Archives for November 2010

I’ve received several YouTube links from friends in recent weeks with footage of various “flash mob” performance happenings around the world, from outbreaks of Italian opera by fruit and vegetable vendors in Spanish markets to teenagers performing hip-hop dance routines in Australian train stations.

Seems like flash mobs are all the rage these days. They’re a wonderful idea because they create a sense of immediacy, bring art to a wide audience and help to blow the dust of artistic genres that many people tend to associate with musty theatres and high ticket prices.

On the flip side, flash mobs tend to trivialize art and it’s very often the case that the surprise/spectacle element far outdoes the artistic quality of the work on display.

On balance though, I’m all for these colorful interventions into everyday life. If nothing else, they serve as a reminder that there is creativity and a sense of humor in every corner.

If an artistic event has been and gone, is it still worth writing about?

Timeliness is of course next to godliness when it comes to arts journalism. But sometimes I think that the media places too much of an emphasis on coverage as a means of driving audiences to experience a particular artistic event. Sure, it makes sense both from the producing organization’s perspective and media organization’s perspective to publish content that can drive sales. Yet there should be more to arts journalism than touting a current arts event.

I bring this up because I planned to write about the San Francisco Opera‘s production of Janacek’s little-performed The Makropoulos Case today. But I just realized that the final performance happened yesterday. So, is there any real point in saying what I think of the production if no one can see it?

ArtsJournal, I notice, tends in general to stay away from giving prominence on its homepage to blog entries that offer commentary about individual arts events, probably because the editor figures that 99% of the global readership won’t be able to experience the event under discussion.

I still think there’s a place for commentary after the fact though, and it’s great at least that the “gate-keeper-less” blogging format allows for such entries, even if they don’t claim as high a status as entries that deal with more topical / trend-based themes might. For one thing, commentary on any work of art composed even years after the event is over, is one way of capturing its essence and fixing it in people’s memories. For another, it helps to build a useful and often fascinating record of a body of work.

On the other hand, I don’t think I’ll write a full-on review of The Makropoulos Case this time, even though I loved it and wish the run could have been longer so I could see the production again and encourage others to get to it. I guess the main reason for this reluctance is simply that so much has been said about the opera in recent weeks. On this occasion I don’t think I have much new to add to the mix. Hence the rather “meta” nature of this blog post.

Oh well. Having started out by saying that there is a case for writing a response to a work very late, I’ve now gone and demonstrated a set of circumstances in which doing so shall remain an aspiration.

A few days ago I exchanged email with a friend who works in the arts media landscape. I asked him how he was doing. “Can’t complain. My life is a process of creative problem-solving,” he responded.

I realized that what he said pretty much describes my life. (Then again, when it comes down to it, the sentiment could be applied to just about anyone in any field trying to make his or her way in the world.)

It’s been a couple of days of intense creative problem solving for me, anyway. It all began on Monday afternoon, when I heard from the guest who was supposed to come into the radio station with me this week to record a VoiceBox episode about hula chanting: He had come down with the flu and wouldn’t be able to do the show the following day as planned. Within the space of 24 hours, I’d managed to organize, write, produce and host an entirely new program.

And the creative problem-solving didn’t stop there. Because the newly-dreamed-up VoiceBox theme — about an obscure a cappella choral mass by Milton Babbitt — required input from two in-studio guests and a third calling into the radio station on the phone (something I’d never attempted before), the studio engineer at KALW (whom I’d never collaborated before) worked miracles on the spot to make it all happen.

Looking back at the last 40 hours or so, I’m amazed that it all came together.

Thank goodness there’s a public holiday coming up tomorrow. It’s much needed. Which brings me to my extended absence greeting: I’ll be back on the blogosphere on Monday. The most creative problem-solving I plan to between now and then is figuring out how to make fake cream cheese frosting for my homemade carrot cake given that the people I will be celebrating with are hemp-chewing vegans. Happy holidays.

Exhibitions based on handicrafts have been making a big comeback in the Bay Area in recent years, what with the city’s two museums dedicated to crafts helping to spotlight artists who work in handicraft media and organizations like YBCA also doing their part to put on exhibitions focusing on crafts.

The visual art show of works by the fiber/DIMENSIONS artists’ collective currently going on at The Presidio Officers’ Club Exhibition Hall through December 19 — intersections 5 — furthers the campaign to divest basket-weaving, knitting, crochet, applique and other time-honored techniques from the musty clutches of the village hall blue rinse brigade.

The diverse exhibition curated by Richard Elliott includes everything from kimonos made of stained coffee filters (a fascinating combination of Eastern and Western cultural traditions) by Lucia Matzger (pictured), to delicate lace forms by Jeanette Carr. The variety and color on display as well as the ways in which the artists nudge us into thinking about the materials and unusual structures they take makes us the world of things in a new way.

Chanticleer‘s attempt to reach broader audiences through online music downloads and adventurous forays into new repertoire are laudable.

But the release of its first ever music video, featuring the group singing Vincent Peterson’s arrangement of indie-pop composer Erika Lloyd’s “Cells Planets” is the first time that I have seen Chanticleer, a group which epitomizes choral professionalism, put out anything amateurish.

There’s nothing wrong with the music per se. Soprano Casey Breves does an angelic job on the song’s spiraling, heartfelt solo line. And the rest of the ensemble backs him up with understated warmth.

The trouble is that the filming looks thrown together in the mould of an iTunes video. I know this was a deliberate move on the ensemble’s part. Perhaps they think this makes them seem more approachable. But it’s not cute. It just makes the singers look bad.

Plus the concept — which involves Chanticleer members traveling around the country while trying to stay in touch with loved ones back home — is pretty trite and unimaginative.

Come on, boys. Apply the same level of perfection you bring to singing to everything you do. Go ahead and hire a real movie director next time you want to make a film. It’ll be worth it, I assure you.

Shattered but happy after pulling off first ever full-scale fundraising event for VoiceBox, my weekly public radio project on KALW 91.7 FM all about singing, last night. Leah Garchik, the fabulous San Francisco Chronicle columnist who co-hosted the soiree with me, touched me deeply by penning some sweet and funny verses for the occasion. Leah read out her poem infront of the assembled crowd at Salle Pianos in Hayes Valley, San Francisco. It went like this:

What new on the Rialto
Inquires the nosy contralto
The venue is local
For melodies vocal
For tenor or even an alto

A trill or a glide or a croon
There’s never a way you can ruin
A ditty or chant
Or even a rant
As long as it’s set to a tune

So if you’re gay or a breeder
The songs will say it in meter
The angriest cur
Is likely to purr
In yodels or even in lieder

The process can seem quite remote
But experts are swift to take note
The connoisseur’s pleasure
Finds something to treasure
When music comes out of the throat

In elevators, even in showers
Alone your ability towers
The phrases come pouring
Crescendoes are soaring
My God, you have wonderful powers

But aiming the soul to unfetter
In chorus, it’s even much better
And just like the birds
With tweets or with words
Each song-mate’s a tuneful abettor

It’s true that in music and life

When pitching-in chances are rife
The lesson is oft
A solo is soft
But harmony overcomes strife

Each broadcast deserves an ovation
And happy support from the station
But even while eager
Resources are meager
So thanks for your every donation

Because she is nuts about singing
This gathering Chloe is flinging
VoiceBox deserves praise
And bucks she can raise
The registers should be ka-chinging.

Thank you Leah! And thanks to everyone who came out and supported last night’s event.

When ArtsJournal publishes memorial pieces or formal obituaries, they’re usually of household names or at least leading figures in the world of the arts. This morning, however, I’d like to pay homage to an amazing choreographer, beautiful dancer, deep thinker and dear friend, Niki Pollard, who passed away on Monday following a nearly five-year battle against cancer. She was 37 years old.

Niki and I attended university together in the mid-1990s in England. We both read English literature and bonded over dance. Following graduation, I spent much of my early 20s rampaging around London with Niki. It was Niki who took me to see a lot of the great UK dance companies for the first time such as the London Contemporary Dance Theatre and Ballet Rambert. I also enjoyed doing contact improvisation classes with Niki in the west end and being a body whenever her choreographic inspiration took hold — she enjoyed making up dance sequences on the living room carpets of friends’ homes around town.

Inn addition to being deeply connected to her body and soul, Niki also had a mind to be reckoned with: She earned a double first class degree in English literature from Corpus Christi College Cambridge and went on to win an extremely competitive humanities board grant to undertake and earn Masters and PhD degrees in dance. Niki did her masters at the Laban School and her doctorate at Middlesex Uni. She finished her PhD, raised two lovely children — Amy and Robin — and lived in the west country with her kids and husband Chris.

Chris sent through an email with news of her passing. The sad message arrived in my inbox an hour ago. Despite my numb feelings, his words in part made me smile. “Happily, Niki was doing the things she loved most, right to the end,” he wrote. “Even dancing on the moor with dance friends from Coventry last Thursday.”

I will always think of Niki dancing.

The festive season is fast approaching and once again the Bay Area is abundant with opportunities for listening to and singing along with The Messiah. Here is a shortlist of some of the regional outings of Handel’s holiday favorite in the coming weeks:

There seem to be two schools of thought on the question of whether performers who are sick should attend rehearsals or stay away.

One school says: “Keep the hell away from the rehearsal room. You’ll only make yourself feel worse and possibly infect everyone else around you!”

The other school says: “Come and sit away from everyone else. Even if you can’t actively participate all of the time, at least you won’t fall behind with the rehearsal process. And as long as you’re not at death’s door, you might even feel better for getting out and about a bit.”

Depending on the extent of a performer’s ill-health, the first option makes the most sense to me. Though there is a case to be made for the latter.

I’ve been down with sinusitis all week, which is why I’m thinking about this. Yesterday evening, after a weekend of lying in bed, I decided to attend a chorus rehearsal despite not feeling my best. My rationale: 1) I was over the worst of it; and 2) We have two concerts coming up this week, so missing this crucial final rehearsal would not have been ideal.

As it happened, half of the alto section of the International Orange Chorale was sitting to one side of the room at last night’s rehearsal with one kind of health issue or another: There was me with my sinusitis, Alana nursing a bad cold, and Lea coping with the stomach flu. We made quite a picture, the three of us, shivering in our coats, scarves and hats, with rolls of toilet paper and bottles of water spread out on a table before us. “How’s it going in the infirmary?” the music director asked us during the break, as the three of us sat there looking like we’d walked off the set of Les Miz.

As bad as I felt last night, I was glad I attended the rehearsal. It got me out of bed. It felt good to be around people, even though I was “in quarantine,” sitting away from everyone but my fellow invalids to the side of the room. And best of all, it gave me license to be still for a while and just listen to the ensemble, rather than sing non-stop. I’d never done this before. It was a lovely experience. For the first time, I could hear the jagged edges that need to be fixed before our concerts, and the gorgeous sound that the choir makes. It made me feel proud to be part of this group.

The American rocker Rufus Wainwright stepped out before an expectant audience at Davies Symphony Hall for the world premiere of his new song cycle based on five sonnets by William Shakespeare dressed in a puffy, white Renaissance shirt embellished with what looked like a piece of squashed Victoria sponge cake, lilac taffeta trousers and patent black clogs. A silver chain-link necklace glistened between the dark hairs on his pale chest.

Fortunately, Wainwright composes better than he dresses.

Five Shakespeare Sonnets includes a part for solo tenor voice featuring jagged atonal hops, swooping highs and lows and emotional melodic lines. The orchestration has some beautiful colors in it. A grave viola solo and sparkling glockenspiel scales are just two of the details I picked out of the texture. And the San Francisco Symphony does a wonderful job of balancing turbulence and stillness.

The only other thing, besides the soloist’s getup, which bothered me about last night’s performance, was Wainwright’s voice. Wainwright’s nasal twang always has a hint of desperation about it. At Davies Symphony Hall, it sounded overbearing and whiney amplified as it was with the swirling orchestra behind it.

As I listened, I couldn’t help but imagine how amazing the piece would sound sung by a classically-trained or jazz singer. I hope the work gets future airings with different kinds of voices. On its maiden voyage, I don’t think the the composer does justice to his own composition by singing it himself.

On a related note, it’s curious to me that the San Francisco Symphony would go to the trouble of commissioning such a famous artist to create a new work and then fail to engage the organization’s main figurehead, Michael Tilson Thomas, to lead the world premiere. Concertmaster, Alexander Barantschik was also missing. Last night, a young Englishman, Michael Francis, made his San Francisco Symphony debut on the podium and associate concertmaster Nadya Tichman sat in the first chair. The absence of the two uppermost artistic personnel of the organization suggests a lack of interest or faith in its commissioning strategy and process.

Soprano Measha Brueggergosman performed her recital debut in San Francisco last night under the auspices of San Francisco Performances at the Herbst Theatre.

The audience was on the small side: Though the singer is a big name in her native Canada, she’s not so well known in the Bay Area right now. But I suspect that every person who heard her last night went home clamoring to hear her lustrous voice again.

Brueggergosman’s voice takes a little adjusting to. It doesn’t have a uniform, bell-like quality. It has many many colors, from voluptuous, velvety tones to glittering, on-the-edge-of-breathy edges. She’s also a performer who sings with her entire body. She bends her legs, moves her trunk and emotes with every ounce of her being.

There was something about the quality of last night’s recital with pianist Justus Zeyen, which featured songs by Mozart, Schubert, Duparc, Turina, Chopin, Strauss and Berg, that had the air of a jazz rather than a classical performance. It’s partly to do with the way that Brueggergosman sings — that breathy edge to her voice is very jazz — and partly to do with the way she stands (very close to the piano, with her hand resting on it) and sways. This gave the classical works she performed a slightly different tint which made us listen in a new way.