dominick argento vs. 80's aerobic goodtimes

Jocelyn and I went to the Minnesota Opera's production of Dominick Argento's opera buffa Casanova's Homecoming last night (that's a lot of apostrophes in one sentence) and it was a fantastic show. He even threw in an opera-within-an-opera thing in the first act that worked frickin' perfectly.

I found a picture of the set design on the Internets. Here you've got the opera's opera being performed in the middle and then the actual plot happening in the boxes on either side (Casanova is on the left and the antagonist, the Marquis de Lisle, is with his crew on the right).














Okay, now I'm about to throw something mildly sacrilegious out here--at least here in the Twin Cities--so everybody take a breath. I don't really like Argento's music all that much. Some people flip out over his vocal works and, honestly there are some pieces out there that I really like ("Walden Pond" and "Dover Beach Revisited" are amazing choral works) but I've never heard anything that made me feel certain that I liked it on the very first hearing. Casanova's Homecoming changed this for me because the entire thing was designed to make the audience have a great time.

Someone told me beforehand that it was incredibly long (three acts and two intermissions) and I was like, "Oh no. I'm going to be really tired by the end." But I think he broke it up perfectly. There should be two intermissions in everything.












There was a great review in the Star Tribune a couple of days ago that, amongst other things, stated that the opera was, "a meticulous, spirited production that argues powerfully for the work's place among the best modern comic operas." And I think that sums up my feelings about the entire thing.

Going back to my previous statement about Argento's music, though, I think I respond so negatively to it because it's incredibly erudite (I'm not the first person to make this accusation) and I tend to like music that wears its emotions on the surface. For better or for worse, Argento doesn't write that kind of stuff.

It should be noted, however, that this didn't keep him from winning a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award. I'm so glad I got to see this show and also wish I could rock the glasses like Dr. Argento.

In other news, why does this video only have a little more than 800 views.I would love this to be local so I can attend sometime. Sadly, I don't think this is the case and I therefore weep bitter tears.

"You're all beatiful. Except your lives."

Mahalo.

reelin' in the years OR how many finnish conductors does it take to watch a steely dan concert?

The answer to that question: at least one that I talked to. I totally ran into Osmo Vänskä at Northrop last Sunday when I went to a Steely Dan concert with my dad.















They played their entire album, Aja, front-to-back and, although my experience with SD flows only from their greatest hits and quasi-cameos in the Yacht Rock episodes (you should check that link if you're a 70s rock fan...Eagles!), I'm really glad I went to this. It was some good father/son time and they are incredible musicians. There was a full compliment of brass on stage with a trio of back-up singers in sparkly dresses and a whole bunch of others (a total of 13 people).

Time well spent.

Mahalo.

done + a whole lot of music

I always hate it when bloggers start a post off with something like "it's been so long since I posted anything" but...it's been a long time since I posted anything. That will have to serve as my apology for what will inevitably be some sort of treatise on my life at the moment.

But that's neither here nor there. The bottom line is that I'm done with that French set! I've been writing about my recent attempts at trying to wrestle the Rilke poetry into my music for some time now and I finally finished the thing last week. It feels so good to get it out of the way so I can sit and wait for Jessica to sing the bejeezus out of it. I ended up calling the thing Trois Méditations ("Three Meditations") because the poetry has that kind of vibe to it: thoughtful, introspective and peaceful.

Jessica is incredibly excited to perform the set next April (I think that's the right date...I'll have to check on that) and I'm excited to hear her sing it. She came to town a few weeks ago for a thing with the Minnesota Opera and we had a chance to pal around downtown Minneapolis and visit the Twin Cities' fabled Mall of America (which isn't really a big deal...it's just a big mall). Here she is on the Guthrie's endless bridge mugging for the most attractive picture ever taken of her. She'd never seen the Mississippi River before so that was a stop on our abbreviated tournée des Villes Jumelles.

And since that piece is done, I've moved on to my next commission: a new choral work for Brownsburg High School in Indiana. They made a blog appearance way back in April of 2007 when I flew out to conduct them through an intense performance of Autumn. In discussions with their amazing director, Debi Prather, we decided to stick with the theme and have them premiere the next season piece I was ready to write. It's been six years since I wrote one of those pieces (there will obviously be a total of four) and, since that was how I first encountered this amazing choral program, it seemed like it was the right thing to do. I'm way ahead on it and, although I set a December 15 deadline for myself, I imagine it will be completely done a month ahead of schedule. This doesn't happen very often so I'm running with it and will try to get to work on the next commission in line.

As far as listening goes, I've been to a ton of performances in the Twin Cities area recently. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the SPCO Chorale gave an insanely beautiful rendering of Arvo Pärt's Te Deum and Duruflé's Requiem a few weeks back. It was really good to hear both of those works live and, since the Te Deum is one of my favorite choral/orchestral works ever, I had a blast. (Side note: I've only laid out to get a tan once in my life and that's what I listened to...I burned but that was hardly Arvo's fault.) The penultimate chord of the Requiem is this incredibly chunky thing that Dale Warland (who oversaw the proceedings) stopped on for just a second longer than he needed to. It's one of those sonorities that makes your eyelids flutter a little and your eyes roll back in your head. It's not really highlighted in the old, standard Shaw recording so I may be on the search for another one some time in the near future. It was just some really, really good stuff sung by a world-class ensemble.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention The Singers' mammoth performance of the Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil this past weekend. This choir took this thing and made it there own...just incredible musicianship combined with ownership of the material. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to get to know this piece so thoroughly and the fact that it was with that inspiring group of people makes it that much better. The Pioneer Press gave a great review of the concerts in which the writer went so far as to say that "you owe it to yourself" to attend. And he wasn't joking. It was a serious 60 minutes of music-making.

On Halloween I made it out to see Ben Folds play a show with the Minnesota Orchestra. It was mainly the same set as his Live with the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra DVD but there were some new ones thrown in from his last two albums. It was nowhere near as fun as the last Folds show I went to but wasn't a chore to sit through at all. Last time I saw him I was crammed in a club with earsplitting volume and a stripped-down trio accompanying. Taking the volume way down and adding an orchestra was more of a curiosity than anything else but the fact that it was on Halloween definitely allowed all the people I was with to dress up and cavort around Orchestra Hall in costume. I went as Triathlon Moses and my sister, Emma, was a spot-on Lady Gaga. Even Folds and conductor Sarah Hicks got in on the fun when they came out after intermission dressed as Sonny and Cher.
















Last night I went out to the Cedar Cultural Center to see a triple bill of indie folk-rock artists. The headliner was local singer/songwriter Chris Koza. Good stuff. Not my style but obviously a lot of integrity in it.




















The middle act was local quartet the Wars of 1812 in their final performance as a group. It's too bad, really, because they were quite good.

JoAnna James started the show off with an amazing set of tunes and was my personal favorite by far. It was just her acoustic guitar alongside another player on electric adding some spice here and there. I always enjoy it when I can hear a singer/songwriter strip everything away but the very basic elements of their music. She did an incredible job.

So that's that. I think I'm caught up on blog stuff now. I'm off to Sham Rock's tonight to meet with some friends and hopefully hear some kickass Irish traditional music. I just finished a three song French set for soprano, piano and harp and am 85% done with a new choral work. I think I deserve it, damn it!

currently listening

I've been listening to Matisyahu's new album, Light, at least once a day since my brother gave it to me recently. It's an absolutely incredible achievement and certainly a departure from his last one.

I read a review of this thing somewhere in which the reviewer described trying to tell his friends who Matisyahu is. It read something like, "He's the Hasidic Jewish rapper with a reggae rock band."

And that pretty much sums up the public image he's cultivated on his last few albums, right? This new album presents him as a human being rather than a Jewish rapper; sort of like a Christian rock artist dropping the aspects of faith that are "normally" in their music and just writing about something that pertains to all of us. In fact--though I'd have to look--I suspect there isn't a reference to "god/God" in the entire thing.

So maybe he's aiming for a wider audience. Or maybe he's just evolving as an artist (not in the Darwinian sense but, rather, he's just into writing different stuff at the moment). Maybe this is why the album cover for Light has almost no trace of the traditional Hasidic garb that his previous album, Youth, did.

But that's just me waxing philosophical about how a marketing campaign might be made for someone as "out of the box" as Matisyahu. The bottom line is that Light is incredible.

The first song, "Smash Lies," is my hands-down favorite. It's got this really cool harmonic stacking on "You can listen stereo or monotone/Mega phone, mellow drone DJ with delay" that makes me enthusiastically ball up a fist every time I hear it. Then a few tracks later, in "I Will Be Light," he drops one of those amazing lyrics that just get repeated over and over again: "You got one tiny moment in time for life to shine/Burn away the darkness." It sounds a little preachy when I write it out here but I can assure you that he does it a huge amount of justice in the song.

I'm so glad he finally came out with a new album. It's been over a year since I saw him live so I hope he comes around the Twin Cities some time soon.

carlos salzedo, please allow me to introduce you to joanna newsom + soup!

I've been trying to finish this song cycle for soprano, piano and harp and am very, very close. I had a meeting with my French tutor last Wednesday (at the always-amazing Cafe Latte in Saint Paul) to get the syllabic stresses correct and talk shop about what-have-you over some food. We may have been a little loud because the gentlemen next to us stopped me on the way out to question me about what kind of music we were writing.

Composing for the harp is a very strange thing for a composer who, like myself, writes primarily for the voice. In getting to know the instrument better I've gone through all sorts of listening phases: from Debussy's Dances for Harp and Strings to some sort-of-New-Age-y music by David Michael that is really, really good (listen here!).

Then there's the folk artist, Joanna Newsom. Anyone ever heard of her? I hadn't until my sister forced her album, The Milk-Eyed Mender, on me. Her voice is...um...a "singular" instrument. Here, listen.





That voice really felt awful to listen to the first time I heard it, but the fact that she sings and plays harp at the same time was just too intriguing not to keep coming back to the songs as a curiosity...and the harp stuff that she writes is totally hypnotic. The more I listened to it the more I was able to wrap my mind around what she was doing and desensitize myself to the grating nature of her voice. She wormed her way into my heart and I think I'm a fan now. Of course, with lyrics like "I killed my dinner with karate" how can you not love it?

Aside from just listening to all sorts of harp stuff, my other major resource has been Carlos Salzedo's landmark 1921 book, Modern Study of the Harp. It's a massively important work for harpists and, aside from the études that you would assume are in a book like this, there are all sorts of reference materials for how to do certain out-of-the-box stuff on the instrument. For instance, I never knew there was a harp technique called "Aeolian Flux." How many other instruments have technical terms that sound like a dystopic Charlize Theron sci-fi movie?

And, as over-the-top as that movie reference was, it's nowhere near to how over-the-top Salzedo writes. The first page of the book has nothing but the phrase "La harpe est a la musique ce que la musique est a la vie" written on it. Translated that means, "The harp is to music what music is to life." What does that even mean?




















Throughout the book's introduction he comes off as more of a harp guru than a harp teacher. For example:

There is nothing difficult. There are only NEW things, unaccustomed things.

When one is profoundly impressed with this truth, has meditated upon it and then put it into practice, calmness and confidence will ensue; and thanks to these indispensable qualities, musical practice becomes an agreeable pastime, leading towards the purest joys.

Now some of that might be the translation out of the original French text, but it still sounds like Confucius is trying to teach me the harp. You'll hear no complaints from this composer, though. The book makes me want to write a lot more for that instrument.

In gastronomical news, I made some amazing tomato soup recently. It's sort of a Cliff's Notes version of a Giada De Laurentiis recipe called Quick and Spicy Tomato Soup. My version has a bunch more onion and garlic (some of it raw) but pretty much everything else was unchanged. It was way good.

cheating death with stephen colbert

I try to watch The Daily Show or The Colbert Report when I eat lunch every day and the first three and a half minutes of this clip may be one of the funniest things I've ever seen. It's always hilarious when he can't stay in character and Camel releasing a new smokelss tobacco product sends him off the rails in a big way. Please enjoy!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Cheating Death - Snus & Placebo Effect
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

december in october

I went to an awesome Decemberists concert last night at the State Theatre. They played the Walker Art Center's festival this summer but I was at Interlochen and had to miss one of my favorite bands ever. The show they put on featured their new album, The Hazards of Love, played in its entirety with guests Becky Stark and Shara Worden singing the roles of Margaret and the Queen of the Forest, respectively.

I can't overstate how much fun this was. How many times am I going to get a chance to see an incredible rock opera semi-staged and played this well? And to hear Shara hit that high note at the end of "The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid" is worth the price of admission...she is absolutely incredible. I would highly recommend her album, Bring Me the Workhorse, if you haven't heard it yet (especially "We Were Sparkling").

I blogged briefly about The Hazards of Love last March before I left for Greece but didn't really say much because I hadn't had a chance to really absorb the thing. It is easily my favorite album that The Decemberists have ever put out (Sorry Picaresque. But you put up a massive struggle before you were unseated). The music ranges from heavy metal ("The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing") to Nashville-style country & western ("The Hazards of Love 4") to one of the best/creepiest uses of a harpsichord on a rock record I think I've ever heard ("The Hazards of Love 3"). And the motives they use to tie everything together are amazing little things that re-occur at just the right time.

And if that wasn't enough, they played another set of songs from their other albums. For the final encore they invited Becky and Shara back out for an incredible cover of Heart's "Crazy On You." I am so glad that YouTube had this...and it's even from the Rock the Garden concert here in Minneapolis that I missed last summer.