Aisle Be Seeing You

Sean Curran Company announces October programs

Belmont, Massachusetts native Sean Curran brings his Sean Curran Company to the Tsai Performance Center at Boston University October 26-28. Mr. Curran has announced the programs for the engagement, which includes a special Family Matinee program for Sunday, October 28. All three performances feature Curran's new work, Social Discourse, which makes its world premiere. You can find the complete programs and links to buy tickets here.

Have you seen this stork?

I realize this might change the perception of this blog from that of goofy, promotional tool and informative arts link generator into the equivalent of an online milk carton, but someone has stolen the Pat Payne stork sculpture from near the entrance of The Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton. Time to get involved. Here is the post that alerted me from Geoff Edgers' The Exhibitionist blog. The post lists the number to call if you have any information.

First it was the Make Way for Ducklings ducks, now this. I'm serious.

By the way, Dawn Upshaw is a genius

Soprano Dawn Upshaw

Soprano Dawn Upshaw has been named as a 2007 MacArthur Fellow, and, as such, will receive what is known as a "Genius Grant." Upshaw was praised by the MacArthur Foundation for "...stretching the boundaries of operatic and concert singing and enriching the landscape of contemporary music." Check the complete list of MacArthur Fellows here and you'll see that Upshaw is in good company and that this is quite an honor.

Oh, and they give you $500,000 over 5 years.

The Reverberate Hills on Mozart Dances

I'm always glad when The Reverberate Hills; or the Apotheosis of the Narwhal blog crosses paths with topics of Celebrity Series interest. It gives me an extra incentive to recommend this particularly well written blog. A post from today featured a typically thoughtful take on the San Francisco engagement Mark Morris's Mozart Dances, plus some cogent thoughts on other Morris works and Mark Morris himself. The post wraps up with a bit on Mozart's opera Il Re Pastore, performed by Philharmonia Baroque at First Congregational Church in Berkeley; the cast of which featured former Celebrity Series Boston Marquee artists Lisa Saffer (Judith Gordon, January 2001) and Margaret Lattimore (March 2003), as well as soprano Heidi Grant Murphy, who will perform with the St. Lawrence String Quartet on November 18.

Read See Music.

Weill/Brecht cantata comes to Stow

Charles Lindbergh and The Spirit of St. Louis

The Collings Foundation Aviation Museum in Stow hosted the opening performance of The Cantata Singers' season on Sunday. The concert featured the area premiere of a radio cantata by composer Kurt Weill (text by Bertolt Brecht) from 1928-9 entitled "The Lindbergh Flight," the subject, you probably have guessed, is Charles Lindbergh's famous 1927 transatlantic flight. Hence the setting for the performance in the Collings Foundation Aviation Museum's hangar.

The review by The Boston Globe's Jeremy Eichler, which features a photo of the unusual concert setting, can be found here.

Matthew Guerrieri on Strauss, Mahler and Midnight Cowboy...

Strauss and Mahler Re-Enact Your Favorite Movie Moments, by Matthew Guerrieri on Soho the Dog. Good stuff.

Marcel Marceau, 1923-2007

The world-renowned mime, Marcel Marceau has died. My guess is that though many make jokes about mime as an art form, few would dispute Marceau's preeminent status in the genre. Marceau had only one Celebrity Series engagement, a week-long run at Boston's Colonial Theatre in 1985, but he appeared in Boston many times.

Boston.com obituary (Louise Kennedy)

New York Times obituary (James F. Clarity and Eric Pace)

Washington Post obituary (Patricia Sullivan)

Christian Science Monitor interview from 1974

"Something to See," TIME Magazine, 1955

Welcome to the blogoshpere, Gardnerites!

Our friends at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum have launched a weblog called Before and After, and I'm trying to think of a proper welcome. Should we roast a pig or something?

In today's post, Phil James talks about shakuhachi music, as he'll be playing solos and duets with koto player Cathleen Read in the courtyard at After Hours tomorrow evening, September 20, from 5:00-7:00pm as part of a "Journey to the East" program highlighting Asian art in the galleries. The shakuhachi is a bamboo flute, for those of you who don't already know, and since some of you are likely curious about this instrument (I hadn't thought about the instrument in years...don't I have a shakuhachi record somewhere?) or want to know more about James, let me recommend: Phil James' Nyokai-an Shakuhachi dojo web site (there's a shokuhachi .mp3 on the front page), his electronic music site, 9revolt, a blog about the shakuhachi, Shakuhachi Chamber Music International, and the International Myspace Shakuhachi Society. All places I would not have thought to visit before Before and After put me on the path to enlightenment.

In any case, though there are few posts as yet, it's a lovely blog, very nicely designed (fine! raise the bar!) and I have reason to think, will be consistently well written. Check out Before and After, and tell 'em Aisle Be Seeing You sent ya'!

WGBH Dance Fest 2007 programming

WGBH's Dance Fest 2007 is underway and it features the usual ton of cool dance programming. There are a couple of programs that feature companies in which we have a special interest (wink), for example, Great Performances: Dance in America brings us Alvin Ailey - Beyond the Steps (Celebrity Series dates: February 7-10) and the film Black Grace: From Cannon's Creek to Jacob's Pillow (Celebrity Series dates: April 17 & 18). Those clever 'GBH people even dug up with a lecture/podcast from the 1950s: Creative Mind: The Choreographer as Creator, Agnes de Mille, choreographer. Not directly related to our 2007-2008 season, but certainly worthy are American Masters: Balanchine and Great Performances: Nureyev - the Russian Years. There are lots of others. Get the remote. Here's the schedule.

Pianist Leon Fleisher to receive Kennedy Center Honors Award

Congratulations to pianist Leon Fleisher. The pianist, conductor and educator has been selected as one of the five artists to receive the Kennedy Center Honors Award for 2007. Other honorees include actor, writer and comedian Steve Martin, singer Diana Ross, film director Martin Scorsese and The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. The Gala event will take place December 2 and be broadcast on December 26.

Some Celebrity Series of Boston patrons will remember Mr. Fleisher for his first two piano recitals for us in 1956. Many more will remember his triumphant return to two hand performance in 2004 after overcoming decades of restricted use of his right hand due to focal dystonia. Mr. Fleisher's most recent performance with us was last May with the Emerson String Quartet.