In Praise of M.T. Anderson and his Symphony for the City of the Dead

...from San Francisco

First, a big shout out to all the wonderful performers and the enthusiastic audience at David Garner's fabulous Faculty Artist Series program on Monday night!  If you weren't able to join us, I hope you were able to watch the concert stream instead.

Leading up to Monday's concert, I could not put down M.T. Anderson's  YA historical novel, Symphony for the City of the Dead: Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad--a mouthful of a title that says it all. 

Now, first off, I have to admit that I've been a fan of M.T. Anderson's books for years, beginning with his equally engaging dystopian Feed--written before dystopia had completely taken over as the style-du-jour, and Handel, Who Knew What He Liked and continuing with Strange Mr. Satie, Whales on Stilts, and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. (He has many more, but those are some highlights.)

Dmitri Shostakovich in 1925

Returning  to Symphony...What a brilliant concept! Who'd a thunk one could use the history of a 20th century classical Russian composer to talk about World War II?  It's an obvious call in retrospect, and beautifully done in Anderson's hands.  Symphony works well on a number of levels: at its core, it's a biography of composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) combined with a history of the seige of Leningrad, and it's also a short history on the rise and continuation of Communism in Russia--all informed by and focused on  how both of the latter influenced this enigmatic, great composer who managed to survive in a situation where so many others didn't. (The photo to the right is the young, Harry-Potter-like composer at the age of 19.)

Anderson is honest in his evaluation of what Shostakovich may nor may not have believed and how the exigencies of pleasing Communist dictates may have affected his writing--questions I remember from my own readings in music history. He concludes that we may never know the whole truth in either direction. Nonetheless, we still have the composer's musical testimony, and now we have Anderson's commentary, along with his explanations along the way for non-musical young readers, about musical meaning and meaning in music (not the same thing) for his readers.

Perhaps best of all, reading Anderson's descriptions of Shostakovich's music makes the reader want to go and listen (or re-listen) to his music, especially his towering symphonies and string quartets. How terrific is that, when prose about music--or visual art for that matter--inspires one to go listen to the music itself!

Thank you, M.T. Anderson, for your latest work in cross-arts fertilization...the ultimate in coolth.

What I'm reading: Still Life (the first Inspector Gamache mystery); Margaret Atwood's latest (The Heart Goes Last)

What I'm listening to: Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (this week at SFSymphony!)..but Shostakovich very soon

What I'm working on: Songs by Hans Winterberg, John Harbison and Frederic Sharaf.

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 honor of Brussels

Brussels

...from San Rafael

Today's blog post: short, simple, and sweet but sad. A moment of silence in my tiny corner of the blogosphere for those who suffered or are suffering as a result of the bombs in the beautiful city of Brussels, Belgium.    

Happy Pi Day!

Pi Pie

...from San Francisco

Today (well, yesterday by time you read this) is a paean in praise of Pi, the number  3.14159265358979323846264338327950 (stopping after all 10 digits have been included) or, as it's commonly known among us lay folk, 3.14.  Hence Pi Day is 3/14, March 14. Crucial for measuring circles and circular objects, pi is an irrational constant and so it keeps rolling on, digit after digit, never resolving.

March 14 is a verrrry popular birthday (three folks in my family own it, for example), but there are fewer famous folk with it than on some other days of the year.  However, one hugely famous Pi Day celebrity--for whom March 14 is a most appropriate birthday--is Albert Einstein (1878-1955). 

Warning: shoals of a famous mathematical formula ahead, but the digression is brief. If desired, skip the next paragraph to avoid possible eye glazing.

(Einstein's special theory of relativity is represented mathematically with another constant, c.That famous formula? E=mc2, where E means energy, m means mass, and c means the speed of light in a vacuum, which is then squared. The constant, c, is NOT pi, but rather a little less than 300 million (299,792,458) meters/second, i.e., pretty darn fast!)

There are many great quotes attributed to Einstein, many nearly aphorisms. I find Einstein, his story, and his words infinitely inspirational--and I hope you will, too. 

Albert Einstein

Here are a half dozen:
            
             Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

            Try not to become a man [or woman in today's more egalitarian verbiage] of success, rather try to become a man of value.

            Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe.

            Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

            We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

            Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

Interested in more Einstein quotes? Visit Brainy quotes.com.

Who are a few other less-scientific Pi babies?  Quincy Jones, Billy Crystal, and among musicians of olde, George Telemann.

Happy Pi Day, everyone!

What I'm reading: I just finishe Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (recommend by Lee Wind's excellent blog). It's a great book, even though or especially because--depending on your perspective--the title immediately causes the Styx song to stick in one's ear like an earworm. Speaking as one, mind you.

What I'm listening to: When "Come Sail Away" isn't running through my head....I was able listen to Schubert's Winterreise recently.

What I'm working on: David Garner's Mein blaues Klavier, for my next concert (April 4)--it's also on our CD that's coming out on April 8!!!--and songs by Hans Winterberg for May 31 and June 2.

International Women's Day

...from Berkeley



Happy International Women's Day!

The official UN theme for 2016 is "Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality" and the International Women's Day website encourages us all to Pledge for Parity (#PledgeforParity for the twitterati and instagramati). The TMI from the IWD's website reads: "Celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievement of women. Yet let's also be aware progress has slowed in may places across the world, so urgent action is needed to accelerate gender parity. Leaders across the world are pledging to take action as champions of gender parity."


Looking back, the theme for 2015 was "Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it!"  What a lovely picture it would be for the whole human race were empowered.

In 2014, "Equality for Women is Progress for All."  A near-tautology that is so very true.

And 2013? "A Promise Is a Promise: Time for Action to End Violence Against Women." Sadly, this is still only a dream not yet close to being achieved.

To some extent it both gladdens and saddens me that we set aside a day to celebrate roughly half the human race: gladdens, because celebrating women is, indeed, a wonderful thing to do; saddens, because the need to celebrate a segment of the population implies that it is still underappreciated, underpaid, undervalued, and--in parts of the world--downtrodden.  Gladdens, because it's great to set aside a whole day to think about women and their importance to their world; saddens, because, well, it's just one day, right?  Why not celebrate women year round?

What I'm reading: poetry by Paul Celan; sadly I have now finished the published Inspector Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James mysteries by Deborah Crombie and must wait until she publishes her next one sometime this year.

What I'm listening to: Mozart opera overtures, and the wonderful repertory sung by all the young singers. I evaluated over the past three weeks. Their music continues to resound in my ears and my mind.

What I'm working on: songs by Hans Winterberg and Mein blaues Klavier by David Garner

Promises, Promises...

...from Berkeley

San Diego Zoo Safari Park

With yesterday having been Leap Day, it seems fitting to think about time...Missing time, lost time, and making up time... Leap Day allows us to find a place for the lost time in the Gregorian calendar,  so that "real time" and the calendar stay in sync.  Likewise, in my case, the month of February flew by so quickly, that I, too, am out of sync and need that lost time to catch up with promised answers and topics from previous blog posts. Hence today is a day for catching up on overdue promises...A bit of housekeeping, as it were, but hopefully a bit more interesting than housekeeping, both to do and to read.

First, where did that mysterious picture up top and from two weeks ago come from?

As the caption (omitted in the original post) says, this is the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, on an amazingly warm (84 degrees!) day in early February.

Moving on to the even more shamefully overdue promised story about the origins of Verdi's opera La Traviata from many weeks ago....

Like many operas--a topic to explore on another day and another post--La Traviata comes from a successful literary work in another genre, in this case, the novel La Dame aux Camelias by Alexander Dumas fils (1824-1895).  Dumas based his protagonist on a real-life Parisian courtesan, Marie Duplessis who, much like Verdi's Violetta, died of tuberculosis.*  (The story was turned into a play as well. The moral of the story here? Good tales bouncily bound across genre borders as easily as Peter Rabbit.)

La Traviata premiered in 1853 in Venice and was set, against Verdi's wishes, in the turn-of-the-previous-century past. It wasn't until several decades later that stagings of La Traviata were moved to the 19th century "present" as Verdi had desired.

As is so often the case, opening night was a bit of a flop, with the requisite booing, including ample criticism that the 38-year old soprano, Fanny Salvini-Donatelli (pictured here) was far too old and far too...ample to play a character who died of consumption, or even a woman who would have been appealing enough to be a courtesan.** Nonetheless, La Traviata soon grew to become one of the world's most beloved operas, and Violetta one of opera world's favorite heroines.

*Any idea whichother famous, equally beloved soprano character in 19th century opera also dies of TB? Comment if you do and feel like it!

**This is an old, regular cavil for opera: plus ca change, etc., it would seem. But in my opinion, unlike in musical theater, where looking the part is much more crucial, opera singers need first and foremost to sing gloriously; looks should be a distant second.

What I'm reading: Deborah Crombie's The Sound of Broken Glass; Nest by Esther Ehrlich

What I'm listening to: the wonderful excerpts played in the first few episodes from the second season of Amazon's award-winning "Mozart in the Jungle."  Excerpts today included the overture to Le Nozze di Figaro; Schubert's 8th Symphony, Beethoven's 5th, Mozart's Rondo alla turca  and more Mozart, Mahler... What great music: Amazon should market a downloadable playlist!

What I'm working on: David Garner's Mein blaues Klavier, which goes into rehearsal this week for a repeat performance on April 4--just in time for the CD release on April 8...

Sins Previous and Perceived

...from San Francisco

Opera Parallele's Champion

This week is a heavier than usual post, as I'm still thinking about sins--continuing with Dante from last week's post--in this case, operatic as well as literary ones...past sins, perceived sins, and their effects on those who commit them.

Sins operatic: Opera Parallele, the wonderfully adventurous SF modern opera company, opened its 2-week run of Terence Blanchard's Champion: an Opera in Jazz, last week at the SF Jazz Center.  A deeply moving work with a multiple-Kleenex ending, Champion is based on the true story of bisexual championship boxer, Emile Griffith, who at the height of his career inadvertently killed his opponent in the ring and died of boxer's dementia in 2013.

How does one inadvertently kill a human being without committing manslaughter? In a 1960s welterweight bout, Griffith fought boxer Benny Paret, who taunted him about his sexuality until Griffith knocked him out. Paret died from the resultant coma, and Griffith is said to have been haunted for the rest of his life by his role in Paret's death and by not having been allowed to see Paret in the hospital. The libretto mentions that Paret probably should not have been in the ring, as he'd still been suffering from a previous bout.

Champion starts in the present, with the old Emile a figure of pathos--obviously no longer mentally clear--and proceeds in a series of flashbacks that tell his story via a structure that's easy to follow. The work's strengths are the story itself, the excellent production and performances by an absolutely stellar cast of singers, actors, dancers, and musicians, and the transparent, spare music with multiple influences. The weak link in the work is the overly repetitive libretto, which takes most of the first act to set up the story. But in the second act, beginning with the inspired boxer's dance, the work's center of gravity takes a turn into the realm of the serious, catching hold with the Mother's show-stopping aria with solo bass accompaniment; on Friday, the aria was a tour de force in soprano Karen Slack's hands (or rather, voice). The opera then moves deeper and deeper into heart-wenching territory as the younger Emile unravels, beginning to catch up with his damaged older self who, though not fully aware of where he is anymore, is still haunted by his societally condoned killing.

That moral dilemma is at the core of the opera. What is a sin? Is it a sin to kill someone if you're doing your job? Can you forgive yourself if society forgives you? It doesn't take much to extend that moral dilemma to other situations where killing may result or even when killing is ordered, from policing to soldiering. And if work-condoned killing is not a sin, as the lead character sings, then why is it a sin for a man to love another man?  Continuing in this vein... So is sin a matter of perception and thus is everything that society considers a sin actually one? If so, which society's norms are to be followed? And then why that society and not another? Yet, is the concept of what constitutes sin or evil merely a culturally relativized norm?

As an aside, it was a wondrous thing to see such a diverse cast onstage--a rarity outside of Porgy and Bess--and to be part of the equally diverse audience. Jazz lovers, opera lovers, new music lovers...we were all there. NB: The usual disclaimer applies, as I have a decent number of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances involved in this excellent show.

Sins literary: I continue reading through Deborah Crombie's marvelous Duncan Kincaid and Emma James mystery series, having finished #12 last week, entitled, appropriately enough, Where Memories Lie. Here Crombie also takes looks at sins of the past, in the guise of a mystery novel about past sins committed by Nazis and thieves, and about the restitution of stolen memorabilia and artwork. Without spoiling any of the book's reveals, for I'd rather let you follow the story's progress as the discoveries unfold, Crombie makes one think about the nature of evil, of the past brought to the present, and about what those who have no conscience do.

Operas and books, like all art, are often at their best when they clothe their moral themes in the flesh of personal, human drama, as do Blanchard's and Combrie's works. 

A thought-filled week for me!

What I'm reading: More Deborah Crombie ;), Dante's Inferno.

What I'm listening to: Lots of well-prepared singers from the NATS Auditions yesterday at CSU East Bay--congratulations to all for a job well done, and for choosing such interesting repertory!

What I'm working on: Mein blaues Klavier by David Garner, songs by Hans Winterberg, Barber's "Do not utter a Word."

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.

Tosca: betrayal, murder and ...mattresses?

Examine this picture carefully to guess where in San Diego this photo was taken*! 

...from San Diego

This coming weekend is the start of San Diego Opera's 2016 mainstage season, which I would have loved to see, both to see what they are doing and also to support the company.  After the brouhaha of 2014, all in the operatic community want very much to see the company succeed.

Alas, the calendar didn't work for me.  But for those in San Diego or Southern California and able to attend (Feb. 13, 16, 19, 21), SDO will perform Puccini's Tosca--a verismo opera par excellence that Joseph Kerman with great although unjust rhetorical flourish once dismissed as a "shabby little shocker."*  (A shocker, yes, but shabby?  One could certainly debate that point.)

San Diego Opera presents Tosca in Feb. 2016

Shabby or not, it's a cinematic opera in the best melodrama tradition, with betrayal, murder, torture, intrigue, and more, as well as a good many mishaps. Some may be apocryphal; others undoubtedly are real.  For example, did one unlucky Tosca really jump off a stage parapet onto the protective mattress (normally placed backstage below said parapet), only to bounce back into view of the audience again and again, geboing geboing geboing? One writer says not, but relates other mishaps, including misplaced mattresses and guns that fired more than blanks.  Read about other, mostly less dangerous mishaps here.

SDO moves on to another Puccini favorite--an opera about a different kind of betrayal--with Madama Butterfly in April (13, 16, 21, 24), followed by the West Coast premiere of Great Scott (May 7,10, 13, 15) by California's own Jake Heggie, with beloved mezzo-soprano Frederica Von Stade.

Fingers crossed for a mishap-free Tosca run and the best of luck to SDO for their February Tosca and a successful 2016 spring season! (And the perpetually delayed blog about the story of La Traviata?  Not forgotten, but still delayed.)

What I'm reading: More Deborah Crombie, Megan Chance's The Veil (finale of 3)
What I'm listening to: La Boheme, Carmen and Handel
What I'm working on: Handel, Caldara, and Winterberg for April-May concerts

*Comment or email me if you have a guess as to where in the San Diego area this picture was taken! **from Kerman's Opera as Drama.  

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.