Well I'll be. Eighth blackbird won a Grammy. Read about it here.
There were plenty of other classical music winners (and nominees) with Celebrity Series histories, but eighth blackbird kind of jumped out at me.
Peter Bates has posted his Stylus review of the BMOP concert.
Gil Scott-Heron
Jeremy Eichler's review of Saturday evening's Boston Modern Orchestra Project concert begins with a reference to Gil Scott-Heron's famous screed from 1970, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. After reading the entry I first congratulated myself ridiculously for getting the reference, and then thought what a good decision The Globe made in hiring this remarkable critic (and soon to be Dad). I'm not sure just whom I should be congratulating for pulling the trigger on his hire, so I'll throw my thoughts up here and hope that someone is vain enough to Google their professional decisions in search of my validation.
Exhibit A
Gil Scott-Heron, excerpt from The Revolution Will Not Be Televised:
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers; The revolution will be live."
Exhibit B
Jeremy Eichler, from Maestro, is that a DJ with your orchestra? (Note: Neither Mr. Eichler, nor any of the Globe writers, write their own headlines. Just thought you should know, since I'm truly interested in having you visit these links...):
"The revolution in the idea of what an orchestra can be -- from a collective instrument designed for the traditional symphonic repertoire, into an omnivorous agent of the new -- has been underway for well over a decade now, even if it has not been widely televised."
There is also this from the same review:
"Under the poised direction of conductor Gil Rose, BMOP sounded full and fearless throughout the evening. This protean ensemble made sharing the stage with drum kits and electric guitars seem perfectly natural. For these fine players, it probably is."
Read all of Maestro, is that a DJ with your orchestra?
Last, but by no means least, Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky has posted some photos from the evening on his web site.
Gil Rose and DJ Spooky rehearse Anthony DeRitis' Devolution on Friday, May 18 at Sanders Theatre while James Otis looms in the foreground (full disclosure: in case it isn't obvious...this photo was taken by yours truly, not by a Globe or Herald pro)
The concert is over now, but the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's Saturday night performance at Sanders Theatre, part of our Boston Marquee series, got quite a bit of attention (deservedly so, of course) from local media, including Boston's two major daily newspapers (which two are the "major" daily newspapers, you ask, knowing there are several Boston papers issued daily? The answer is: the ones with their own zip codes are the majors, ok?).
The Boston Globe weighed in with Matthew Guerrieri's Roll Over Beethoven from page one of Friday's Living/Arts section. Matthew followed up, admirably and typically, on his blog, Soho the Dog with a few bits that ended up on the cutting room floor. I love that he does this. Why should those tasty bits of interview wisdom end up as butcher's leftovers to be made into journalistic scrapple, or worse, not made into anything. Serve while fresh, I say.
Keith Powers was next with his Boston Herald entry on Saturday, Modern orchestra blooms with Rose. Considering this paper's troubles of late, the effort was especially noteworthy. Kudos.
Cannonball Adderly once famously said of (some) New York jazz audiences, "You get a lot of people that are supposed to be hip, and they act like they're supposed to be hip, which makes a difference." Cannonball eventually found his really hip New York audience at a matinee performance at New York's Village Vanguard, and while recording there, told the house, "Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life. You don't decide to be hip, it just happens that way." With our Boston Marquee performance by BMOP, the Celebrity Series skipped the trial and error and managed to find something authentically hip. "Hip" in the sense that the event was authentic and it mattered (don't ask me what that means exactly, the audience could feel it). The concert featured the world premiere of Evan Ziporyn's Celebrity Series commission, Hard Drive, the North American premiere of Steven Mackey's Dreamhouse, and Anthony DeRitis' collaboration with DJ Spooky, Devolution, so it was bound to be perceived by many as something that "mattered." In actual performance, not only was it supposed to matter, it did matter. More than a state of mind, it was a fact of life.
That most ubiquitous of typefaces
This Saturday, Boston (ok, Cambridge) has the Boston Modern Orchestra Project at Sanders Theatre, with premieres of cutting-edge compositions by Evan Ziporyn and Steven Mackey, Anthony DeRitis' Dreamhouse with DJ Spooky, Synergy Vocals, Catch Electric Guitar Quartet and actor and vocal wild man Rinde Eckert, all wrapped up with a bow by BMOP's man of vision and humor, Gil Rose. In short, it's an orchestral concert of the highest order that wouldn't be out of place at a club in Central Square.
What about New York, you ask? Well, New York has 50 Years of Helvetica (you know, that most ubiquitous of typefaces?) at MOMA. Not to cast aspersions, but would you choose Helvetica? If so, I know a bus you can get on...
(Full disclosure, the Helvetica exhibition runs until March 31, 2008, so if you are as big a dweeb as I am and actually think the it sounds interesting, you have some time.)
Composer Evan Ziporyn, his Hard Drive will get its world premiere
Boston Modern Orchestra Project plays Sanders Theatre this Saturday evening and the concert, with so many living artists and composers involved, is beginning to take on the feel for me of one of those great '50s epic films, like The Ten Commandments or Lawrence of Arabia. I mean this in the best sense, of course.
The program includes a world premiere, commissioned by the Celebrity Series (Evan Ziporyn's Hard Drive), a North American premiere (Steven Mackey's Dreamhouse), Concerto for DJ and Orchestra by composer Anthony DeRitis, performances by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, Actor/vocalist Rinde Eckert, Synergy Vocals and the Catch Electric Guitar Quartet, all under the baton of conductor Gil Rose. There is a lot to know about a performance like this and so I have arranged this little link farm to help you, gentle reader, to get your pretty little head around our extravaganza.
Program notes on the Celebrity Series concert by Robert Kirzinger
Program notes on Dreamhouse by Steven Mackey
Steven Mackey interview from Composition Today.com (the short, teaser version for non-subscribers)
Anthony DeRitis' Devolution page
Boston Modern Orchestra Project's web site
Paul Miller, a.k.a., DJ Spooky, that subliminal kid web site
Evan Ziporyn's web page at M.I.T. (features eight .mp3 files of Ziporyn's works)
Evan Ziporyn on Art of the States (features two .ram files of Ziporyn's works)
Catch Electric Guitar Quartet page at BMOP.org
Evan Ziporyn will be interviewed Tuesday, May 15 at 3:00 pm on The New Edge with Ken Field on WMBR radio 88.1 FM, WMBR web site with hi, medium and lo streaming links
Link to buy tickets to the May 19 Sanders Theatre concert (this one is my favorite...har)
Matthew Guerreri's review of DBR & THE MISSION is in today's Globe. Enjoy this bit:
"The best revealed unexpected affinities. A bass line borrowed from Rachmaninoff's famous C-sharp minor Prelude established a menacing mood that soon flowered into a sunny Steely Dan jazz-rock epiphany. A couple of heavy-metal-flavored movements thrashed well, with violent bowing that recalled Bartók and Shostakovich."
Read all of He takes a stand between classic and pop.
DBR & THE MISSION
Saturday evening's performance by DBR & THE MISSION yielded many new things, including a most welcome surprise in the addition to the program of the world premiere of Want, by MISSION keyboardist Wynne Bennet.
Among the other firsts on the program was the first incidence of heavy metal style headbanging (three violinists in unison, hair flying) at a Celebrity Series performance that I know of (though perhaps longtime subscribers can remember some rather strange heavy metal evening with, say, Jaime Laredo, of which I'm unaware). I also can't recall ever having heard a wah-wah pedal used either at a Celebrity Series performance or by a violinist (though I wouldn't put it past Nigel Kennedy), or heard any reference, much less an extensive one, to Jimi Hendrix's famous Woodstock rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner (cellist Matt Haimovitz has played the solo, but not on our stage).
All in all, a remarkable and unusual evening. The Boston Globe attended, I'll post the review when it shows up online (if it shows up online, I never could find that Cirque Eloize review...).
John Cage, composer and rather famous non-Persian
The whole story and more is available via links on Alex Ross' blog The Rest is Noise (where you can also read about how much money there is stashed around The Hub...), but this is not a joke, The Tehran Symphony played as part of Bukhara magazine's "Night of John Cage" at Tehran Conservatory last Thursday.
Makes me want to dig out that old John Cage Meets Sun Ra LP...
