Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘music’

Alden Decides to Listen to Ella

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2012| 2 Comments »

Alden wrote on Facebook that he was going to cut off all access to the outside world last night and just listen his Ella Fitzgerald album. It sounded like a good idea to me.

Where do you look for healing? People have their ways. Getting lost in a book, attending a Handel’s “Messiah” (“Comfort ye, My people”), playing with a child too young to understand, breathing deeply in a florist shop, creating a self-imposed news blackout.

Once you turn your face to things that are beautiful and good, once you feel able to stand upright, you may be up for action. Donating to an organization that can help, volunteering, writing to your congressmen, composing a poem or a requiem. Take your time.

Read Full Post »

Oldest Continuous Volunteer Orchestra

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The holiday concert last Saturday deserves its own post.

I learned about the Melrose Symphony Orchestra, the oldest continuous volunteer orchestra in the country, because my friend Alden began playing the oboe there a year or so ago and loves it. Saturday was the first time we got to a performance, and we were amazed by the whole scene.

Memorial Hall, remarkable for its size and its caryatid-supported honorary box, must have had a thousand people in it. It seemed like everyone of every age in Melrose had come, and a look at the program suggested that every business in town was a supporter.

The website says that “the mission of the Melrose Symphony is to give the citizens of Melrose and surrounding area an opportunity to participate in the joy of music.”

The conductor, Yoichi Udagawa, is determined to make classical music fun and accessible to all. He is not only an excellent musician but a real showman, drawing applause from audience members who have attended before as soon as he said he was going to tell a joke.

Alden told us the orchestra provides scholarships for high school students who often join up again after college. And he explained that the kids who were walking around before the performance and in the intermissions selling tickets were raising money by giving audience members a chance to conduct the last number, a jingle bell sing-along.

We also had music from Grieg and Vaughn Williams, so it wasn’t 100% holiday. But the guest star, Renese King, sang Gospel music with two talented nieces, a backup group, and a lovely young woman who danced sign language — and that really got everyone in the spirit of the season.

I have to say, I have lived in New England 30 years and have never seen a whole community rally around a cultural institution to this extent. Melrose must have a secret formula. I’d like to know what’s in the water.

Photograph: Melrose Symphony Orchestra

Read Full Post »

Instrument “PettingZoo”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A woman in my tai chi chuan class yesterday mentioned that she was taking her son to an “Instrument PettingZoo” this weekend to see if he could find an instrument he’d like to study.

What a great name for the event! With a title like that, no one needs to explain that the idea is to help children learn about different instruments — and have fun at the same time.

This weekend’s Instrument PettingZoo is at Powers Music School.

The school’s website provides some history:

“Powers Music School is a regional, not-for-profit institution established in 1964 to provide superior music instruction and performance opportunities to all interested students. Each year the School also provides musical outreach opportunities in the community through programs such as Belmont Open Sings, the Stein Chamber Music Festival, the Peter Elvins Vocal Competition, and the Mildred P. Freiberg Piano Festival.

“The founding principles, that all students are entitled to high quality musical instruction and that music is an essential part of our lives and belongs in the community, continue to guide the School today. During 2010-2011, the School worked with over 1,000 students who traveled from 50 surrounding communities. In addition, Powers gave over 70 student recitals/community performances.”

I love the school’s dual-meaning slogan, “A great place to play.”

Makes me realize my off-and-on-music education may have left out the playful side of “play.”

Photograph: PowersMusic.org

Read Full Post »

Music for a Small, Perhaps Grateful Audience

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 7, 2012| 2 Comments »

Jim Dwyer writes lovely human-interest stories for the NY Times. On September 5, he wrote about a guy who plays music by the Hudson River for an audience of birds, fish, and whatever friends or strangers wander by.

“On Tuesday morning, Jose Modesto Castillo, retired from a job in a plastics factory, walked just about as far west in northern Manhattan as it is possible to go, to the end of a long pier fingering into the Hudson River at Dyckman Street. A harmonica rigged to his head was just a breath away from his lips. Lashed to his hands with hair ties were 17 miniature percussion instruments made from items like a Snapple cap, the lid of a prescription bottle, a Spider-Man figurine, the shells of plastic eggs that once held toys from supermarket vending machines.

“Strike up the one-man mambo band.

“Mr. Modesto’s mouth danced across the harmonica, and his fingers made rhythm out of junk. He played and he bobbed. At the end of the nameless number, he raised his arms as if waving to the Palisades on the far shore. Suddenly, he noticed that he was being watched, and called out, ‘Hello señor,’ and burst into a laugh.

“It was the Tuesday after Labor Day, the first day after the spiritual end of summer, though not yet the true beginning of autumn. At the pier and tiny cove on Dyckman Street, calendars were beside the point. Mr. Modesto, 66, comes every day to play, even if only the birds and fish are there to hear him.”

Some artists can get joy even if no one is around. As a musician, Modesto sees potential in bottle caps and plastic eggshells the way a painter might see it in clouds or the sun on the subway stairs.

Read more.

Photograph: Marcus Yam for the NY Times

Read Full Post »

Music and Nature

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Here’s a guy who loves music, who loves nature, and who is taking his own quirky path to bring the two together.

On the radio show The World, Gerry Hadden interviews the impresario on location.

“We are talking about a solar power recording session in the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range, outside Granada, Spain.

“It is part of an open air recording project called Wapapura, the brain child of musician Rafa Kotcherha.

“And as Kotcherha explains, ‘for a Wapapura recording to take place, you need three elements: Music, Space and Earth.’

“ ‘The music is of course the musicians we’re going to record,’ he says.

“ ‘The space is the environment in which it is going to take place’ and ‘the earth element is the environmental non-profit, linked to the recording, which benefits from part of the purchase of the CD online when it is released.’ ”

Learn about a recording session with the European ensemble Merope high on a mountain in Spain.

Read Full Post »

Nina Simone

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 28, 2012| 7 Comments »

I was driving home from Rhode Island Sunday, when I paused the radio at WGBH. A terrific audio essay was on, hosted by Nina Simone’s daughter.

Nina Simone was among the most important voices of the sixties for me, right up there with MLK Jr., JFK, and Joan Baez. Her blend of jazz, blues, and folk was underpinned by powerful emotion. I think I had all her albums back then. A classically trained pianist, Simone had a distinctive voice that was full of caring and pain, even though her personality was often described as abrasive. (And as far as that goes, she had her reasons.)

The best thing about the WGBH broadcast was the selection of the songs. Brought back memories. I was also interested to learn about her connections to Langston Hughes, Odetta, and Lorraine Hansberry.

Hear some of her music at NPR.

Photograph of Nina Simone and her daughter, indiewire.com

Read Full Post »

In Their 90s

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A 91-year-old Hindu gentleman has joined the tai chi chuan class I take Saturday mornings. His wife brings him a little after we have started, and he walks slowly between the wall of mirrors and the line of practicing students to sit in a folding metal chair, where the teacher explains the upper-body part of the exercises so he can join in. Age has not kept him from that.

After today’s class, I was driving home and heard Susan Stamberg interview Marian McPartland, 94, here, on National Public Radio. A fantastic jazz pianist, McPartland recorded her last Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz show only two years ago — after 33 years — but continues as artistic director. She is also the subject of a documentary called In Good Time that highlights the day in August 1958 when she was part of a famous photo of jazz greats in Harlem, below.

Speaking of nonagenarians, folksinger and activist Pete Seeger, 93, showed up on Colbert recently. At first I thought he was not answering a question and was wandering, but it soon became clear he was unfurling a story in his own way and that it would end precisely on point.

Seeger still splits logs to heat his house with wood. And his banjo playing hasn’t aged a bit.

Photograph: Art Kane/Art Kane Archives

Read Full Post »

Another Music Outreach to Kids

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Here is another great music outreach to kids: the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra’s Tune up Philly initiative.

“The mission of Philadelphia Youth Orchestra’s Tune Up Philly program is to nurture urban children in challenging social and economic conditions by keeping them engaged in success through weekday out-of-school hours music instruction.  Through its Tune Up Philly program, Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization believes that music education is a powerful vehicle for children to master skills that will enable them to acquire valuable tools for cooperative learning, teamwork, academic success and self-esteem.” More.

The Inquirer classical music critic Peter Dobrin wrote at Philly.com that an important goal of the initial program was to show the rest of the city what is possible.

“The brain-child of 24-year-old Curtis Institute of Music graduate Stanford Thompson … and adopted by the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, Tune Up Philly started at St. Francis de Sales … with the aim of replicating itself at other sites …

“Modeled on the widely praised and emulated El Sistema program that has educated millions of children in Venezuela, Philadelphia’s upstart is already gathering considerable support. Since initial coverage in the Inquirer and subsequent media attention, the program has received donations of cellos, clarinets, double basses, flutes, saxophones, trumpets, trombones, violas, violins and other instruments, plus about $13,000 in cash and $10,000 in in-kind services.” More.

Photograph: First graders exploring xylophones in the 2012 summer program.

Read Full Post »

The White Buffalo

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Did anyone watch the television show Rin Tin Tin as a kid?

I thought of it today when I read this awesome AP story:

“The birth of a white bison, among the rarest of animals, is bringing Native Americans who consider it a sacred event to celebrate at one of the least likely of places, a farm in New England.

“Hundreds of people, including tribal elders from South Dakota, are expected to attend naming ceremonies later this month at the northwestern Connecticut farm of Peter Fay, a fourth-generation Goshen farmer.

“Native Americans in the area have come with gifts of tobacco and colored flags for Fay and the bull calf since it was born there a month ago, and Fay is planning to offer his hay field as a campsite for the expected crowds.

” ‘They say it’s going to bring good things to all people in the world. How can you beat that? That’s the way I look at it,’ Fay said.” More. (There’s a photo there, too.)

I knew I had to blog about it because I loved the Rin Tin Tin episode when young Rusty is in dire straights and is saved by the White Buffalo. I know the song from that episode by heart. It was one of my brother’s records when he was little, although I don’t think it made it into the website with his blues records.

“There’s an old Indian legend that I heard long ago.
“It’s about a special valley and the White Buffalo.

“The legend says you’ll find it if your heart is brave and true
“And you treat all men as brothers no matter what they do.

“I have searched for that valley since I started to grow.
“I won’t stop until I find it — and the White Buffalo.”

Read Full Post »

Bluegrass in Afghanistan

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 19, 2012| 3 Comments »

The bimonthly magazine called the Utne Reader likes to showcase alternative and contrarian views on the news. Here’s a sort of hands-across-the world story about taking bluegrass music to Afghanistan.

“My name is Peyton Tochterman. I’m a musician from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I make my living writing, teaching and performing American Folk music—the music that tells stories in notes, chords and verse about who we are and what we Americans are all about. And I’m now in war-torn Afghanistan. …

“In little more than a week we have already met thousands of Afghans and found them to be kind, generous, hospitable, talented and honorable. They take great pride in their heritage and culture, but they also have a thirst for American Folk Music, for the stories we tell, our instruments and the way we play. The Afghan musicians with whom we played are some of the best in the world and were eager to share their masterful techniques and songs.

“Some might ask, ‘What difference can a folk singer from the Blue Ridge Mountains make in a tortured place like Afghanistan?’ It’s a valid question—partly answered by one of the State Department officers who said our visit did ‘more for diplomacy between Afghanistan and the United States than any diplomat had done, more then any road that was built, or any power plant that was constructed in the last year.’ ” Read more.

Photograph of Peyton Tochterman: The Utne Reader

Read Full Post »

Mr. Beford’s Barn

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2012| 6 Comments »

I’ve been enjoying the album “On the Road from Appomattox,” the latest release of outstanding local bluegrass band Southern Rail.

I’ve also been asking myself what makes a song on the album, “Mr. Beford’s Barn,” so moving.

An old man comes to the narrator’s farm and says he wants to see the barn he helped his daddy build years ago. The barn is very solidly constructed, nearly 100 years old now, and the refrain says it will probably last another hundred years.

It makes a person think about how fine it is to make something that lasts hundreds of years. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if maybe the hundred-year-ness is not what’s moving.

The old man will not be there for hundreds of years and will not be enjoying the fact that the barn lasted so long. The reason he wants to see it is that he knows he helped make something that’s very fine. It’s the well-built-ness that is valuable. The hundreds of years are merely a feature of the value.

I think you will like the song. Although it is not on YouTube, the band lists its YouTube songs here, and you might want to listen to a few if you are thinking of buying Appomattox.

http://www.southernrail.com/

Read Full Post »

Swedish Harp

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 7, 2012| 2 Comments »

Asakiyume writes that an old friend visited her and brought along an unusual harp. Asakiyume explains that the nyckelharpa is “a Swedish musical instrument that’s both keyed and bowed.”

That sounds harder than walking and chewing gum. Even the hurdy-gurdy that I hear in the subway doesn’t look as hard as that sounds, and the hurdy-gurdy involves keying and cranking.

“It’s older than the violin,” Asakiyume says of the nyckelharpa, adding, “my friend tells me there are old tapestries and paintings showing the angels playing these nyckelharpa in heaven.”

(Readers of this blog will note that I can seldom resist tidbits about Sweden. Egypt is another favorite. Both for family reasons.)

Here is Asakiyume’s friend playing the nyckelharpa.

 

Read Full Post »

Grand Opera in a Small Town

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Saturday night we saw a splendid production of Puccini’s opera La Bohème at a $25-a-seat benefit for the Friends of the Performing Arts. Pretty amazing to have fully staged opera professionally sung with orchestra accompaniment someplace other than the big city.

Robin Farnsley, who sang the role of the Bohemian seamstress suffering from tuberculosis, was the heart and soul of the production. I blogged about her before, here. Not only was her singing exquisite, but her acting was unusually sensitive and subtle for opera.

But all the leads were great in this tale of poverty and the artistic spirit: Ray Bauwens as as Mimi’s love, Rodolfo; Tim Wilfong as a delightful Marcello; and Sarah Vincelett as the thoroughly convincing coquette, Musetta. Also worthy of mention were Michael Prichard, Thomas Dawkins, and Miles Rind.

I loved the naturalistic translation, shown in supertitles.

Alan Yost conducted, Kathy Lague was stage director, and Paula Eldridge was chorus master. As far as I know, everyone donated their time to support the performing arts in Concord.

Read Full Post »

Tod Machover

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We are going to the opera tonight, and I’m remembering the last opera we saw, by MIT Media Lab innovator Tod Machover.

It was called Death and the Powers, and it was about a genius who wanted to live forever and figured out how to convert himself into a sort of computer after death. Given that it had lyrics by former poet laureate Robert Pinsky, I thought it would be great, but it was nowhere near as good as Machover’s Resurrection, a Tolstoy story adapted by MIT’s Laura Harrington. (The robots in Death and the Powers were cute anyway.)

Machover is a tremendously interesting and prolific musician. Here he talks about how music can bring back memories, not unlike Proust’s petit madeleine.

Below he explains how his “hyper instruments” have drawn people of all types, including the elementary school classes he visits, into the joy of music making.

 

Read Full Post »

A Very Young Composer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Did you catch the story today about the young boy whose composition was performed by the New York Philharmonic?

At the National Public Radio site, Jeff Lunden writes: “What would it be like if you were 10 years old and composed a piece of music that was played by the New York Philharmonic? For a few New York City school kids, including one fifth-grader, it’s a dream come true, thanks to the orchestra’s Very Young Composers program.

“Composer Jon Deak, who played bass with the New York Philharmonic for more than 40 years, says the idea for Very Young Composers came when he and conductor Marin Alsop visited an elementary school in Brooklyn several years ago.”

Now every year, “72 lucky kids in six New York area schools participate in this free after-school program. …

” ‘The kids are not chosen for being musical geniuses,’ [the Philharmonic’s director of education, Theodore] Wiprud says. ‘The guidelines we give the schools, in trying to identify some fourth- and fifth-graders for the program, is that they be kids for whom this could make a difference. Whether or not they study an instrument is not necessarily a good predictor of whether they’re going to do something creative in music.’ …

” ‘Some of these kids have trouble locating middle C on a piano,’ Deak says. ‘Does that mean they can’t compose music of depth? No. What do they have to do? They have to hum it for us, sing, whistle, tap the rhythms — even if they can’t notate them — and we get their piece.’

“As [teaching artist and composer Daniel] Felsenfeld puts it, ‘The most important thing about this class is that you never, ever, ever write their music for them — not even a little.’ ”

I’m hearing a refrain from yesterday’s post: all children have music in them and you should just let it flower.

Read more and listen to the performance of young Milo Poniewozik’s composition at NPR.

Photograph of student Milo Poniewozik and the New York Philharmonic: Michael DiVito

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »