Whirlwind Fall: Grammy Submissions and Global Music Awards

from Berkeley

Ensemble for These Times

Dear ever-patient readers in the Blogosphere,

It's been (and continues to be) a whirlwind fall! Just to catch everyone up a wee bit,  Ensemble for These Times' debut CD of music by David Garner, "Surviving: Women's Words" won a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards, received two nice reviews (one at American Record Guide, calling the CD, "fascinating," and "compelling" and the other at Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Reviews, calling it "extremely well done" and "Recommended."), and has been submitted for the 59th Grammy Awards--oh, my; I've been in California and Washington; and E4TT is preparing for the first of our Call for Scores concerts, 56x54 #1.

What's a 56x54 #1, you might ask?  Google's latest algorithm, perhaps? Well, this past December-January, we had our first-ever Call for Scores, as you patient reader-folks might remember.  We were honored (and overwhelmed) to receive 275 scores from 200 talented composers. In the end, we chose 56 fabulous works of varying lengths to perform over the next two seasons (Read more here and here) and we're excited to be performing the first set this week, along with one of David's song cycles from the CD and the world premiere of Bruce Nalezny's "Toccata," dedicated to our fab pianist, Dale Tsang.

So, for a teensy plug (Wait, isn't today's blogpost all a plug, you might also ask? Well, although I didn't mean it as such, just trying to catch up is making it go that way.  Thanks again for your. already praised and much-vaunted patience.), the concert will be on Sunday, Oct. 30 at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Piano Club. Tickets ($20/15) are available at the door or from info@E4TT.org.

Ensemble for These Times

And who is that woman in the green dress in E4TT's new photos above? That, everyone, is the wonderful--not to mention beautiful--cellist Anne Lerner-Wright. Anne played with us last May and June, and we're thrilled to have her with us this season!

As you can imagine, I've been living and breathing E4TT--mostly, as there's lots else going on in my life, all of it good, for which I'm immensely grateful. More over the next weeks and months as time permits.

What I'm reading: The Alphabet and the Goddess and Mercedes Lackey's Elite
What I'm listening to: Scads and scads of fabulous CDs submitted for the 59th Grammys.
What I'm working on: 56x54 #1 plus music by David Garner!

Krakow from Bilbao!

E4TT performing at Galicia Museum

... from Bilbao

It will take me weeks and weeks to share all the wonderful places and pics from this summer's tour--which isn't over yet even now!  So today I'm making a valiant effort to cover a bit more of the photos from Krakow. ... Not to confuse anyone, of course, but I'm posting pics from Krakow from Bilbao, as it were... The phrase has a lovely ring to it, no?

Workshop at JCC Krakow
(Anna Gulinska translating)

 And the rest are from Krakow's Old Town (not to be confused with the Kazimierz).

What I'm reading: Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories

What I'm listening to: Handel's "Ombra mai fu" and Mahler's Symphony #2.

What I'm working on: Revisiting Desdemona 

La Juive: a gorgeous opera tells a timely tale

Bayerisches Staatsoper

...from Munich

More photos from Krakow and Warsaw to come, including performance pics, but before then, a post about the fabulous production I saw tonight of the rarely-performed-today--but formerly very popular--opera, La Juive (1835) by Halevy--himself the son of a cantor. It's tragic French grand opera at its best, with themes of thwarted love, betrayal, anti-clericalism, and religious in/tolerance at the fore.

It was a very interesting and fun multilingual experience for me as I was using at least four parts of my brain simultaneously: listening to and watching an opera that was being sung in French with German supertitles.

Other than a few odd missteps in the staging (by Calixto Bieito), tonight's was a production for the ages: ravishing singing, incredible use of light and shadows, glorious music, moving acting, beautiful playing.  (The few missteps in the staging?  Periodic tussling over a jacket; odd catfight-like tussling between the two women; the regular throwing of oneself or other characters onstage that so often  seems to be de rigeur for Regitheater; and the odd Passover scene which had Eleazar perform something that looked more like a cross between an Ash Wed. ceremony and Communion). 

The score is demanding of all the principals, and in this production, the singers rose to the challenge, with Roberto Alagna as Eleazar--his French diction was a glory to listen to, so absolutely clean, and clear--Vera-Lotte Boecker as the coloratura Princess, Ain Ainger as Brogni, John Osborn as Leopold, and Aleksandra Kurzak as Rachel, La Juive.

Featuring stellar orchestration, the score also includes a lovely a cappella chorus and some gorgeous ensembles--duos for the two female leads and the two male leads, plus a show-stopping trio.  The writing for female voices made me ponder yet again what it is that makes the French so good at writing ensemble music for women's voices...

So why isn't it done any more? Did tastes change? Perhaps. Did the out-and-out racism start to bother audiences? Unlikely.

(As an aside: the most racist depiction is of Eleazar who is shown as a money-grubbing, Christian-hating, vengeful SOB, redeemed only by his love of Rachel, whom he has raised as his daughter but who (major spoiler here), unbeknownst to anyone else, is not. From the get-go, the opera makes it very clear that Eleazer has ample reason to be angry as all get-out.)

To look at the flip side, was it the rise of anti-semitism and the Nazis that dropped the work from the operatic Top-10?  Probably. From what I've read, it was wildly popular for a century and then disappeared from the rep sometime in the 30s...hmmm.

Munich's La Juive

Methinks mesmells a racist rat--yet another way in which the Nazi purge of Jewish cultural references  (not to mention those millions of people along the way) shifted the narrative of music history, and not in a good way, either.  To the Bavarian State Opera's credit, they had a talk afterwards led by the dramaturge (although that may actually be a regular BSO feature that I don't know about, since I'm not a local). In this case, a theologian spoke a few eloquently relevant words; it looked like a good 60-70 audience members came.  I stayed for a bit, until I got too tired to follow the different accents in the German-language discussion.

And, at least in my opinion, there is no doubt that this work should be in the recurring repertory for all the major opera houses that have the resources to do 19th century French grand opera.

After having lived closely with the themes and music of Ensemble for These Times' Jewish Music and Poetry Project for much of the past decade--performing music by composers killed in the Holocaust as well as having just come from performing at the Krakow Culture Festival (and a short visit at the amazing POLIN Museum in Warsaw)--I felt as if seeing La Juive fit well into the fabric of my artistic life: it gave a funhouse view of the same historical issues from a different angle, and a very timely message.

The point of the Munich production was a good one, and a point that sadly needs emphasizing in today's xenophobic, us-vs-them, Brexiting, religious-intolerance-filled world that feels in some ways scarily like a 1930s redux: racism and hate ruin lives.  Period.

What I'm reading: Fortune's Fool by Mercedes Lackey

What I'm listening to: La Juive!

What I'm working on: revisiting Desdemona, now that the concerts in Krakow are over, before diving into E4TT's fall rep once I go home.

Krakow-Kazimierz

Karski statue

... Czećś from Krakow!

We (E4TT) are in Krakow, specifically in Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter. We're appearing at the 26th Jewish Culture Festival from June 26-28. It's the perfect location for us, as our two venues, the Galicia Jewish Musem and JCC Krakow, are all of 10 minutes away on foot. At night, klezmer music wafts into our windows from the restaurants on the square: the renovated birthplace of a famous cosmetics magnate (Can you guess who?), the hotel is great, with friendly, helpful staff.

On our street (Szeroka) there is a life-like statue by Karol Badyna of Jan Karski (above, as Jan Kozielowski was called), the Righteous courier for the Polish government in exile during WWII who brought news from Poland to the West. Passing tourists flock get their pictures taken sitting next to him on the sculpted bench.... Dale and I may not be able to resist joining them.

Old synagogue

As we're so far north--a little north of Calgary and Moose Jaw in Canada, but still south of Alaska--sunset doesn't come until late, officially 8:54 p.m--but in fact there was still enough light for photos until past 9:30 p.m.--and there's a heat wave on. But it's very pleasant in the evening.


Enjoy another photo or five of "our" street in Kazimierz. It's pleasantly hopping--and nothing like what I'm told it will be like in 2 days, when the Festival starts on Saturday, June 25. Last year nearly 30,000 folks are said to have attended. And this year...who knows? More photos to come--at least, I hope so...

Finally, here's a quick shout out and dziękuję  and to the SF-Krakow Sister Cities Association and also to E4TT's generous supporters, who helped make this tour possible. Na razie!

 What I'm reading: Just finished a beautiful, unbearably sad book, When Breath Becomes Air; read The Little Paris Bookshop and The Museum of Heartbreak on the plane; am currently reading In Gratitude and Sweet Bitter.

What I'm listening to: klezmer music from outside my Krakovian window, natch ;).

What I'm working on: Music by Garner, Kapralova, Vandor, and Winterberg for our programs on the 26th and 27th.

Musings on "important"

Talya at a refugee camp

...from Berkeley

Today I've been pondering the word "important" and what it means, especially for projects, initiatives actions, and the arts.  To ground my musings, I started out with the OED (Online Etymology Dictionary, whose acronym apes another, more august tome, and which does, indeed, list its word-ly cousin among its sources.).  I'll call the online etymology version OED2.

At  OED2, I read that the modern English word "important" comes via Middle French (15th century) from Medieval Latin, importans, importantem and ultimately derives from the verb importare, "to bring in, convey or bring in from abroad." It was first used to mean "be important" in English around 1580.

How does that definition apply to artwork, projects, or even governments.  It doesn't even seem relevant--until we realize that important initiatives bring us understanding and perhaps bring help to those in need. (There's that word from the definition, bring.)

If a project is a major one, that can mean many positive things, such as pathbreaking, innovative,, or just plain excellent. But when it's an important one, that usually means it deals with hard topics, ones we know we need to look at but shy away from as joyless and non-celebratory, problematic issue-laden subjects that the world needs to address.

At a refugee camp

So, for example, when my wonderful niece, Talya (shown above and left, too), worked with Syrian refugees in Lesbos and Idomeni through IsraAID, it was important work (and courageous for a young woman). My friend, Paula, too, for that matter.

An important project probably deals with the four horsemen of the apocalypse--traditionally war, famine, pestilence/conquest or death--in one way or another, or at least mini-me versions of them. (Pestilence vs. conquest has to do with translation differences and dissemination through popular culture, both  topics for other days.) See below right for Albrecht Durer's woodcut depiction.

Albrecht Durer (woodcut, 1498)

An important project makes us look at things most of us want to sweep under the rug, or at least to say, "Yes, yes, we know and agree. It's awful. Glad you're dealing with it.  Sigh. Too much to bear thinking about it. Don't know what to do about it. Now go away and let the rest of us relax." And I should know, as that is a slightly over-the-top caricature of my own sometimes past-attitude, despite my having somehow found myself doing an "important" project over the last 6+ years, the JMPP (some of which were recorded on our brand new CD, Surviving:Women's Words).

An important project often has to work extra hard to draw an audience, as who enjoys emotional flagellation? Catharsis is one thing, but to deliberately go to an event that focuses on bad things happening to good people? (Actually, that's a partial definition of what happens in many an opera or tale, so maybe that's not such a bad plot device...) Or on revisiting unhappy history, so that we aren't condemned to repeat it? (Ditto.)

MOR's Jake Heggie

As another example, in yesterday's mail, I received a postcard for Seattle-based Music of Remembrance's Out of Darkness: an Opera of Survival, the new chamber opera by Jake Heggie about the Holocaust that will be produced on May 25-26 at the SF Conservatory of Music.  MOR is an important project and MOR's mission is much in alignment with that of the JMPP; I like both Jake Heggie and his music. So although I fear that it may be an emotionally wrenching evening, I will try to go, and on today, the eve of U.S. Holocaust Remembrance Day, I encourage those of you reading this who are in the SF Bay Area to go, too.

To answer the question I started with, what does the word important really mean, at least in this context?  In other words, what does a project, action, or initiative that's labeled important really deal with?

Tragedy. Misery. Suffering.

What I'm reading: More Inspector Gamache mysteries by Louise Penny. (Now about midway through the series)

What I'm listening to: Mozart, Shostakovich, Prince.

What I'm working on: works by Martha Stoddard, Judith Shatin, Hans Winterberg, and Frederic Sharaf, for May and June concerts--plus Mozart for my son's wedding :).

Live Streaming!

David Garner

...from San Francisco

This week's post is late--mea culpa! But the good outcome of my tardiness is that I can give you the live streaming link for Monday's concert if you can't be there in person, as I just received it...That link and the instructions are at the bottom of this post.

The concert? Ensemble for These Times' composer David Garner's Faculty Artist Series program on APRIL 4, at 8:00 p.m., Caroline Hume Hall at the SF Conservatory of Music. You can also read Stephen Smoliar's article in the SF Examiner about the concert here. Admission is free, but it's open seating, so David recommends folks get there early.This is a bit of a plug post--surprised?--but keep reading for interesting info about civil rights figure, Mary Pleasant.

Monday's concert features four works, all by David Garner:
First half:
* Vilna Poems (2014), with texts by Avram Sutzkever, sung by soprano Krista Wigle, and played by cellist Evan Kahn, along with members of the SF Conservatory Faculty.
* Mein blaues Klavier (My Blue Piano, 2015), with texts by Else Lasker-Schueler, performed by Ensemble for These Times, i.e., me, pianist Dale Tsang and cellist Laura Gaynon. This is on our new JMPP CD, Surviving: Women's Words, which will be for sale at the concert and is being officially released on April 8 on Centaur Records (Centaur CRC 3490), already available from the group or online for pre-release sales.
*Judith Masur Songs (2016), written for mezzo-soprano Crystal Philippi, to texts by Berkeley poet Judith Masur.

Second half: excerpts from Mary Pleasant at Land's End (2015),  his fabulous, brand-new opera, Semi-staged by Jimmy Featherstone Marcheso, and performed by  mezzo-soprano Crystal Philippi, soprano Julie Adams, tenor Michael Jankosky, and bass-baritone  Philip Skinner with pianist Kevin Korth.

Here's what David writes:
"Mary Pleasant --one of the most complex, mysterious figures in the history of the nation--comes to life in Mary Pleasant at Land's End...with libretto by Mark Hernandez.  The opera traces much of Pleasant's astonishing life, beginning with her days as a shepherd for the Underground Railroad.  Arriving in San Francisco, she becomes a beloved leader in the young city. Eventually, this daughter of slaves stands as one of the richest and most influential individuals of the time. Her championing of people and causes, however, brings her into conflict with a familiar face of wealth and power, and the ensuing struggle plays out in a notorious courtroom drama that mesmerizes the public. Sensationalist press coverage demonizes Pleasant, playing on attitudes towards her race and gender. An essential figure in the founding of San Francisco, and indeed the state of Californi, she is forgotten even as the city bursts into world prominence..." More info at David's website.

If you can't come on 4/4x8 (i.e., April 4, at 8:00 p.m.),  you can watch the livestream. Streaming will start about 5 minutes before the concert. When it begins, you'll see "Live now" below the name, Caroline H. Hume Hall. Select it to automatically see the video with the live stream...at least in theory.

What I'm reading: M.T. Anderson's Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Seige of Leningrad; Elizabeth George's A Banquet of Consequences; Terry Pratchett's final Tiffany Aching novel, The Shepherd's Crown.

What I'm listening to: Mozart's Jupiter Symphony and Beethoven's First.  Also the many, many (did I say many? We received 275!) scores from E4TT's call for scores. Winners to be announced June 1.

What I'm working on: Mein blaues Klavier, of course, along with songs by Winterberg, Sharaf and Garner for April and May.

In praise of Dante

Dante Alighieri statue in Verona

...from Berkeley
For the past week I've been working on a project involving Dante's Inferno.

Botticelli: Dante and Virgil

  I'd dipped into it a bit in grad school (I wrote my dissertation on Renaissance music) and had always meant to read the Inferno in its entirety....actually I'd wanted to read the whole Divine Comedy. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, no? In this case, literally. (Facilis decensus Averno, to quote Virgil, as he is crucial to the Inferno  and thus today's blog post.

Dorothy Sayers

Such a monumental work as the Inferno has received any number of very fine translations, including Hell by Dorothy Sayers, known best today for her excellent Lord Peter Wimsey whodunits. (Who'd a thunk?). Which just goes to show that all good translators must also be good writers--no surprise there...

In any case, while my current project neither involves nor necessitates my reading all of the Inferno--when, oh, when, will that early aspiration ever come to fruition?--I've been dipping into it as a reference.
 

Dore, Inferno

I've been stunned by the acuity and strength of Dante's vision, and his understanding of human folly. Human nature hasn't seemed to improve over time...(NB: While I wouldn't say that I share in all the sins he chronicles in all the cantos--although I certainly partake of more than I should!--the descriptions of the sinners whose faults I share cut close enough to the bone to have made me vow to do better with my own personal demons going forward.) And while one might think that with the explicit, graphic violence readily viewable today, not to mention 20th and 21st century horrors, Dante would feel tame, he does not.

Dante's verses address the world he lived in--the Guelphs and Gibellines and others of his time--as well as Greek mythology and Biblical symbolism.   Yet Dante's artistic vision transcends time, easily applying to us today.

Isn't that precisely what good art does?

Have you read any of the Inferno,  in any language?  If so, what do you think? Don't you agree??

What I'm reading: Dante!

What I'm listening to: scads and scads of new music--much of it fabulous!--from E4TT's Call for Scores, which just closed.

What I'm working on: Samuel Barber's "Do not utter a word, Anatol," a gorgeous aria from his ever-lyrical pen.

Musings on Deadlines, Rules, and Early Birds

...from Berkeley

I haven't forgotten that I promised to write about the source of La Traviata--and I will get to that very, very soon.... But for today, I have instead a somewhat timely, short post musing about deadlines, early birds and eleventh hour applications.

It's so tempting to wait until the last minute for a competition or deadline. I've been known to do that myself on many the occasion.  However, having sat on both sides I can tell you that it does NOT serve anyone well to come in just under the wire with an entry or submission.

Certainly, if you find out about a competition at the last minute, it's better to apply than not, as if you don't apply you have no chances of winning at all. Just so, applying too early and half-baked, i.e., before your submission is fully ready, serves no one, of course. In many cases, it really doesn't matter if you're early or middle-ish, in terms of timing--and sometimes coming in at the beginning of a submission window means being drowned by the initial flood of applications. And there are even times when as long as you make it by 1 minute before a deadline, you're cool as the proverbial cucumber.

But there are times when that's not going to be the case.

Sometimes the judges' capacity to lavish attention on your entry may wane as they get to later and later entries.  And sometimes, with online applications, the server may jam up or get overwhelmed and you'll miss the cutoff point entirely.You never know when one of these might happen.

So is it worth the risk? You make the call...

A case in point: this season, Ensemble for These Times started our first annual call for scores, as we want to be able to showcase more and more varied compositional voices than simply the composers we already know.  We set up a 2-month window for submissions, figuring that we were a small West Coast group and that it would take awhile for word to spread.

Not so....

There is an immense pool of compositional talent all over the world!  We were amazed and humbled at the sheer volume of scores that flooded in to us. After 5-6 weeks we had received 200 scores (yes, Virginia, you read that correctly), and were literally drowning in music.  We did not have the capacity to sort through any more scores between now and when we had promised to announce the winners, in June--and, indeed, barely had the capacity to sort through what we'd received..

So we very apologetically had to close the submission window 2 weeks early, asking those composers who had still wanted to submit a score but had not yet done so to come back for our 2nd annual call for scores... And you can bet that the window for submissions will be tighter next time around, as we have learned from this year.

We had already started to sort through some of the earliest scores to come in, and those got our longest attention.

As we continue to sort through the submissions, we have noticed two things:
1) The incredible amount of talent that's around!
2) Many folks don't follow/ pay attention to the rules. Sometimes there's a good reason (they don't have what we need, but think we might still be interested in what they're doing. In those cases, a little note telling us what's going on for the extenuating circumstances is appreciated and keeps us from rejecting something out of hand.But not everyone is like us; some competitions are looking for a reason, any reason, to reject you and narrow the field.).

We are very excited about what we've seen thus far, and can't wait to finish sorting through all the marvelous works that have come our way.  We'll announce the winners in June...so stay posted.

The moral of the story: if in doubt, sometimes the early bird does have a better chance at the worm. With competition being so stiff in today's world, wouldn't you rather be that person with the better chance?

What I'm reading: Grayling by Karen Cushman; Alistair Grim's Odd Antiquaticum, more wonderful Deborah Crombie mysteries

What I'm listening to: Handel and Caldara cantatas, for a concert in April

What I'm studying: "Do not utter a word, Anatol" (a new-for-me aria from Barber's Vanessa); songs by Hans Winterberg for May and June.

What is it about the ancient Greeks?

...from Berkeley

Singing Elisa

I continue to almost-but-not-quite* binge-read my way through Deborah Crombie's marvelous Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery novels.  Over the weekend, while performing my debut as Elisa in The Handel Opera Project's chamber performance of Handel's rarely performed but ravishing score of Tolomeo, I also finished the fifth in Crombie's series, Dreaming of the Bones.  I found the denouement surprisingly moving--surprisingly, because being moved isn't what one always finds in British murder mystery novels.

To avoid any spoilers, let me just say that vengeance not-quite-a-la-Elektra rears its retributive head in Crombie's #5. Crombie refers to Elektra several times in her tale, including at the very end, which got me contemplating vengeance, as my Handelian character, Elisa, has her own, much, much milder attack of a different kind of vengeance. (A princess who is spurned by the man she loves--who turns out to be a prince in disguise who loves another--Elisa luckily lets her better self comes to the fore before she poisons said unlucky lover, whom she, instead, lets live and love. She doesn't quite get as far as loving the one she's with, but hey, she's a Handelian princess, right?)

All this brought me back, yet again, to that other "E" character, Elektra--especially as I just performed in a house concert of Strauss' Elektra again this past summer--and to her primal cry for vengeance, vengeance driven by the will of the Greek gods externally manifesting the internal needs of the human psyche. Which all goes to show that in such a deeply Jungian, collective-consciousness sense, in their plays, mythology, and all-too-human gods, the ancient Greeks got it right, mining key human emotions--vengeance,  retribution, and expiation all being at the core of so much tragedy, right down to this very day.

Perhaps the most moving of all for Elektra and Crombie #5 is the single voice crying aloud against evil that was once committed, and for it to be made right.Who'd a thunk that a mystery novel could generate such disturbing, philosophical thoughts? And yet the best ones do.

What I'm reading: Deborah Crombie's #6, Kissed a Sad Goodbye

What I'm listening to: Can't get Tolomeo out of my head, nor, for that matter, the Poulenc, Delage, and Tailleferre from last week.

What I'm working on: songs by John Harbison and David Garner, for concerts later this spring and our tour to Krakow this summer.


*Oh and why almost-but-not-quite binge reading?  Well, beyond my first time singing as Elisa over the weekend, I also performed some lovely French music in concert on Tuesday with Ensemble for These Times and on Wed. as well. It's hard to binge-read at full throttle when you're performing, as adequate sleep and concentration are prerequisites for singing well and staying healthy.  But I have to admit that the Duncan-Gemma duo created quite a temptation, taking all my professional will power to put them down.

Deborah Crombie and La Traviata

...from Berkeley

Happy MLK Day!

It's always such a pleasure when the arts mix, more specifically, when books that aren't regular old nonfiction or historical fiction about musicians drift into the world of opera and music-making (although those books are fun, too, of course). And it's an even greater pleasure when the author gets it right.


Of the many books that fit this description, my mind immediately goes Bel Canto, by the marvelous Ann Patchett (I'm an immense fan of her writing and gladly read everything she writes).   And then there's the sub-genre of books and specifically murder mysteries set in the opera house, such as Cat Melodia's delightful Ding Dong the Diva's Dead (such a lovely turn of alliteration in that title!).

Unfortunately, writers don't always get the details right...and yet, from my experience, this often isn't even the author's fault. Here I'm thinking specifically of a colleague who is a very fine writer--who shall remain nameless--and whose excellent books are set in the world of music and musicians as a backdrop to the very human drama within them.

This writer got the emotional details of what it's like to be a musician very right, so much so that I was disappointed when there was a tiny discrepancy (a symphony said to have been written by a composer whom I knew had never written one or something along similar lines of musical minutia).  When I asked my writer friend, the reply was that the publisher had thought that the type of music they were referring to was not well known enough for the general public and asked that it be changed to something better known. As it was completely incidental to the plot and characters, my colleague acquiesced, of course. Understandable, but very sad on a number of levels, not the least of which being the notion that the average American reader can only be counted on to recognize a handful of classical music forms, nor to be willing to learn a new music term.

Returning, though, to today's blog title--as in what does Deborah Crombie really have to do with La Traviata?--I've recently started enjoying Deborah Crombie's Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mysteries, having been turned onto them from another colleague/book-friend's strong recommendation.  The third book in the series, Leave the Grave Green, is set in an operatic household, and Crombie gets the details right, down to the details about the origins of La Traviata.  Besides my telling you that one of the characters is a retired soprano and voice teacher who had sung quite a Violetta in her time--hence the connection with La Traviata--you won't get any spoilers here about whodunit in this highly enjoyable murder mystery, but if you like English murder mysteries with appealing detectives from Scotland yard and good local color, I'd suggest you read this one. You may well find yourself drawn into reading Crombie's whole series...I'm certainly hooked!

To come: more on La Traviata. For now, what books have you read that are set in the symphony hall or opera house, that aren't about musicians and music, per se? Comment if there's one you especially like.

Here's just a tiny plug for two of my performances this week: first Tuesday's Noontime Concert in SF with my contemporary chamber music group, Ensemble for These Times, of 20th century French rarities and masterworks (Tailleferre, Poulenc, Debussy, Delage, and the Boulangers)--tomorrow!-- and Sunday's performance of Handel's Tolomeo with The Handel Opera Project in Berkeley. I'm singing the role of Princess Elisa, scorned by the prince she yearns for and loved by the wrong prince.

What I'm listening to and working on: the above (surprised?)

What I'm reading: the next Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James mystery by Deborah Crombie

Germaine Tailleferre, part two--and Christmas

from Berkeley

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!

Although it's not a particularly Christmas-y topic, today's blog continues the Tailleferre story I promised from last week.

But before we dive into the tale, the other modern French woman composer after Lili and Nadia Boulanger and Germaine Taillerre is...were you able to guess? No? This would be the influential and well-respected Betsy Jolas (1926- ).

Now, back to the rest of the story...

In most marriages, the announcement that the wife is pregnant is greeted with joy, or perhaps a smile mixed with resignation about another mouth to feed.

Germaine Tailleferre

But Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983)--the only female member of Les Six, whom I wrote about last week--had a much darker experience.

Here's the back story....

It's 1929.* Tailleferre is 37 and has been married to NY caricaturist Ralph Barton for about 2 1/2 years, during which she has not been composing but rather, based on what she later says, hoping for a child. The couple had moved to NY in 1927, but Barton has been raging jealously about her career success.

Nonetheless, Tailleferre is delighted when she discovers she is pregnant! Quelle joie, non?

But Barton...loses it and what follows is a bit more of quelle horreur!

Ralph Barton

According to Tailleferre's memoire from nearly half a century later (excerpted and discussed here: https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-274519831/trauma-and-recovery-in-germaine-tailleferre-s-six), he tells her he'll shoot her in the abdomen to terminate the pregnancy, but that she'll be fine.

Really?

Imagine the scene: Barton with shotgun in hand. Tailleferre hiding in the bushes. (Awful jokes about shotgun weddings spring to mind and must be expunged.)  Hidden, she hears shots ring out. Luckily they miss and she remains unharmed. She flees to a friend of Barton's for help and subsequently divorces Barton, who commits suicide the next year.** By her reports she never sees him again after that episode, although she suffers a miscarriage as a result.

Tailleferre's Six chansons francaises from later that same year (1929) are one of her very first post-Ralph compositions. While not truly autobiographical, the poems are an assortment of six 15th-18th century French texts that are uniformly and scathingly bitter towards marriage and husbands, with lines such as "la fidelite n'a jamais ete qu'une imbecilite" ("Fidelity has never been anything but  idiocy"), "...mon mari qui ne vaut pas un grand blanc" ("...my husband, who is not worth a fine white wine"), and "Je n'ai bonjour ni demi avec ce mari mechant..." ("I have neither good days nor even half of one with this spiteful husband...").  You get the idea.  If ever the creation of art can be considered an act of personal exegesis--as it so often is--this song cycle has got to be it.

Curious? (Gratuitous plug time...) I'll be performing them with the talented Dale Tsang and Ensemble for These Times (E4TT.org) next month on Tuesday January 19 in SF at Noontime Concerts, along with other works by Debussy, Maurice Delage, and the Boulanger sisters. And if you can't come, you can still hear them on my CD with the Athena Trio, Fabulous Femmes (Centaur CRC #2461), with the wonderful Sylvie Beaudette at the keyboard.


What I'm reading: Well-read Women (a beautiful book of with sayings and watercolor drawings of 50 famous women in fiction), and Infinitas.

What I'm listening to: Tailleferre, Poulenc, Delage, and Handel

What I'm working on: same

*Quick quiz: Remember what major U.S. event happened in 1929?  Major hint: Think of two pairs of words...financial meltdown and stock market...

**In all fairness, Ralph Barton was a talented artist who achieved immense success and recognition during his lifetime, but he was also severely manic-depressive, a condition that grew worse as his life progressed, ultimately leading to his suicide. Tailleferre was his fourth wife and fourth (and final) divorce. When he shot himself in 1931, he wrote in his suicide note that his third wife, Carlotta Monterey, who had divorced him in 1926 was "the only woman he'd ever loved."  Although Tailleferre's treatment at his hands was beyond cruel, one can only feel great sadness and pity for his own suffering and mental illness.

SF Music Day Live+Free

...from SF 

Several weeks ago I ushered for a wonderful annual musical event put on by the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music: SF Music Day Live + Free.  As the name suggests, it's a day of musical events that are 100% free to the public.  The SFFCM curates it, with a focused theme each year, and some 30-40 chamber ensembles perform classical music, crossover repertory, new music, and jazz, a half hour show each, with breaks along the way and a food truck or two serving snacks outside. This year it ran from noon to nearly 11 p.m.

It's been at various venues, but this year it was at the newly remodeled Herbst Theater (which I only caught a glimpse of from the inside, as I was mostly enjoying greeting duty)--a terrific venue. And there were raves about the music making from the many happy concert goers in the crowd.

What a wonderful event! (Full disclosure: E4TT is honored to be a fiscally sponsored affiliate of SFFCM, and I think they do such great work for chamber music in the community).

And for a plug: if you're near Berkeley on Dec. 13 at 2:00 p.m., don't miss the Christmas concert at the First Church of Christ Scientist on Dwight at College, a beautiful historical Maybeck building.  Bach, Mozart, Handel, Hildegard von Bingen, and seasonal favorites, with 2 sopranos, 1 mezzo, violin, cello and organ.

What I'm reading:Seymour Chwast's adaptation of Dante's Divine Comedy; Handbook of Dragon Slayers by Merrie Haskel.

What I'm working on: Handel's Tolomeo, Mozart, Bach, songs by Germaine Tailleferre

What I'm listening to: Bach, Berlioz, and more Bach...'tis the season, not that Bach is ever out of season...and Wagner: tomorrow I'm hearing Die Meistersinger at SFO.

Trick or Treat... Halloween in Munich

Some years I've been in Munich or even Berlin for Halloween; other years, in Berkeley. This year, I'm in Berkeley.  On the street where I live, we have no sidewalks, so only a handful of the local kids trick or treat. The very few littles come early, but the older kids (and parents) all go to one of the areas in Berkeley that go nuts for Halloween in a fabulous way.  There are several, although I won't name street names, to avoid totally flooding said fabulous neighborhoods. This year, we racked up an exciting 2 Trick or Treaters, for a new low. They knew they were rarities, though, and made up for it by scooping up immense amounts of mini-Butterfingers. My husband, having lent out his Count Dracula cape, visited some of the local Halloween neighborhoods as a ghost.

For the grownups in the Bay Area, there are also Halloween parties; in Bavaria, too. While Halloween isn't really a traditional German holiday, the custom has spread. In Munich, you see groups of young adults and older teens walking around, dressed in delightfully gruesome, Gothic costumes--Grim Reapers, ghouls, and the like.  No Tinkerbells, Cleopatras, or pirates, at least that I've seen. The day after, All Saints Day, Nov. 1, is a traditional religious holiday in Bavaria.  Stores, most museums, etc., are closed. Google honored All Saints, All Souls, and Dia de los Muertos with a special logo on Chrome.

Gabriel Faure

Gabriel Faure

Because Nov. 1 was a Sunday, there was a flurry of Requiem activity at Catholic churches in the Bay Area. Oakland had a Faure Requiem; SF had Mozart, for example.  I heard the beginning of the Faure--which sounded beautiful, as it truly is a lovely work--but sadly was driven away by the heavy incense by the middle of the Introit.  Mozart's Requiem is on my bucket list of pieces I want to sing: I've had several near misses as the soloist but it's still sitting there in the bucket and on the list... Someday, hopefully!  And related to that, at today's lecture recital, we came very close to performing "Allerseelen" (not the ravishing Strauss setting, but rather David Garner's brilliant setting of Mascha Kaleko's "Allerseelen" poem) on All Soul's Day (today, Nov. 2), but time ran out before we got to it... Pity, but it was a wonderful lecture-recital, with very engaging, intelligent questions at the end.

What about Halloween or All Saints Eve customs in other countries or other parts of the world? Comment if you're so inclined!

What I'm reading: The Lady from Zagreb; And Tango Makes Three; A Dirty Job

What I'm listening to: Bach's Magnificat; Faure Requiem; songs by David Garner

What I'm working on: songs by Bartok, Ruehr, Schwendinger, and Vandor for Nov. 8 at the PJCC in Foster City.  Related to that, the JWeekly published a wonderfully supportive article  by Dan Pine about us (E4TT and JMPP) on Oct. 30.  Check it out if you haven't seen it already!

The Winds of Change

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...that (plus the appropriate diacritical marks that I'm not currently able to get on Blogger) was the title for Jewish Music & Poetry Project's enewsletter in September.

What's changing?  Well, for one, I'm making a New Year's resolution (albeit, in the middle of October, so it's either late or early, depending on your point of view). And what is said resolution?  To post on my blog weekly. Shorter posts, undoubtedly, but weekly.  Regularly.  No more of this random occasional-ness that has frustrated many of you, my friends, colleagues, and fans.

Any takers wanting to bet on how long this new leaf will stay turned?  Comment here with your best guess.  May the cynical among you be disappointed...or at least inaccurate. Want to see if I actually manage to blog in a week, which would be unprecedented?  Tune in one week from now.  Or even better, sign up for the blog feed and find out the answer to this burning mystery.

What else? Well, how about the new name for Jewish Music & Poetry Project:  Ensemble for These Times? Our new logo is up above. And check out our spiffy new website at e4tt.org, too, if you feel so inclined. The JMPP will continue as a project of the ensemble and our mission will continue as before (new, nearly new, forbidden and forgotten music that is relevant to today)--but with a broader horizon and a much shorter/simpler URL for the website: e4tt.org vs. jewishmusicandpoetryproject.org. Dale Tsang is still the fabulous pianist, and David Garner if still my co-director and an amazing composer.  Watch over time to see our new commissioning initiatives, call for scores, and more.

Our first E4TT concert of the season? Coming right up this Thursday, Oct. 29, at Laney College, a program of all contemporary music by local and national U.S. composers.

What I'm reading: I recently finished: the first two books in Michelle Knudsen's engaging YA Trelian series. (Watch for her third volume to come out in April, 2016) and the very moving I Am J. Wonderful poems by Czeslaw Milosz. 

What I'm listening to: music by Missy Mazzoli, Derek Bermel, and Barber's Knoxville, Summer of 1915.

What I'm working on: songs by John Harbison, James Primosch, Kurt Erickson, Elena Ruehr, and John Reager, all for E4TT's Thursday concert, natch.