One of her most recent collaborations is with heavy metal guitarist Steve Vai, better known for his work with Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth and Whitesnake.  Isbin says that the two will eventually record together but for now, she’s riding on the success of her disc “Journey to the New World,” which was released a year ago and last month won Isbin her second Grammy Award.

For much of “Journey to the New World” Isbin performs with violinist and composer Mark O’Connor and the two will appear together on Sunday afternoon at The Egg. The concert will feature solo sets from each artist, and they will also perform two duets written by O’Connor — a new arrangement of his hit “Appalachian Waltz” and “Strings and Threads,” the suite which concludes Isbin’s recent disc.

“He’s a very sweet, wonderful and generous person and it’s a pleasure to call him a friend.  We enjoy traveling together and have a very warm collaboration,” says Isbin. “It’s especially fun to do that last movement of ‘Strings and Threads,’ since it’s different each time with Mark improvising while I do the chord chart.”

Also on Isbin’s recent disc and an expected part of Sunday’s program is a tribute to Joan Baez, a lifelong hero of Isbin’s.   Almost 10 years ago Isbin commissioned John Duarte, a British composer and guitarist who died in 2004, to write the “Joan Baez  Suite.” It includes such now-standard fair as “The House of the Rising Son” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.”

More recently that Isbin worked with the real Joan Baez, not just her songbook.  After giving a hearty blessing to the piece by Duarte, Baez agreed to sing a couple of additional songs on Isbin’s disc “Journey to the New World.”

“Our first rehearsal was extraordinary,” recalls Isbin. “She came to my home in New York and asked me to play for her before we began. So I sat down about 4 feet from her and when I was done she had tears streaming down her face.”

Isbin’s selections that afternoon included some Spanish pieces that Baez remembered from childhood, when her dad played recordings of Segovia. “It was a poignant meeting of the souls since her music has inspired me for so many years,” says Isbin.

Last November Isbin had a slightly more grandiose audience when she performed at the White House.  It was actually more than just a one-evening, in-and-out concert. Isbin was one of four classical musicians who spent a full day in the building, giving classes for local students followed by a matinee concert.  After that was done, they went back to their Washington hotels to dress up for the evening’s formal concert in the East Room. (Apparently there are no dressing rooms for visiting artists in the presidential residence.)

Nevertheless, says Isbin, “We practically moved in, since we were also there the previous night to rehearse.  It was very elaborate with multiple bomb-sniffing dogs each time we were going in and out.  I kept hoping the dog wouldn’t drool on my guitar.”

During the evening’s concert, Isbin performed a few Latin American selections and a duet with violinist Joshua Bell, which was their first collaboration.  She also had a few moments with the President. But it wasn’t their first encounter.

Isbin says they met in 2005 at a memorial for Chicago philanthropist Irving Harris, at which Isbin performed.  Out on the sidewalk afterward, Isbin spotted Illinois’ newest senator, went up to him and introduced herself.  She recalls that Obama complimented her on the performance and said, “I wish you’d do something like that for me sometime.”

After her performance at the White House, he paid her another compliment, “He told me that one of his daughters is interested in studying the guitar. So maybe I inspired someone to go in that direction.”

(March 11, 2010, Times Union, Albany, NY)

Only in classical music could the borrowing and crosspollination of musical styles be such big and controversial thing. But “crossover” is a sometimes suspect, though often profitable category for artists and projects that blend popular and classical material.

Two of its best exponents, guitarist Sharon Isbin and violinist Mark O’Connor, appeared together Sunday afternoon at The Egg in Albany.

What makes them such an interesting pairing is that they come to the middle ground from opposites sides of the tracks. Isbin has excelled with Bach and the Spanish staples of the guitar repertoire and commissioned imaginative new concertos for the instrument. O’Connor is both composer and performer and his roots as an old time fiddler show through in practically every phrase. They share an impeccable technique and a taste for modest adventure.

The pair’s current tour follows on the success of their CD, “Journey to the New World,” that recently received a Grammy. It included O’Connor’s “Strings and Threads,” a suite of original airs and dances that ended the concert. They also teamed up for “Appalachian Waltz,” O’Connor’s tuneful and reverent hit from the early 90s.

But they were really at their best performing alone, each offering short sets during both halves of the program.

Isbin began with some Spanish material, meticulous but flavorful. After intermission she performed the “Joan Baez” Suite” by John Duarte. It touched on about a dozen folk songs, including “House of the Rising Sun,” which was given a fresh but cloudy harmonization, and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone.” A bit of “Taps,” played on hushed harmonics, was inserted into the latter, as if to reinforce its wartime message. It was all delicate and lovely, but Baez’s magic isn’t so much her material, but her voice’s unavoidable edge and presence — qualities that were missing from the homage.

O’Connor’s off the cuff, good ole boy presence makes it easy to overlook his unique gifts. Yet in the first half, he delivered with a country inflection a series of solos that were wandering, questing and demanding. He eased off after intermission, playing a series of folk songs, like “O Susannah” and “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

O’Connor spent the weekend in Albany introducing violin students to his new method of instruction based on various American material. A couple of times he pointed out to the violin students in the audience when he was playing an instrument with an alternative tuning.

(March 15, 2010, Times Union, Albany, NY)

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Sharon Isbin at the White House (12/09)

Sharon Isbin’s Musical Journey (6/09)

The internationally known opera director Francesca Zambello has been named the new general and artistic director of Glimmerglass Opera

“Francesca Zambello brings a wealth of experience.  She will take the company to a new level of excellence,” said Elizabeth Eveillard, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Glimmerglass Board.

“It is a great honor and personal pleasure to be invited to lead the company,” said Zambello in a press statement. Having previously directed one Glimmerglass production, Gluck’s “Iphigenie en Tauride” in 1997, Zambello recalled finding “a vibrant theater and a company renowned for innovative productions as well as a training ground for all disciplines set in stunningly beautiful surroundings.”

Zambello has worked at all of the world’s major opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Covenant Garden and La Scala. She is currently an artistic advisor to the San Francisco Opera where she is directing a new “Ring” cycle.  Her theatrical credits apart from opera include a massive outdoor production of “West Side Story” for the Bregenz Festival in Austria and Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” which closed last August after an 18-month Broadway run.  Her stagings are considered fresh and insightful, but not particularly avant garde or extreme.

What Zambello does not bring to the company is any apparent administrative or fundraising experience, having never held a permanent leadership post at an arts organization.  This is in contrast to her two predecessors, who apart from selecting the annual slate of operas focused primarily on administration.   Paul Kellogg ran the company almost from its inception through 2005 and held a concurrent post at New York City Opera for the last years of his tenure. MacLeod’s experience was in orchestral and festival management.

Zambello will presumably direct opera at Glimmerglass, but still to be determined is how many commitments away from company she will maintain. A chronology of her recent work listed on her web site  shows she is credited with 10 to 15 new productions and revivals per year.  While 2011 will be her first season at the helm of Glimmerglass, her “Ring” cycle for the San Francisco Opera is slated to run June 14-July 3 that same summer.

Though born of American parents, Zambello, 54, was raised in Europe and speaks French, Italian, German and Russian.  With her companion, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and critic Manuela Holterhoff, she maintains homes in New York, London and in the lower Hudson Valley near New Paltz.

Previously on MyBigGayEars:

Francesca Zambello, Standing up to armies, singers, waiters (2004)

Below are shots of a few Zambellow productions, by Ken Howard (from www.francescazambello.com)

Billy Budd, Pittsburgh Opera, 2007:

The Little Prince, San Francisco Opera, 2008:

An American Tragedy, Metropolitan Opera, 2005:

Sounds like the beginning of a coming out letter (and a life of shame) doesn’t it?

Actually, the 9-year old Samuel Barber wrote these words to his mother and then lowered the boom that her beloved son was – gasp! – a composer.  He continued, “Don’t ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football.”

If only Mrs. Barber knew what else was in store.

It’s getting over looked amidst the Chopin and Schumann bicentennial celebrations and the lingering fondness for Mendelssohn who had an anniversary last year, but one-hundred years ago today, Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

It’s not that Barber’s music is being neglected, exactly.  Especially not his Adagio for Strings. According to statistics from the League of American Orchestras, the Adagio was the third most frequently performed work by an American composer during the 2007-2008 season with 33 performances, trailing only Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” (55 performances) and ”Rhapsody in Blue” (35 performances).  (Actually the League says that Stravinsky’s “Firebird” Suite ranks third, but I don’t count Stravinsky as an American composer.)

In Sunday’s New York Times, Johanna Keller surveys the pervasive presence of the Adagio:

The Adagio is a shape shifter widely appropriated in film and television. In recent years it has also become an unexpected hit for a number of pop musicians and remix artists, including the Dutch mixer and producer DJ Tiësto… It was used as the soundtrack to an intimate scene in the gay film drama “A Very Natural Thing” in 1974 (Barber himself was gay), as well as being heard in the movies “Platoon,” “The Elephant Man” and “Lorenzo’s Oil.” On television it has been in both “The Simpsons” and “South Park.”

Conductor Marin Alsop has recorded all of Barber’s orchestral music and is quoted extensively in the story:

Ms. Alsop is among the many musicians who advocate that more of his work be performed. She will conduct the Adagio in a series of concerts with the Baltimore Symphony beginning June 6 and is programming Barber’s Second Essay for Orchestra when she brings her orchestra to Carnegie Hall next season.

“The archetypical Barber we know from the Adagio,” Ms. Alsop said, “is a melodic, lyrical long-line composer. But that only captures one dimension of his work. Because he’s also concise, angular, rhythmic and witty.”

If the Adagio is Barber’s greatest hit, his 1969 opera for the opening of the Met, “Antony & Cleopatra” is certainly his biggest flop. There’s a fascinating recounting of the production of that piece and the fall out from its terrible reception in Michael S. Sherry’s 2007 book “Gay Artists in Modern American Culture: an imagined conspiracy” (University of North Carolina Press).

In a lengthy chapter on Barber and his difficulties at the Met, Sherry lays the ground with this statement:

During World War II and the Cold War, Barber’s career became shaped by the enterwined currents of empire and sexuality. He was a prime example of how America’s cultural empire depended on gay men. Many artists had doubts about their role in that empire or, like Copland, met others’ resistance to it. Barber’s difficulties grabbed no headlines, but as a gay artist he had them…

Perhaps Barber really did know what was coming when he wrote that letter to his mom.

Ten years ago pianist Christopher O’Riley needed something to play

“There’s a crosspollination of listening in the younger generation of music lovers, with enthusiasms for all kinds of genres. That’s just the norm with them,” says O’Riley, 54. As just one example, he recalls “a Juilliard violinist talking about jazz and what a good he was having with music, where he wasn’t having to dot every i and cross every t.”

Riley says that the original conception of “From the Top” was to highlight young musicians of every stripe, not just classical, but the strict formats of public radio stations made that an unworkable concept.  Slipping in pop music, played by the show’s genial host at the piano, seems to be his way of keeping some link to the rest of the musical universe.

It didn’t take that long for O’Riley’s new endeavors to find their way onto disc.  The all-Radio Head collection “True Love Waits” was released on Sony in 2003. And as O’Riley has expanded his prevue to include other figures from alternative rock, including Nick Drake and Elliott Smith, the new discs keep coming.  His fifth and most recent title, “Out of My Hands,” is the first to feature a variety, with original treatments of Tori Amos, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, R.E.M. and others.

O’Riley has also published a number of his transcriptions — or “reimaginings” as he likes to call them.  Two songbooks and a number of PDF downloads are available for purchase through his Web site (http://www.christopheroriley.com).

“They are rather faithful as transcriptions to the form and format of the original material, but aside from that in terms of invoking the technological and instrumental colors there’s a lot of original thought,” he explains. “There are a lot of people buying them but they’re almost impossible to play really.”

While always welcoming recommendations of new pop and rock acts to check out — he’s especially taken by the Lady Gaga video “Bad Romance” — O’Riley has hardly abandoned the classical repertoire. His Sunday afternoon program will be a liberal mixture of material from both sides of his career.

“It’s going to be an amalgam. I’ve got the idea of not formatting the program so strictly and just announcing it all from the stage,” he says. “There will probably be some new arrangements that I’ve come up with in the last few months, and some new classical enthusiasms.” As examples of the later, he cites a current fondness Debussy and Scriabin, the Russian Galina Ustvolskay who died in 2006 and the 39-year old British composer Thomas Ades.

Drawing connections between new and old has become a particular fascination.  A series of three concerts last season at Miller Theatre in New York paired rock and classical artists.

One evening featured Shostakovich and Radio Head.  “They both mastered the art of irony in music, Shostakovich out of necessity and Radio Head out of desire.  In their song “No Surprises,” the lyrics are all suicidal, and it’s juxtaposed against really pretty music, while Shostakovich always has texts and subtexts.”  Robert Schumann and Elliott Smith were paired together because of a common mania, while Nick Drake and Debussy just shared a fondness for Paris.

Perhaps even more satisfying to O’Riley than bringing together such extreme types of music has been bringing together different kinds of listeners.  Success with that came early in the history of “From the Top.”  Recalls the pianist, “My announcer would say, ‘That was Christopher O’Riley playing Radio Head.’ And we would get emails asking, ‘Who is this Mr. Head and how can we get more of his music?’”

(March 4, 2010, Times Union, Albany, NY)

Best known as the host of the radio program “From the Top,” pianist Christopher O’Riley has a distinctive ringing sound at the keyboard and a knack for choosing repertoire that shows off his light, transparent touch.  That he’s become a specialist in making and playing transcriptions of alternative rock songs — especially by the band Radio Head — is really just an added cool factor.  Like a dancer who ends up doing most of his own choreography, O’Riley knows his strengths so well that he may as well also be the one to set the notes.

This realization came about two-thirds of the way through his Sunday afternoon recital at The Egg in Albany when he played the “Ondine” movement from Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit.”  Its floating textures were given a shimmering, crystalline elegance — and felt surprisingly similar to much of the other material on the program, whether it was by Nirvana, Pink Floyd or Tori Amos.

A rock song in one of O’Riley’s “re-imaginings,” as he calls them, typically hides the melody amidst a gentle turbulence of hazy, broken chords, a rumbling bass and pearlescent dabs in the treble.  Like most rock songs, they have almost no beginning or end but are instead a slice in time from a continuous pulsing wave.

They also appear devilishly tricky to play. Among the most impressive was Radio Head’s “Like Spinning Plates,” which could have been called an etude for the left hand.

Though wrong notes were practically impossible to detect, except for occasional winces on O’Riley’s face, this was no mere improvising.  For everything but the Ravel, which was performed by memory, O’Riley read music from the screen of an adapted laptop computer that rested on the grand piano in place of its music stand.  He controlled the movement of the images on the screen using a foot control placed to the left of the piano’s pedals.

In a nod to the sound of pop but mostly in compensation for the dry and noisy hall, the piano was amplified and given some extra reverb.

In between a generous sampling of Radio Head came Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box,” Portishead’s “The Rip,” and Tears for Fears’ “Mad World.”  There was also a movement of Scarlatti, Chopin’s Barcarole, and Thomas Ades’ “Darkness Visible,” a dramatic homage to John Dowland.  A voracious consumer of music, O’Riley also included “Here and Now,” by 17-year old Vermont composer Tim Woos, who appeared on “From the Top” just a few weeks ago.

(March 8, 2010,Times Union, Albany, NY)

]]> http://mybiggayears.com/archives/preview-review-christopher-oriley-in-albany/feed/ 0 http://mybiggayears.com/archives/monk-st-louis/ http://mybiggayears.com/archives/monk-st-louis/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:28:36 +0000 jody http://mybiggayears.com/?p=1189 The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with music director David Robertson will premiere Meredith Monk’s newest orchestral work in a one-night-only performance on Saturday, March 13.

Along with the as-yet-untitled piece, the program will feature Monk’s 3-minute hit “Panda Chant” (1984) and another work for orchestra and chorus, “Night” (1996/2005).  Monk and members of her vocal ensemble – including Allison Sniffin, Katie Geissinger, Thomas Bogdan and Theo Bleckmann — will be part of the performances. The program opens with Stravinsky’s Momenutum pro Gesualdo and ends with Bartok’s Music for Strings Percussion & Celesta.

Monk’s first orchestra work was “Possible Sky” commissioned in 2003 by Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony.  According to Paul Schiavo’s program notes the new piece presents Monk working in a new long-form, in contrast to larger works in the past that were made up of discreet sections. The new piece will be, says the composer, in a “continuous woven form.” Monk is also aiming for an integration of voices and orchestra. “Monk has no interest in the traditional paradigm of vocal melody with instrumental accompaniment,” writes Schiavo.  The orchestrations for both the new piece and “Night” are credited to Allison Sniffin with Monk.  The full program notes can be viewed here.

Monk’s new work was co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, which perform it on April 11 in Walt Disney Hall. That program also includes “Night” and excerpts from Monk’s “Songs of Ascension,” along with Arvo Part’s “Miserere.”

]]> http://mybiggayears.com/archives/monk-st-louis/feed/ 0 http://mybiggayears.com/archives/outs-american-classic/ http://mybiggayears.com/archives/outs-american-classic/#comments Wed, 03 Mar 2010 08:00:06 +0000 jody http://mybiggayears.com/?p=1147 Let me be honest. I “read” OUT Magazine for the pictures.  And the March issue is particularly sexy with more photos (in ads and editorial) of shirtless young men than usual.  This month’s cover boy is a gritty Ewan McGregor.

But the issue actually has something worth spending a bit of time and thought on – a 22-page spread called “80 American Classics” celebrating “the spectrum of queer talent who taught us who we are.

Along with Tennessee Williams, Robert Maplethorpe, and Andy Warhol among others, there’s a revealing look into the early love affair between Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.

And there are actually a few classical music items.  Well, make that two.

Number 12 is a 100-word blurb on Aaron Copland by Nico Muhly (who is on the verge of getting more than a little over exposed).

And Number 65 is “The Diaries of Ned Rorem,” written by, of all people, John Waters.  Actually “written by” is probably too strong a description. After Waters’ name it says “As told to Out,” which suggests that he spent about 5 minutes rambling on the phone.  Whatever. I love what he’s got to say, and here’s a bit of it:

“(Rorem’s) music is beautiful, but it’s his Paris and New York diaries that changed how I thought gay people were supposed to act.  He was elitist, but incredibly smart and hilariously snobby… I always say old chickens make good soup, but with him I’d say old smart chickens make even better soup.”  Who knew Ned Rorem inspired John Waters?!

I don’t want to fault OUT for being OUT, but in the Rorem/Waters spirit of being fussy, smart and snobby, I’m going to critique the “American Classics” feature a bit and then offer to fill out it with some more high-brow types.

What’s annoying is the randomness of it. The jumping around between artistic fields is fine, as is the variety of lengths of copy for the different items.  But some “classics” are just artists, listed by name, while others are works of art.  Examples:

No. 14. “Sweeney Todd.”

No. 15. Philip Johnson’s Glass House.

No. 17. Merce Cuningham.

No. 19 Paul Lyne. (But not Paul Lyne’s Center Square”)

No. 24. “West Side Story.” (And not Leonard Bernstein in his own right??!!)

No. 46. Elizabeth Bishop.

No. 48. “Pink Narcissus” (James Bidgood).

No. 58. “The Radiant Baby” (Keith Haring).

No. 61. Alvin Ailey.

And on so.  Strange editing.

No surprise that there are some inclusions from the world of popular culture, including No. 25. “Strange Fruit,” No. 52. “Harold and Maude,” and No. 75. Divine. But some things are just not old enough to be classics, like No. 63. “Sex and the City,” No. 64. “Voguing” and No. 67. “Love Shack.”

And just plain weird are the following:

No. 28. Rolling Stone Magazine (Maybe Out’s parent company Here Publishing is just kissing up and hoping for a buyout savior in the form of Jann Wenner)

No. 29.  The Jeapardy! Theme Song (so what if Merve Griffin made a zillion off of it)

No. 53.  The Career of Tom Cruise (though it’s always nice to see him dancing in his underwear from “Risky Business”)

And then there’s the long article within an article that’s No. 59 Tom Brown (the designer who made Pee Wee Herman suits chic, briefly), which seems like a feature they had hanging around and decided to throw in. Likewise, the long hymn of praise to No. 69 Rostam Batmanglij, the 20-something gay member of a band called Vampire Weekend.

Still, it’s fun to pour over it and pick it apart and nice to know there are some folks at OUT who know something culture.

Now a few additions:

TED SHAWN

Who led the way for all male dancers to frolick.

GIAN CARLO MENOTTI.

He may have become an angry old queen, but he wrote American opera like nobody else.

JOHN CORIGLIANO’S SYMPHONY NO. 1 “OF RAGE & REMEMBRANCE”

The highest summit of musical works about AIDS, it’s manic, in your face and when stuffed shirts and closet cases face it in concert they have to sit through it.

DAVID DEL TREDICI’S  ALICE IN WONDERLAND CYCLE

Just like his inspiration Lewis Carroll, DDT disguises a world of sexual longing and erotic explosions beneath a harmless children’s fantasy.

“THE MOTHER OF US ALL”

Building on their avant garde background, Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson showed that an expatriate butch lesbian poet and corn-fed mid-Western sissy were the perfect pair to depict the American struggle for rights and deliver it with color, flair and humor.

LOU HARRISON

Because he turned to the east for musical inspiration but listened to his heart for beauty.

GORE VIDAL

With “The City and the Pillar” he created the gay American novel  and later went on to become our nation’s queer conscious.

]]> http://mybiggayears.com/archives/outs-american-classic/feed/ 0 http://mybiggayears.com/archives/fann/ http://mybiggayears.com/archives/fann/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:00:41 +0000 jody http://mybiggayears.com/?p=1123 “The Other Mendelssohn” is the name of musicologist R. Larry Todd’s latest book, a thorough-going biography of Fanny Mendessohn Hensel that uncovers lots of unknown material, perhaps most importantly about the large number of her own works as a composer.

If you’re currently busy surfing the web, then you may be like me and not have sat down, turned off the media and read a good music biography in more than a while.

So, in honor of Women’s History Month, the author has been good enough to give people like us some highlights of Fanny’s life and almost forgotten reputation.

What’s the biggest misconception in the public about Fanny Mendlessohn?

We used to think of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel as a talented sister of Mendelssohn who wrote some well-turned songs and short piano pieces in a style largely beholden to her brother.  When I began working on my biography of Felix (Mendelssohn, a Life in Music), this was the conventional wisdom about her, and I attempted in that book to take a fresh look at her music and relationship to her brother.

Until the 1990s, few had a clue that in fact she produced well over four hundred compositions, including an orchestral overture, string quartet and other chamber works, piano sonatas, a large-scale piano cycle on the months of the year, choral part-songs, a setting of a scene from Goethe’s Faust, concert arias, and several cantatas, including one, in fifteen movements, that resembles a small-scale oratorio.

The assumption has always been that Fanny did not have her own compositional voice, that she belonged to a group of composers, such as Robert Schumann in his string quartets, the young Charles Gounod,the young Arthur Sullivan, etc., who formed a kind of Mendelssohn school.  In fact, her music does show stylistic signs of differentiation from her brother–the music is more free in form, more experimental in harmony, and epigrammatic in intensity.

Is there a distinct profile or stylistic unity to her music? How does it differ from that of Felix?

Fanny was raised in the same Berlin environment as her brother, and studied with the same teachers.  Like Felix, she was put through a rigorous course in counterpoint (she wrote 32 fugues a la Bach, most of which are lost).  And she was actively involved in performances of the music of her brother, who was about 3 1/2 years younger.  So it is not surprising that there would be stylistic similarities between the two.  Furthermore, her music often seems to refer to his, either through thinly veiled allusions or quotations or references of some sort.  That said, there are important differences.  Fanny was primarily a miniaturist, who excelled in the short Lied, or art song, and short character piece for piano.  It is likely that her lyrical, song-like piano pieces played a role in the development of the famous Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words), of which Felix published several dozen.  (Fanny referred to her piano pieces as Songs for the Piano.)

Fanny is harmonically more adventuresome than Felix, and fills her songs with unexpected harmonic turns to reflect or accent changes in the text.   And in her larger scale works, she is less concerned about following conventional forms than giving her imagination a freer reign.  The String Quartet (1834)  is a good example–try as one might, one cannot pin a conventional sonata form onto the first movement, which is rather more like a fantasia, a point that caused some friction between the two composers (Felix found the piece “mannered”).

Was there a rivalry between brother and sister?  Did Felix respect her as a   musician and composer?

Yes, especially in the early years, there was a sense of sibling rivalry.  When Felix wrote his first piano quartet, Fanny tried her hand at one.  And in writing her String Quartet in E-flat major in 1834, she was in part responding to Felix’s earlier String Quartet in E-flat major of 1827.  While the parents seem initially to have promoted the rivalry (they studied with the same teachers), in 1820, when Fanny was fourteen, the father drew a clear line–while music might become Felix’s profession, it was to remain an “ornament,” as he termed it, for Fanny’s life.  And so, while Felix was encouraged to compose symphonies and operas, Fanny was expected to focus on smaller songs and piano pieces for domestic use.

Be that as it may, both Felix and Fanny were child prodigies, and it is clear that Felix deeply respected her talents as a pianist and composer.  She  was his own “worst” crtic, and offered thorough critiques of his music (when he  revised the theme from the second movement of the Italian Symphony, she didn’t  hesitate to tell him she preferred the original version).  Felix referred to  Fanny as his Minerva, after the Roman goddess of wisdom, and his Thomaskantor, i.e., likening her to J. S. Bach.  And he found her songs to be among the very best examples of the genre.

What was the relationship with her husband – respectful, distant, intimate?

In 1829 Fanny married Wilhelm Hensel, who was a painter and portraitist  who had fought in the Napoleonic Wars before obtaining a position in Berlin at the court of the Prussian king.  Hensel came from a family of modest means  and was, musically and socio/economically, out of his league when he married into a wealthy family with two musical geniuses.  But he insisted that Fanny continue to compose, and supported her decision late in life to begin publishing her music under her own name.  The married couple’s lifestyle was compared to a “double counterpoint of music and painting.”  Wilhelm would paint while Fanny composed and played the piano.  An amateur poet, Wilhelm wrote several poems that Fanny set, and he collaborated in her composition by adorning several of her manuscripts with vignettes, usually placed in the upper left-hand  corner of the music paper, with the effect that the painting spilled over into  the music.

The Hensels had one son, whom Fanny named Sebastian Ludwig Felix Hensel, after her three most favorite composers.

Did she have traditional wifely duties in the home and squeeze in time for   composition?

Yes, Fanny organized the household, raised her son, Sebastian, organized her husband’s business affairs, kept a diary, ran a fortnightly concert series in her home attended by 200 guests, and composed throughout her life.  When her father died in 1835, she put away her diary, and in effect her music  became her diary.

The concerts were spectacular events that featured a chorus directed by Fanny from the piano (they performed Bach cantatas, Handel oratorios, Gluck operas, and, of course, music of Mendelssohn).  The guest list included a number of celebrities–Franz Liszt, the Schumanns, the young Joseph Joachim, Charles Gounod, and non-musical figures luminaries such as Hans Christian Andersen.   

Did she have an erotic life?

Very few clues from the diaries or letters.  I’ll only say that the nineteenth-century image of the Mendelssohns as depicted by Fanny’s son, Sebastian, in The Mendelssohn Family, a two-volume work published in the 1870s that ran through many editions well into the twentieth century, was one of “upstanding” Lutheran burghers (grandchildren of the Jewish Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Fanny and Felix were baptized on March  21, 1816, as it happened, the birthday of J. S. Bach).  But anyone reading their letters knows that they had an irrepressible joie de vivre.  They were no prudes, notwithstanding the old, popular literature.   

Did she have female confidants?

Yes–Clara Schumann for one.  Clara intended to dedicate her Piano Trio in G minor to Fanny, but Fanny died before Clara could do so.  Fanny’s mother, Lea, was a gifted pianist who make a practice of playing the Well-Tempered Clavier of Bach (when Fanny was fourteen, she played half of the WTC preludes  by memory for her father).  Fanny’s sister, Rebecka, was a pianist for whom Fanny  composed her Piano Trio in D minor.  And Fanny knew well the leading opera  singers active or concertizing in Berlin, including Clara Novello and Jenny Lind.

Who heard her music during her lifetime?  Did she herself hear most of her  works performed live?

Very little of it was published during her lifetime–initially, just a  few songs brought out under her brother’s name in his early song collections, or  released anonymously. One year before her death she did begin publishing her  music under name, and a few reviews began to appear.  Then, she died of a stroke in  May 1847 (Felix died of strokes a few months later).  A few more pieces were published, up to Op. 11, and then virtually nothing until late in the twentieth century.

Fanny only appeared in public as a pianist three times, all on charity  concerts when she performed music by Felix.  The reasons she did not have a public career were twofold–one, her gender, but two, her standing in a wealthy, upper-class Berlin family that guarded its privacy (in contrast, Clara  Schumann was from a middle-class family, so it was acceptable in the society of  the time for Clara to have an international career as a pianist and composer).  Given that a public career was not an option for Fanny, she created her special musical space in the music room of the Mendelssohn residence, where she gave her concerts.  This was a venue that was lodged somewhere between the public and private realms–public, because there were one or two hundred in the audience; private, because the concerts were by invitation only, there was no press, no reviews, etc.  We have some records about the programs, and it is clear that Fanny performed some of her works on these concerts.  But most of her music was for private, domestic use, and for her immediate circle of friends.   

What inspiration or lessons can amateur composers or women composers of  today draw from her life?

Fanny composed from an inner need to compose.  Though the social attitudes of the time severely restricted her creativity, she was able to produce an impressive body of work that is now being discovered, performed, and  discussed, as it certainly should be.  The music is spontaneous, and honest–it reflects her view of the world around her, and not the fashions of the time, or  what the critics may have thought. In a certain sense, it is music making at its best.

]]> http://mybiggayears.com/archives/fann/feed/ 0 http://mybiggayears.com/archives/oliveros-schuman/ http://mybiggayears.com/archives/oliveros-schuman/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:59:33 +0000 jody http://mybiggayears.com/?p=1104 Pauline Oliveros has won the William Schuman Award from Columbia University. She’s the first woman composer to be so honored since the award was established in 1981.  The most recent winner was John Zorn in 2006.

The prize “honors the lifetime achievement and lasting significance of a contemporary American composer” and comes with a $50,000 purse. A celebratory concert and tribute will be given in Miller Theater on Saturday March 27.

The retrospective marathon program starts at 8 p.m. and runs approximately 3.5 hours with two intermissions.  Program notes can be viewed here.

Program:
Deep Listening: Lear (1988) (CD recording)
Fed Back II (1966)  (audio playback)
Sounds from Childhood: Sonic Meditation (1992) (for audience participation)
The Gender of Now: There but not There (2005)
Variations for Sextet (1960)
Who’s Playing What (2010)
Bye Bye Butterfly (1965) (audio playback)
The Inner / Outer Matrix (2007)
IO and Her and the Trouble with Him: A dance opera in primeval time (2001) (video excerpt)
Oracle Bones: Mirror Dreams (2009)
Lunar Opera: Deep Listening For_Tunes (2000) (video excerpt)
Ghostdance (1995) (video excerpt)
Njinga the Queen King: Return of a Warrior (1993) (video excerpts)
DroniPhonia (2009)

Performers:
International Contemporary Ensemble
Deep Listening Band
Timeless Pulse
Tom Buckner, baritone; Monique Buzzarté, trombone; Jonas Braasch, soprano saxophone; Sarah Cahill, piano; Stuart Dempster, trombone and didjeridu; Margot Farrington, visual performer; David Gampner, piano and electronics; Heloise Gold, dancer; Ione, spoken word/sonic vocals; Tony Martin, visual composer and performer; George Marsh, percussion; Miya Masaoka, koto/electronics; Doug Van Nort, laptop; Jennifer Wilsey, percussion; and David Wessel, electronics

Speakers:
Carol Becker, Dean, Columbia School of the Arts
David Bernstein
Michael Century
David Felton
Linda Mary Montano
Renée Levine Packer
Frances Richard
Jenneth Webster

]]> http://mybiggayears.com/archives/oliveros-schuman/feed/ 1 http://mybiggayears.com/archives/thomson-cd/ http://mybiggayears.com/archives/thomson-cd/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:00:40 +0000 jody http://mybiggayears.com/?p=1091 Where would church music be without the centuries of contributions from gay men? Actually where would the church itself be, including the priesthood… but that’s another discussion.

Virgil Thomson wrote his share of sacred music and a big batch of it is included in the new collection “Heaven is Music,” (Albany Records).  The performances by the Gregg Smith Singers are from throughout the choir’s long history, presumably drawn from both concerts and recording sessions. In the back of the CD booklet there’s a little caveat the about the mixture of digital and analog recordings. While the age of some of the recordings does show through, it’s seldom distracting and the performances are consistently good.

Gregg Smith, 78, founded his eponymous chorus in 1955 and is reportedly in very poor health these day.  Lord knows how many pieces of American music they’ve performed and recorded. So this is collection is a fine tribute to him as well as Thomson.

While there’s more than sacred music here, the program keeps returning to liturgical and biblical texts, opening with an a cappella “De Profundis” of tightly crafted part writing, and closing with the rather straight-forward Three Hymns from Old South, which are sung with big heart and sound.

The disc’s centerpiece is the Mass for Two-Part Chorus and Percussion (1934).  It’s consistently upbeat, sung with full voice from a mixed choir.  There’s no giant battery of percussion instruments deployed, but generally only one instrument per movement: a gong in the Kyrie, a hallow sounding drum in the Gloria, and a cymbal in the Sanctus, etc.  And the Credo — the most militant and dogmatic movement of a Mass — gets the crisp and orderly snare drum.

Soprano Rosalind Rees, who happens to be Smith’s wife, sings the Four Songs on Poems of Thomas Campion (1951). Thomson gives them a lively rippling setting for viola, clarinet and harp.  It’s the most playful music on the disc, reminiscent of both Four Saints (the opening line is even “Follow your Saint, follow with accents sweet.”) and The Mother of Us All.  Adding to the feeling is the churning harp, which brings to mind a psaltery or dulcimer.

Also included are Seven Choruses from the Medea of Euripides, a piece with a long history explained in the notes by Watson Bosler. Briefly, they were written in 1934 for a theatrical production by John Housman that never got off the ground. In 1967 Daniel Pinkham reworked the original SSAA version for SATB, which is what’s recorded here.  They’re short and very greatly in character from the intimate “Weep for the Little Lambs” to the triumphant “Behold, O Earth.”

Beyond these larger works, a number of what seem to be occasional pieces are tossed in for good measure, like the “Welcome to the New Year,” which is sung with a hail and hearty sound that brings to mind a college glee club.  And what would a choral disc be without some nod to Christmas, as in “The Holy and the Ivy”?  Finally, was it just a coincidence that “My Shepard Will Supply My Need” (based on a traditional hymn tune) is given track 23?

]]> http://mybiggayears.com/archives/thomson-cd/feed/ 0 http://mybiggayears.com/archives/queeries-for-cellist-eric-edberg/ http://mybiggayears.com/archives/queeries-for-cellist-eric-edberg/#comments Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:00:08 +0000 jody http://mybiggayears.com/?p=1047 Cellist Eric Edberg trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Juilliard School, SUNY Stony Brook, and Florida State University and is a faculty member at the DePauw University School of Music in Greencastle, Indiana.

He writes a marvelous blog about whatever musical matters are on his mind and sometimes they also involve being gay. That caught My Big Gay Eye and I reached out to him by email. Little did I know we’d met almost 20 years ago through a mutual dear friend, Mary Ellen Cohn.  Eric told me that when came out, Mary Ellen sent him a copy of my production, “Gay American Composers.” (I wonder how many times I can mention that CD on this site.  But it does my heart good every time I hear that that disc means something to people.)

If Eric’s performance style is as big hearted and generous as his responses to the Queeries column, then I bet he gives a damn good concert.

What are you working on these days?
We have Joan Tower coming to DePauw for a concert Friday, and I’m playing her “Tres Lent (Hommage a Messiaen)” for cello and piano, with my colleague May Phang.  I was going to be performing one of her piano trios, but the violinist developed tendinitis.  I love the piece;  the score just came yesterday. (Oh, FedEx, how did we get along without you?)  Learning pieces at the last minute is always exciting.

After a long stretch of not improvising much, I’m improvising daily, which really frees something up inside me.  I’ve got some ideas going for a CD project.  And I’m rethinking the summer concert series I organize at a lovely church here in Greencastle, Indiana in the summers.  It’s been a totally conventional, if informal, classical series, where at 51 I’m younger than the 95% of the audience by quite a bit.  I want to find a way to get teenagers and young adults to come. So we’re going to try some crazy stuff this summer.

I follow Greg Sandow’s blog and am one of a group of people giving him feedback on the book he’s writing on the rebirth of classical music. I did a faculty concert a few years ago where we eliminated all the rules of concert etiquette and invited people to clap anytime they wanted, including during the music, and to get up and dance if they wanted.  When I used to go to dance clubs, I’d think how great it would be if we could dance to Mozart. I want to do more unconventional stuff, and I feel something coming.

Do you have a workspace in your home or do you need to leave the house?
Living in a small town in rural Indiana is a blessing and a curse.  The curse is being in the middle of nowhere.  The blessing is that being in the middle of nowhere, the cost of living is low.  My house has almost 3,000 square feet, so I have a nice big (messy) music room with room for multiple cellos, recording equipment, etc.

Have you ever experienced discrimination in the music business because of your sexuality?
When my then-wife and I separated, very amicably, most of the Indianapolis-area freelance music community couldn’t understand or believe that she knew I was bisexual before we got married.  People assumed I’d been hiding a secret from her and cheating on her, and took sides, with her, even though there were no actual sides to take. My freelance work, especially recording at a studio that did a lot of Christian pop, dried up for a while.  I did not miss the Christian pop, though–ick.

Ever gotten any advantages because of your sexuality?  How about being invited onto “the casting couch”?
Actually, at DePauw I became a kind of minor folk hero when I came out in the early 1990s.  I went through what I call my “gay avenger” phase and was a public and sometimes very angry advocate for LGBTQ rights on campus.  For quite a while I was the only out gay man on the faculty.  It all definitely helped when my review for promotion to full professor came along.

No casting-couch experiences.  Hans Werner Henze did spend an entire orchestra rehearsal staring at me.  I was 17, playing in an orchestra on tour in Italy. It was in the basillica in Marino, near Castel Gandolfo, and he actually took a chair and put it about 6 feet from me and just stared.  It was a bit unnerving. (Ha!  What if he was staring at my stand partner?  No, I’m sure it was me.) But he didn’t hit on me.

Neither did Leonard Bernstein.  When I had a fellowship at Tanglewood, Lenny kissed me on the cheek and called me “sweetie,” but nothing further than that.  He was much more interested in the composer who was fucking me. I was both disappointed (hey, am I not hot enough for him to hit on?) and relieved (I wasn’t attracted to older guys then).

Are you single or coupled?
Single.

Do you give PDAs? (public displays of affection)
Absolutely, and very purposefully, in a political-gesture kind of way. I remember Ned Rorem giving a friendly kiss to one of my teachers in a hallway at Peabody.  It made a big impression on me.  He was cool with being gay, with being open, and I think that sort of thing makes the world a better place.  I want to be Glinda, singing “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” to everyone, so I kiss and hug as much as I can.

Is there a relationship between your sexuality and your creativity?
Absolutely.  How can there not be?

When I was studying at Juilliard I had a boyfriend who had amazingly detailed erotic programs he’d thought up for just about every piece he played.  He was a pianist, and I remember listening with him to the Masselos (his teacher) recording of the Schumann Davidsbündlertänze.  We were stoned and he narrated the whole thing;  what incredible porn starts Florestan and Eusebius would have been, as he imagined them in his rather incestuous fanatsy.  It thrilled and slightly scared me;  I was so ambivalent about my attraction to men.

That’s an example where someone’s creativity is about sexuality, which is different than my own experience. If I’m blocked sexually I tend to be blocked creatively, because in both cases it has to do with being honest.  It’s always been a difficult dance for me, getting caught up in who I think I should be or how I think someone else might think I should play, and who I actually am and what the music I really want to make is.  I’d be much more accomplished if I hadn’t spent so much of my life paralyzed by self doubt.

What’s the gayest musical thing you’ve ever done?
Improvising in services at the Jesus Metropolitan Community Church in Indianapolis.  The first time I went there, I got lost and arrived late for the service.  Just barely in time for my “special music” slot.  I took out the cello, had the congregation sing a drone, and improvised over it.  It was overtly gay, in that look-at-me-I’m-a-gay-cellist way.  More deeply, it was genuine bonding and being a voice for the energy I sensed with this large congregation of LGBT people.

Playing a faculty recital wearing an obnoxious Hawaiian shirt and jeans (the choice of my students) and subverting all the norms of established classical music concert behavior would be the queerist (is that a word?) thing I’ve done musicially.  I’d like to see my work get both gayer and queerer.

Was coming out tough or a pleasure?  Sudden or gradual?
Coming out in gay-supportive contexts was a joy;  coming out to my horribly homophobic parents was nightmarish and I wish I’d waited longer. But my internalized homophobia was extraordinarily intense and had a resurgence, even after I came out, that led to me getting married.  And later to more coming out.  My parents eventually became very supportive, but not until after I got divorced.

One of the absolute best moments of my life, maybe the best was when I came out to myself as a freshman in college.  I had been fighting it really, really hard.  I’d repressed all my gay thoughts.  Then I saw this beautiful dancer (I was at the North Carolina School of the Arts) and it was like when Michael gets hit by “the thunderbolt” in The Godfather. I said to myself, “That’s it. I’m gay.” And it turned out my beautiful dancer was attracted to a shy cellist, who happened to be me.  We quickly lost interest in each other (I found him really boring in bed), but it gave me a brief period of self-acceptance.

Do you have a spiritual life?
Absolutely. I dated a guy for a while who is a Spirtualist minister. We’d been to a Jesus MCC service in Indy, and I told him I didn’t quite understand why I could feel so moved there when the theology was much more traditionally Christian than my own–very conservative/evangelical Christian, except progressive on gender and sexuality issues.  John said, “Oh, you’re just a Sufi, and you go where the spiritual energy is.”  And he was right. There is extraordinary spiritual energy in that church.  The theology and the Christian traditions of the service provide a vehicle for that energy, which is shaped by its container.  The container is not the source.  The source transcends any one faith.  I’ve spent a lot of time at the Abode of the Message, a retreat center and community in New Lebanon, New York.  They’re rather liberal Sufis, celebrate all faith traditions, and I just love them.  I’m an unofficial Sufi.  And love Rumi.

Right now I’m very involved with the Episcopal Church in Greencastle.  I’m ambivalent about Episcopalianism. I do love this group of people and they love me and my kids and my ex-wife.  There’s a deep spiritual connection, and all sorts of “good deed doers” who attend the church–people who make a real difference in the community and world.  People tend to think of spirituality as meditation and prayer and other individual practices. I do those things, and making music, especially free improvisation, can be both. Being there for people, being committed to a group of people, taking care of people, allowing people to take care of you when you need to be–that’s a form of spirituality that isn’t always emphasized or acknowledged by some I’m-spiritual-but-not-religious people.  Which is not to say that you need to participate in organized religion to be connected with and serving others. The traditional Episcopal service is, to me, often even more boring than a traditional classical music concert.  Which is one of the reasons the Episcopal church, like traditional classical music concerts, is declining in attendance.

Do you like to collaborate or be the boss?
Yes.  Either role, top or bottom, I’m versatile.  As with sex, it depends on whom I’m with.  I’m one of those people who ends up being the chair of whatever committee I’m on, and I absolutely love facilitating people working together.  I’ve single-handedly run a low-budget summer concert series for over five years, and what I like is being able to just get things done without a lot of bullshit.  I need partners, though, for the thing to grow and to get more flexibility in my summers. It’s very hard for me to give up total control.

What’s the last thing that scared you?
Not knowing how to deal with my mother, who has mild dementia, now that my father has died.  I’m living with her right now, hopefully temporarily, and learning to manage her investments, and figure out how to have my own life, too.  It’s enormous and ‘m scared.  But also trusting that things will work out.  Get scared, then let go and trust in the process of life.  I’m glad I’m already an improviser.

What’s the last thing that made you cry?
Sitting with my father’s body the night he died.

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