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.

[Finale Pt. 3] The Outtakes: Blooper Reel | #1Summer50Concerts

Pro: this train only makes two stops between New Haven and Grand Central

Con: they gave us one of the shitty old trains without comfy seats and electrical outlets

As I head down to NYC for a self-care day that includes a matinee at the Met and an evening concert at the NY Phil (neither of which I'm going to write about, because SELF-CARE), I figure now is as opportune a time as any to tell you about a few times when fate got in the way of my concert schedule. Sometimes, shit happens.

• I got rained out of the Met Live in the Parks concert I was planning on attending. The headliners were tenor Ben Bliss, baritone Nathan Gunn, and soprano Ying Fang, who I had the fortune to interview not a week before. She's just lovely. So is her voice. Sigh.

• I mentioned this briefly in a prior post, but the first Chamber Music Society concert I tried to go to was completely, 100% sold out. Like, not a seat left. So we rushed to two Broadway theaters and tried to get rush tickets. No luck. We ended up at Upright Citizens' Brigade seeing comedy, which was sort of my default free-evening thing to do.

• After my first Caramoor concert (with Vivica Genaux), I wrote a whole post on Metro-North -- I think it was for the second night of ChamberQueer. I got home and pressed the post button, and the entire thing disappeared. That might have been the low point of my whole summer.

• Concert #1 was slated to be the NY Phil's free Memorial Day concert. But by the time my friend got there to get us tickets, the line almost snaked around an entire city block. I love music. But not that much.

• I was having a good day. Had lunch with friends, sat in a Columbia coffee shop for an hour and a half trying to write my first Opera News review (I got two sentences in that time, neither of which I liked at all), and then had a reading with one of my Bennington quartets. I was slated to go to the Martina Arroyo Foundation's Fledermaus with a friend that night. I caught the D train downtown from Harlem-125th St because the 1 train wasn't running that weekend. Around 81st St, we stopped. Power outage, apparently. I stood there looking like an annoyed New Yorker, because what else was I supposed to do. After about 15 minutes, it became eminently clear we weren't going anywhere anytime soon. So I did something hardcore. I sat down on the floor of the D train and I started writing that Opera News review. By the time we got rescued an hour and a half later, it was pretty much done. Silver linings! Of course, my poor friend was waiting for me at the Fledermaus performance, but I had no service to tell her that I was stuck. Sigh.

• There was a mystery concert #51, but you have to ask me about that in person.

Thanks for sticking with me throughout this project, and stay tuned for Classical Music Geek's Concert Blitz, October 15-20 -- I'll be attending 10 concerts in those five days!

[Finale Pt. 2] The Credit Reel: The Emery Awards | #1Summer50Concerts

An approximate rendering of what an Emery award might look like -- because who doesn't

want to have my badly-photoshopped face sitting on their mantelpiece for the rest of time?

EDIT: Things got so busy that I'm just getting around to this post now. I guess it makes sense to keep with the trend of always being three weeks behind this summer?

I saw too many amazing, abnormal, and downright wacky things this summer not to do an awards post. So here goes nothing:

BEST OUTFIT (CONCERT BLACK): Conrad Tao; Davóne Tines

Pianist Conrad Tao wore a black t-shirt with black capri chinos to his performance of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time at Bargemusic. Baritone Davóne Tines beat the Caramoor heat by rocking a black suit with no shirt underneath.

BEST OUTFIT (NON-CONCERT BLACK): Aisslinn Nosky

At ChamberQUEER, violinist Aisslinn Nosky stood out from the fashionable performer core with a black velour tailcoat alongside shamrock-green velcro sneakers.

MOST EFFECTIVE INTERMISSION COSTUME CHANGE: Vivica Genaux

Mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux started her concert at Caramoor in a colorful dress with a four-foot train; after intermission, she returned to the stage in the brightest white pantsuit I've ever seen.

MOST OBSCURE INSTRUMENT: the douçaine

Piffaro's concert at the MET Cloisters was studded with weird baroque instruments, but the douçaine was the only one I hadn't heard of. Turns out it's like the bassoon's less useful French cousin.

CONCERT MOST SIMILAR TO AN ACID TRIP (NOT THAT I WOULD KNOW):

Chunky in Heat; The Magic Flute

Chunky in Heat literally had a talking tree who introduced himself by describing two flies having sex. I don't think that happens in real life (but correct me if I'm wrong). Barrie Kosky's Magic Flute was only marginally closer to how life actually works; the whole performance just felt like one big leg-filled hallucination.

MOST AGGRESSIVE HEAD-BOBBING: Vijay Iyer Sextet

My neck was sore afterwards.

FEWEST FUCKS GIVEN: Pierre Hantaï

I saw him outside smoking a cigarette 15 minutes before the concert. And then at intermission, when the entire audience crowded around to record him tuning the DiMenna Center's harpsichord, he just kind of rolled his eyes and continued with his business.

BIGGEST EYEROLL: George Li

After a beautiful Liszt/Schumann encore that would have made the perfect end to the concert, the audience forced George Li onstage to play La campanella, the most overused virtuoso piece alive. The audience murmured in delight. Li most certainly did not.

BEST FAMOUS PERSON ENCOUNTER: Vilde Frang

Because she was the only one I talked to. Because I'm a wimp.

BEST ONSTAGE STORY: Orrin Evans's Chia Pet (as told by Reid Anderson of The Bad Plus)

Reid Anderson's improvised bit-du-jour was about the Chia Pet that inspired Orrin Evans to write his song "Commitment." He also may or may not have been high at the time. I mean, who can blame him -- it was the second set of the night!

BEST PERFORMANCE OF A PIECE I HAD NEVER HEARD BEFORE AND DON'T CARE TO HEAR AGAIN: Teatro Nuovo playing Donizetti's Symphony in e minor

Yes, excavate obscure pieces. But for the love of god, only excavate the good ones!

MOST MEMORABLE CONCERT THAT I HAVE SINCE FORGOTTEN: NY Phil playing Corigliano's First Symphony

It was a lovely performance. But it was, like, concert #3. After the novelty had worn off. I still remember it fondly, but it was just overwritten by all the other great stuff I saw this summer.

PERFORMANCE THAT EVERYONE 65+ LOVED AND EVERYONE 65- HATED: Stonewall

There were a lot of old gays in the audience who were 200% convinced they had just seen the third coming of Christ. The younger crowd scoffed, wishing they had gone to see Der Rosenkavalier instead for their fill of soprano-soprano relationships.

BEST MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH: Vijay Iyer

"The fight...is....far. from. over. Which coincidentally is the name of our newest album!" TL;DR Fuck Donald Trump, but without saying those actual words.

BIGGEST DRAMA QUEEN: Brian Giebler

I understand the red-black double-sided sequin jacket. But you did NOT need to have a breakdown on the conductor's podium. 10/10 excellent entertainment.

BIGGEST COINCIDENCE: Cavalieri at St. Thomas

The bass section leader of the St. Thomas choir (he also played the small role of Consiglio)? Yeah, he teaches at Yale now. And I'm in his seminar. Emotions and Sacred Music in the Early Modern World. We're just niche like that.

ASSHOLE OF THE SUMMER: The Guy Who Yelled Bravo Too Early

I said it once, and I'll say it again. FUCK. YOU.

MOST FEELINGS: Kinhaven

You can catch me live-streaming for their annual fundraiser on Monday. I hate fundraising. But I love Kinhaven more than I hate fundraising.

BEST AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: Lacunae

Apparently, discussing your feelings with the other seven (7) people in the audience is in vogue now. Who knew?

CUTEST: Wadada Leo Smith's Grandkids

Wadada doesn't exactly deal in children's music, but his grandkids -- three or four of them aged between 2 and 12 -- were all sitting right in the front row. Part of his between-the-pieces intermission was talking to them exactly as a grandpa should -- "how was the drive? how was your day at school?"

BEST ONSTAGE NAP: Camille Bertault

Her band thought they had seen every crazy trick in her book. And then, for the final verse of one of her pieces, she feigned drunkenness and slowly laid down onstage. I don't think I've ever seen a drummer look more confused in my entire life.

ANGSTIEST: David Lang's prisoner of the state

A world in which David Lang's compositions are not angsty is a world in which I don't want to live.

BIGGEST SUMMER REGRET: Not Talking to Caroline Shaw

Yeah, I'm still not over it. Supposedly she got ahold of that blogpost. And then I got back to school and next thing I know I'm conducting one of her pieces with the Yale Glee Club. I don't believe in god, but someone is taunting me.

MOST WORTH THE TRIP: Davóne Tines and Dover Quartet at Caramoor

The look on Davóne Tines's face at the "ha NOPE!" moment of Dover Beach was alone worth the train ride. At the end of the concert, I would have happily sat through the whole thing again.

BEST CONCERT I SAW THIS SUMMER: Quartet for the End of Time at Bargemusic

Holy shit. That's all I could say. That's all I can say.

(Runner-up: ChamberQUEER Opening Concert)

MY FAVORITE CONCERT I SAW THIS SUMMER: ChamberQUEER Opening Concert

I have never left a concert with my heart more full than when I left ChamberQUEER. The NYC summer music scene's best-kept secret, and the thing I will miss most if I end up anywhere but NYC next summer. I'm smiling just thinking about it.

(Runner-up: Quartet for the End of Time at Bargemusic)

[Finale Pt. 1] The Serious Post: Reflections | #1Summer50Concerts

It feels like just yesterday...

Fifty concerts. FIFTY CONCERTS.

Quite frankly, I don't know where those 50 reviews came from. It's almost like writing an all-nighter paper: the words are all there, and I definitely wrote each and every one of them. But the whole process is kind of a haze.

But alas, 'tis done. 50 concerts. One summer. It happened. I learned a lot.

I learned that hopping on the subway and going to 50 concerts is not that hard. I also learned that writing 50 reviews is significantly harder and more time-consuming.

I learned that my writing leans far too heavily on em dashes, semicolons, and parenthetical asides, but I've been told that's just a phase.

But most of all, I learned that I love going to concerts. Everyone who questioned this project (and there were a lot of people who did so) was right: 50 concerts is really too many. I spent an inordinate amount of time this summer seeing, writing about, and talking about concerts. But thinking back on it, what would I have been doing instead? Sitting on my ass and watching Netflix? Rest assured, I did plenty of that too -- the last season of Orange is the New Black wasn't going to watch itself.

The concert experience, I now realize, can be so many things. Go to a concert alone and it's a night off. Go with one friend and it's date night. Go with a group and it's a party. Concert in a neighborhood you don't know? Field trip. Concert three blocks from your house? Home-court advantage. One hour long? Time for dinner after. Four hours long? Better bring snacks.

It's not like I was trying to run 50 miles or taste 50 cups of coffee. The only common vein running through my 50 concerts was, well, music. Variety is key. I would have torn my hair out if I was working towards, say, 50 Beethoven performances in one summer.

So guys, I know this project was mostly self-serving (I have a portfolio for job applications now!), but there is a moral to the story. Go hear live music. Yes, I pay $10 a month for Spotify, too. But there's nothing quite like seeing a real, live human make real, live music in person. They are literally there to please you, and you are there to be pleased.

And more than just going to concerts, dig deeper than the surface. I ended up at so many tiny little concerts that I only found out about thanks to Facebook's alarmingly sophisticated suggestions algorithm. Don't just siphon money into your local symphony orchestras and opera companies. Find out what the community is doing. Go see a concert where you're on your own and don't think you know anyone; chances are the people running it will greet you with a smile, pour you a glass of wine, and make small talk with you until you're one of the family.

It's been a great summer, guys. Thanks for following along, and stay tuned for more ridiculous concert projects -- ten concerts in five days during my October break, maybe?

[50] Mostly Mozart presents Takács Quartet at Alice Tully Hall | #1Summer50Concerts

Me, finishing something I started for the first time, like, ever

WHO: Takács Quartet; Jeremy Denk, piano

WHAT: MOZART String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K. 575 "Prussian"; BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 16 in F major, Op. 135; DOHNÁNYI Piano Quintet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 1

WHERE: Alice Tully Hall

WHEN: August 5, 2019 at 7:30pm

I'm going to spare you the gritty details, but let me just say this -- I was a little bit emotional at this final concert. And it wasn't just because of the heart-rending slow movements from the Beethoven and the Dohnányi.

As the lights dimmed, and the robo-voice over the loudspeaker told the audience to silence their cell phones, I couldn't help but notice that the sad cavern in my stomach trumped the endorphin rush of triumph.

So much for sparing you the gritty details.

I posted about concert #50 on my Snapchat and got plenty of congratulations, but as I pointed out to all of my loyal followers, it's not over until it's over. Review #50 hasn't hit the web yet. Well, here it is.

I started this project with the most niche concert I could find. Well, it appears I've sold out -- here's a review of, like, one of the most famous quartets in the world.

I went into this concert with a more or less neutral idea of Takács. I listened to one of their Beethoven quartet recordings a while ago. I may have listened to a couple movements of the Bartók cycle at some point. But that's about it.

Takács is not a quartet where you have to call into question whether they play musically, or how well they play well as a quartet. They're obviously very good. The only thing I can do is to ask myself whether they approach the program the way I would. And the answer to that is...kind of?

Takács's approach to Mozart is distinctly different from mine. I love to relish in Mozart's simplicity, striking a balance between imparting my own musical ideas and letting the bright levity of the score speak for itself. Takács erred definitively on the side of the former, and to my ear it seemed a little bit overworked. It didn't help, of course, that their interpretation seemed overly romantic -- their wide, fast vibrato was always audible, which is *probably* not how Mozart would have wanted it. Oh, and it felt like cellist András Fejér was celebrating the upcoming Bartók anniversary a few months early with his short, hatchet-y accompanying strokes. Again, these are all personal objections. Objectively, they played very very well.

Their Beethoven was a little more to my liking -- their approach wasn't so different from that for the Mozart, but it felt a bit more appropriate for the parodistic aspects of Op. 135. Plus, as I said before, that slow movement was to die for (or, in my case, to cry for). And their romantic approach to the Dohnányi was perfectly idiomatic, strengthened by Jeremy Denk's insistently emotional, yet transparent playing.

My mind wasn't blown, but I still left pleased. Takács is eminently reliable. And besides which, I wasn't *really* thinking about the music. I was crying on the inside as the lovely critic sitting next to me (whose name I didn't catch -- he had to run for a train) was waxing poetic about Pekka Kuusisto's abomination of a Four Seasons mashup with Scandinavian folk music.

And now I'm crying on the outside. Stay tuned for the summer wrap-up posts, hopefully coming before my classes start on Wednesday!

[49] Faculty Concert at Chamber Music Conference of the East, Bennington, VT | #1Summer50Concerts #ConcertGetaway

WHO: Faculty of Chamber Music Conference of the East
WHAT: SCOTT WHEELER Piano Trio No. 2 "Camera Dances"; HINDEMITH Kleine Kammermusik, Op. 24 No. 2; BRAHMS Piano Quintet, Op. 34
WHERE: Greenwall Auditorium, Bennington College, Bennington, VT
WHEN: August 3, 2019 at 8:00pm

An abridged list of things I did during my week at Bennington:

• Play the Beethoven "Ghost" trio
• Play Shostakovich's 7th string quartet
• Play a Beethoven quartet (Op. 18 No. 6, for those who are counting)
• Play a Mendelssohn quartet (Op. 12)
• Explain to my friends approximately 47 times that yes, I go to a music camp that requires me to learn four full pieces in one week, and yes, this is my idea of fun
• Get called a masochist approximately 47 times
• Have a conversation with the Bennington College music librarian that ended with, "I'm so glad that score of Schoenberg's Book of the Hanging Gardens (which was on sale for $2 at the annual music sale) is going to a good home." Why yes, I'll feed it and water it and turn it towards the sunlight, just like I do with the rest of my....scores?
• Read Shostakovich's second piano trio (read: really really hard) with one of those pianists who is like "oh yeah, I'm just sightreading" and then proceeds to nail 90% of the notes at full tempo. She may be reading this. She knows who she is.
• Eat lots of dining hall food, reminding me that yes, I am happy to have a kitchen this upcoming year
• Pitch the #1Summer50Concerts project approximately 47 times
• Explain approximately 47 times that yes, I went to 50 concerts and yes, I enjoyed myself
• Get called a masochist approximately 47 times
• Blog while sitting on a bench that overlooks miles and miles of open field (with a little path weed-whacked into it so people can go on walks through the waist-high grass) while listening to Alexandre Tharaud's recordings of the last three Beethoven piano sonatas (would recommend)
• Explore said open field, for shits and giggles
• Come across a mystical forest path that looked something like this:

• Enter the forest path
• Come out the other side to this view:

• Scare a mama deer a little further down the path
• Stargaze
• Obsess over shoes and Bruno Helstroffer (the world's sexiest lute player) with a group of snarky childless 40-somethings
• Sweat. A lot. The music building wasn't air conditioned.

An unabridged list of things I did not do during my week at Bennington:

• Sleep

[48] Faculty Concert at Chamber Music Conference of the East, Bennington, VT | #1Summer50Concerts #ConcertGetaway

WHO: Faculty of Chamber Music Conference of the East
WHAT: MENDELSSOHN String Quartet No. 6, Op. 80; MOZART String Quintet No. 3, K. 515
WHERE: Greenwall Auditorium, Bennington College, Bennington, VT
WHEN: July 31, 2019 at 8:00pm

Ultimately, I decided not to write a college essay on Kinhaven, my most formative music camp experience, for much the same reason I didn't wax poetic in my last post -- I didn't/don't think I can put words to paper that express how much that location means to me.

I also love Bennington, a weeklong summer chamber music camp for grownups in southern Vermont. But it's less emotional for me, mostly because I can keep going back summer after summer until I keel over. So I wrote a college essay about it -- nothing long, just one of the 300-word essays.

And as I was thinking about what to write for this post, I thought to myself: who better to tell you what Bennington means to me than 17-year-old me trying to pander to admissions officers? If I convinced them, then certainly I can convince you(?).

Here it is: my Bennington essay, unedited from the time I hit the "submit" button.

"It’s my first day at Bennington Chamber Music Conference in Vermont, where I’m the only teenager among several hundred amateur musicians. I take my cello out of my case and sit down. I start to leaf through the piece in front of me, the famously difficult Mendelssohn Octet. My stomach churns. I chat nervously with the other players for a while as we wait on our first violinist. We hear a knock on the door: it’s Shem Guibbory, a violinist from New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

"Oh, brother.

"My week at Bennington was a baptism by fire. I expected a relatively low-key experience; I had just come from six weeks at another intense music camp, and I assumed I’d have some time to relax.

"I was wrong. A friend explained the schedule: in addition to two professional coachings per day on pre-practiced pieces, there were four free periods per day to sight-read. The typical day started at 9am and didn’t end until midnight. And playing with seasoned professionals was the norm, not the exception.

"That first day, I sight-read 6 full pieces, in addition to the ones on which I was being coached. By bedtime I was catatonic. But I was learning. Reading Allen Shawn’s Dreamscape cemented my love for modern music. Shostakovich’s piano quintet reminded me that as the cellist, I was responsible for driving the music forward.

"Most of all, Bennington showed me how I want to live. The enthusiastic amateur musicians around me had demanding jobs (doctors, professors, and environmental scientists, just to name a few) but all had carved a week out of their busy schedules to play chamber music in the mountains. It was here that I realized that I want music to be a part of my life forever, but I don’t want to play for a living. I want my career to challenge me intellectually and support me and my family, and I want to spend my vacations making music with friends in the mountains."

FIN

I don't know why, but when I read that in my head, it's in a pre-pubescent 12-year-old Emery voice. Does that mean that in 20 years, when I look back on these posts, I'll read it like that, too?

I should take a moment to mention that the Mendelssohn on this concert was truly astounding. Bennington's faculty have just as much fun as the participants -- because Bennington is all adults, the coaches can be more relaxed and open with the students than they could be at a high school festival. But don't be fooled -- each faculty member is alarmingly accomplished.

The Mendelssohn quartet was headed by Diana Cohen, concertmaster of the Calgary Philharmonic. Personally, I think she should quit that job and become a full-time chamber musician, she played that well -- the amount of fiery soul she managed to impart in those 25 minutes is completely beyond words. Second violinist Alex Fortes (who, it turns out, was sitting not ten feet from me at ChamberQUEER earlier this summer) mirrored her affect perfectly, providing a support network for her to soar. Violist Korinne Fujiwara (of the Carpe Diem quartet -- also a fantastic coach) and cellist Maxine Neuman (a longtime festival mainstay and Bennington College faculty member) rounded out the jaw-dropping ensemble.

That's about all I have to say for now. More on Bennington in the next post!