Archives for December 2009

With the holiday season upon us, the performers of live theatre, circus, magic, and comedy shows are working their audience participation gambits to the max, despite the fact that most members of the public tend to shy away from being picked to help a magician out with a card trick or do a funny dance routine with a clown. But for those exhibitionists among us who quite like to get hauled up on stage every now and again, especially after having one too many yuletide eggnog cocktails, here are a few pointers to help improve your chances of earning a momentary place in the spotlight:

1. Wear flashy clothes. The performers will better be able to pick you out from the crowd.

2. If asked to show your willingness to volunteer by raising an arm, make sure you have something eye-catching protruding from the end of it, like a glittery fairy wand or light saber.

3. If the audience is collectively asked to select a volunteer based on some form of pre-screening, make sure you make yours racy or controversial, e.g. tell an anecdote that involves sex with animals. And if the voting takes place using a clap-o-meter, be sure to clap very quietly for any rivals. 

4. Turn up at the theatre with someone of the opposite sex. For some reason, heterosexual couples are often audience participation targets.

5. Bury your face in your program or do whatever you can to look like you’d just about die if you were picked on. Reluctance is often a big turn on for performers, especially those that like a challenge.

Had three classical music concert experiences this weekend, none of them “professional” in the standard sense of the word, but all of them encouraging in the sense that they demonstrate how great musicianship exists at the grassroots level in even the most adverse of financial climates. I’d like to share with you a few thoughts about each one:

1. International Orange Chorale at the Solarium Public Space, 55 Second Street, San Francisco: This San Francisco-based a cappella vocal ensemble, named after the official color of the Golden Gate Bridge, performs all its concerts for free. The singers volunteer their services (they all make a living doing other things such as working at Google) but musical standards are high. The eclectic program featured everything from madrigals by Thomas Morley and Claudio Monteverdi to works by local, contemporary composers like Robin Estrada and Joseph Gregorio. The group also performed a fiendishly difficult but mesmerizing world premiere by Shaffer McGee — “Death of a ball turret gunner.” The Solarium space is a delightful, casual place to hear choral music. It’s bright and has a bright acoustic.

2. School of the Arts (SOTA) Choral and Orchestral Concert at School of the Arts Auditorium, 555 Portola Drive, San Francisco: SOTA is in a state of financial disarray. The classrooms are run-down and the place hasn’t seen a lick of paint in decades. Nevertheless, the teachers and students soldier on. The concert they pulled off at the weekend is testimony to the creative brilliance of the SOTA community. Although the program (like many school concerts) was rather long, the various choirs and orchestras presented a diverse range of work in a polished and spirited manner. I was particularly taken with the candlelit opening processional by the Chamber Choral Ensemble which featured two spectral setting of “O Magnum Mysterium” – one an anonymously composed plainchant and the other by Tomas Luis de Victoria. I also really loved the Vocal Jazz Ensemble’s take on “Fragile” by Sting (arranged by Phil Matson.) The soloist, a small 13 or 14-year-old by the name of Rafael, has the makings of a young Sinatra. His voice is mellow and smooth like a good cup of Venezuelan coffee and he is sweetly handsome. The orchestral offerings were less even. A performance of Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in g minor had a lot of life to it though the intonation was sometimes fuzzy. The combined choral and orchestral performance of Padre G B Martini’s “Domine, ad Adjuvandum Me Festina” was lively and bold. But Gabriel Faure’s “Cantique de Jean Racine” was less successful. It lacked energy and the necessary sostenuto to make the piece come alive.

3. Taping of NPR’s From the Top at Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University Campus, Palo Alto: What a treat to experience the recording of this great young people’s classical music showcase in front of a live audience in the show’s 10th anniversary year. The producers assembled an eclectic group of young prodigies. My favorite was a scrawny bespectacled cellist by the name of Nathan Chan who had a great sense of humor and played Mark Summer’s whimsical, jazz- and blues-infused melody “Julie-O” with verve and pluck. I also enjoyed From the Top alumnus Evan Premo’s duets for double bass and voice – the “Seasonal Song Cycle” – which the composer-bassist performed with his wife, Mary Bonhag. Less compelling was the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra’s take on the same Corelli concerto I’d heard the previous evening at SOTA. The playing, though more technically precise and in tune, lacked soul. It was heavy and angular and Beethoven-like. I wanted the music to dance.

All three of the above experiences demonstrate that music-making is alive and well in the Bay Area at the grassroots level. If only more money would find its way into the system though. This would help to make the experiences even better – both for audiences and for the creators of the work.

Three thoughts today aimed at three different audiences:

1. For all you teetotalers out there: I am impressed with the amount of interest that my blog post of a couple of days ago about arts reviewers’ drinking habits has generated. One person wrote this morning to say that critics should behave like any professional would, and abstain from drinking a drop on the job. But have you ever heard of a businessman’s lunch that didn’t include at least one glass of wine if not an entire bottle?

2. For all you circus fans out there: I experienced Cirque du Soleil‘s latest touring production, Ovo, in San Francisco last night at the start of its travels. Of course the acrobatics and clowning are pretty flawless. And I saw a couple of acts I’d never seen before, including the heart-stopping combination climbing wall/trampoline finale. The free popcorn and half-time cupcakes with blue and orange frosting were a lovely bonus. And The insect-themed costumes were glorious. But all in all I found the experience to be tiring. The show was about half an hour too long. And the music, which at one point mashed Beethoven’s Symphony Number 5 against “La Cucaracha”, made my stomach lurch.

3. For all you oboists out there: As an oboist, I was thrilled to read Daniel Wakin’s coverage of a recent oboists’ get-together in New York in The New York York Times. (See picture of the event’s biggest star, Berlin Philharmonic principle oboist Albrecht Mayer, above.) Fame at last! The article makes our weird breed of midnight reed scrapers and ducky honkers feel like rockstars.

The Flavorpill Daily Dose newsletter hit my inbox yesterday with a lovely item, which I wanted to share with you all.

I’m a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland and can’t wait to check out the upcoming Tim Burton film about my favorite literary heroine and read a copy of the latest edition of Lewis Carroll’s classic with illustrations by the brilliant Australian artist, Robert Ingpen (see one of his drawings for the new edition to the left.)

Alice has been a subject of delight for visual artists for more than 150 years. John Tenniel’s drawings for the original, 1865 edition of the book will always have a special place in my heart. But there are so many other great filmmakers and illustrators who’ve turned their skills and imaginations to portraying the characters in Carroll’s writing. Click this link for a run-down of some of the most famous ones, from Mabel Lucie Atwell to Disney.

An amusing article by Mark Brown in the UK Guardian got me thinking about the rules of engagement when it comes to arts critics drinking before they turn up to review shows. According to the story, the playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker accused critics, who gave her new play The Line mixed reviews, of being “in no fit condition to review a play after a boozy theatre awards lunch.” The article continues:

“Wertenbaker believes that the actors were not given a fair crack of the whip because many of the critics had spent the day being liberally wined and dined at the Evening Standard theatre awards – a four-hour affair at the Royal Opera House that involved a champagne reception followed by lunch and as much wine as they wanted to drink. She said some critics had had the grace to say they would come on a different night, but most came after the lunch.”

Following in the noble footsteps of such famous theatre-reviewing lushes as Kenneth Tynan, I suspect that the London theatre critics are better able to hold their drink than many other breeds of journalist. It’s also worth mentioning that a few of the critics who reacted negatively to The Line, like The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer, are devoted teetotalers. If Wertenbaker’s play didn’t win raves, it’s probably largely the fault of the play, not the booze.

Turning up drunk to review a show is of course a major professional no-no, alongside leaving a theatre at intermission and sleeping with the leading gent or lady. But it’s my personal opinion that unless you’re the greatest lightweight in the world, imbibing one glass of wine or pint of beer prior to going to review a show isn’t off-limilts. It certainly shouldn’t impact one’s reception of a performance.

Like many cities in the US, San Francisco’s streets are lined with colorful banners advertising various cultural organizations and events. I wouldn’t be surprised if many people in this city owe their knowledge of the existence of The New Century Chamber Orchestra and the Disney Family Museum to the flying banners bearing the names of these organizations strapped to the tops of lampposts around town.

Just like billboard posters, you never see people putting these banners up or taking them down. They appear and disappear as if by magic, it seems, as if an army of elves shuttles in in the night to do the work. Where do the banners come from and where do they go?

It turns out that there are dedicated banner companies like BetterWall which oversee the elves.

The company is currently touting three new banners with San Francisco connections:

1) Victor Moscoso “Psychedelic Experience”: This banner features a poster from 1966 promoting a concert at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco featuring Oxford Circle, Big Brother & the Holding Company, and Lee Michaels. The poster was created by graphic artist Victor Moscoso, renowned as one of “The Five” big artists of the Family Dog collective.

2) Marc Chagall’s “Music”: Featured on banners from the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Chagall’s image of “Music” was created as a mural for Moscow’s Jewish Chamber Theater in 1920 as part of a series which also included “Dance”, “Drama”, and “Literature”. His interpretation of “Music” features dreamlike imagery of a fiddler on the shtetl rooftops – it is, in fact, the image from which the 1964 musical “Fiddler on the Roof” took its name.

3) De Young Museum “Fern Courtyard” (pictured): The contemporary architecture of Herzog & de Meuron’s de Young museum is the backdrop for the museum’s 200-foot long Fern Courtyard. A verdant green space, the courtyard sits at the heart of the de Young museum.

BetterWall works with arts institutions to sell the banners that have been hung on city street-posts to promote their exhibitions and allegedly shares proceeds with the museums. The company says that it keeps over 10 tons of vinyl out of landfills each year as a result.

Prices for used banners range from $300 – $800. Quite a nice, non-bank-breaking collectors item, I think. I, for one, wouldn’t mind the Fern Courtyard for my apartment.