Archives for July 2010

I’m preparing to present a panel on composing and performing music for silent films for the San Francisco Silent Film Festival this Saturday. The program, which is called “Variations on a Theme” and starts at 12 noon at the Castro Theatre, features some of the world’s leading silent film music people and ensembles including pianists Donald Sosin and Stephen Horne, organist Dennis James, the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, the Alloy Orchestra, and musician and composer Matti Bye.

I’ve been having a fun time delving into the subject. Who knew that the music of famous operas greatly influenced the early film music repertoire or that many people who were drafted to play the piano to accompany silent movies back in the early 20th century could barely sightread and were in general pretty unremarkable amateur players?

Here are two books on the music of silent films which should be required reading for anybody interested in finding out more about this area of musicianship: Silent Film Sound by Rick Altman (Chapters 13-17 cover music specifically) and Musical Accompaniment of Moving Pictures: A Practical Manual for Pianists and Organists by Edith Lang and George West. The book is available free online here.

No summer in the Bay Area is complete without a trip  to Orinda to experience a production and picnic at the California Shakespeare Theatre‘s Bruns auditorium. There’s something so magical about watching the sun disappear behind the golden hills while watching what are usually high-quality productions of classic plays (and the occasional new take on an old standard.)

It’s true that sometimes the weather and productions fall short of ideal. I’ve yawned and/or shivered my way through several plays at Cal Shakes in the past. But the trip I made to see the company’s production of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession on Saturday night delivered the Cal Shakes experience at its best.

All that was regrettable was the loss of the ruggedness of the picnic grounds, which have lately been souped up to look all shiny. Although the gleaming new landscaping, toilets and snack pavilion give the Bruns space a more upscale look, they sort of undercut the rustic feeling of the space. Concrete and steel don’t in this case add to the beauty of the natural surroundings in my opinion. If it weren’t for the fact that the show I saw was so wonderful, I would have said that the money spent on “improving” the facilities could have been used more effectively on bettering the quality of the work on stage.

But I don’t need to say such a thing because the production was so terrific that I didn’t mind the souped-up surroundings. Under the directorship of Timothy Near, Cal Shakes’ production of Mrs Warren comes to life with an energy and savage humor that surpasses any production I have seen to date of Shaw’s masterpiece social satire which examines the theme of prostitution in its broadest possible sense.

For one thing, the play is eloquently cast. Anna Bullard’s Vivie Warren and Stacy Ross’ Mrs Warren bring out the pathos and claws of the play’s central mother-daughter relationship. The two women show deep-seated affection for one another while at the same time standing up for themselves and doing whatever it takes to push forward their agendas. The men of the cast — Rod Gnapp as the puckered Reverend Gardner, Dan Hiatt as the bumbling Mr Praed, Andy Murray as the oafish Sir George Crofts and Richard Thieriot as the sweet and dandyish curate’s son Frank Garder — create sharply drawn characters that all stand out individually, while blending in with the ensemble.

For another thing, the design elements of the production all work together to bring out the multi-layered texture of Shaw’s dramaturgy. I was particularly taken with Erik Flatmo’s vibrant scenery, which offsets enormous gaudy painted roses against aggressive black furniture. As the play unfolds, a low-garden fence made out of forbidding, black, interlocking spears gradually gets bigger and bigger and takes up more space on stage. By the end of the play, when the darkness of Vivie’s background is fully revealed and understood forcing her to retreat into a state of workaholic isolation, the fence has become a huge locked fortress, completely encasing the stage and, metaphorically, Vivie’s heart. Powerful stuff.

Experiencing the music of the progressive bluegrass outfit Hard Road is the equivalent of reading the poetry of Spike Milligan. Warm-hearted, yet with a mad professorly edge, the group tantalizes the eardrums with its homespun-streetwise blend of fast-strummed neo spirituals and folk songs.

Headed up by mandolin player and songwriter Steve Smith and the guitarist and singer-songwriter Chris Sanders, the ensemble was performing at the Freight & Salvage Coffee House in Berkeley last night.

The atmosphere in the auditorium (which I always find to be way too sterile for roots music) was friendly and relaxed. The crowd was enthusiastic, even though the place wasn’t very full.

My only complaint: Smith and Sanders were joined on the stage by Bill Evans on the five-string banjo, bassist Bill Amatneek, and fiddler Megan Lynch. But while Evans’ banjo-playing was featured quite prominently on the program, Lynch and Amatneek didn’t get as much exposure. I would have liked to have heard more of these tremendously talented players.

In other news: I’m excited about the west coast premiere screening next Wednesday at the Kabuki Theatre of a new documentary film by Michael Lawrence all about the music of J. S. Bach. More information about the movie, which includes personal reflections on the great man’s sound by the likes of Joshua Bell, Bobby McFerrin, Philip Glass, Béla Fleck, Chris Thile, Hilary Hahn, Zuill Bailey, Matt Haimovitz and Edgar Meyer, can be found here.

A trip to Los Angeles on LA Times business and a friend visiting from London has kept me away from my blog for the last few days.

All I want to say for now is that I love the Hollywood Bowl.

I spent Monday afternoon watching Grant Gershon rehearse the LA Phil and the LA Master Chorale for a Tuesday evening concert of celebratory music which included Haydn’s Te Deum, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Poulenc’s Gloria and the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah (complete with fireworks!). Then I returned the following evening for the concert.

OK, so music nerds like to sniff and moan about the sub-optimal acoustics and the fact that audience members spend their time drinking wine and eating cake instead of paying one hundred percent of their attention to the artists on stage. But really there’s no place like the Bowl on earth.

The trick to enjoying yourself at the Hollywood Bowl is to leave some of your musical pretensions at the door. Bring warm clothes, find a friend to cuddle up with and get together a picnic. Otherwise it’s bound to be a long night.

Since launching a non-profit arts project at the start of this year, I’ve been thinking about fundraisers quite a bit. I’ve attended a few for other organizations and I even mounted a modest one myself for my project last October in advance of the launch.

I’ve come to the conclusion that fundraisers are a crazy amount of work and may not raise a ton of money. But they’re worth doing anyway because of the connections and goodwill you can generate, the pleasure you can give people if the event is done right and the (perhaps modest) amount of cash you can procure to keep your project afloat.

Last night, however, I attended a fundraiser for an arts organization which made me see that there are times when it’s just not worth bothering. The event was, in essence, the worst fundraiser I’ve ever been to in my life.

The organization in question is one I care about, so I went along, even though I received my invitation only the day before the event itself. When I got there, a woman at the front desk barked “We’re asking for $20.” The invitation had said “donations at the door” so I was a little taken aback to be hijacked for a specific amount of cash in such an aggressive way.

The venue where the event was held was soulless — a boring black box theatre space which had not been decorated or changed in any way to make it appear more convivial. There was no free food or drink and the stuff that you could pay for — a few untempting cans and some packets of candy — was not inspiring at all.

Inside the theatre itself, a few people sat in the seats silently watching a singer-songwriter with long hair and a knitted beret sing endless, boring songs about his “darlin'” to the sound of a nurdling guitar. The music was accompanied by video footage of the performer and his friends messing about on a lake and in someone’s apartment. At one point, the musician invited a girl up to the stage to sing a song with him. She was horrible.

What was really weird about the set-up was that the stage area was flanked by long tables at which the organizers of several other non-profit arts projects sat silently with fliers, posters and other materials relating to their projects on display. They looked uncomfortable sitting up there in full-view while the music was going on.

After sitting through the first musician’s effort, the event’s organizer and the director of the arts organization whose fundraiser it was made a couple of pointless speeches. Then another singer-songwriter got up to play his long set. His guitar was out of tune but no one seemed to care. He had, at least, a lively stage presence and some of his lyrics were funny. (His song about a lesbian cocaine party mad me chuckle slightly.)

To make matters worse, everyone was badly dressed. My friend and I didn’t stay for the third and fourth items on the performance roster. We snuck out mid-song with sore bottoms from the uncomfortable seats.

I’ll probably organize a fundraiser for VoiceBox in the fall. I learned a lot last night about how not to go about putting on my event. So at least there was one positive outcome from last night’s debacle.