Archives for 2009

This is probably a sign that I listen to too much NPR, but I love those story-behind-the-story kinds of stories. Relatedly, I often find composers to be funny, exceptionally articulate people who, in addition to writing music, just so happen to spend a lot of time sitting alone quietly thinking about the large issues of life. Sometimes these feed into their work, and sometimes not so much. However, if you catch them outside their studios and ply them with coffee and a microphone (or a fancy “composer’s chair” title and a lectern) they will often generously lay some of those deep thoughts on you.

Two fine minds of the music world schooled me recently, and you can check them here:

• Sounds Heard: David Lang’s the little match girl passion

• Make Your Own Rules: Notes on Composition from John Corigliano

Have librarians begun reporting increased job satisfaction now that Google fields some of the more inane public search requests?

For instance, I’m having one of those “throw your computer out the window” kind of days. Is there an emoticon for that?

Indeed there is:

Elsewhere, the internet can also solve your “I didn’t watch the Tony’s, but I still want to see Neil Patrick Harris make ’em laugh” Monday morning blues.

However, the internet won’t find you a job. In fact, in this recession, it will just mercilessly make fun of your trust-funded behind.

Now, who needs some blue hair dye for a certain forward-thinking new music event? Tang-a-tini, anyone? This, people, is why I got into this racket.

Dreary though the weather, last Thursday was a night of music fun and glamour at the (Baltimore) symphony: the 5-year contract extension (Marin and the orchestra commit to share their love–at least through 2015!), the backstage antics (yes, they have those–now musicians, please take your awesome selves to the lobby after the last curtain call. Your fans want to swoon over you.), and Jennifer Higdon’s shy reports of star spotting (as in: she was, in traffic–Amanda has the details).

And then the sun finally came out (and just in time) for the Metro Gallery’s outdoor Rufustival 2009. The line-up was truely impressive, and the vibe on par with a P.S. 1 show imported for an intimate Baltimore crowd. We stopped by in time to catch Chairlift (you know them from their iPod Nano commercial soundtracking) and Wye Oak (sounds like all the indie rock I’ve ever loved, compressed. I’ll now be listening to them obsessively for the next few days). Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner signed off the stage with a nod to what she termed the “best band in the world,” and the festival show-stealer was indeed the up-close-and-personal appearance we got from Dirty Projectors. Loved them before, love them even more now. Their new album, Bitte Orca, drops tomorrow, but you can stream the tracks on NPR (of all places) right now here. (Go now!!)

If you do nothing else today, I don’t think you’ll regret giving it a listen. When you get to “Remade Horizon,” note the vocal magic that begins at 2:37. How the lovely ladies of Dirty Projectors pulled off that kind of hocketting live in a parking lot still sets my mind spinning. Now I have all kinds of nerdy compositional questions for Dave Longstreth and his crew.

*Dirty Projectors, Photo by Sarah Cass

Remix (Classic tune + Economic Upheaval) ^internet = Brilliant

The digital revolution will not be advertised.

We’ve all heard the one about the judge who forced a rap fan to listen to hours of classical music as penance for crimes committed, and if you’ve waited out a delayed train in NYC’s Penn Station, you’ve absorbed the Handel that’s supposed to bring down your blood pressure while keeping the homeless population at bay. (I have no idea how that last part is supposed to work–poverty breeds intolerance for chamber music? Someone missed The Soloist?) If you want teens out of your food court, however, Barry Manilow works best.

I was thinking about this over coffee this morning after a press release came through for Drive Time RX with Subliminal Affirmations by Steve Halpern. The purported purposed of the CD is to keep you destressed and alert in traffic and “transmute any feeling of road rage into feelings of calm and centeredness.” You can sample the music here. Now, how are you feeling?

Music may be a universal language in Disneyland, but it seems to me its vocabulary words are actually all homonyms–depending on myriad factors, my chill out music may motivate you to put your fist through the stereo–so using it to make certain statements with the goal of emotional manipulation is a pretty dangerous game. In most cases, it seems to me that what you’re really playing with is a whole bag of cultural stereotypes of what sounds will trigger what response. Whether the listener will play along is up for grabs, and in some cases, it may only be an act. What 14-year old with pink mohawk could cop to a love for Manilow, even if she wanted to? Alone in my car, will the sounds of yoga zen really keep me from rear-ending that Hummer? How powerful is music, anyway, and how well do we understand that power?

Just back from a week in New York City that was pretty rockin’, and for once I almost mean that in the literal sense.

There was the Bang on a Can Marathon, an annual event that now feels like a new music reunion of sorts (at least to me)–always providing the opportunity to catch up with scene fans I haven’t seen in ages, alongside the chance to encounter new pieces and performers and hear plenty of old friends. Spilling down the marble steps and tucked around the palm trees that make up what is usually something of a food court for the World Financial Center, the crowd in the Winter Garden was hundreds strong and as enthusiastic as ever. Free music, many great performances, sunlight streaming through the windows, the freedom to walk around, the comfort of knowing that, even if a particular piece doesn’t catch my ear, a new group would be on stage bringing something completely different in about 20 minutes: I wonder if these are the things that make the Marathon so popular, or just what brings me back each year.

A few nights earlier I was a guest at the final Undiscovered Islands show, the last of a four-concert series New Amsterdam Records put on at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. Approaching the venue, what to my wondrous eyes did appear but a line snaking around the building and down the block (also two pet pigs on leashes(!) but let’s leave that be for the moment). It felt amped up and exciting in a way new music shows sometimes don’t. Missy Mazzoli and William Brittelle each presented…well, we could call them “new dramatic multi-song art pieces,” but you might not expect the attendant level of screaming from the crowd that accompanied the performance with so uptight a set-up from me. The guy who was sitting next to me can fill you in on the stage action.

The thing I left musing over was the whole package deal–or perhaps, rather, the joys and pitfalls of packaging. If I hadn’t read in Time Out New York that this was a “classical music” show, it would never have occurred to me to file it that way. (Well, except for Mark Dancigers in the “Classical Music is Dead” t-shirt. That might have given it away.) I can’t credit this genre confusion to the “classical influenced by rock music” mantra (lord knows what isn’t these days) because I’m not convinced that saying this music was “influenced” like that is in any way accurate in either case (though for different reasons). Past work and degrees held by the participants aside, no one was playing that awkward game of genre dress up. This was just performance with spilled drinks and mic feedback and cramped seating and high energy, like a lot of music performance. Set changes took their good sweet time in this non-union house, and Brittelle did have to pause to shush the crowd before launching into a quiet section of his piece–all of which seemed to bother no one–and I was thankful for the setting. As far as consuming new art that I really want to dig my teeth into, this was up close and personal enough to taste. The crowd certainly swooned over both Mazzoli and Brittelle’s works (and over the composers themselves after the curtain came down), so I think it safe to say they’d be more or less with me on this point.

On the down side of these scenarios, the caveat I must acknowledge is that in both venues the sound left a bit to be desired (and lord knows I’m no audiophile). The Winter Garden rings like a cathedral, but with crying kids and chatty patrons, the din rises pretty quickly. At Galapagos, the levels never did seem comfortably balanced, even when they weren’t feeding back on the artists. I don’t mean to nit pick, but it is the music we are gathered together to hear, whether we like to be rowdy about it or not. An unsolvable conundrum?

Sadly for me, a last-minute work commitment meant I had to miss the final event on my itinerary: Green Aria – a ScentOpera, a piece created by Stewart Matthew, fragrance designer Christophe Laudamiel, and composers Nico Muhly and Valgeir Sigurdsson. It was advertised with the explanation that “original scents and music will be performed in the dark via a customized scent organ for a world premiere unlike any other.” I was really looking forward to this show, both because I’m a fan of Muhly’s work and, I admit, just because it sounded crazy and I completely wanted to try it. I give these guys mad props for the confidence I imagine it must take to premiere a piece that already has the bad version of the review set up by the concept. Anyone experience this piece? The guy I gave my ticket to had, well, a rockin’ good time of his own.

I was shopping in a local Baltimore grocery store the other day when I spotted Terry O’Quinn, the actor who plays John Locke on Lost. I didn’t realize at first why I thought I knew him, and so I admit I sort of stared him down for a second while I tried to recall where we met. Once I realized who he was, I felt bad for intruding on his psychic space and promptly returned my attention to my own produce. Brian nudged me to say something to him and later my dad said he would have asked him about his show, but approaching him–even to just say, “Hey, love your work!”–never even occurred to me.

But later it made me wonder: Do performing artists want to engage in conversations with strangers about their work? Pause in their cereal selection for a thumbs up from a passing shopper? Or would they prefer to just be left alone? As a fan, what’s the best response to this kind of situation?

We went to the roller derby this weekend, and it rocked! I think this is my new favorite sport.

The not-always-PC feminist I carry around in my head was not sure she was cool with this. The teams are made up of some kick-ass ladies, but they are also some unabashedly sexy chicks. In large part that’s due to the previously mentioned kick-ass-edness these women exude, but the fishnets and tattoos and short skirts help, too. Never been? The Advocate laid out the paradoxical scene pretty colorfully:

The skating attire expresses each woman’s personality in a manner somehow both burlesque and empowered at the same time. Short skirts, tight T-shirts, punk hair and knee socks are combined with a determined stance and padding tough enough to protect a football player. One mini-skirted skater takes a tumble, revealing a defiant message printed on her undies: “Kiss My Skates.”

And so I got to thinking. I agonize over being a girl in the 2009 music world. I hear tales of misogyny among professionals and teachers. I watch music documentaries and wonder why the only women interviewed are “fans”. I am annoyed by “women’s concerts” and talking about “women’s issues” in the field, but I’m awake enough to see why people still need reminded about them and poked regularly anyway. Sometimes you just don’t think to look for the girl until it’s pointed out that she’s missing (or just over there playing the flute).

What I loved about the Charm City Roller Girls (that’s one of their PR photos up there on the right) was that in all the glitter and sweat and knee pads, it didn’t feel directed at any of that kind of statement-making. It looked to me like they were 100% dressed up and playing for themselves on their own terms, for the joy and pride they took from it all, and it looked like a hell of a good (if occasionally bruising) time. That never seems to be as easy to accomplish as it sounds, but when it happens, it’s a powerful thing to watch.

Struggling some with the myriad communication tools currently available? Despite the busy buzz of the Twitterati and the Skypers and the Bloggers (though at least the number of people with the Bluetooth cellphone attachments glued into their ears seems to have waned), all of this chatter conveniently brought to you by 21st-century technology has left more than a few people feeling paradoxically isolated. We can say a lot, but what are we really saying?

This letter to the NYTimes provided a pretty powerful view of how the bits and bytes of new apps don’t fill certain voids and can actually unintentionally cover them over with a shiny coat of Let’s Pretend. An important reality check as we mosey down the yellow brick road, it seems.

So, the other day I was listening to a CD (not that unusual), and my attention kept drifting to the point that I’d forget it was even playing because it sounded to me like directionless sonic doodling. So I’d stop and start the track over, but I became increasingly hostile each time I had to hit repeat. Why would you write this down? I wished I had the composer on speed dial so I could make him tell me.

Then I took a deep breath and got back in touch with reality. We can argue about whether it’s the composer’s responsibility to help me “get it” or not, but seriously, sometimes I think we could all use a What to Listen for in New Music reference guide. Or at least I could. There are just those pieces that elude me like those magic 3-D posters they sell in mall kiosks. I’m sure I’m just missing something that’s waiting in the chaos to jump out and bite me, and I just wish someone would tell me what that was.

At the Conference of World Affairs that I mentioned last month, Roger Ebert does this thing called “Interruptus”. On the first day he screens a film in full for the audience, and then the next day they start playing it again from the beginning and whenever someone in the audience wishes, she just raises her hand and can stop the film. This year the film was Chop Shop and the director, Ramin Bahran, was there on stage, as was the film critic Jim Emerson. As the scenes were reviewed, Bahran chatted about the challenges and goals of the project and how he did what he did and why–why he put the camera there, why he amped up the audio here, how he got that actor to make that face and those pigeons to fly that direction. Some of it was technical, some of it was quite esoteric. Emerson and the audience made comments and asked questions and everyone walked away with this deep understanding of the film and the the director, as well as a richer conception of the larger world of (well, at least indie) filmmaking in 2009. It was AMAZING!

Would this kind of thing work with music? Is anyone already doing something like this? I like the concept because it neither dumbs down the art nor infantilizes the audience. In fact, it actually restarts the dialogue we supposedly blew up a few decades back, empowering the creator to take risks and the audience to question, poke, and grow alongside the artists and the art form. Anyone want to try?