Celebrity Series of Boston Blog

Preservation Hall reopens tonight!

We announced our 2006-2007 season today (the link can be found here - much more to come about next season on this blog at a later date). Anyway, leading off the season will be the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with a wild new Mardis Gras-inspired show called The New Orleans Revue. Let's just say it involves more than just the band and leave it at that for now. But that's just my preamble (Muskrat Ramble?): Preservation Hall itself is reopening today and we want to wish them well. Here's an article from The Chicago Tribune as a warm up (I'll see if I can find something from The Crescent City...). And here's hoping they have a great time, make a lot of people smile - not to mention make a lot of the money they surely need.

UPDATE: I neglected to mention that the opening of Preservation Hall was part of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival which opened this weekend with a remarkable number of popular artists on the bill(s). Here's a bit of coverage from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Love at Fest Site.

Globe and Herald weigh in on Ailey's Boston engagement

The Boston Herald was first out of the gate. Dance critic Theodore Bale called Tuesday night's performance "sacred and spectacular." Here's the full text.

Thea Singer's entry for The Boston Globe was a bit delayed, but she had this to say about the Ailey dancers:

"Ailey's performers have historically had the technical chops and emotional tenacity to set a theater on fire, and this group -- particularly the men -- was no exception." Full text

Perlman, Zukerman and De Silva at Symphony Hall

Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman returned to Symphony Hall for a duet program last night with pianist Rohan De Silva. Richard Dyer was there and was kind enough to turn a review around overnight. Here's a bit:

"Mozart's First Duo for violin and viola found Zukerman playing from strength as a violist -- he may play this instrument even better than he plays the violin. This performance was as warm-hearted, elegant, and communicative as anyone could hope for."

Full text: For fans of the violin, a perfect pairing.

The pair added 8 Bartok duets to the first half (I'm sorry I don't have the specific selections, hey it was 8 out of 44...), and here are the final encores:

Shostakovich, Three Duets for Violin & Piano (Prelude, Gavotte, and Waltz) and
Shostakovich, Five Duets (Fifth Duet Only, "Polka")

Hibernian Hall got Ailey early

Antonio Douthit of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (that's him on the left) puts some volunteer dancers through their paces during a free public lecture/demonstration at the Roxbury Center for the Arts at Hibernian Hall on April 19.

Does this need a comment from the likes of me? It looks sweet because it is sweet. The Ailey dancers are wonderful, as generous as they are gifted and professional, and these kids look to be getting their Fosse on. 'Nuff said.

Ailey hits town

They're here all week

Ailey dancer Matthew Rushing talks with Marji Borkow of CBS-4

Shoes


Rehearsing Acceptance in Surrender


Boston: A home away from home

Death and the standing ovation - The Emerson String Quartet at Jordan Hall

Twilight on Gainsborough Street

Author Harlow Robinson (left) leads a post-performance discussion with The Emerson String Quartet

The Emerson String Quartet played an evening of the late quartets of the late Dmitri Shostakovich on Friday at Jordan Hall. It was dark territory, indeed. Mortality is contemplated unrelentingly in these late works (in the ears of this listener, anyway), but in the context of a compositional career spent toiling at the pleasure of the likes of Josef Stalin, the focus on death can feel like a kind of liberation, a universality. At last, something from the Shostakovich canon with which an American audience can truly empathize!

But cheery it ain't, of course. When I read the following passage in David Weininger's Boston Globe review I knew what he felt:

"So it was an altogether strange experience when the audience then erupted in cheers. Applauding and shouting bravos -- these are intensely affirmative actions, and it was jarring to hear them in the face of music so intent on negating any glimpse of happiness. Maybe silence is the most appropriate response to such unearthly art."

Sitting in Jordan Hall at that moment, I felt the same way, "Why am I clapping, of all things to do at this moment?" It seemed wrong somehow. It reminded me of a concert earlier this season, when Richard Goode had contemplated the heavens via Beethoven's Opus 111 Sonata, and one local critic jokingly suggested Goode return to the stage and play "Kitten on the Keys" as an encore. Nothing like clapping and encores should follow certain performances.

Maybe audiences, on receiving a performance of this kind of emotional seriousness, should shuffle past the stage, heads bowed, quietly touching hands with the performers like a losing Little League team: "Good game...good game...good game..."

Complete text of Burning brightly amidst Shostakovich's darkness.

Artists, Go Home

Just came across this article about a problem that a number of Celebrity Series artists as well as our performing arts presenter colleagues in Boston have encountered. That is, the difficulty international artists now have obtaining visas to perform in the United States. From complicated regulations to processing backlogs to clerical error, things ain't what they used to be for internationally touring performing artists. It can be a Kafka-esque world out there, but you knew that already...

Read the complete article, Artists, Go Home from Seattle Weekly.

Charlie Kohlhase: The Cranky Yankee

Between his stints on WMBR radio (Research and Development, Mondays 2-4pm, broadcast or streaming), playing baritone saxophone with the Either/Orchestra, and with his many other musical projects, teaching at the Longy School of Music as well as overnights running the board on WBUR radio, etc., saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase is a fixture in this town. Having met Charlie on a few occasions I'm not sure where the "cranky" in the title comes from, but Celeste Sunderland has written a nice piece on Charlie Kohlhase for AllAboutJazz.com; here's a snippet:

"State, New Hampshire. Party affiliation, communist. Obsession, Woody Herman’s 1963 Herd. No, it’s not Boston-based saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase. It’s the Cranky Yankee, a character he’s been known to slip into while on the road. 'He would go on and on about this 1963 Herd and the brilliance of Jake Hanna at the drums,' said Either/Orchestra founder Russ Gershon who Kohlhase played with for 14 years. 'He’s an absolutely hilarious guy.'"

Read all of Charlie Kohlhase: The Cranky Yankee.

FYI: Charlie Kohlhase isn't booked to play any Celebrity Series concerts at present, but he has played two previously with the Either/Orchestra: our Labor Day Fest at the Decordova Museum and Sculpture Park in 1995 and a What Makes It Great? program with Rob Kapilow on Duke Ellington's Such Sweet Thunder in 1998.

Judith Jamison's Reminiscences

Judith Jamison of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Ailey is just around the corner (they open at The Wang Theatre this coming Tuesday evening). Susan Daniels spoke with Judith Jamison, Artistic Director of the Ailey company, and Ronni Favors, the company's rehearsal director, in advance of the company's Boston visit. Here is a clip from her Bay State Banner article:

"'I smelled the same smells as a kid growing up in my little house in Philadelphia. My father used the basement as his craft shop. And when I smelled the wood and saw the shine of the stainless steel set, it brought a tear to my eye,' said Jamison, who chose the title, in part, due to her own personal reminiscences."

UPDATE: The link to the article on Ms. Jamison has vanished, I'm afraid. Too bad, it was nicely written and informative. I'll see what else I can find from this season...

Notice Pollini

Maurizio Pollini, reading

What with all the Celebrity Series performances upcoming: the Emerson String Quartet, 7 Ailey performances at The Wang Theatre, and Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman, a less than observant observer might overlook the Italian piano wizard Maurizio Pollini's Symphony Hall recital on Sunday, April 30. Do not make this mistake.

As I have covered here previously, the program is Chopin and Liszt:

Chopin
Two Nocturnes, Opus 55
   No. 1 in F minor
   No. 2 in E-flat Major
Ballade in G minor, Opus 23
Two Nocturnes, Opus 48
   No. 1 in C minor
   No. 2 in F-sharp minor
Polonaise in F-sharp minor, Opus 44

Liszt
Nuages gris
Unstern: sinister, disastro
La lugubre gondola I (Die Trauergondel)
R.W.—Venezia
Piano Sonata in B minor

Mr. Pollini's newest recording is a two-disc set of Chopin nocturnes from Deutsche Grammophon. Cleverly, some might even say diabolically, he will be performing four such nocturnes on April 30!

For our part, we have some equally clever notes on the program written by Dr. Richard E. Rodda to whet your appetite.

FOLLOW UP: Post on Boston Globe review of this recital.......Post on Pollini's encores