A Birthday Zoom | Pandemic Musings

And that was just page 1

My aunt turned 55 a couple days ago, so today she threw a "soirée" (3pm for me, 9pm for some, noon for others) to celebrate. The fine print: "Everyone (kids and adults!) is encouraged (not required) to give a little performance of music, poetry, etc., max 4 minutes."

My brother and I cobbled together a movement of the Byrd Mass for Four Voices -- we were planning on doing it anyway (just for funsies), but we figured that would take some of the performance anxiety out of the equation. Turns out, Zoom thinks the video sounds much different than we wanted it to. Oh well.

Here are a few other things that happened:

A Nobel Prize-winning physicist presented a fascinating experiment in relativity as he attempted to orchestrate a Zoom performance of his favorite Hungarian round. Only about half of the 20-some people in the call knew Hungarian. Maybe a third knew how to operate Zoom. Needless to say, it was not together. But hey, it was fun.

A couple of my cousins played a movement (the first 57 seconds) of John Cage's 4'33'', at which point the chat blew up -- "What happened?" "I think we lost them!" "Oh no!" I tried to assure everyone that this was according to plan. No one believed me.

A few great performances of Suzuki book Bach minuets. Makes me hopeful for the next generation of musicians.

Lots of poetry, some uplifting, some dour. You can really tell who is taking this quarantine in stride and who has had enough already.

A performance by one of these people who "just started learning guitar" but is already quite good -- if you're reading this, I envy you.

So many people talking over each other. SO. Many.

It was fun. Hopefully the next one won't have to be on Zoom.

Quick Post: Kaleidoscope

Is this selfie terrible? Yes. Does it have (most) of Dashon Burton it it? Also yes.

Also, first person to comment "Nice glasses," gets a kick in the shins.

(left to right: baroque cellist Alice Robbins; Dashon Burton; soprano Michele Kennedy; a fraction of my face)

This is going to be really quick because I'm putting off a problem set that I haven't started (eek!) which is due tomorrow (double eek!).

Remember prisoner of the state (concert 11 of 50 from this summer)? Remember how I mentioned that my job got me into a rehearsal meant for "classical music influencers"? Well, I didn't mention that it was a rehearsal where the covers were singing instead of the main cast. And Eric Owens's cover was Yale grad and Roomful of Teeth member Dashon Burton.

Frankly, I thought he was as good as Owens, if not better. I got to tell him that tonight. And now he thinks I'm an influencer because I was at that rehearsal. So what the hell, let's keep up the façade.

Anyway, tonight the nascent Kaleidoscope vocal octet (nonet, actually, because one of their members was missing) had their second performance ever. I've mentioned a few of the singers here before, most notably Enrico Lagasca, the bass over whom I fawned in concert #13's Cavalieri. Plus Grammy-winning tenor Karim Sulayman, fantastic countertenor Reginald Mobley, early soprano (and my voice teacher because I'm the luckiest person EVER) Sherezade Panthaki, the list goes on, all-star after all-star. Their mission is to celebrate diversity in the classical music world.

Kaleidoscope did a workshop-concert, so they only sang for about 20 minutes. Bach, Caroline Shaw (*sigh*), and a premiere by absent member Jonathan Woody.

But from those 20 minutes, I can safely say they're going to be big. Like, really big. Music with a mission is more powerful, more important, more relatable. And Kaleidoscope isn't just people who can sing. It's people who can articulate a noble cause through music.

They don't have any recordings -- this is only their second concert, after all -- but keep an eye (and an ear) out. This won't be the last you hear of Kaleidoscope.

[36] Pauline Kim Harris and Spencer Topel perform original compositions at The Stone @ Mannes | #1Summer50Concerts

WHO: Pauline Kim Harris, violin; Spencer Topel, electronics
WHAT: HARRIS/TOPEL Ambient Chaconne; Deo
WHERE: The Stone @ The New School
WHEN: July 11, 2019 at 8:30pm

In theory, going to concerts shouldn't be tiring. You get to sit. In air-conditioning, usually. Other people do the work of filling your ears with beautiful music. It's all included in the ticket price -- you just sit back and relax.

But going back to what I said a couple posts ago about not being able to turn my critic brain off -- concerts are tiring for me. In my mind, listening to music is synonymous with forming judgments. I don't see that as either a good thing or a bad thing. It just kind of is how I work.

Occasionally, though, I wish that I could lose myself in a concert. Turn off my brain for a few minutes.

I'm not going to tell you that I succeeded. But I came damn close at this concert.

I'm usually not a huge consumer of ambient music, but there are some great classical-ambient crossovers. I think that the Harris/Topel duet is going to join the greats of the genre when their new album comes out in September. Armed with only a violin, a microphone, and a soundboard, the two presented a refreshing take on Bach (and also another composer -- I'll explain in a second).

I can't tell you a whole lot about the music itself. It moved slowly, sometimes changing so slightly over such a long period of time that I couldn't detect the transformation until after it had already happened. There were no jagged new-music-characteristic jump scares; just the sweet tone of Harris's violin, looped and amplified and augmented.

The first piece, Ambient Chaconne, was a transformation of the famous chaconne from Bach's D minor violin partita; bits and pieces were recognizable throughout, but the already-long piece was lengthened from 15 minutes to almost half an hour with a range of clever electronic fillers. (Side note: I turned to my trumpet-playing friend after the performance and asked if he'd heard the original chaconne. Blank stare.)

The second piece was based on a Deo gratias -- I heard the composer as Lachenmann, my friends heard Bach. Neither of those people wrote Deo gratias settings. Phooey. But it was great.

Update: I just looked at the album's liner notes. It was Ockeghem's Deo gratias. I think I was closer.

You can pre-order the album, Heroine, here, or just wait until September 27, when it will hopefully be available on Spotify. Fingers crossed.

EDIT: It's September 27, and the album dropped and is just as good as the live version was! 

[34] shadows of love at Bethesda Lutheran Church, New Haven | #1Summer50Concerts

WHO: Matthew Cramer, bass-baritone; Stephen Gamboa-Diaz, harpsichord; Michael Rigsby, viola da gamba
WHAT: Works by Dowland, Lambert, d'Ambruys, Purcell, and Bach
WHERE: Bethesda Lutheran Church, New Haven CT
WHEN: July 7, 2019 at 4:00pm

Concert #34: In Which I Immediately Review Someone Else I Know, Even Though I Just Said That It's A Bad Idea

I discovered this 4th-of-July weekend that New Haven is a ghost town in the summer. Some students stay behind for research; a moderate horde of high schoolers come for summer sessions. But when you walk around, the thing that strikes you is the quiet -- other than the cars, there's no student chatter around campus. It's part eerie and part relaxing.

I was only there for three days (I took a day go to visit my brother in Boston), but by the time my trip was ending it had been five days since I had seen a concert. Far too long, in my humble opinion.

Luckily, a couple of friends decided to beat the summer boredom (not the heat, mind you -- there is no air conditioning at Bethesda) with a half-hour concert of renaissance and baroque music. It was an intimate affair -- maybe twenty people in the audience, half of them wearing shorts and/or crocs (myself included).

I think Matt Cramer sang it in a better key, to be honest, but this is the best recording out there.

So, again with the reviewing-people-I-know thing -- it feels weird to write formal reviews about friends and colleagues, but here goes nothing. The programming for the concert was fantastic, full of tunes that I heard for the first time that afternoon and am still humming right now. Matt Cramer, though a choral conductor by trade, lent inventive and clearly-sung ornamentations. Stephen Gamboa-Diaz showed his harpsichord prowess both as an accompanist and as a soloist; Michael Rigsby rounded out the crew.

But the charm of this concert came not in the music-making, but in the purpose. This wasn't part of a summer concert series or anything like that. When I asked Stephen what compelled him to put on a concert like this, he shrugged and said, "I don't know, Matt was in town for a little while and it was time to do something other than sightread in our living room." And if that's not inspirational, I don't know what is.

[22] Pierre Hantaï plays Bach's Goldberg Variations and more at the DiMenna Center | #1Summer50Concerts

                                            

WHO: Pierre Hantaï, harpsichord
WHAT: BYRD Will Yow Walke the Woods soe Wylde; BACH Prelude and Fugue in d minor; BACH English Suite in a minor; BACH Goldberg Variations
WHERE: DiMenna Center for Classical Music
WHEN: June 19, 2019, 7:30pm

I was SO excited when I heard that the Orchestra of St. Luke's was using June as a Bach celebration month. They had a couple of really interesting programs at Carnegie earlier this summer -- one of Bach orchestral music, one of cantatas -- and I was looking forward to seeing them, until one day I called their box office to get tickets:

ME: Hi, I'd like one student ticket to tonight's concert.

OSL REP: That'll be $65.

ME: *spit take, hang up*

In the end, I decided that my budget allowed me to go to only one of OSL's Bach presentations, and that decision was a no-brainer. Pierre Hantaï is one of the world's best harpsichordists. The Goldberg Variations is one of the world's best pieces. The concert was cheaper than any of the programs OSL was putting on at Carnegie. Win-win-win.

I was stupid. I didn't buy tickets ahead of time, and when we got to DiMenna the tickets were sold out. Even though my brother and I were second in the waitlist line, my heart was still pounding. Hantaï himself came upstairs for a smoke break before the concert started; it took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to approach him and beg on my hands and knees for a ticket. But I played it cool. And we got tickets, along with the 20-some Hunter College students whose professor had forgotten to make reservations even though seeing this performance was required to pass their class.

$40 for the Goldberg Variations seemed like a fair price, but apparently Hantaï didn't think so. He announced a completely separate program for the first half of his concert -- apparently, he likes to "meet ze harpsichord" before deciding on which pieces to pick out of his three-inch black high school binder. He started with the only non-Bach work on the program, citing William Byrd as a "direct predecessor of Bach's," which is a characterization I don't necessarily buy, but whatever. The Byrd theme and variations was fabulous, reserved yet supremely musical.

The prelude, fugue, and suite that followed let Hantaï put his distinctly French musical sensibilities on display. The flow was rhythmic, though not mathematical, and in those rare moments where strict rhythmic accuracy was not appropriate, Hantaï's flourishes were regal and well-organized.

As for Goldberg: of course it's a tremendous piece, but it's also LONG. Hantaï's fingers began to run out of steam in the middle -- an obvious wrong note every now and then. But his brain was in it the whole time. Even the occasional wrong note was masked by his cogent interpretation. I'm not going to mention any specific variations, because I counted about three before I lost track until the last variation, which is my favorite.

Hantaï feels like the kind of guy who can adapt to any environment. I mean, he doesn't get to bring his own instrument, and there's much more variation in the mechanics of a harpsichord than in, say, a piano. Harpsichords can have two separate keyboards stacked upon one another, and any number of levers and buttons to press to achieve the different timbres that it can't get from the player's touch. I don't know whether Hantaï spent 10 minutes or 10 hours learning the ins and outs of the DiMenna harpsichord (a beautifully decorated double-manual instrument), but he played it as if it were an old friend.

Hantaï's masterful performance was accompanied by lighting design by Burke Brown. I was expecting the lighting to be really loud -- a couple months ago, I saw pianist-composer-electronics artist Kelly Moran, whose set was accompanied by abstract animations in neon pinks and greens and blues, which was beautiful but also a lot to take in. Rather than a barrage to the eyes, the lighting read more as a mood intensifier, soft argyles of color on the wooden-slat back wall of the concert hall. Most importantly, the music came first.

I know a lot of people who say they unilaterally don't like the harpsichord because it "sounds like mosquitoes" or something like that. I urge those people to get out and listen to a real harpsichordist play a really good harpsichord. A good player knows how to take advantage of the harpsichord to its fullest, and Hantaï did just that. Not a single tone was left unexplored on that instrument. There may be a new Goldberg king in town -- move over, Glenn Gould.

I'm just kidding Glenn, I love you

[16] Camille Bertault Quartet and Friends at Birdland | # 1Summer50Concerts

WHO: Camille Bertault Quartet and Friends

WHAT: "Pas de Géant" Project

WHERE: Birdland Jazz Club

WHEN: Wednesday, June 12, 9:45pm

"You knew you were coming to see jazz, but you didn't know you were coming to see CRAZY JAZZ!!!!!"

And some crazy jazz was exactly what I needed on that night.

For the first two weeks of this project, I was sticking to a very strict regimen: one concert per day, two on Saturdays, a matinee on Sundays so I can grocery shop and meal prep for the week.

I'm glad to say I didn't fully burn out. But last Sunday, I decided that I needed to take a couple of concert-free days. One night I stayed in and did nothing (I mean, I tried to blog, but that didn't work so well). The next night, I went for a stroll with a professor. And Wednesday, I finally went back to the concert scene, but not before a lengthy family dinner.

Just goes to show you that you CAN get tired of things you love. I mean, that shouldn't surprise me, but sometimes I forget.

Anyway, this show was the perfect potpourri to get me back in the swing of things. Not that I expected it to be a potpourri -- I've seen many of Bertault's YouTube videos, starting with the viral one in which she scats along to the solo from Giant Steps ("Pas de Géant" in French -- that's kind of her thing), so I know she knows her way around the classical canon. She's scatted the first variation of Goldberg, she's done Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum from Debussy's Children's Corner suite, all sorts of stuff. So naturally, after a short original song for her introduction, she launched into a "tribute track" to the composers who had influenced her over the years; apparently, her father started her on piano at the ripe old age of three years old.

"Un, deux, un deux trois quatre"

And she launches into Goldberg at...help me here Moranis!

                                         

Bertault had obviously done this a million times before. Her pianist, Vitor Gonçalves, looked petrified, but kept his cool to play a musically and technically impressive Bach. She followed with a series of mutations on the first movement of Ravel's Tombeau de Couperin, and then a whole song based on Satie's first Gymnopédie.

So at this point we know she does classical well. She goes into a short phase of French standards, including a Serge Gainsbourg song that starts, "I drink regularly to forget my wife's friends." Charming. That one ended up with a stone-cold sober Bertault lying on the floor "drunkenly" babbling on in French about all of her problems, and eventually falling asleep on the ground -- I gather the band was a group of New York ringers, because they seemed bewildered.

Almost as bewildered as when Bertault shooed them offstage after that chart, and invited up a piano professor from the Manhattan School of Music (god help me if I can figure out which one -- Solomon Mikowski rings a bell?) who is apparently a Birdland regular. And they played. Four-hands. A movement of Ravel's Mother Goose suite. He was sightreading. She hadn't practiced. And you know what? It was fantastic. More fun was had in that room in those four minutes than at the entire Renee Rosnes show I had seen the previous week.

Please someone tell me the name of this bassist!

The combo came back on after that -- I should take this opportunity to mention that the combo she had behind her was AMAZING. Though I'm pretty sure the trio was hired for the occasion, they knew the charts well, looking up and smiling at each other as if they were....having fun? GASP! Gonçalves's solos were the perfect character foils to Bertault's; where her solos were restricted by the technical capabilities of the human voice (even a voice as agile as Bertault's has its limits) his picked up slack, and vice versa. The bassist, whose name I couldn't catch from the stage (I think I might have heard Eduardo? Google produced no results for me) had a smirk on his face that showed he knew EXACTLY what he was doing the whole time. And the drummer, John Hadfield, was equally at home in jazz and bossa styles -- Bertault is a self-professed Brazilian music obsessor -- and his playing had the perfect balance of reliability and pizzazz.

Speaking of Brazilian music, she kicked her combo off AGAIN and brought on guitarist Diego Figueiredo, with whom she did the Carmen Miranda Radio Days bossa classic Tico-Tico no Fubá. Bertault and Figueiredo were doing a show at Birdland the next night -- I seriously considered canceling my plans and going, their rendition was so fantastic.

The moral of the story is, next time Camille Bertault is in NYC, get your butt on out to see her. Whether she's solo with a pianist or guitarist, or with a larger group, she's incredibly fun to watch, not to mention a fabulous singer. Besides which, you basically get three shows for the price of one!