Brian Dehn (conductor of an amazing choir in California) graciously allowed me to write a choral transcription of the opening aria from my opera-in-progress, We, The Boys and, having worked on that entire piece for a few years now, it's exciting to see one of the components actually make it to the concert hall.
I chose to use that first piece because it's the character of Howard recounting a dream he had in which he sat across the kitchen table from Leonardo da Vinci. Because of this the text has a start-to-finish narrative instead of being, say, a snippet of the plot or a dialogue between characters or something. The entire thing occurs as Howard (an elderly man near the end of his life) sits on a park bench presumably addressing the audience.
I've been listening to some pretty dichotomous things as of late. First we've got Rufus Wainwright's new album, All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu. It's about as close to a new entry in the American songbook as any album I've heard lately. This is helped quite a bit by the fact that it's just Rufus, his piano and the stuff reminiscent of Tin Pan Alley that he's so good at.
It sort of reminds me a bit of that album Randy Newman put out a while ago in which he just sang and played piano but the keyboard parts are incredibly complicated. Even if I could play that well I still don't think I could sing at the same time. (Check out the song "Give Me What I Want And Give It To Me Now!" to see what I mean.) My hands-down favorite song on the album is "The Dream" which contains the lyric, "But I truly love/Which is harder to do than to dream of." So beautiful.
Then for something completely different my sister, Emma, has me hooked on Ke$ha's album, Animal. It reminds me of my semi-lecherous, irresponsible twenties; sort of like a musical postcard sent via DeLorean for me to enjoy as I take a nose-dive-death-spiral towards my thirtieth birthday next November.
This is not art music. But who would ever take something that contains the line, "Wake up in the front yard/Wine stain on the sofa/I threw up in the closet/But I don't care" that seriously. That lyric, by the way, comes from a song called "Party At a Rich Dude's House."
Then, in the Department of Random Happenings, I saw one of our local treasures, Scott Seekins, roaming down Hennepin around 2:45am last night (why I was out that late will have to remain a mystery for the moment). He's a local artist who wears a white suit during the summer and a black suit during the winter and bonds Minneapolitans together because we've all seen him wandering around. This picture showcases his winter look so, as you can see, he's quite memorable.
Then, in the Department of Random Happenings, I saw one of our local treasures, Scott Seekins, roaming down Hennepin around 2:45am last night (why I was out that late will have to remain a mystery for the moment). He's a local artist who wears a white suit during the summer and a black suit during the winter and bonds Minneapolitans together because we've all seen him wandering around. This picture showcases his winter look so, as you can see, he's quite memorable.
He is, according to a few articles I've looked up out of curiosity, an incredibly intelligent person; a true performance artist who strives to make his life the art object. His latest series of paintings feature him in various situations with Britney Spears...and you're going to have to click on the hyperlink I listed in that last sentence to find out why that isn't crazy.
Counting last night, I've run into him four different times.
Mahalo
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