Reflections on Being a Star

John Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis; Carnegie Hall, Oct. 22, 2012 S.E.M. Orchestra

2012 is a stellar year for John Cage performances, his centennial sparkling with a veritable myriad of concerts in his honour. The largest scale of these, at least in terms of performers, is the production of Atlas Eclipticalis in its most expansive version, which took place in historically star-studded Carnegie Hall, on Monday Oct.22, 2012. The “Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble”, which premiered this version twenty years ago, played it as part of their "Beyond Cage" festival, to its maximum duration of 100 minutes, with its maximum instrumentation of 86 musicians, simultaneously with Winter Music in a two-piano version, as per the signature optional directions of Cage.

This concert witnessed a veritable conglomeration of New York City new music freelancers, including players from Argento, Absolute Ensemble, Alarm Will Sound, Talea, FLUX Quartet, Composer's Concordance, Either/Or, 20-21, Yarn|Wire, Signal Ensemble, Talujon, Loadbang, American Composer's Orchetsra, ACJW, Ensemble Moto Perpetuo, Guidonian Hand, North/South Music, The Knights, Ljova, and - the list goes on. As one of the performers, I enjoyed the opportunity to interact with so many of my colleague-friends all at the same time.
I also enjoyed the reaction of many of my non-musician invitee-friends, who before the concert said, "Wow, that sounds intriguing", and after expressed, "What an amazing experience!" Old new music is still fresh, even if its rays of light take longer to reach us now.

www.johncage.info tells us that Atlas Eclipticalis was composed as follows: “Cage used the Atlas Eclipticalis 1950.0 (an atlas of the stars published in 1958 by Antonín Becvár (1901-1965), a Czech astronomer), superimposing musical staves over the star-charts in this atlas. Brightness of the stars is being translated into the size of the notes in the composition.”
The score consists of 344 pages of music, which are divided up among the 86 musicians, hence we each play 4 pages, at 25 minutes a page. The dots on the page, are organized into clusters connected by lines, according to chance processes. There is a nice link to pictures of all of this here: http://greg.org/archive/2012/06/25/john_cage_antonin_becvar_and_leonard_bernstein_walk_into_a_bar.html

We play the notes in each cluster in whichever order we wish, following instructions for each cluster as to how many notes shall be as short as possible, and how many shall have “some duration”. The only parameter around “some duration” is that each cluster should be completed more or less according to its positioning on the staff, as the piece is spatially notated, meaning that each line of staff is to last for the length of one cycle of the conductor's, or clock's, arms – which in our version is five minutes (there are 5 lines of staff per page). Petr Kotik, founder and conductor of S.E.M., and the driving force behind this performance, did his yogic work well, conducting the twenty cycles like a Tai Chi exercise. Slow movement, especially for such a long time is not easy. The audience was privy only to the movement of his arms, which started above his head, and continued slowly in a circle, liked the hands on a clock. Occasionally, time stood still, as the score allows for; perhaps once or twice it backtracked slightly. We players could of course see his serious yet humourful (might one say, universal?) expression.

Star-gazing is a meditative enterprise. Re-creating the dots of light is no less so. While the instructions provided by Cage stop short of specifying “attempt to sound as you might imagine the stars do”, the analogous parallel between light and sound is woven inherently into the score, and appears as such in the sound. The task of performing the dots on the page, with specific instructions, yet with freedom with respect to their timing and length and balance, over the course of 100 minutes, also sets the stage for a zen-like focussedly unfocussed state of being.We started sounding really good by the third page. Our egos had disappeared – each dot was no longer a solo in Carnegie Hall, but a twinkling with the others in the orchestra; we'd gone from being stars to connecting the – galaxies.

When I had a few minutes of rest, about an hour into the piece, I found myself staring at the floor of the stage. For some reason, I have always liked the particular colour of Carnegie's stage – a light, almost tan bare-hardwood. It makes me feel at home, and with the stage lights, it seems cheerful. But something appeared to me tonight: Carnegie's stage is a star-map in itself, marked by galaxies - hundreds, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of cello endpin holes, stabbed into history by the world's most famous, most revered, most renowned cellists. Jacqueline du Pré, Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, generations of Berliner Philharmoniker and Cleveland Orchestras – well, the current stage is not so old (1995), but old enough to have seen every major orchestra in the world multiple times, and all the soloists too. Sometimes the cello sections sits at stage left, where I was, and sometimes they sit further inland; for contemporary works they could sit anywhere, and for large-scale youth orchestras and other non-Carnegie-Hall-presents groups, they also might be squeezed in anywhere. The stage is layered in endpinpoints, in months, as stars are layered in light-years. How often can we busy New Yorkers take a moment out of our hectic schedules, to contemplate such things, to star-gaze? A worthwhile reflection.

Needless to say, we were warmed up for the post-intermission piece, John Marclay's Shuffle – of which we gave a spunky and humourous rendition, and which, at 10 minutes, felt much too short.

Concert Review - Crested Butte Music Festival: Home Soirée "Hungarian Gypsy Jazz", with Cimbalogh Trio

     One of the main themes emerging from the Crested Butte Music Festival is that of cross-cultural connections, most strikingly, between the cultures of the music's origin, and the culture of the music's presentation. The music includes, yet also ranges far beyond, the bluegrass so home to Colorado. Looking ahead, the festival programme includes Mozart's Magic Flute, with a contemporary twist and English interspersions; as well as a "Beer and Beethoven" symphony performance, and "Gypsy Jazz in Paradise", all intertwining various cultural heritages.

     This cultural richness evident in the very first symphony concert, in which conductor and music director Jens Georg Bachmann aptly introduced a programme of classical Hungarian, Czech, and Austrian music, interwoven with traditional folk and gypsy music roughly from the same region, the latter performed by world music artists Kálmán Balogh on cimbalom, and his "Cimbalogh" trio with bassist Csaba Novák and violinist/violist Robert Lakatos. 

     In vernacular terms, the folk-influenced music had groove - and an addictive, inescapable one. In contrast to some of the classical styles on the programme, which tell a story in prose, and ask you to be very quiet and attentive to fully enjoy it, this music lures you in, seducing you to move with it until you are so engaged that it can dance with you in any direction, from sudden surges to slow and gentle slow-downs - an exhilarating feeling in many ways akin to the adrenaline the skiers and bikers in these mountains feel as they take a brilliant turn on a treacherous downhill.

     Although the folk musicians have signposts along the way, of where the harmonies change, or where there is room for improvisation, and while the groove is relentless, the melodies have an air of perfect freedom; they sound natural as in the blood of the musician, unaffected by Crested Butte's high altitude. The more I listened to the trio, the more I felt supported in my view that classical music, even art music, has its roots in the folk music of its time, and that we classical musicians have a great deal to learn about flexibility, imprecision, and even grit (true or not) in our sound and style and approach. After all, the music we've inherited as sheet music is just as much of a sketch of what we are to hear, as the words written on this screen are an indication of what you would hear if you read them aloud. The more natural, the more honest, and the more able to tell us about our humanity.

     I was so fascinated by the Cimbalogh trio, that I determined to return to their second concert, a "home soirée", in which they would be the only group performing. I was particularly interested as I have a great affinity for the composer Béla Bártok, who is also one of the first and greatest ethnomusicologists; he collected, analysed, and catalogued countless Hungarian, Transylvanian, Romanian, Serbian, Croatian and other folksongs. This deep study greatly influenced all of his compositions, and he continued his work fervently even when living in New York City near the end of his life during WWII.

     My head full of notions of modes and rhythms and melodies, I excitedly made my way to the soirée, expecting to be nearly late, and therefore to creep in quietly at the back of the audience, like a chipmunk to an errant peanut. I also expected to know virtually no-one there, as the soirée was priced as a fundraiser, meaning the likelihood of other musicians in the audience was very low, save for the festival's vibrant Artistic Director, Alexander Scheirle (who had graciously understood my excitement, and how this might be combined with the event being almost, but not quite, sold out.

     In any case, rather than at a performance in full progress, I found myself suddenly in the middle of hors d'oeuvres and cocktails, amidst some of the most generous donors to the festival. I had heard that they were lovely people, and I had met a few previously, who indeed impressed me as lovely people, and still it took me an instant to overcome my shyness, the comfort of musician mode, in which one simply takes for granted that music is precious and phenomenal and fascinating, and nerdiness can be fully appropriate. It is a shift to recognize, as a member of society, why we should and do value music so greatly, and why having a festival in which to present this great music is something to be profoundly grateful for, and proud of, at the same time. The arts are unfortunately a field in which mixing quality with a standard business model does not in any way guarantee financial success; for hundreds of years the fine arts have flourished only thanks to the patrons supporting the artists, and the stories of the greatest geniuses dying untimely as paupers, for lack of such support, sadly abound. In our own time, the news publishes many stories of a tug-of-war between rich and poor, and the resultant divisive stress on society.

      Whatever lifestyle differences may exist between artists and our patrons, we share a love of music, and, most especially at a concert, we are tied together with the common desire to be moved by it. We share something deeply human, a joy of experience and interaction. There are no boundaries between skiiers and musicians, between Arkansas and Hungary.

     This became intensely clear as Cimbalogh began to play. The music was irresistible. Not one person in the packed room could keep still - we found ourselves freeing fingers and feet from wineglasses and chairs to tap along, and many heads bobbed too. The group whirled us through dances and tales galore - Verbunkos, Hora, Gypsy Melodies, Jewish dances, Mosquitodance - fingers and hammers flying. The cimbalom's dynamic range was on full display (rendering clearly why Liszt was so inspired by this instrument); the violin and viola fiddling smoked brilliantly, and the bass kept us on a guided percussive course.

     Some songs were re-cycled from the previous evening, and some were new to us. A highlight for me was the "Tendl Pál dulcimer music", in which the melody features a classic Hungarian offbeat stress, which Kálmán Bálogh timed absolutely delightfully - the melody repeated often, and you knew to expect it, but you could never be sure just exactly when the jump would land. We were rapt. I was also very interested in the re-arranged melody from Bartók First Rhapsody for Violin and Piano, with which I am of course thoroughly acquainted - though perhaps because I know it so well, it struck me as the weakest piece of the programme. I prefer Bartók's harmonies to those the group chose, and the sound of the violin, to that of the viola, played tonight. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see which choices the group made regarding timing, and what freedoms they saw in the traditional melody, their differing interpretation of it therefore showing its intrinsic qualities from a new angle.

     The final piece on the programme was a decisive crossover - a mix of the Hungarian Verbunkos (recruiting dance) and the American Boogie-woogie with Yankee-doodle melody (recruiting melody?) The seamless interweaving of the two showed off the musicians' mastery of the styles and their similarities - true musicianship to the core.

The concert was a resounding success, and the standing ovation instantaneous. The concert's title, Hungarian Gypsy Jazz, had proven itself, not in any watered-down way, but in thorough enrichment.

     Following the performance, as Mr. Bálogh happily demonstrated the inner workings of the cimbalom, I too had a plethora of questions for the musicians - how do they notate their music? How much is free for improvisation, and how much decided in advance? How much Hungarian do you have to know to really understand it?

     As a devoted fan, recognized from the last concert, I secured myself some of this insider information ... and an invitation to chat more about it from the violinist. Still filled with questions (partially to inform this blog post, which was percolating in my head), of course I accepted. And I have to record some Bartók soon - how better to approach the subject of authenticity than ask someone playing folk music all about it?

     In speaking with Mr. Lakatos, I learned more of many curiousities about the music, of life bridging the folk and classical styles, and of life across the ocean. And once again, I gather that people are the same the world over - that the stresses he experiences are just the same as for anyone anywhere with long separations from family for touring/work, and the daily struggle to earn a living in a decent way. The trio had driven here from New York, and would be heading in that direction again tomorrow. Who drives? The violinist and bassist alternate, as the cimbalomist is prone to falling asleep at the wheel.

     - Though certainly not in concert. Tomorrow, before they leave, I'll read a few Bartók duos with Mr. Lakatos. Will osmosis transmit an authentic style? (I'm curious.)

     ... What it did was transmit the excitement of the music yet again, and show how the cultural understanding of it highlights it even more. Life is much better and easier with inspiration, and how lucky are we to be able to access it from such a vast array of cultures here in beautiful Crested Butte, whilst breathing in the natural mountain air and friendliness. As life and creativity is enriched, the osmosis is symbiotic (though my biology metaphors can doubtless use a tune-up). Through such a welcoming environment to share in, the festival enriches the lives of artists and audience alike, uniting us in all our many cultures. Come share in the fun ... this year, or next!

Article Discussion: Re: "Can One Hear the Sound of a Theorem"

Can One Hear the Sound of a Theorem?  Rob Schneiderman
Notices of the American Mathematical Society August 2011
http://www.ams.org/notices/201107/rtx110700929p.pdf

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In this blog, I believe I find myself generally having a positive tone. Normally I am writing about musicians and concerts, and have been having a great time, and, as I understand it, the general practice of critiquing music, perhaps more so in North America than in Europe, but nonetheless, is to acknowledge what has been given and achieved, and only then perhaps state which elements one might take exception to.

However, from my philosophical studies, I've learned also that the world of Acadamia is happy to enter battles of opinions rather more overtly, without mincing words.

Rob Schneiderman's article is of this nature, and my response to it is equally so.

I originally sent my response to the editor of the AMS, who wrote back to say I would have been invited to submit it for publication, but that I'd written too late. I blame summer/fall musician travels - the mind is elsewhere.

In any case, here goes. I will dig in. Oh, and yes, I include my credentials at the end.

Dear AMS Editor,

I am mystified as to what the point of Schneidermann's rather contrarian article "Can One Hear the Sounds of a Theorem" in the August issue might be, other than that it is very difficult to prove a rigorous correlation between mathematics and music. Certainly, his own examples don't hold up to his kind of scrutiny, any more than the examples of others he takes such pains to shoot down. The article reads more like a rant than a discussion or constructive criticism, and lacks a basic knowledge in the philosophy of aesthetic theory.
Take for example his attempt to distinguish between music/mathematics from other arts and sciences, via assigning "intrinsic meaning". Schneiderman realizes that this is a problematic concept (without a meaning-giver, ie. a person, is there actually meaning?) - and tries to get out of it by whittling down "intrinsic meaning" to "degrees of intrinsic meaning" ... but if a thing doesn't exist, how can you have degrees of it? As anyone who has studied the problems surrounding both formalism and hermeneutics knows, the concept of meaning is very difficult if not impossible to extract from human qualities and experiences. Equally problematic is his assertion regarding reference, that "both mathematics and music frequently do refer to the natural world". Reference, as philosophy of language tells us, is as troublesome a concept as meaning, and in taking the viewpoint that music and mathematics can refer, Schneiderman suddenly adopts a hermeneutic viewpoint that is completely unsupported by anything else in his article, and actually contradicted by his formalist stance elsewhere. Just as unsupported is his opinion that music is somehow more abstract than other art forms, which he defends solely on the basis of his own intuition, "I stand by the claim," and an attempt to describe his definition as "what is special to mathematics and music is that their content is capable of being expressed entirely in terms of their own raw material, namely, logical thought and audible sound". However, this latter sentence is merely a definition of abstraction, which exists in all the other art forms - painting as expressed in terms of interplays of light, dance as expressed in terms of motion, poetry as expressed in uniqueness of form, which may contain jibberish - the Jabberwocky poem of that great mathematician/writer Lewis Carroll comes to mind. Schneidermann tries to get out his dilemma by stating that abstracted poetry is music - but this is just an easy way out: "abstracted anything is mathematics or music", and takes us to a circular definition.
In the end, it appears that he is making the claim that "patterns that do not rely on sensory perception" are the core of his special categorization of mathematics and music. But again, this definition contradicts what he wrote earlier, having included "audible sound" as a "raw material" of music. Setting aside that discrepancy (and the floodgate of the artforms that the "raw materials" admission allows, as discussed above), it is unclear how he is establishing that there is anything that is especially non-sensory about music, other than his claim that it is somehow mathematical.

Another distinction he is missing is that between analysis and creativity, two opposites in terms of attitude. One similiarity between creating/discovering a musical piece and developing a theory along a branch of mathematics is that one sees how far an idea can go. The difference is that mathematical rules are less subjective, most will agree with what is proper or improper procedure, whereas in music one can decide at any moment to do anything - to create - and the result will be either more or less pleasing to various audiences, or up for argument. He dimisses all music that is inspired by mathematics - but where is the mention of some of the greatest "mathematical" composers, for example, Milton Babbitt, Iannis Xenakis, or even Pierre Boulez? There is a distinction between being inspired by and using mathematical constructs in musical composition, and creating new forms utilizing them (as so many 20th-and 21st-century composers do and with great success), and adhering to a rigorous one-to-one mapping between a mathematical concept and some (arbitrarily) chosen correspondence in the sound world, as appears to be the thing Schneiderman is railing against. The beauty and elegance of a composer's meaningful and convincing message using complicated mathematical constructs, is precisely that, on the basis of what appears to touch people, it need not be via one-to-one correspondence, and that we can feel a strong message even if the mathematical idea utilized is hidden. His example of Bach's crab canon is apt here - where the correspondence is too strong, the message we feel is that it is a little too perfect: it works, it tells us something, but there is something not entirely natural-feeling about it. And that is a difference between mathematics and music - we are supposed to be able to work out and understand mathematics to the last degree, and perfection of symmetry can be an end, but music is meant to leave something inexplicable, and also tell us something about ourselves - why do we find ourselves attracted to one form or another?

Perhaps his thesis is actually, that correlation between mathematics and music is merely metaphorical - for precisely the reason that mathematics does not take "raw material" to fill its place-holders, and music does. But if he wishes to claim that music is as pattern-oriented as mathematics, in order to support his claim that music is of an abstract nature, then he has again taken the leap of faith he criticizes in the other authors. Yet perhaps it is precisely this leap of faith that we must take in order to get the "what, if anything, do-music-and-math-have-in-common" project off the ground at all. That would be an interesting idea to develop further - and amazingly, would lead us not to need to reform the school curriculum anywhere as violently as he suggests, for his currently narrow view of what he considers "correct" in this regard would, I posit for the reasons I've mentioned above, open up to many more possibilities.

Sincerely,

Claudia Schaer

Faculty, Bloomingdale School of Music, New York City

D.M.A. Stony Brook University, Violin Performance
Graduate Certificate Equivalent - Philosophy and Music

Aesthetics and Logic studies at Columbia University
MM, BM, The Juilliard School, Violin Performance

Concert Review - Bramwell Tovey conducts the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, with Andrew McCandless, trumpet. Sat. Apr.14, 2012

There's both something special, and something very simple, about going to hear your hometown symphony. You remember your thrill as a child, perhaps studying with members of the orchestra, of looking up to the professionals who seem to magically perform impossible feats every moment. You also remember when you started learning about the world outside of your immediate periphery, and became curious to hear live what others transmit as legend, or what you've gleaned from a library's recording. And then, you grow up, and realize how vital a role the orchestra plays in your community, how fortunate your city is to have one, and come to understand the commitment, care, and yes, sacrifice, that every member of the orchestra makes, day in and day out, to keep its existence continuing.

So when my good friend said she had two tickets courtesy of a corporate sponsor, and did I want to go, we had a look at the programme, and decided, "Sure, looks interesting, why not." Very nice that we had among the best seats in the house - prime parquet.

The programme was titled "From the New World" and consisted of Copland's Quiet City, a new trumpet concerto (2009) by also-conductor Bramwell Tovey, and, of course, Dvorak's New World Symphony.

As is the new way in many orchestral concerts, the evening began with an acknowledgement of the main sponsors. At worst, this can frame the concert as background music for an advertisement for these companies. At best, as was tonight's delivery, it serves as an equally grateful and proud introduction to the enjoyment that is to follow, a recognition of the work and support that, as the cliché so aptly states, makes the evening possible.

A succinct and well-crafted intro by the CPO's Principle Trumpet "Emeritus" Howard Engstrom took us from Calgary into the world of Aaron Copland - early Americana portrayed in youthful innocence. The solos were lovely, gently played by Adam Zinatelli, CPO's Principle Trumpet , and David Sussman, CPO's English Horn, and the piece kept its spell from beginning to end.

Bramwell Tovey's trumpet concerto Songs from the Paradise Saloon, required a veritable family of trumpets, and soloist Andrew McCandless, Toronto Symphony's Principle Trumpet, took advantage of this very visual conversation-piece in his introduction. Appearing thoroughly at home with addressing a large crowd, his speech started down a road that well could have ended in a ditch of not-quite-successful stand-up-comedy - a few remarks in, he noted having no idea whether the concert would go well tonight, and then noted his use of self-deprecation  ... and then, with the audience already warmed up to him, he steered it straight into very-successful and witty stand-up comedy zone, accompanied zestfully by Tovey, with great rapport. When Tovey pointed out McCandless's second use of self-deprecation, the latter responded in mock exasperation, "Just let me handle this, ok??", and sighed to the audience, "Conductors!" The duo's hilarious improv culminated in airing dirty laundry regarding the correct pronunciation of "cornet", which McCandless informed us that Tovey, a Brit, had corrected him of "in front of two thousand people" during his introduction at yesterday's concert. Tovey meanwhile glanced pointedly at his wristwatch, and then in his part of the introduction wished us a "Happy Titanic Anniversary", explaining that all that could be said about the concerto had been said.
As it turned out, that wasn't quite the case: the concerto is extracted from Tovey's opera The Inventor, about notorious 19th-century Canadian criminal "Sandy" Keith, and Tovey's descriptions of the scenes of debauchery were a colourful and helpful lead-in to the music. My friend (not a musician) and I (a musician) agreed that this way of learning about the music was thoroughly entertaining, and made for much better evening than either not knowing what the music was intended to be about (potentially shocking anyone expecting more demure or Mozartean classical music), or having to read programme notes to find out the plot (I personally prefer to read the notes on the way home, after the concert). This might be the place for an enthusiastic "Two thumbs up!!"

The music, and the performance, were no less praiseworthy. I was deeply impressed by the concerto, which displayed a mastery of style and all the old-time enterprises of harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, and orchestration, coming together in songs with fresh sounds, blends, and expression to suit the scene and characters of the saloon. There is a great deal of focus in modern classical composition to create anew, but to do so with full knowledge, understanding, and ability of the old, shows a rare and complete musician. I felt myself becoming a Bramwell Tovey fan.
Andrew McCandless played flawlessly and with verve, fighting the orchestra's thick sonority bravely, weaving spikily in and out of the texture. He is in some ways at the mercy of the orchestra, and finding flexibility is not easy, but then perhaps that is not the point - he never gets to play the theme but dances around it in variations. He is, as it were, re-inventing the reality around him. 

In terms of trumpet show-casing, the evening offered an interesting juxtaposition: Zinatelli had the more exposed role, but played in more subdued hues, while McCandless had the brilliant and more technical role, as well as the longer piece, but was in a sense granted less spotlight in relation to the orchestra. And so the question of "which city, Toronto or Calgary, has the better Principal Trumpet", could be neatly avoided, not always a given in such guest situations.

The best-known work on the programme was of course Dvorák's New World Symphony. It needed no introduction. But it needed a little reminder of traditions: the Calgary audience, under music director Roberto Minczuk's now 6-year tenure, has been encouraged to clap between movements, and did so enthusiastically after the first movement. Maestro Tovey handled it just as I would hope - he gave a nod of appreciation for the sentiment, but made it clear with another gesture that he wished to continue, for the movements to be allowed to relate to one another uninterruptedly. (Presumably those few who clapped after the 2nd movement appreciated his reaction so much they wished to elicit it again - but this time I daresay he frowned.) He was careful to take only a short enough break between the third and fourth, to avoid any applause there. But the immediate and heartfelt standing ovation at the end was fully taken in and absolutely deserved - it was a wonderful performance. The orchestra sounded among the best I've heard it - beautifully blended, with a clear path of interpretation throughout, warm and meaningful. The very special second movement in particular shone in splendid beauty. It was a very satisfying performance indeed.
It also reminded me of just how much power is vested in the conductor. In contrast to tonight, I had been rather disheartened by a previous CPO performance of Brahms' 4th symphony, with a different conductor, which to my ears had been overly driven and harsh, (reminding me for some reason of undercooked risotto, or overbrushed- and too-sparkling-whitened- teeth). It does not take musician-ears to feel something amiss in the emotion: the audience remained seated and the clapping was distinctly polite, ending after just one curtain call. As Brahms and Dvorák were contemporaries with similarities in their writing, and a Brahms symphony certainly no less of a masterwork than Dvorák's, the cause was clearly the performance, and I had had some hesitation at the prospect of subjecting myself to an interpretation so counter my taste again.
So it was especially delightful to find just the opposite tonight - to find myself thrilled, and the whole house too. The conductor is, after all, the guiding light - leading the rehearsals, and channelling his interpretation's electricity into gestures to unite the musicians, taking into account all that we have to offer as well. 

It was thoroughly satisfying to see my home-city's now-colleagues playing their best, to experience this excellent performance. Sipping tea with my friend afterwards, I found myself telling the waiter - "We were down the street at the symphony tonight - you've never been? It was wonderful, you should go!" 

And so, regarding the much-talked-about future of classical music and of reaching new audiences, I can't help feeling that it takes BOTH of two key ingredients: new innovative presentation, AND the old traditional highest standards of quality.

We all feel it. Or as the CPO slogan goes, we "Feel It Live".

Creating the Future, Present, and Past

This year, I have had the privilege of being a guest participant in Ray Anderson's improvisation class at Stony Brook University. As a “good student”, the thing for me to say, which is also really true: it's been a wonderful experience, and I've learned a lot. As a free spirit, I also have a lot more to say.
The most intriguing observation for me is how the class navigates the realm of emotion, and of pure next-ness, which perhaps might be termed subconscious emotion. When improvising in a group, we may have a general emotion in mind, and start from there, but in the moment itself, when it's time to do something, somehow the next sound appears. It is this connection between the two, the letting what one feels in the moment tie to and directly influence what happens next, that was central to the magic that happened in the class.
Apart from Ray, a great jazz player, we were a group of classical musicians, and as is often the case in our reverent tradition, we take pieces as already completed and learn how to execute them; it is still rare, though this is evolving as musical institutions look back to how the music we play was actually created, for our education to feature freestyle classical jam sessions, and a strong focus on both improvisation and composition for instrumentalists. So we heard a great deal from Ray about “turning off the inner critic”, to free up from comparing to the enormous shoulders of the greats of the past and present. It's about getting up the courage to walk a new course without recourse to a map. He actually had a session entirely on ugly sounds, encouraging them, to get out the fear of making them. In this class, better to speak and have the result be un-aesthetically-pleasing, than not speak at all – and as it turns out, in art there are no wrong answers, everything can go somewhere, or nowhere if we prefer.
Since we were exploring entirely free-style, we removed all constraints of style. It is true that constraints sometimes give more options than pure freedom, but our aim here was not to create a perfect polka, or a judicious smooth jazz jam, or a sonorous sonata. The aim was to link the visceral emotion of creation, response, and sound, with something coming out of our instruments. As a result, we found ourselves talking much more about situations, than about music. We'd have a follower and a responder, a soloist and an accompanist, a joiner and an abstainer. What those would sound like was left up to us. And somehow, we found strings of sounds, however imprecise, that would convey what we felt in the moment, much as a baby might make sounds, without knowing a language, that somehow seem appropriate to her in her situation. After that, it was inventing situations, either explicitly, or as we went along, that would create the framework we played within and without. In one very interesting experiment, each one of us “conducted” the ensemble, with gestures to distinguish desired articulations, dynamics, solos, rhythm, and anything else we could come up with. It left room for the players to improvise around the indications – a solo could be anything – and, in being on the spot, it let the “conductor” try out whatever came to mind, which wound up being an interesting reflection of the very personal unique types of patterns each of us gravitate towards. Indeed the structure of each improvisation in the end reflected and perhaps exaggerated each of our very distinct personalities, and in this realization we could take what we learned about our tendencies, and apply our increased self-awareness towards a greater freedom in improvisational decision-making, and refresh potential habits with views of new directions.
In composition, there is much focus on “creating a language”; in these improvisation sessions, I had the opportunity to get my feet wet in the pre-language stage. My conclusion: it is great fun to play with the ethers, from which life congeals and springs up!

PAUL TAYLOR @ LINCOLN CENTER - Performance Review 2012.03.20

PAUL TAYLOR @ LINCOLN CENTER

Tues. Mar. 20, 2012

There are days when all that should be, converges.

After a long bout of busy-ness, I finally found myself with a fortuitous evening free, to see Paul Taylor Dance Company perform in their debut at Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater, formerly known as the New York State Theater and home to the New York City Ballet, and until this past season, the New York City Opera (whose departure has led to an ongoing bitter dispute between that company's musicians and their management). It has been a very long 15 years since I was first thrilled by the Paul Taylor Company, at City Center, as a wide-eyed freshman violinist-with-dancer-roommate at Juilliard, and I was utterly excited to revisit those vivid memories tonight.

On a budget, as always, I had been alerted to the possibility of affordably attending, courtesy of the Lincoln Center box office "Atrium Discountix" email efforts, at home in the new David Rubinstein Atrium on Broadway and 63rd Street. The Atrium is a beautiful public space, converted from a climbing wall to a classy destination with tables and chairs and wifi-zone and regular concerts and lush vegetation purifying the air and gloriously creeping up the walls. I always enjoy visiting it - but in the end only the expensive tickets were on sale, which still left them somewhat expensive for me, and so I bought my ticket directly from the Koch Box Office, where a $12 student rush ticket transported me to one of the best seats in the house: F4, - sixth row from the front, in the center left of the orchestra section. With even more joy in this serendipity, I began to chat with my very sweet seat neighbour, an about Paul-Taylor-aged gentleman who, as I would learn, had been the company's first manager.

As a musician, one of the things that had drawn me to this performance was the music: a suite of tin-pan-alley ragtime, Poulenc's Gloria, and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos #6 and #3. In particular, I was curious what Taylor would do with the Bach, so familiar to us all.

The dancing and the choreography were, to my appreciator's eye, superb. Though my only claim to any dancing knowledge is watching some ballet growing up, and attending my beloved Juilliard roommate's many performances during her studies and later with Martha Graham company, I can discern just as every audience member call feel when a piece and its dancers can hold thousands of people spell-bound, rapt, entranced and enthralled by the thread of what is unfolding onstage. There is a hush in the theater as thousands of breaths are held, and it is sublime; we are all in the moment. It is what we all strive for as artists, and it was exquisite tonight, particularly in the third piece, the Bach, titled "Brandenburgs", in which the dancers have beautiful solos, and extend themselves, twirling to the fullest, in their forest green. The choreography wove a stunning counterpoint through the concertos, enhancing Bach's lines, and also his capacity to go on and on and on, in some moments bordering on humourous caricature with signature Paul Taylor gestures of fun, but catching itself while still joyous and rejoining the celebration. It was so wonderful, I hope I can return tomorrow, though I fear life may get in the way.

The second piece, Poulenc, titled "Beloved Renegade", takes the titles of its movements from writings of Walt Whitman, and deals with death among us. The choreography as well as the costumes played with the idea of statues, and the motifs of fate, and inevitability wove their way through it, yet alongside the with the happy obliviousness of youth. The piece and performance were again breathtakingly beautiful, and as my seat-neighbour said to me, "Death is portrayed so much more beautifully than it really is". Is that so? But if in death we find the memory of life, perhaps our hearts carry on as art can. The music is gorgeous also, and it was beautifully sung and played. But by whom I do not know, as the programme does not list which recording was used.

Unless you are a member of local 802, perhaps you will think, "Recording?? But isn't the music live?"

Alas, no.

My neighbour and I conversed about this, as a result of my saying to him I had last been to see the company perform 15 years ago, and when he looked a little shocked, then told me he and the company go way back, I thought I'd better explain that my long hiatus is solely that I attend more concerts than dance performances, since I am a musician (and I'll admit to being flattered that he'd thought I was a dancer; which musician wouldn't be!) As the lights were dimming before the 1st piece, he said that he could understand my hiatus if I were a musician, and he'd tell me later why.

All through the first piece, the ragtime "Oh, you kid!", though I enjoyed its boisterous energy, and heard many understanding chuckles in response to its humour, I was bothered by the recorded music. It was out of tune, it seemed to come from just one side of the stage, the sound quality was decidedly tinned, and, by virtue of being a recording, it was thoroughly inflexible. There would be no responding to a dancer's mood tonight, no allowing the audience to clap a little more for an especially well-communicated solo. I felt as though I'd visited a gourmet restaurant, but was eating my fine entrée accompanied by shredded inorganic ice-berg-lettuce and plastic-bottle fat-free ranch dressing. A large part of this event was far removed from being "in the moment". 

The disparity between the two also led me to meditate on the one-way-street of non-communication between the dancers and the "musicians", and how we respond to electronic media in a world filled with technology today - accepting the old recording, a snapshot of the musicians-of-then, as something to communicate with, as we accept the written medium, the electronic translators of the telephone, then VOIP, email, chat - as stand-ins for meeting in person. Which can be very useful, and all, but will never be quite the same thing. I found this atmosphere rather high-school-musical-on-a-budget-esque, though the dancers were doing a wonderful job of pretending the music was alive. (With lesser-quality performers, I'd wonder, can't they tell the difference?)

My neighbour informed me that of course, the dance company would love to have live musicians, of course it's better, the quality can't compare. But, it would increase the budget by nearly a third.

As I am a card-carrying member of local 802, and heard about the protests not to use live musicians, I can sympathize the counter-attitude that, well, funds to hire musicians should be raised. At the same time, I am aware of the strength of the musician's union, and that union wages would result in the musicians being paid more than the dancers, and of the high expense a union orchestra would create. Furthermore, as much as I appreciate the union's quest to achieve fair pay for musicians, there are surely situations in which the pre-decided "fair pay" would genuinely kill the job - as perhaps in this case - and I don't see the sense in killing jobs, particularly during a recession. It would be more helpful to focus on creating jobs. At the risk of jeopardizing the image of my pro-union stance, I would consider it fair pay for musicians to be paid about the same as dancers in dance performances (the dancers work harder for the job, but musicians are responsible for acquiring instruments in addition to education and technique). Furthermore, I for one would find it thrilling to play the repertoire in a chamber-ensemble version, which certainly would be possible with at least the Bach and the ragtime from tonight. (The Poulenc is more expansive and the use of choir in addition to orchestra would make it more difficult, though not impossible, to replicate in a chamber version.) Small ensembles would work well artistically with the small size of Paul Taylor's company, and certainly would sound better than the canned version. As grateful as I am for union-scale orchestral work when it comes, I also much prefer the artistic freedom and excitement of one-on-a-part playing, in which what I do matters as much as what the dancers do. (I am aware of being far from alone in this sentiment.) I'd be willing to shorten my coffee break for the increased artistic freedom and the sense that my work really matters. (Not to mention how thrilling this kind of collaboration can be between musicians and dancers, as many other Juilliard alumni recall from their days there, and now from collaborations with other dance companies, such as Mark Morris, that explore the chamber music genre).
Am I making a sales-pitch here? - Sure, why not?

A flip side to the question of what-kind-of-music to play with dance, which I discussed with my neighbour, is whether music should ever be played without dance ... what should one look at, in a concert? Since music is not really about the musician - how does one let one's imagination wander? I confided that I can sympathize with this question; I have had the associative imagery at, particularly orchestral concerts, of looking into a see-through glass dishwasher, seeing how the gears turn and all. It happens to be a life-long dream, since I saw my first see-through glass dishwasher at the age of six, to own one someday, but that is another story.

In the end, as much as the quality of tonight's music bothered me at the beginning, the superb dancing and the choreography pulled me into its world, enhanced by well-placed lighting design and striking costumes, so I too could stop paying attention to the music's shortcomings, and thoroughly enjoy my evening. As I sensed from the rest of the audience - our standing ovation was sincere.

Now that I'm done writing my review, can I make it there again tonight??