WMV Music Web Log

A G4, woohoo! I'm busy trying to get myself a cheap used Mac so I can expand my horizons after 15 years of PC use.

If I had known in my 20s that I wouldn't reach my big dreams until my 50s, then I would alternate one day being relaxed and living in the present, and the next day I would be frustrated and trying hard to make the future get here sooner, and so it would all probably take the same amount of time anyway ...

iPod rules! Although the iTrip FM transmitter doodad really drains the battery fast. I'm going to starting buying CDs again (used or clearance) after several years of buying hardly any, now that I have a convenient way to listen to them.

What to do when things are going really really well? Maybe ask yourself what your big dreams are - maybe now is the time to see them take more defined form. I finally ordered the G4 I need for my music software - Sibelius, Photoscore, Protools, etc. For many years I promised myself I would compose music when I retire, but now I feel that I just can't wait that long; so at least I'll have the tools to do it, even if just to do some arranging and adapting - that in itself will be terribly exciting. And composers can email me their scores, along with updates and corrections and computer realizations. I have had the very good fortune to see many of my big dreams come true, having made it to my mid-50's. I wonder what it would have been like to know that things would work out this well in one's 20's - would it give you relaxed confidence and resilience, or would it engender despair at how long it actually takes to get what you want? Come to think of it, there were numerous encouraging signs, among all the defeats, discouragements and humiliations. As Mick says, it's all right now....

Oh, just heard a great quote from Bela Bartok (courtesy of Betty Hauck): "Competitions are for race horses, not musicians." Amen.

John Kamman just came over with the first draft of his Chamber Jazz Sextet, practically trembling with excitement. It is scored for violin (Sally McLain), cello (Jodi Beder), guitar (John Kamman), bass (Alan Lewine), and drums (Marty Knepp); hence, "chamber jazz sextet". Much improvisation in the guitar, drums, and bass, while the strings and piano hold pretty tight counterpoint. It promises to be very cool, and to do exactly what we had in mind when we came up with the EVOLUTIONS idea. We'll ask Masa Mitsumoto to conduct, so that we can stay loose and still know where to come in. John also looked at the theremin part of Martinu's Fantaisie, and he says there is no problem. So it looks like we are a go for including it on May 8.

This program will be a more thorough mix: John and Alan will start with some improvisation, Rhonda Buckley and I will follow with Libby Larsen's "Holy Roller", and we will end the first half with Milhaud's quintet version of "La Creation du Monde." I'll start the second half with Andrew Stiller's "The Water is Wide, Daisy Bell," and follow with the Martinu Fantaisie (guitar, oboe, string quartet, and piano, with Masa conducting). The Chamber Jazz Sextet will end the concert. It's going to be a good program!

I have the distinct impression that things are heating up: musicians call with new ideas; new people want to be on the mailing list, people who were at the last concert can't stop talking about it. Now when we ask performers to participate, if they can't because of a previous commitment, they are clearly disappointed.

Right now I am practising a lot of Eric Satie, his "Sports and Diversions," from 1914-1915. This is going to be real theater - Betty Hauck will recite the texts which go with each of about 18 little musical gems; unusual, to say the least. Satie's world is a little like the inside of an early Picasso painting. This program will take place April 24 at the Kensington BannerArts studio. Better buy tickets in advance! We really do fill all 65 seats and more for these increasingly rare studio events.

Marilyn's show at the Costa Rican Embassy will still be up on April 24, so that work won't be in the studio. And her opening at the Ratner Museum is the next day, April 25, with the new "Song of Songs" series. She is getting pretty hot herself - 10 paintings have already been sold from the Embassy show! (It is open daily - see her website for details). Maybe she'll show some of the so far unframed Costa Rica work in the studio on April 24.

Gerhard Ehrenspeck writes:

The review of your recent program reminds me that I forgot to tell you that your piano accompaniment of Karyn Friedman was terrifically sensitive and supportive. I remember periodically my "ear" moved back and forth between the vocal sounds and piano sounds, keying in on the piano and marveling how what came from the piano perfectly fit the words and meanings of the songs, filling in the emotions underlying the words or connecting the thoughts and phrases, without overpowering the singing or playing a subordinate or secondary role to the words of the songs.

Also, I really enjoyed your introductions and background comments about each of the pieces and composers. I always look forward to your introductions at your performances.

Gerhard

P.S. At the organ music performance by Marie Alains I noted that she used a technique similar to yours to display her music. She had hinged cardboard backings on which were glued xeroxed reductions of the music. Sometimes the "booklets" were hinged so as to open apart horizontally across the entire music support and requiring minimal or no flipping of the hinged, backed pages.

Poet Karren Alenier has written a review of the second EVOLUTIONS concert! Here it is:

If music innovation is what you crave, call now for tickets to:

Evolutions: American Chamber Music meets Jazz
Presented by Washington Musica Viva and composer John Kamman

May 8, at 7:30 PM

St. Columba's Church
4201 Albemarle St. NW
Washington, DC

Tickets: $15 advance/$18 at the door
202-265-7297
http://www.owlsong.com/events/evolutions.htm etickets.com/

The second Evolutions: American Chamber Music Meets Jazz program took place March 20 with Carl Banner & his Musica Viva guest ensemble playing three jazz-influenced classical music compositions followed by John Kamman and Afro Jazz Explosion improvisations led by vocalists Armand Ntep and Grace Chung.

You can depend on Carl Banner, producer of Washington Musica Viva, to entertain and enlighten his audience. Start with his selection "Music for a Farce" by novelist-composer Paul Bowles; "Love After 1950," a contemporary poetry song cycle by Libby Larsen, and "La Revue de Cuisine," a Dadaist kitchen fantasy by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. It's clear Banner loves the music he chooses to play (he is the pianist) and wants his audience to understand something about each piece. In a few words, he whets the appetite and then gets to the music.

"Music for a Farce," played masterfully by Chris Royal on trumpet, Rhonda Buckley on soprano sax, Banner on piano, and Marty Knepp on percussion, is an evocative chamber ensemble in eight parts. Originally written for the troubled play Too Much Johnson by Orson Welles and John Houseman, "Farce" conjures venues like the circus, dancehall, a smoky bar, a cabaret, and a marketplace like the souks Bowles frequented in Tangier where he lived most of his life. Whimsy, ticking clocks, a screaming heroine suggest themselves in the music that runs the gamut from lyrical to jazzed to dissonant. The music gave Chris Royal the opportunity to deliver a standout performance.

Larsen's five-part song cycle included poetry by such poets as Rita Dove and Muriel Rukeyser. Song 3,"Big Sister Says, 1967" is a honky-tonk number that mezzo soprano Karen Friedman delivered with punch. "Beauty hurts" are the opening words. Under the vocal line, a Jerry Lee Lewis riff plays. It's a wild ride that Banner and Friedman delivered well. Song 5 "I Make My Magic" is described as Isadora's Dance and one assumes this is Isadora Duncan. What is fascinating about this piece is the complex musical counterpoint that includes what Carl Banner calls turbulent figuration and sunlit glissandos. Banner's performance was outstanding and one should know that he said he practiced this piece as much as he practiced the rest of the music he played.

The last entrée on the classical side, "La Revue de Cuisine," has an odd story that accompanies this ballet work. It concerns a fight between cooking pots. Musically the composition includes trumpet fanfare (another opportunity for Chris Royal to display his skills), plucked violin (good work by Hasse Borup) that resounds again a piano produced oom-pah (Carl Banner), and an ominous minor prelude that gives way to tango (enhanced by the sounds of bassoonist Ben Greanya, saxophonist Rhonda Buckley, and cellist Amy Leung). Charleston melodies weave in and out. To cap the performance as well as keep the musicians together, guest conductor Masa Mitsumoto provided his own element of dance movement.

Banner's opening remarks indicated that even in classical music there is an element of improvisation but largely what the audience heard was a well-rehearsed concert by musicians who enjoyed each other¹s contribution.

In the second half of the program, jazz composer John Kamman offered a set of improvised pieces that he collectively labeled "Five Tones." The best segments of this work included an uncharted, unrehearsed performance by vocalist Armand Ntep and guitarist John Kamman. Also noteworthy was the trance inducing music that closed the program. This work was very much like some of the Moroccan music Paul Bowles recorded for the Library of Congress. As expected with African influenced jazz, percussion (Kamman briefly on a djembe drum, Flaco Woods on Congo drums, Marty Knepp on traditional jazz drums) played a large role in the sound of "Five Tones." To this add Alan Lewine on bass and Kamman occasionally on piano. One of the problems with this kind of jazz performance is that it takes a critical amount of time for the players' energy to arise and for the connection to occur between the players. What this reviewer longed for in the second portion of the evening was a cushioned banquet with something soothing to drink and not a hard church pew.

Reviewed by Karren L. Alenier

I'm very excited about a new project: Martinu's Fantaisie. He wrote it as a kind of concerto for theremin, but since theremin players are rare (or players of its cousin, the Ondes Martinot), I'm thinking that it could be played on a variety of other electronic gizmos. I asked Rhonda Buckley to play it on electronic saxophone, but she said no. However, John Kamman thinks he can do it on electric guitar - I imagine a Jimi Hendrix type of electronic wail. It will be very cool. We'll try to get it on the May 8 program.

I'm working on the Satie "Sports et Divertissements" for April 24. It was Betty Hauck's suggestion, and she will do the accompanying narration. The piece has suprising emotional depth beneath its da-da wit. This program is building up to a real feast: Rhonda Buckley will play Mozart's great Eb Trio with Betty and me, substituting saxophone for clarinet - that will give the Mozart a new kind of sound - hey folks, Mozart can still speak to us, despite everything you hear on the radio! Betty will play Bach's D major sonata with me. We read the Bach through once when she was last in town, and it was revelatory. (I'll talk about why some other time). Betty might even bring her musical saw and play Schubert's "An die Musik"!

I am preparing two new solo works: local composer Mike Strand's "To Native Americans", and Andrew Stiller's "The Water is Wide, Daisy Bell". Artist Liz Vail (whose painting we bought last year) introduced me to her friend Mike Strand, and he sent me "To Native Americans". When I was in New Mexico some years ago I bought several cassettes of contemporary Hopi and Navajo music, secular and religious, and I have collected some folkways recordings of peyote chants and some other things from the Lakotas and Sioux. Several years ago in a used bookstore I found a collection from the early 1900's of transcriptions of native American songs by a very careful and dedicated musicologist. (Chippewa music, by Frances Densmore, and I see on Amazon.com it is now selling used for $162.50!). In the back of my mind I have been pondering whether this music can be a source for composition in some reasonable way, and so I was quite interested in what Mr. Strand has done. The musical elements, the steady drum and rattle rhythm at different speeds, the descending melodies, and the beautiful tunes all seem authentic. It is clearly an appreciative outsider's sensibility, although translation to the piano has its strange aspects. There is even a fughetto section, which is so interesting because there is almost no counterpoint in native American music. The most important thing to me about the work is the genuine feeling with which it was created.

Andrew Stiller is a composer I met in Buffalo in the music department at SUNY in 1969. Oddly enough, my parents informed me that he was the son of my pediatrician, Dr. Stiller, and came from Silver Spring. We pretty much passed like ships in the night, which was just as well perhaps, Buffalo in 1969 being what it was - although of course the good parts do re-emerge like survivors from the fog of history, like Judy Sherman. If I remember correctly, and this is a big if, 1969 being what it was etc., Andy was working on a detailed scoring of Beatles songs, on something like a symphonic conductor's score, which I thought was very cool. 35 years later I was googling something - oh yes, I was looking for an Ondes Martenot player to perform the Martinu Fantaisie! - and Andy Stiller's name came up. Apparently he has become a grand old man of electronic music. Anyway, I listened to some of his stuff, bought his CD, and came across this wonderful little piano piece. Now the real charm of this work for me is that it somehow magically brings back a feeling that I cannot easily describe, a kind of underlying, not prominent part of the experience of being young and in Buffalo in those years. I mean, we listened to rock n roll furiously, obsessively, constantly, and in the studio the music was either classical or tres avant garde. So somewhere deep under all that was some feeling attached to humble tunes from church or school or some deeper folk source which touched our hearts in a different way - kind of like a quiet substratum of the American 60's. He dishes it out pretty straight in "The Water is Wide, Daisy Bell", composed for a friend's wedding, and I cannot play it without being moved - although it is pretty funny too!

Thinking about the upcoming St. Columba's EVOLUTIONS concert with John Kamman: Suppose we were to continue on this path of combined jazz and chamber music - what is the repertoire? Of course, there's the "classic" jazz-based works: the Martinu "Revue de Cuisine" from 1926, and Milhaud's "La Creation du Monde", also written for a French ballet in the late 1920's, interestingly enough.

But then there's all kinds of really interesting contemporary works like Frank Proto's Quintet, written for a "Trout-like" ensemble, but sounding quite improvisational and club-like. (Mark Stephenson turned me on to Proto). And also, Ives' Piano Trio, one of the great works of American music, piled contrapuntally high with witty, funny, even hilarious Americana - I particularly like the organist who can't keep a beat, gets lost, adding quarter notes here and there, but always very very loud; and the dizzy, falling-down drunk version of "My Old Kentucky Home." And there's the gospel church ecstatic blues rendition of some familiar hymn. Ives and Cage are real American originals, pioneers on what we can do with music on this continent, outside the shadows of Beethoven, Sweelinck, or Rameau. But then there are a whole lot of others, generations of them, free-spirited American composers of music. Think about Harry Partch! Or Bob Dylan. Really, the project is about American music, because both jazz and whatever you want to call the written-down stuff we play - they both draw on all the American sources and make new fabric out of them.

There's also this Australian work called "Rock Sonata", I think, which I would love to get my hands on - it's either about geology or rock n roll.

Karren Alenier has written a terrific interview with Libby Larsen!
It is full of big ideas.

From the report I wrote to Betty Hauck after the Ratner concert on March 2:

"The concert on Tuesday night (the one you were supposed to play with us!) was pretty nuts. Remember, the NSO was on tour until March 1, so we had scheduled the one real rehearsal for that day (I guess they got back the night before). Well, the cellist forgot (!) about it. So this rather ambitious program (Schubert Bb, Mozart E, and Brahms B trios) got one reading in early February and a partial run through at 5:00 pm for a 7:30 concert - no real rehearsal. It was a sell-out crowd, 95 people. In the middle of the first movement of the Schubert, the power went out and the fire alarm went on. We stopped, Phil Ratner found some flashlights and silenced the alarm, and we continued with the Schubert with audience members holding flashlights. Two hook and ladders showed up to answer the fire alarm during the Scherzo. I think the power went back on just before intermission. Sheesh. (The same thing happened the time that Yehudi Wyner came down, only that time it lasted longer, and we played by candlelight). I feel a little like I'm playing in Iraq, although so far no one has gotten shot. Oh, one other detail: a woman in the audience told Marilyn that it was one of the greatest musical experiences of her life!"

Email responses to the concert:
Judy Stafford: "Well, you guys really know how to pull out all the stops. First the flashing light and whistle show, then dramatic darkness, then waiting with baited breath as the fire truck pulled up, all the time expecting to see guys marching in with hoses and hatchets. What's this? Oh, only another big night with the Banners. Ho hum. Seriously it was a wonderful evening, the music was gorgeous, and I'm sure a good time was had by all. Thank you so much."

Bill Peters: "Linda and I raved about your concert at the Ratner last night. We thought proceeding with the Schubert Trio with flashlights was truly intrepid. That trio is BIG in almost every sense. And while Mozart didn't give the cello a lot to do in his trio, but by the time you got to Brahms, David was working hard."

One audience member reported that when the power went out in the middle of the Schubert, it was like someone walking in while you were having sex.

The most remarkable response, however, was the receipt of a $1500 check the next day from the woman who said that it was one of the greatest musical experiences of her life!

I'm still recovering, but hard at work on the next EVOLUTIONS concert at St. Columba's. The postcards went out yesterday, email announcement to follow. Gloria Long says she heard us on the radio, but I know nothing about it.

I bought a 15 Gigabyte iPod this weekend and am busily converting my 200 CDs into MP3 format so I can place it all on the iPod and listen to it during my car commute. I hardly listen to my CDs at home since I never sit still and I can't listen to music unless sitting still, plus I don't have CD player in my car, and finally the playlists on classical radio are so bland and boring that it drives me crazy.

Now I can let the iPod pick at random from Bartok, Sibelius, the whole Well Tempered Clavier, Steve Reich, Ella Fitzgerald, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Tuvan "throat" singing, the Marriage of Figaro, PDQ Bach, and everything else I have. I can't wait to discover stuff I've barely listened to!

Here's a great article by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross on perceptions of "classical music" and perhaps how we can change some of them. A must read.

Tonight's concert: We may have overbooked - already about 80 tickets are sold or comped, and who knows how many will show up at the door. Mahoko Eguchi says, "of course it's popular - it's all dessert!" Well, as we keep reminding ourselves, we should have these kind of problems all the time!

Composer Mike Strand writes:

I enjoyed your February 6th blog about the role/importance of the arts in human life. For me, it was both inspiring and challenging. I, too, have a hard time saying what is important about art, beyond the obvious "I like it!" or "It inspires me!" I admit that in the past I viewed art as mainly refreshment or recreation - a diversion from the supposedly more important aspects of life. You could say, though, that recreation and refreshment can be very important (as part of the "Inner Journey"), to prepare us for life in general.

"Art saves lives": This got me thinking and wondering. Personally, I would tend to qualify this with "art can save lives", because there is evidence that art can also be used (misapplied) to incite people to mischief. I think of Wagner's music and Hitler (if the popular history is correct, this was a misuse of music, in my opinion!) and rap music with violent lyrics and some of its creators, performers, or listeners. This also brings up the issue of what is art. I believe Wagner's music is art, but I have my doubts about rap music - at least some of it.

I had never heard "art saves souls" before, attributed to Beethoven. Reading about his life, I believe it saved his, and I know I am one who is grateful and feel better about myself and other human beings when I listen to his music.

My view is that people are capable of using anything to justify or inspire any attitude or action. A particular work of art, in itself, may have great value or reflect a high level of inspiration, imagination, and skill. What others make of it, however, may have little to do with the work itself or with its creator/performer.

Perhaps what is important about music is that it represents or reflects uniquely human creative capabilities, not just human feelings or attitudes. Other creatures can sing beautifully, but do they make that stuff up themselves? On the other hand, if you take the view that a higher power inspires both humans and other creatures to "create" and perform music, then in a way it becomes even more important - as evidence of a Creator, or at least of a great Principle of Creation in our universe.

I see what I've just written and wonder: Maybe it's just better to make music, play it, and listen to it, and let it speak for itself.
I applaud your vision of putting back together things separated from roots, in order to promote healing and wholeness. I see your exploration of various types of music and what they have in common, and sharing this exploration with others, as aiding that effort.

Best wishes, and have a great March 2 concert!
Mike