dominick argento vs. the bear

Thanks to the Minneapolis music scene, I went to a couple of great concerts in the last week. Last Friday it was a VocalEssence show that presented the Midwestern premiere of Dominick Argento's Evensong: Of Love and Angels. He's the hometown hero 'round these parts and is beloved by pretty much every composer and conductor I know in the area. The 45-minute piece was written in memory of his late wife and is a man exposed in grief. The amount of confidence it must have taken in order to write something so personally painful is beyond me.





















The opening movement, "Threnody," was an orchestral piece with soprano Maria Jette offstage (and unseen) singing on neutral vowels and it took me a second to realize what he was doing: it was the spirit of his wife (an operatic soprano prominent in the Twin Cities community) coming to give the piece permission to exist in the first place. Very goose bump-inducing and easily the best part of the work. The rest was typical Argento (both the stuff that agrees with me and the stuff that doesn't) but, that being said, he's earned the right to say whatever he wants. The fact that he let the listener in on his own grief-stricken heart so readily makes it okay for him to say pretty much whatever he likes and, in the end, I'm profoundly grateful that I got to hear this piece with him in the audience.

Read reviews by two different writers from the Star Tribune here and here. This blog has gotten incredibly wonky as of late so, if you're game, I'll let them explain the piece in much more depth. (And you should definitely check them out...there are some things about it that are very interesting.)

This past Wednesday I headed over to First Avenue to see a Grizzly Bear show. I blogged about their latest album, Veckatimest, way back in July and they finally came to town. It was a fantastic show and, having lived with that album for the past three months, it was awesome to see it translated into a sold out live show amongst all those fans (who were packed cheek-to-jowl in the club).







One of my new favorite things about this band is that for their latest single, "While You Wait for the Others," they released a B-side with none other than Michael McDonald singing the vocal track. They just drop out the lead vocal that's normally there and have Mr. Yacht Rock himself sing it instead. And, you know what? It's really, really good...I almost prefer it to the original. Here, listen to it!