I’m getting to the end of our La Traviata run at San Francisco Opera. For a conductor who mainly does symphony work, it has been refreshing and revelatory working on this score. I can see why Stravinsky gushes about him so much in his Poetics of Music. There’s something pure about his music: perfectly distilled sounds, perfectly distilled emotion and expression. But more importantly, there is the beauty and sensuality of the sound itself. Human emotions and foibles and mistakes and failures are transfigured into something glorious and profound.
It’s also amazing to actually conduct a seasoned and accomplished opera orchestra. I love the feeling of each and every one of them listening along with me, ready to go any direction at any time.
And singers, well, it’s just sexy to work with a great singer.
Beyond this, it’s refreshing to see how much is done in opera that’s not written in the score. Of course this is the result of tradition, and some tradition is bad. But we don’t run into as much musical literalism here. A 16th note is not necessarily a 16th note; what is written is not exactly what the singer sings. Everyone knows this. I’ve never been a fan of musical fundamentalism: the idea the the written text means literally what it signifies. There are many musicians who are musical fundamentalists, which is infuriating. They can’t see beyond the written page, like some religious folks can’t see beyond what is written in the Bible, or some legal scholars can’t see beyond what is written in the Constitution. This can make Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony sound very bad, for example.
One of the greatest challenges in performing classical music now is getting an orchestra to go beyond the notation, because that’s where the expression really is.
UPDATE: Esther Wheaton at OBOE COMICS, has put together a great blogroll of the event (she’s also responsible for the video below). There’s also a twitter thread if you’re interested (#openears). It’s nice to see the responses to the festival.
So the open ears festival is over, and at the last minute I was recruited to be one of the performers in Gordon Monahan’s “Speaker Swing.” It happened at the festival’s finale (in a way), Blue Dot, an all night warehouse things with the usual DJ stuff in industrial settings plus …
I did this for 25 minutes straight (I’m the guy to the left, in the red). It was tiring, but mostly on the hands and feet. You really can’t move once those things get going, or else you’ll fall right off. Especially when the strobe lights start going off. Maybe there will be some footage of that up soon …
A blogger and “industry professional” WHO TOTALLY LOSES IT… sample quotes: “And really, I think I’ll stop now, because I’m feeling more than a little cruel right now, even though (to be perfectly honest), I’ve pulled a few punches in what I’ve just said, no matter how critical I might have seemed.” and “During intermission, I talked to some orchestra professionals I know, and none of them were happy. Two even left, one out of boredom, the other with a sense (I think it’s right to put it this way) of faint disgust.”
I love the idea of “orchestra professionals” walking out of the building with “faint disgust.” What would they do if they were “deeply disgusted” at a concert? Maybe someday all “orchestral professionals” will unite and save classical music. Oh yeah, they’re already in charge. (just kidding, some of my best friends are “orchestra professionals” haha).
So how was the MUSIC? I think generally what was written was true: not fully refined, but enthusiastic. Some of it was even quite rough at times, like the Harrison piece I conducted. But it all sounded way better than when we started it a day or two earlier. All of my colleagues who were helping to prepare this concert were impressed and moved by the process, even if it didn’t meet the highest technical standards. We all knew it wasn’t going to be perfect, and that was an unusual and liberating feeling. For those of us involved, meeting these intrepid musicians was inspiring — and it was a privilege to help them get their orchestra rolling. There was deep joy in the process.
I think that’s what we all were so excited about. It was a moment in history, a bold experiment, well-funded (for once). The fact that it came together as it did on the musical, technical (meaning stage-changes, lights, video), personal, and audience level was exhilarating. I’ve never seen an undertaking that complex come together so fast, and so well.
Finally, the orchestra itself had a special quality, different than, say, some of the other brilliant young orchestras at conservatories and music festivals around the world. It think what set these musicians apart is that they actually took the time (and had the nerve) to audition on YouTube. To me, that implies a certain sense of adventure, lack of cynicism, and desire to have fun. I wonder if I would have done it? If I hadn’t, it probably would have been for cynical reasons.
So yes I was moved, inspired, energized, and more. I’m so glad I was a part of it, even if it was far from perfect. Looking at the faces of the orchestra and my musician colleagues, I don’t think I was alone. It was fun. And in classical music, believe me, we need more fun.
It seems to me that music-making in the classical world is a struggle between joy and perfection. That’s because those rare peak performances are instances of joyous perfection (maybe that’s because Bach has been such a huge influence on all of us). But what about those moments when we don’t reach the top? They usually fall into one of two sub-categories: “rough and joyful” or “perfect and lifeless.” I’m afraid “perfect and lifeless” is the more common category of the two, because it’s safer, and implies hard work. The YouTube Symphony made a case for more “rough and joyful,” music making I think. And that’s a good thing.
PS check out Jeremy Denk’s YouTube Symphony VLOGS. They capture the vibe really well. Plus I’m in them! making quips. I’ve included part one below.
As I was packing, I was listening to Radio David Byrne. There’s a lot of new, interesting stuff on, including the new Dirty Projectors album which hasn’t come out yet. (They are my favorites these days along with some others on the playlist: St. Vincent, Final Fantasy, The Bird and The Bee). What’s great is how Byrne-influenced all this music is. The Children of Byrne & Eno have grown up and continued the tradition of artsy, beautiful, witty, world-influenced, electronic music! Yay!
What a strange and mysterious symphony. What captivates me is its use of “negative space.”
It opens in a void. All darkness and quiet, no key, no specific tonality. It’s like wandering in a dark room. How big is the room? We don’t know — we’re lost in the emptiness.
And as the symphony progresses, it always wants to return to the darkness, the negative zone of silence. It’s as if the notes of the symphony are written around a great emptiness, to show its architecture.
It’s about something other, something mysterious.
I conduct it this weekend, in misty, beautiful Victoria, BC.
The Composer is Dead, an incredible project I did with Lemony Snicket and Nathaniel Stookey is out in stores! It’s a book with a CD of the San Francisco Symphony conducted by yours truly. I’m so so so proud of this project. Here’s a nice YouTube promo that was done. I’m even in a few shots!!
Posted in Friends, Into | Sunday, March 15th, 2009
It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m decompressing. It was a busy week.
We had TIME FOR THREE here this week, who played in our Intersections series. They got a good REVIEW in our local paper, The Record. The end of the review is really funny to me though. The reviewer comments that the orchestra didn’t have enough to do during the concert:
“Perhaps this show belonged with the symphony’s Pops series (where I would probably go see Tf3 again for all the froth and fun). While applauding Outwater’s efforts to challenge the boundaries of symphonic music in this series, I vote for more intersection and less wallpaper.”
Now I happen to agree strongly with the reviewer that the orchestra didn’t do enough. It’s a problem with Time for Three … they don’t have enough charts yet. They’re working on it. Even so, I couldn’t resist bringing them to KW asap., despite the fact that the orchestra would be sitting most of the time. In an ideal situation, the orchestra should have had more to do. No doubt.
But what’s funny to me is that he’s suggesting what does and doesn’t belong in the INTERSECTIONS series, a format I INVENTED only four concerts ago! That’s kind of cool — it must mean that the four shows that we’ve done already have a common vibe …
The real intention is that INTERSECTIONS is a completely flexible format, and that includes some concerts where the orchestra plays a lot (like the electronica show earlier this year) and sometimes not so much. It’s about whatever is new, interesting. In the case of Time for Three, the music they play is an intersection: it’s impossible to categorize as bluegrass, classical, country, hip-hop, etc. That’s why I think they belong in this series.
At any rate, this particular critical response shows the human need to categorize art, which is not what art is about, ultimately. But that tension has been around since the beginning of criticism.
There were some extra events around this concert, including an apres-concert gathering at the Jane Bond in Waterloo. Good turnout of musicians, staff, and audience. And we had a party at my place earlier in the week to attract new folks to the KWS. It was a younger crowd, and they got to hear Time for Three up close. Here’s a video of them playing for the party. It was their first time as a group in Canada, but they chose the right music to impress the Canadians! Soon they’ll figure out it’s not “Tom Horton’s” and then they’ll really be in business.
I had a great time with the Riverside County Philharmonic this weekend. Probably one of the best kept secrets in the LA area: a young, talented orchestra that loves to play, and plays WELL! I’d go back anytime. The main portion of the concert was Shostakovich 10. Many of the musicians literally had to drive through the LA fires to get to the concert, which of course fit the mood of the symphony. One of the musicians captured it on cellphone and put the video on YouTube with the terrifying 2nd movement of Shostakovich 10 in the background. These guys didn’t just play the symphony, they kind of LIVED it.
