il diavolo è nei dettagli (the devil is in the details) ...

It seems only appropriate to title this post in Italian, as Italians do indeed use the phrase listed above. 

I’m hard-at-work these days, keeping my main wheel going (tenure-track position at a University), along with addressing different “spokes” of this wheel. I’m preparing the chorus (for my first time) of Opera Southwest’s production of Tancredi (you can purhcase tickets here).

The task ahead of us as a team is to prepare a little-known masterpiece of Rossini for four performances in late October. Within the preparation process, and really the most fun part, is working on details.

For example, there are plenty of dynamic markings in parenthesis in the score.

[f] 

Which usually means that an important, past edition has the markings, but the current editor isn’t sure 100% if the dynamics or instructions are accurate enough. 

I am so proud of the work we are doing together.  

For a fun web-link which refers to the title above, click here.

PHOTO: A bird's-eye view of rehearsal this past Saturday. Photo credit - Ryan Guth

Art-Song

My first experiment (or experience, if you would like to call it that) in “playing art” was successful! Here’s what it involved: 

 

- immediate audience reaction 

- audience participation, using vocabulary which they were comfortable with (contrast, line, shape, architecture, length). 

*The above mentioned “architectural” comments are also completely musical. 

Some of the improvisations were very strong. I am working on getting some audio footage edited to photograph-stills … but those can’t be released until all parties have “signed off” on the material, so to speak.  

 

 

I really loved this event and I hope to do more. I also hope to get my students involved. There could be such potential for this - in places such as the East Coast, definitely in Europe or China! I hope to farm out the idea to galleries or museums also in my local state. 

Perhaps the best two things from a perspective of the audience:

- They sat and looked at a painting, even if it wasn’t their favorite, for *much* longer than a usual visit.

- The paintings “changed” for them as they “listened” to them. 

 

 

Photos are taken by yours truly, with a GoPro set up on a foldable tripod and taken remotely with my iPhone.

Pictures at an Exhibition

It isn’t often that one’s “second layer of talent” gets to be utilized. Artists are often clobbering each other, in order to use the “thing” they deem as their “first string” talent level. 

Pianists, it’s the chops. Singers, it’s the voh-chay. (Yes, perceived sarcasm is directly understood). Other instruments, I’m not sure. (Long notes for tuba?). 

It’s the dermis talent (as opposed to epidermis) that gets us where we need to go long-term. 

I received a request a few months ago for an upcoming performance. And in doing so, I get to use my strange, spontaneous thinking and improvisational skills.

The assignment? 

“Play works of art at a gallery.” With a singer. No music. But we play the art (or sing it). We play gestures and come up with contrast, movements, harmonies, melodies, conversation, points of focus, lines, perspectives …  

 

 

Today was our final rehearsal and - people should run to hear and see what we are creating. 

The Albuquerque Museum is hosting its “3rd Thursday” event. It has invited curator Oliver Prezant (read a little about him here) ... 

 

soprano Cecilia Leitner (more about her here), a poet, and myself. Cecilia and I have had several rehearsals of … musical improvisation related to the art on the walls.

Since we have had to rehearse while the museum is open to the public, we have had passers-by become involved in the painting. Oliver has been guiding the audience and Cecilia and myself to share and experience the art in a unique way.  

 

 

The other day, we were creating a multi-movement piece based on this painting. Oliver then had the audience make hand-shapes and gestures related to the visual and aural art!  

 

 

Today, we created a piece based on a portrait of a young boy holding a chicken. (You have to come to the exhibit to see this one!). In one way, the painting is totally “ignorable” and a walk-by. But today, people were present at this painting for close to ten minutes. 

Usually, art museum guests look at paintings, on average, for about 10 seconds. 

We increased the audience-time ratio of “Boy with Chicken” by 6000%. 

Who said art isn’t a great investment?

Go(ing) Pro

 

I was inspired recently by Opera Southwest's use of the GoPro camera during rehearsals ... 

 

And my father bought a GoPro in order to record his drone helicopter flights. It’s a fun idea, actually. Another favorite TV show of late ("The Curse of Oak Island") featured these little cameras as some professional divers dove hundreds of feet in order to find buried treasure. 

I have been playing with this camera since I purchased it a few weeks ago. My favorite features are the “remote activation” (meaning you can take a still shot or a start-stop a video from an iPhone) and the fact that it is VERY small. Very practical for traveling and self-archiving ...

Today, it was a fairly open Saturday. I am hard at work on a project - re-orchestrating Mozart’s MAGIC FLUTE (more about that later) and of course, my regular practicing and score study.

Today I blissfully toggled between both.

On the “practice docket” this week is a work for violin and piano of Olivier Messiaen. Some of it is devilishly fast. The final variation is life-affirming, slow, regal, and seems to stop time. Being a big fan of his “Quartet for the End of Time,” and especially having played the cello movement many times in rehearsal, I am awed by the similarities of this final variation to that movement of the Quartet. Messiaen also seems to evoke a pipe organ, as he asks for HUGE reaches from the pianist (in reality: you have to get the bass octaves before the beat and catch them in the pedal) in order to play the chords where they need to fall.

Here is a video of the Messiaen ... 

My studio is so wonderfully nurturing these days - the light coming through the windows is, in a word, time-stopping. This semester feels like is has gotten almost to the point of a runaway train (Not necessarily bad. Just very fast). When I can take moments - to savor Messiaen’s slow-moving transcendent music, to “exist” in the light coming through my window - it is the best thing which I can do. 

 

 

Here's to slowing down a little, savoring the fall. Harmonies can change in an instant.

Here's to savoring the movement of time - vertically and horizontally.

 

 

(more) Chatter

It was funny to get a New Mexico-related work email about a month ago, actually as I was traveling back from Yellowstone (I was still in Montana). I was so pleased to be asked to play with two prominent string players in the ABQ area within about a month from the contact. 

The repertoire was: two sets of pieces by the Boulanger sisters, and the Dvořák "Dumky" trio. The "Dumky" had been on my "not that excited to play this piece" list for a long time, *but* the invitation was important because it involved not only terrific players, but also a concert series which I really enjoy in Albuquerque. (You can read about that series again in this post).

Part of the tricky, interpretative challenge with "Dumky" are the many tempo changes and transitions. I never realized this before, but my disdain for the work had probably come from a "bad" (read: uninspired, uninformed, unresearched) performance that I had heard at some point. I can't remember if the performance was live or a recording at this point, either. It doesn't matter. What matters is that I agreed to the performance, and once I say "yes," it's "yes" all the way.

Through a number of rehearsals, we worked out who led which transitions, what the audience was to listen for, which places to take (how much) time, and so forth. 

What was fun for me was to remember and imagine many wonderful experiences I've been lucky to have in Eastern Europe. Specifically, in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The experiences of combining parties, pálinka, and too much dancing and enough instruction to be dangerous. Those were, in some ways, "dumka" moments.

The idea of the "Dumka" is that it is a slow lament, which gradually works its way into a more festive, active dance. The "Trio," vaguely following a Sonata Allegro form, more accurately is in six "Dumky" - one leading into the next. 

I am so grateful to new colleagues James and Megan (you can read about them here) for the opportunity to collaborate, and for the transformative experience of making me love this work. 

PHOTO: From the concert. 

Transcription

A project which is on the docket for this summer is an album of vocal music - but not with a vocalist! 

With my faculty colleague, who also played on my recent faculty recital - Dr. Eric Lau. You can read more about him here. 

 

On the album are the complete set of five “Rückert Lieder” of Gustav Mahler, along with some well-known and beloved 17th and 18th century Italian vocal pieces. 

Here is a video of us playing something else we will record, “Journey” by Lori Laitman. You can view the video here. This piece was originally for high voice and piano, with a text about the Underground Railroad. The poet eventually removed the rights for Laitman to set his or her text, so she republished the work for alto saxophone and piano (without words). 

We must “do whatever [we] do intensely. The artist is the (wo)man who leaves the crowd and goes pioneering. With him there is an idea which is his life.” (Robert Henri, The Art Spirit).

As I reflect on this amazing year, my first after the doctorate, and my first at UNM and in the Southwest, it has very much felt like “pioneering.” I’ve left the crowd of the East Coast and come out to a place hungry for artists, hard workers, creative thinkers, and entrepreneurs.

I am grateful for the journey. 

 

PHOTO: From the move a year ago - traveling from OH into KY.

Moveable Sol

One of my lifelong dreams as a musician is to cultivate small "groups" which are conduits to live, intimate performance in unconventional spaces. (This is nothing new on the classical music scene.) in fact, the idea of doing "opera on tap" (in bars), on-site in different places (my good friend and colleague from undergraduate has started On-site Opera (http://osopera.org) bringing people into wax museums and palaces to experience this medium live. 

Joel Becktell, cellist, friend, and entrepreneur (http://joelbecktell.com) had approached me back in January, while we were preparing the Schnittke Cello Sonata no. 1, about ... starting a house-concert series in Albuquerque. There are two salon-house-concert series which I know intimately from the East Coast - Rob Tannen's "Salon 33" and Andrea Clearfield's "Salon." (Princeton and Philadelphia, respectively). 

Joel's suggestion was to combine forces with his neighbor, a wonderful pianist, fellow creative, writer, teacher, and Albuquerque native Amy Greer (http://tenthousandstars.net). The suggestion was brilliant. 

After many emails going back-and-forth between us, we came up with a name. 

Moveable Sol. 

... many people thought is was "sun," others thought it was a play on moveable "do." (Drumroll please, for a musical pun). Others thought the sol had a "u" in it. The answer is, it's all of those things. 

We catered it. We shared our invitations with a mailing list. 

We sold out! 

One of the things that was most moving to me was hearing Amy and Joel perform a piece by Gjeljo, and also to hear Amy alone in some theme-and-variations on "O Sacred Head" (the latter by jazz pianist Fred Hersch). Since it was a house concert, and seating was fairly at a premium, I sat close to the crook of the piano. It had been forever since I've stood or sat there. It was a reminder about what my singers and instrumentalists deal with so frequently. 

I was reminded of the sheer power of music. 

The next performances are in June, with a location disclosed with reservation. 

PHOTOS: from the performance! One of these speaks so wonderfully to the name of the series. 

Still Falls the Rain

In 2004, the Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows had the opportunity to perform all five of Britten’s Canticles in one concert. The repertoire was paired with some of Shostakovich’s music (the Captain Lebdyakin Songs, etc.), juxtaposing two of my favorite twentieth-century composers due to their dates (their birth and death dates are only a few years from each other). I someday hope to perform a cycle of all of the Canticles, even with staging or artwork or pageantry of some kind. Of course, they stand on their own, without theatrics. But they are from the pen of a man who so understood the stage. 

Below is pasted from my faculty recital (04/19/15). You can see a link to the video performance (live from Sunday) here.


_____________

 

The five Canticles of Benjamin Britten occupy a unique position in not only Britten’s compositions, but also within twentieth-century vocal music. Some are almost completely sacred and cantata-like, others fall purely into a category of secular or chamber music. Canticle III: Still Falls the Rain lies as the centerpiece of the quindrivium, and is an intersection of the sacred and secular. 

All of Britten’s Canticles pay homage and inspiration to his musical and romantic partner, tenor Peter Pears. They also refer to the operatic compositions which precede them. Still Falls the Rain is no exception. The opening musical motive is drawn directly from his chamber opera The Turn of the Screw. This canticle, with an obligato horn part, serves as a theme-and-variations, with interspersed recitative, upon musical motives which appear in the opera. 

This work was written for a memorial concert for Noël Mewton-Wood, a pianist who had committed suicide after the death of a close friend. Britten was a strong pacifist and hated the involvement of England in the Second World War. When he read Edith Sitwell’s poem ‘Still Falls the Rain (The Raids, 1940. Night and Dawn),’ he was drawn to it immediately and set forth on obtaining permission from Sitwell to set her text. She agreed. On hearing a live performance of this piece, she and Britten collaborated on a concert program for the 1956 Aldeburgh Festival, which included more of her poetry, and for which Canticle III served as its centerpiece. 

Within this poem, Sitwell uses a quotation from the final climactic scene of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Britten sets this quotation in a sprechgesang fashion. 

Still falls the Rain---

Dark as the world of man, black as our loss---

Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails

Upon the Cross.

Still falls the Rain

With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat

In the Potter's Field, and the sound of the impious feet

On the Tomb:

Still falls the Rain

In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain

Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.

Still falls the Rain

At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross.

Christ that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us---

On Dives and on Lazarus:

Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.

Still falls the Rain---

Still falls the Blood from the Starved Man's wounded Side:

He bears in His Heart all wounds,---those of the light that died,

The last faint spark

In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark,

The wounds of the baited bear---

The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat

On his helpless flesh... the tears of the hunted hare.

Still falls the Rain---

Then--- O Ile leape up to my God: who pulles me doune---

See, see where Christ's blood streames in the firmament:

It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree

Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart

That holds the fires of the world,---dark-smirched with pain

As Caesar's laurel crown.

Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man

Was once a child who among beasts has lain---

"Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee."

Faît accompli!

Yesterday was a great day.

I got to share music with new friends and colleagues, who, a year ago, I had just met. One year later, we were rehearsing, forming our own “community” as a vocal department of five, and then - of course - properly celebrating afterwards with a Chinese food reception! 

Heartfelt thanks to everyone - my faculty partners, the faculty there to support, the crew of Keller Hall, the audio and video crew, my family for cooking the reception … 

There will be more photos, along with beautiful sound and video forthcoming! 

In the meantime, enjoy photos of the “celebration” afterwards. 

The day-of ...

I remember saying to someone that nerves might kill me if I perpetually had to perform, task after task, starting at 8 or 9 PM. (One of the many reasons that I would never be able to cut it as a jazz musician). 

My recital today is at 5PM and I'm already in performance-mode, meaning -- 

hyper-focused, and not in the mood to run random errands this morning (I rarely am, and I'm not a big fan of running errands for three hours on the weekend). I want to perform beautifully with my colleagues and then not have the pressure of performance hanging over my head anymore for this project.

It is times like this where I try to borrow from experts who negotiate this a lot. I found this terrific link:

http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/how-to-make-performance-anxiety-an-asset-instead-of-a-liability/

And I think today I'm going to tend to my need for silence as much as possible. I'm going to go for a walk and then warm up, do my hair, and get to school hours early. (One of *many* advantages of performing where you work - you get a fabulous, private, "green room" one flight above the hall). 

I am grateful for my colleagues (seven of them!) who will be joining me on stage, and hopefully some more in the audience. 

I will let you know how it goes! 

PHOTO: A very fitting photo for half of today's program: Brahms Opus 120 no 1 and the Schumann Spanish Songbook (for vocal quartet and one pianist), Opus 74. The other works on the program are Brittish, French and American. I took this photo today while in the Erzgebirger region hiking near Dresden, summer of 2012. 

Dumplings for the New Year

Yesterday we officially celebrated the Chinese New Year and the "Year of the Goat." We welcomed our Albuquerque "family" to our home and were so excited to cook for everyone. 

The traditional dish for Chinese New Year (CNY) is the dumpling. It is supposed to be very fortunate and very good for the coming year. 

Aying, Zheng and I made about 800 dumplings from scratch in preparation for the gathering! Four different fillings (turkey, beef, egg, and vegan) and hours later, we were in business ... 

Happy New Year to everyone! 

In this photo, my dumplings were on the left and Aying's are on the right. She approved of my technique and gave me lessons along the way.

Notes from a Snowed-In Pueblo

Albuquerque resembles Rochester today! 

If you don’t believe me, ask the (-+) million people who call this area “home” and who have no way of getting anywhere! It makes me grateful for the Chinese New Year food preparation in the refrigerator. We have plenty of food, and all without having made the ubiquitous "French Toast Run."

(Hailing from up north, whenever there was bad weather forecast, people would go to the store and buy bread, eggs, and milk. What exactly were they going to do with all of that?)

I’m enjoying the morning, delving into a pleasure-read, Tsh Oxenreider’s “Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World.” I’ve been reading this during fringe-minutes this week. One quote from this book really grabbed me:

“It’s hard to slow down when the race has no finish line."

How many artists feel this way? Academics? Entrepreneurs? Newlyweds with big dreams and wild imaginations? People who use the internet at all?

I have fallen prey to this many a time. There are always updates to do. Take, for example, things that I must do or start this week, or there will be negative consequences. These are in no particular order:

1. Practice for upcoming concerts (March 6, 7, 8)

2. Reach out to people high-up in my related industries about opportunities or networking

3. Send out email blasts to potential audience members for early March concerts

4. Two grant proposals and an application for a conducting internship

5. Our taxes 

6. The final claims package against the *most awful movers ever* (and believe you me, when we receive our refund and the case has been completed, they will receive a very interesting online review, along with a file to Better Business Bureau in three states ...

7. Catch up on an ever-growing pile of paper correspondence (thank-you notes).

8. Finish photo editing and posting from three major photography projects 

9. Start the program notes for my faculty recital 

10. Mail Chinese New Year cards (we don’t do Christmas cards, which is a blessing because December is wrought with travel and end-of-semester. February timing works *much* better for us!).

11. Pick up where I left off on my private nutrition / personal finance business and ministry

12. Edit sound and video from three recent concert-projects ...

13. Yuan PhotoYearbook, 2014 (I do a “yearbook” of photos and quotes every year). I gave one to Zheng for Valentines’ Day last year. This year, the photo book may be a birthday gift.

I know by sitting down and making a schedule or action plan, this can all seem more tangible. Most of it this time around, I can’t delegate - or it won’t get done the way I would do it. And also, most of these items fall into the category of “I want to do something better, start something, or build something.” 

To be continued! I have started putting more firm boundaries on myself:

a) Ready for bed by 11PM

b) Up by 7AM 

c) No email-checking during the day [glance once in AM, and then respond after the work day] 

And about the slowing down? A lot of these tasks are process-oriented, yes - with a product in mind, but a lot of it is about the process (practicing, writing, photo-editing). If the process is rushed, the product will suffer. And I hate nothing more than to do things again because they weren't done right the first time. 

(Practicing and exercising are quite the obvious exceptions to this!).

Here’s to new goals, and new boundaries!

Despite the above "list" - I am going to allow myself an “Artists’ Walk” today and photograph the Winter Wonderland. For all of the big snows we got in Rochester, I couldn’t bear to go out and take a walk … and as a result, I have little winter footage with my *amazing* DSLR camera from that time! I'm not going to waste the opportunity here. 

I will take some photos with the iPad right in the house, and leave the real photography for another post.  

Until then, stay warm!