I’ll be up late writing a paper on the significance of the compositional chronology of the last section of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor,* but I wanted to link to a release of the premiere performance of On Sacred Ground, The Bad Plus’ reworking of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Pianist Ethan Iverson is a beast on the recording, and his blog post on his creative process is a must-read. I’m also grateful to him for pointing to pianist Serhiy Salov’s album The Sacred Spring of Slavs. The album contains Salov’s own transcription of the Rite for solo piano as well as a suite of character pieces by the Ukrainian composer Igor Shamo. The transcription is rough and edgy, while at the same time showing off near-superhuman piano technique (there were several times where I had to repeat a section to try and figure out how he was producing these sounds with only two hands), and the Shamo pieces are strong in their own right, a combination of the folk melodies of Stravinsky/Bartók and the atmospheric washes of color of Debussy.
Two very different views (or maybe the same view, with different conclusions) about new forms of celebrity and entertainment. First, Marc Meyers of JazzWax bemoaning the emergence of radio singles with the word “fuck:”
Once upon a time there were grownups in the music business. They were around to insist that artists meet standards and to step in when they went too far. Artists, by definition, don’t have limits. Many also don’t have taste or restraint, nor do they care about such things. Which is why there were record producers some years ago. They were there to set standards and draw the line…
Four-letter words in conversation and song offend me—not because I’m uptight but because they are senseless and bereft of creative thinking. They also are lazy and have little meaning or flavor. Adults on lines and in the music business used to know better.
Post-Empire started appearing in full-force just about everywhere last year while Cee Lo Green’s “Fuck You” gleefully played over the soundtrack. The Kardashians so get it. The cast (and the massive audience) of Jersey Shore gets it. Lady Gaga arriving at the Grammys in an egg gets it, and she gets it while staring at Anderson Cooper (Empire!) and admitting she likes to smoke weed when she writes songs—basically daring him: “What are you gonna do about that, bitch?” Nicki Minaj gets it when she sings “Right Thru Me” and becomes one of her many alter-egos on a red carpet. (Christina Aguilera starring in Burlesque doesn’t get it at all.) Ricky Gervais’s hosting of the Golden Globes got it. Robert Downey Jr., getting pissed off at Gervais, did not. Robert De Niro even got it, subtly ridiculing his career and his lifetime achievement trophy at the same awards show….
Post-Empire isn’t just about admitting doing “illicit” things publicly and coming clean—it’s a (for now) radical attitude that says the Empire lie doesn’t exist anymore, you friggin’ Empire trolls. To Empire gatekeepers, Charlie Sheen seems dangerous and in need of help because he’s destroying (and confirming) illusions about the nature of celebrity.
The tidiness of Ellis’ argument smells a little bit like bullshit, but the situations that he contrasts ring true enough to me to give it some credibility (it really is a great piece).
What this whole debate reminded me of is a passage from Peter Brook’s The Empty Space, introduced to me by Kartina Richardson of Mirrorfilm.com in what looks to be like the beginning of a great series comparing Brook’s ideas about live theater to cinema. Brook breaks all theater down into four categories: Deadly, Holy, Rough and Immediate. He writes this about the Rough theater:
Of course, it is most of all dirt that gives the roughness its edge; filth and vulgarity are natural, obscenity is joyous: with these the spectacle takes on its socially liberating role, for by nature the popular theater is anti-authoritarian, anti-traditional, anti-pomp, anti-pretence. This is the theater of noise, and the theater of noise is the theater of applause.
The only thing that has changed in the last five years is the newly public way that we–and therefore celebrities–live our lives. Social networks, personalized content, omnipresent video cameras… maybe our lives have become the theater of noise.
One of Portland artist Trixie Biltmore's impressions of Portland Opera's production of Hansel and Gretel. http://www.meencomics.com
Greg Sandow in the Wall Street Journal on Enrique Fernandez, the Cleveland Orchestra’s new “critic-in-residence”:
Despite his resounding title, Mr. Fernández is not a critic in the ordinary sense of the word. His blog, which you can visit by going to clevelandorchestramiami.com and clicking on “blog,” is an online magazine that runs feature pieces about the orchestra and its activities in Miami. In addition, Mr. Fernández invites concertgoers to post their own thoughts on the orchestra’s performances: “Online everybody’s a critic…. Comment on the concert you are about to experience. Review if you wish, if you must. Hey, it’s your ticket, rave on, pan on.”Mr. Fernández and the Cleveland Orchestra are clearly trying to come up with an institutional equivalent of the “online communities” that spring up around homemade blogs. This kind of blogging is still relatively new in the world of art, and to date the only institutions that seem to have embraced it wholeheartedly are museums (an especially good example is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Unframed,” which is at lacma.wordpress.com). Classical-music organizations, by contrast, seem ill at ease with the openness and interactivity of blogging, and even the best of their efforts, such as the St. Louis Symphony’s STL Symphony Blog (stlsymphony.org/blog), tend to be one-way operations that aren’t open to comments or email from readers.
As much as I usually disagree with Sandow, he’s absolutely right in questioning “new media” ventures that don’t engage in a thoughtful way with their audience. An orchestra blog without a personal perspective or engagement with commenters and other bloggers is nothing more than a glorified press release. It’s also true that only the biggest players in the game can afford–as in, “stop losing your audience” afford–to not participate (and it should be noted that the big players can get away with not directly engaging with their audience because there’s a cohort of bloggers who are willing to translate and comment upon press releases).
One of the best organizational efforts that I’ve come across trying to really understand a local audience and reach out a build a new audience is the Portland Opera’s Comic’s Night. From their press release (ok, sometimes this works):
In an effort to reach out to new audiences and new communities, Portland Opera is pleased to announce its first-ever Comic Artist Night @ the Opera on Monday, September 20. Taking advantage of Portland’s wealth of comic talent, the Opera has invited 20 artists to attend a dress rehearsal and draw whatever inspires them about the production. They’ll also receive a backstage tour prior to the show and front row seats during the show so that they can see every single operatic expression on stage. The artists will share the results of the evening with their online communities and Portland Opera will share the artist’s work with our patrons at the theater as well as posting the work online at www.portlandopera.org.
I thought this was a fantastic venture, for a few reasons:
It showed an understanding of the local audience. One of the most consistently frustrating things about regional classical music organizations is that there is often a distance between the organization and their city. Yet at the same time, we’re asked to support the local symphony, or opera house as a civic symbol and representation of our city. This was a real, genuine, smart play to one of Portland’s strengths.
It attracted different press, therefore different readers. I actually read about Comics Night in comics blogs and the local alt-weekly (the same paper that will show classical listings on its music page, but would never promote a classical concert). That’s huge exposure to an audience–young, local, in to music–that classical organizations desperately want.
It provided an entrance point for first-time operagoers. Opera is intimidating and weird. Many of the artists address that in their comics. Somebody whose curiosity is piqued by the comics will not be so discouraged by the newness of the experience.
It solves the problem of promotional materials. On the internet, there’s an abundance of promotional materials that give some idea of what you’re getting yourself into if you want to see a live show. Curious about a standup comic? Check YouTube. What else has this artist done? Check the portfolio on their website. Band you’ve never heard of? You can be sure that any band getting started today has an online media presence before they play their first live show. At any point, these promotional materials can get picked up by other aggregators and go viral. Classical music doesn’t have that. This is partly a practical constraint; it would be impossible to have an opera trailer ready months before a performance, and orchestras have similar conditions. The comics produced by the local Portland artists, however, provide a subjective (in perspective) and objective (they are free to draw whatever they want) hook to draw in an audience. And this is mostly because…
The comics produced were really cool. This is the most important part, and also the hardest to fake.
We now have a large population of people that grew up as the internet matured as a technology. The share of the population that grew up with internet access will only increase. This creates a new kind of media literacy, an intuitive sense that gets really excited by a group of artists invited to share their impressions of an opera preview, a sense that skips right by an astroturf-filled “blog” without even reading it. More comics inspired by Hansel and Gretel can be seen in Portland Opera’s Facebook album.
One of Portland artist Trixie Biltmore's impressions of Portland Opera's production of Hansel and Gretel. http://www.meencomics.com
Greg Sandow in the Wall Street Journal on Enrique Fernandez, the Cleveland Orchestra’s new “critic-in-residence”:
Despite his resounding title, Mr. Fernández is not a critic in the ordinary sense of the word. His blog, which you can visit by going to clevelandorchestramiami.com and clicking on “blog,” is an online magazine that runs feature pieces about the orchestra and its activities in Miami. In addition, Mr. Fernández invites concertgoers to post their own thoughts on the orchestra’s performances: “Online everybody’s a critic…. Comment on the concert you are about to experience. Review if you wish, if you must. Hey, it’s your ticket, rave on, pan on.”Mr. Fernández and the Cleveland Orchestra are clearly trying to come up with an institutional equivalent of the “online communities” that spring up around homemade blogs. This kind of blogging is still relatively new in the world of art, and to date the only institutions that seem to have embraced it wholeheartedly are museums (an especially good example is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Unframed,” which is at lacma.wordpress.com). Classical-music organizations, by contrast, seem ill at ease with the openness and interactivity of blogging, and even the best of their efforts, such as the St. Louis Symphony’s STL Symphony Blog (stlsymphony.org/blog), tend to be one-way operations that aren’t open to comments or email from readers.
As much as I usually disagree with Sandow, he’s absolutely right in questioning “new media” ventures that don’t engage in a thoughtful way with their audience. An orchestra blog without a personal perspective or engagement with commenters and other bloggers is nothing more than a glorified press release. It’s also true that only the biggest players in the game can afford–as in, “stop losing your audience” afford–to not participate (and it should be noted that the big players can get away with not directly engaging with their audience because there’s a cohort of bloggers who are willing to translate and comment upon press releases).
One of the best organizational efforts that I’ve come across trying to really understand a local audience and reach out a build a new audience is the Portland Opera’s Comic’s Night. From their press release (ok, sometimes this works):
In an effort to reach out to new audiences and new communities, Portland Opera is pleased to announce its first-ever Comic Artist Night @ the Opera on Monday, September 20. Taking advantage of Portland’s wealth of comic talent, the Opera has invited 20 artists to attend a dress rehearsal and draw whatever inspires them about the production. They’ll also receive a backstage tour prior to the show and front row seats during the show so that they can see every single operatic expression on stage. The artists will share the results of the evening with their online communities and Portland Opera will share the artist’s work with our patrons at the theater as well as posting the work online at www.portlandopera.org.
I thought this was a fantastic venture, for a few reasons:
It showed an understanding of the local audience. One of the most consistently frustrating things about regional classical music organizations is that there is often a distance between the organization and their city. Yet at the same time, we’re asked to support the local symphony, or opera house as a civic symbol and representation of our city. This was a real, genuine, smart play to one of Portland’s strengths.
It attracted different press, therefore different readers. I actually read about Comics Night in comics blogs and the local alt-weekly (the same paper that will show classical listings on its music page, but would never promote a classical concert). That’s huge exposure to an audience–young, local, in to music–that classical organizations desperately want.
It provided an entrance point for first-time operagoers. Opera is intimidating and weird. Many of the artists address that in their comics. Somebody whose curiosity is piqued by the comics will not be so discouraged by the newness of the experience.
It solves the problem of promotional materials. On the internet, there’s an abundance of promotional materials that give some idea of what you’re getting yourself into if you want to see a live show. Curious about a standup comic? Check YouTube. What else has this artist done? Check the portfolio on their website. Band you’ve never heard of? You can be sure that any band getting started today has an online media presence before they play their first live show. At any point, these promotional materials can get picked up by other aggregators and go viral. Classical music doesn’t have that. This is partly a practical constraint; it would be impossible to have an opera trailer ready months before a performance, and orchestras have similar conditions. The comics produced by the local Portland artists, however, provide a subjective (in perspective) and objective (they are free to draw whatever they want) hook to draw in an audience. And this is mostly because…
The comics produced were really cool. This is the most important part, and also the hardest to fake.
We now have a large population of people that grew up as the internet matured as a technology. The share of the population that grew up with internet access will only increase. This creates a new kind of media literacy, an intuitive sense that gets really excited by a group of artists invited to share their impressions of an opera preview, a sense that skips right by an astroturf-filled “blog” without even reading it. More comics inspired by Hansel and Gretel can be seen in Portland Opera’s Facebook album.
At one point in the summer, my whole house became obsessed with the playstation game Katamari Damacy. One of the many pleasures of the game is it’s witty soundtrack, which features a handful of themes arranged in different music parodies.
I’ve been thinking about this particular piece, written as a strict fugue, for the past couple of weeks. I’m just finished with a fugue unit in my advanced music theory class, and I’m happy to put it behind me.
I’ll be up late writing a paper on the significance of the compositional chronology of the last section of J.S. Bach’s Mass in B minor,* but I wanted to link to a release of the premiere performance of On Sacred Ground, The Bad Plus’ reworking of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Pianist Ethan Iverson is a beast on the recording, and his blog post on his creative process is a must-read. I’m also grateful to him for pointing to pianist Serhiy Salov’s album The Sacred Spring of Slavs. The album contains Salov’s own transcription of the Rite for solo piano as well as a suite of character pieces by the Ukrainian composer Igor Shamo. The transcription is rough and edgy, while at the same time showing off near-superhuman piano technique (there were several times where I had to repeat a section to try and figure out how he was producing these sounds with only two hands), and the Shamo pieces are strong in their own right, a combination of the folk melodies of Stravinsky/Bartók and the atmospheric washes of color of Debussy.
hammer & jack 