playing them.

Sunday's closing concert was a showcase for a wide variety of performer friends, musical styles, composers and instruments. While virtuosity occasionally trumped musical quality, the five-hour, two-intermission marathon offered a generous slice of contemporary American postclassical music. Highlights included Shelton and Denk performing Stravinsky songs; John Cage's pioneering 1941 percussion party, "Third Construction"; a clutch of David Rakowski's always charming etudes (including "Schnozzage," which prescribed a substantial part for pianist Amy Briggs's nose); a chirpy piece titled "Breathtaking" by QNG, which elicited responses from the local avians; Kihlstedt's bracing performance of Lisa Bielawa's "Kafka" Songs; and Trimpin's offstage instruments –tubes, cymbals and even Dutch wooden clogs hanging from the trees – being trigged by onstage percussionists. After Mackey's progressive rock-style electric guitar solo, "Heavy Light," I felt like I should hold up a cigarette lighter, rock-concert style.

The pulsating rhythms of Reich's 2008 Pulitzer winner "Double Sextet" and Stephen Hartke's colorful "Meanwhile" featured 8bb at its best, with tunes ricocheting among the players and into the audience.

For the closing "Worker's Union," Dutch composer Louis Andriessen's pummeling piece of 1975 dark minimalism, the six blackbirds were gradually joined by the other musicians onstage, eventually numbering 30, including Tom Morris, Ojai's genial artistic director whose extensive connections and deep commitment to new music have served to broaden and deepen this festival over time. The sheer accumulated power of all these musicians, and the metaphorical aptness of so many different kinds of players joining forces, mirroring the festival's embracing vibe, made it an appropriate ending to an event that reminds us every year how invigorating new music can be in the right setting. For all its ups and downs, Ojai 09 showed us that the future of American postclassical music looks brighter than ever.

Copyright © 2009, Musical America

Celebrating Manny Ax

Today WFMT celebrates the 60th birthday of Emanuel Ax by broadcasting his music throughout the day. See below for a few videos (and links to videos) of this extraordinary pianist in action with some of his friends and collaborators.

The party continues Thursday 6/11 from roughly 3-4:30p CT when Manny calls in from New York to share some of his favorite recordings and talk with George Preston. You can listen at 98.7WFMT in Chicago and www.wfmt.com from anywhere there's Internet.


Yo-Yo Ma & Emanuel Ax discuss their warm and eduring musical partnership:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMDU28eZVKE


Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax perform the 2nd movement of Beethoven's Cello Sonata Op 5 No 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46m-lTmnRuw


Emanuel Ax plays Chopin's Waltz Op 34 No 2 :




Leif Ove Andsnes & Emanuel Ax + James Levine & Evgeny Kissin perform Smetana's Sonata in One Movement for 2 pianos and 8 hands in E minor. This piano extravaganza took place at the Verbier Festival in the Swiss Alps.



What are YOUR favorite Manny Ax moments?

Enjoy,
Louise

Happy Birthday, Studs

Last week I met Jack Lane, a fabulous photographer, who kindly shared this wonderful photograph he took of Studs Terkel enjoying a martini at Riccardo's.

Happy 97th birthday, Studs......... we miss you.

Louise

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PETE SEEGER

Pete Seeger's 90th birthday is on May 3rd.

Pete Seeger helped introduce America to its own musical heritage, devoting his life to using the power of sing as a force for social change. Standing strong for deeply-held beliefs, Seeger went from the top of the pop charts to the top of the blacklist and was banned from American commercial television for more than 17 years. This determined singer songwriter made his voice heard and encouraged the people of the world to sing out along with him. He wrote this song, "Quite Early Morning" in 1969 and sang it just a few years ago for the PBS documentary series AMERICAN MASTERS for the episode, Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. AMERICAN MASTERS is produced for PBS by Thirteen/WNET New York.



Pete Seeger narrates Alan Lomax's 1947 documentary on the evolution and appreciation of American folk music, To Hear Your Banjo Sing. This video includes cameo appearances by Woody Guthrie and Brownie McGhee, and others.



And then there's "Turn Turn Turn" as performed by Judy Collins on Pete Seeger's 1960's TV show, "Rainbow Quest...."



Among my proudest moments at WFMT was the time I talked to Pete Seeger about his old friend, Studs Terkel, on the occasion of Studs' 95th birthday in 2007. Here's what Pete had to say about how they first met.



Also from the "My Favorite Things" department, here is an excerpt from a 1955 Studs Terkel Program in which Pete played selections from his then-new album, The Goofing Off Suite. The yodeling at the end may be the happiest sound I know.



Enjoy,
Louise

It's Shakespeare's birthday and everybody's getting into the act.

Earlier this week, Mayor Richard M. Daley announced that April 23, Shakespeare's 445th Birthday, will be Talk Like Shakespeare Day, an occasion for Chicagoans to bring the spoken words of Shakespeare into their daily lives. "On his 445th birthday, Shakespeare still speaks to the people of Chicago through timeless words and works," said Mayor Daley in his formal city proclamation." On April 23, I encourage citizens to celebrate Shakespeare by vocal acclamation, through his words."

Chicago Shakespeare Theater will mark the occasion as well. "We're asking our artists and audiences to find a moment to bring Shakespeare into their daily discourse-even if it's just asking a coworker to pass 'yonder stapler,'" said Artistic Director Barbara Gaines. "This is someone who literally, single-handedly, introduced at least 2,000 words to the English language that we still use today. We wish him a very happy birthday."

Some of those 2,000 words include some pretty colorful bluster and insults, as documented in great and random detail on this website, no doubt operated by someone with a surplus of time on their hands. For those of you looking for more of a Do-It-Yourself experience, leave it to the folks at MIT to have a Shakespeare Insult Kit.

There seem to be countless renditions of the Bard's creative output out there. Here are just a few examples, from the mirthful and merry to the sublime.

Enjoy,
Louise

The Beatles present a version of "Pyramus and Thisbe" from A Midsummer Night's Dream on this 1964 British television program.



Here's "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from the 2001 Broadway revival of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate.



Sesame Street: Soliloquy On B by Patrick Stewart



Judi Dench is the sleep-walking Lady Macbeth in the 1979 TV version of the Trevor Nunn production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Denyse Alexander is the Gentlewoman and John Woodnutt is the Doctor.



And here Lady Macbeth is portrayed by Shirley Verrett in this scene from Act 4 of Verdi's opera. This is from the Claudio Abbado and Giorgio Strehler la Scala production from the 1975/76 season.



Dance partners Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn portray Romeo and Juliet to Prokofiev's classic score in this 1965 Royal Opera House presentation.

Steve Reich Wins 2009 Pulitzer Prize for "Double Sextet," a work commissioned by eighth blackbird

Steve Reich's Double Sextet -- commissioned by eighth blackbird and given its first performances by the group last season -- has won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music. This is the second time an eighth blackbird commission has been nominated (Stephen Hartke's Meanwhile received a nod last year).

Scored for two identical sextets each comprising flute, clarinet, violin, cello, vibraphone, and piano, Double Sextet can either be played by six musicians against a recording of themselves, or by an ensemble of twelve. For both the world premiere, on March 26, 2008 at the University of Richmond, Virginia, and the New York premiere, at Carnegie's Zankel Hall on April 17, 2008, eighth blackbird performed simultaneously live and pre-recorded; a few months later, the Grammy-winning group collaborated with six students from the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble to perform the work completely live at New York's downtown new music venue The Kitchen. The Chicago premiere took place in May 2008 when eighth blackbird performed the Double Sextet at the Harris Theater.

~~~ The following comes from newmusicbox.com, the web Magazine from the American Music Center. The photo of Steve Reich was taken by Jeffrey Herman. ~~~

Steve Reich has been awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music for Double Sextet. The award, for distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the previous calendar year, comes with a $10,000 cash prize.

"It was a completely unexpected surprise," exclaimed Reich. "I think Double Sextet is definitely one of my best pieces and I'm glad the Pulitzer committee felt the same way."

Double Sextet, published by Hendon Music/Boosey & Hawkes (BMI), was commissioned by eighth blackbird which premiered it on March 26, 2008 at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. The 22-minute work, completed in October 2007, is scored alternately for 6-piece ensemble ("Pierrot plus percussion": flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion) and pre-recorded tape or 12-piece ensemble. The Pulitzer citation describes the piece as "a major work that displays an ability to channel an initial burst of energy into a large-scale musical event, built with masterful control and consistently intriguing to the ear." Click here to see and hear eighth blackbird's first rehearsal of Double Sextet and here to see and hear excerpts from their recent record sessions of the work.



Also nominated as finalists for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music were: Seven Etudes for Solo Piano, by Don Byron (nottuskegeelike music/BMI), premiered on March 15, 2008 at Hallwall's Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, NY, which the jury has characterized as "a deft set of studies that display rhythmic inventiveness and irresistible energy, charm and wit"; and Brion, by Harold Meltzer (Urban Scrawl Music Company/ASCAP), premiered on April 23, 2008 at Merkin Hall, New York City, a sonic portrait of a cemetery in northern Italy which the jury described as "painted with the touch of a watercolorist and marked by an episodic structure and vivid playfulness that offer a graceful, sensual and contemplative experience."

The jury consisted of: John Schaefer, host, Soundcheck, WNYC Radio, New York, NY (chair); Dwight Andrews, composer and associate professor, music theory and jazz studies, Emory University; Justin Davidson, music critic, New York Magazine; Anthony Davis, composer, University of California-San Diego; and David Lang, composer and co-founder, Bang on a Can, New York, NY.

--FJO

Enjoy,

Louise

Billy Collins

Our blogging ode to Poetry Month continues with this entry dedicated to two-time U.S. Poet Laureate, Billy Collins

Here he is introducing and then reciting Litany.

Litany

You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine...
- Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

(Included in Billy Collins' book, Nine Horses.)

And here he narrates Forgetfulness to extraordinary animation by Julian Grey of Headgear.

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

(Included in Billy Collins' book, Sailing Around the Room: New and Selected Poems)

Enjoy,

Louise

Bryn Terfel's performance saved thanks to the man with the right sized pants!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Article and photograph from:
Telegraph.co.uk
April 11, 2009
Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5140272/Bryn-Terfels-night-at-the-opera-with-no-trousers.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was less a case of the wrong trousers and more a case of none at all for Bryn Terfel, the world-renowned opera singer, at a recent concert.



Before leaving his hotel to perform on a warm day in the South Korean capital of Seoul, the Welsh bass-baritone opted to wear a pair of shorts.

But, his mind no doubt on the performance ahead, he unfortunately forgot to pack his trousers.

Arriving at the venue with only minutes before he was due on stage there was no time to return to the hotel, and Terfel was left with the prospect of singing in his shorts.

However, fortune smiled on the singer. When he appealed for help one good-natured Korean opera lover agreed to the odd request of equipping 6ft 4 ins Terfel with an alternative pair.

Speaking to Shân Cothi, a soprano and presenter on the Welsh language television channel S4C, Terfel explained: "One can be a bit forgetful on the day of a concert ? and I forgot my trousers at the hotel.

"But what could I do? Tell the audience 'I'm sorry, but I have to wear my shorts'?" he recalled.

However, he said by a stroke of luck he managed to find someone with almost exactly the same build.

"There was one person there who happened to be the same height and size as me. And if there was ever a pair of trousers that fits like a glove ? that's the one."

Terfel handed back the trousers at the end of the concert, at which nobody noticed anything was awry, and went back to his hotel in his shorts.

The 43-year-old would have been relieved that his trouser donor enabled him to avoid the embarrassment of going on stage half-dressed, or having to postpone or cancel the concert.

In September 2007 he faced severe criticism for deciding to withdraw from performing as Wotan in Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House.

He pulled out after just one day of rehearsals because his youngest son had a broken finger, leading some to question his professionalism.

A professional opera singer for most of his adult life, Terfel was initially regarded as something of a Mozart specialist before branching out into heavier roles, particularly Wagner.

He made his operatic debut as Guglielmo in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and in the title role of the composer's The Marriage of Figaro, at the Welsh National Opera in 1990.

Just two years later the singer made his Covent Garden debut as Masetto in Don Giovanni.

He was named Male Artist of the Year in 2004 at the Classical Brit Awards and won a Grammy in 2007 for Best Classical Crossover Album.

Terfel has increasingly performed abroad but his busy work schedule has often been at odds with his desire for a quiet home life.

He lives with his wife Lesley and their three sons in a village near Caernarvon in North Wales.

Thoughts from Abroad

I am back from my vacation of last week which happily included a few days in London. The Tate Modern had a wonderful exhibition of the groundbreaking work of Russian Constructivists, Alexander Rodchenko and Lyubov Popova. The Lyttelton at the National Theater is currently presenting The Pitmen Painters which tells the tale of a group of Ashington miners who, in 1934, hired a professor to teach an art appreciation evening class and ended up becoming painters themselves.

Signs of Spring were everywhere as the entire city was in bloom, and a long walk through Hyde Park yielded this cell phone photo of a dogwood tree in full glory. With Poerty Month continuing throughout the month of April, Robert Browning's poem comes to mind.



Home Thoughts from Abroad
Robert Browning (1812?89)

I
OH, to be in England now that April's there
And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England?now!

II
And after April, when Mary follows
And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops?at the bent spray?s edge?
That's the wise thrush: he sings each song twice over
Lest you should think he never could re-capture
The first fine careless rapture!
And, though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!


Enjoy,
Louise

Thanks, Lois!

The live broadcast from the Lyric Opera on March 14th marked the end of a long and glorious era for WFMT. When the curtain came down at the end of the double bill of Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana" and Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci," it also brought to a close one of the extraordinary careers at WFMT. It was Lois Baum's last stand as a behind the scenes producer, editor, historian, and magician.

Station founder Rita Jacobs hired Lois in 1964. Since that time there's no telling how many shows she's worked on. During the intermission of that last opera broadcast, program hosts Norman Pellegrini and Lisa Flynn spoke with their friend and colleague about her time at WFMT, some of her memories, and above all, to say "thank you" for her years of excellent service. Their conversation was personal, interesting, and very moving. Have a listen...

Norm and Lisa in conversation with Lois

I add my thanks to the chorus.

Louise Frank

Happy 100th Birthday Nelson Algren

Today is the 100th birthday of author Nelson Algren and so I dedicate this entry to him.

Born in Detroit on March 28, 1909, he moved to Chicago at the age of three when his father, a Swedish convert to Judaism, and his mother, an American Jew, moved the family to a working-class, immigrant neighborhood on the South Side. For a while they lived at 7139 S. South Park Avenue. Then when he was eight they took up residence in an apartment at 4834 N. Troy Street in the Albany Park neighborhood, not far from the auto shop on Kedzie Avenue where his father worked as a mechanic. Until his death in 1981 Algren lived at 1958 W. Evergreen Street. The seamy underbelly of tough life on the urban streets pulsed through almost everything he wrote.

The building on Troy is still there and since it's not too far from where I live I did a drive-by the other evening in homage to this writer who so beautifully recorded the dark side of the city he knew and loved so well.

Studs Terkel loved the man and his work so well that he created a radio play based on Algren's writings. If I've managed to post it correctly, here is a small sample of that program, along with some images of the author and some of his work which I pilfered with gratitude from the internet.

It isn't hard to love a town for its greater and its lesser towers, its pleasant parks or its flashing ballet. Or for its broad and bending boulevards, where the continuous headlights follow, one dark driver after the next, one swift car after another, all night, all night and all night. But you never truly love it till you can love its alleys too. Where the bright and morning faces of old familiar friends now wear the anxious midnight eyes of strangers a long way from home.

--From Nelson Algren's "Chicago: City on the Make"

Happy birthday, Nelson Algren.....

Louise Frank

Music for Spring?

Our question of the week has been "What music best accompanies this time of year?" Many of our listeners have shared their inspirations on our web site.

Leona suggested Leonard Bernstein's "Make Our Garden Grow" from Candide, and that inspired me. Here's June Anderson and Jerry Hadley in the finale to Candide, conducted by the composer himself, in London, December 13, 1989.



Of course there's Fado singer Mariza and her interpretation of "Primavera."




And for sheer unbridled joy nothing beats Jacques Brel's "Au Printemps."



Now if those tulips would just finish coming out of the ground we'll really know it's Spring.

Enjoy,

Louise

DanceWorks Chicago

The other evening Lisa Flynn and I headed over to the Ruth Page Dance Center at Dearborn and Oak to watch two performances called Dance Flights by a relatively new company, DanceWorks Chicago.

The first set included Dance Sport, a whimsical piece created by choreographer Harrison McEldowney for the company in 2008. Irreverent and joyful in the way Peter Schickele once offered color commentary on Beethoven's 5th Symphony, Dance Sport has the dancers dressed in basketball uniforms, dancing to a variety of musical selections and a steady steam of Olympics-style commentary from two announcers. Even the umpire gets involved. You can see a clip of Dance Sport and other DanceWorks Chicago creations on their web site.

The highlight of the evening was a new work called My Witness with choreography by Gina Patterson and live music by the incomparable Chicago folk trio, Sons of the Never Wrong. The work was dedicated to DanceWorks Chicago co-founder, Pam Crutchfield.

It's not an easy time to be a young arts company but these folks seem to be starting off on the right foot.