important things: ethics

A friend of mine sent me the above video several days ago, and I cannot recommend it enough to all of you. Singer has a way about him--approachable and pragmatic, reflecting on the ivory tower rather than looking down from it. I am ashamed to say that I have not yet read any of his books--in point of fact, my first exposure to him was via the excellent film by Astra Taylor, Examined Life. I find him (as I hope you will too) to be refreshingly sane and compassionate. Although my present reading list is filled with more Hegel and Hegelians than you or I could shake a stick at, I plan on finding some time for Singer. In the meantime, do take a look at his website.

remember shumsky?

Recently, a dear friend to CMM and New Music@Drake reminded me of the great Oscar Shumsky. I hope you will share in my delight over this recording of Shumsky and Gould:

If you like this (and really, why wouldn't you), there is a great collection of Shumsky on YouTube.

exhuming my music library

There are so many things about which to write, but nothing properly, cogently formulated as of yet. Last night, I had the thrilling experience of locating six days worth of music I thought I had lost forever. Listening to Mahler 4, Clifford Curzon, Yves Montand, Ginette Neveu, and Edith Piaf initiated a flood tide of memories. At this juncture in my little life, getting reacquainted with Curzon playing Schubert was particularly poignant.

break time with slavoj

This week is filled with work--whether it is moving my arms around willy-nilly in an orchestral setting or the more refined action of fingertips to keyboard, I expect to find myself consumed by writing and playing over the next five days. While most of my intellectual efforts will center 'round the big paper, I plan on taking little breaks to watch installments of Zizek lectures. Yes. I am a super-nerd.

If you haven't already noticed the availability of his EGS lectures on YouTube, I would really suggest that you check it out. My dialectics reading group buddies first alerted me to this great resource several months ago, and since then I've been hooked. Here's what I'll be watching this week:

The Return to Hegel, EGS 2009; The Ambiguity of Obscenity, EGS 2009; Authors@Google, 2008

huberman's bach

Listen to this:



There's a lot to say about this, but to be honest, I'm pressed for time. I like to consider it a public service: don't play Bach like a robot. Please.

wednesday miscellany

At long last, I have returned! As always there are numerous pieces of blog worthy flotsam floating about my brain, but for now I'll leave you with the following bits and bobs:

This interview with performance artist Marina Abramovic certainly helped me to better understand her oeuvre, but also a more recent work The Artist is Present. I also appreciate her philosophy on performance art, that is to say that it is not merely a singular event.

CMM All Stars Sarah Foster, Luke Foster and Solvay Peterson will present a free concert on Sunday, October 17 at 2:00 at First Lutheran Church of New Richmond. Music by Schubert and Prokofiev.

Recently, CMM Resident Conductor and Artistic Adviser, Joe Peters, sent me the video below. Don't be surprised if you see it on a CMM4 program...


Iannis Xenakis: Plekto (1993)

Finally, our little blog is moving. I have begun sketches for a CMM website within which a new blog, Thirty Second Notes (wink wink nudge nudge), will feature the content you've come to expect from this site.

all night tuesday: break time

Before I begin this flurry, I want to extend a virtual shout-out to Jake for his excellent comments last week. On to the matter at hand: many moons ago, a colleague of mine began the tradition of "all-night Tuesday." Welcome to all-night Tuesday. Its 1am and I'm taking a break from gendered rhetoric of Monteverdi (expect something later). Please enjoy this video of Christian Ferras playing Franck. I encourage you to listen to the entire sonata (that is to say, all four parts).

qualunque cosa monday

General miscellany that I don't particularly feel like writing into prose. Today is sort of out of date since I have been catching up on my Google Reader. Consider this the first installment of a weekly feature. As an FYI, qualunque cosa roughly translates as "whatever thing"

My friend and yours: Boethius; Something from Alex Ross that made me laugh out loud; If only my theory class was like this; APOD catch-up; Interesting if a little superficial, but I love me some Charles Rosen; Dear Frank Gehry, will you be my friend? Those wacky mathematicians; Insight into the horrific artworks of the Brothers Chapman, though I'd still suggest their work is more sensationalism than substance; A "Joke" from David Oistrakh; And while we're on the subject of YouTube; Childhood memories of paging through my parents' art books, among them an Alice Neel exhibition catalog; More from SEP; More from APOD; I *heart* design; Thank you. I hate it too; Yikes.

string camp

Chamber Music Midwest quickly stole a place in my heart as "favorite annual summer event." However, if I were to name a close second, it would have to be String Fling. Essentially a music day camp for students in the Hudson School district, the program offers students the opportunity to gain a new perspective and sharpen their musical skills during the summer months. There is something about helping out public school kids that I find extremely fulfilling--likely it is due to my own horrific (you might even say "damaging") experience in the New Richmond public school orchestra program.*

This weekend I've been frantically tossing together some things for a lesson tomorrow and impending auditions(!), but during my breaks I go straight to my quadernino** and brainstorm lesson plans. Each day will be about a different composer and performer. For example, tomorrow Heifetz/Schubert day for the seventh grade students and Fuchs/Bach day for the fifth and sixth grade students. Don't you wish you could be in my class?!

*I must say--if only as a clarification--that Hudson is NOTHING like New Richmond. Indeed, I have the utmost respect for the program and its faculty. They are all examples of how to make an orchestra program functional, beneficial.
** Little notebook

cosmic catastrophe(?)

I'd like to juxtapose a few things I've seen recently: a TED talk and a funny little snippet from Slavoj Zizek. We remember this. So watch it again, and then, watch this. Although CMM is not necessarily about the design of the universe, it is still relevant I think--art and science and so on.

Figure Zizek: Dude has somethin' to say

I'm not going to pretend to wax philosophical on Smoot, but his idea of tiny fluctuations (imperfections, maybe) and the near-perfection of the universe before the big bang are pretty, well, great. And the visualizations are just so darn beautiful!

Figure Smoot: Dude has somethin' to say about antediluvian radiation

yoko, oh no!

The great thing about having your own music festival is that you can entertain ideas like programming Ono's Cut Piece. For our immediate future, this is completely not feasible. Let us all take a moment to imagine what it would be like if I performed Cut Piece--wherein the audience cuts off the performer's clothing until she/he is naked (or nearly so)--at First Lutheran Church of New Richmond. Right. It basically goes without saying that this would not be an option. However, I like the idea of programming some of Ono's works (how very conceptual of me!). Until recently, I'd been largely (though admittedly unjustifiably) an Ono naysayer, but taking an open and unbiased look at Cut Piece and the rest of her Fluxus-era oeuvre has completely turned me around. There are a few common themes running through much of her work that fit neatly with our mission statement, the most pertinent being the concept of the gift and the idea of audience participation. There is quite a bit more to say about Cut Piece and the rest of Ono's continually expanding oeuvre, for now I'll just include a video of the 1965 Carnegie Hall performance...

Notice the disturbing pace at which the piece progresses; the carelessness of the audience. There is something deeply unsettling about the performer/participant dynamic: something violent, disrespectful, and crass. Indeed, much more to say...

a successful conclusion + an exciting future

I've said before that this season was "the best ever" and in its already fading wake, I can say that indeed it was. The performances were polished and captivating, and our audience base has grown considerably. Seeing children and young families at our last concert, I realized that slowly but surely, we are beginning to achieve the goals set out in our mission statement. And, we received a standing ovation on Saturday! How cool is that?!

So. On to season four: Poetics(!). The subtitle has several layers of meaning, one of which is a reference to Aristotle's Poetics. I've been looking quite a bit at the text recently and the way diverse artistic movements interact with it over time. Of course it is referenced in the Enlightenment, but I was reading Greenberg's mid 20th century essay, Art and Kitsch, today and there was a reference to imitation "in the Aristotelian sense." Aristotle, in response to Plato, is primarily concerned with the problem of mimesis in art. Is imitation good? Is it bad? How does it operate within an artwork, and what does that mean for the artist? In addition to these basic questions, there are innumerable issues that arise from the discussion. I find myself drawn to the problematic relationship of Poetics with a contemporary society that no longer reads the classics: on the whole, the citizens of the world are unaware of the text, yet its prevalence in Western culture until this moment subtly shapes our own concept of what is "good" and "bad" in the arts. Mimesis is easy; abstraction is not. My current contention is that this attitude has been a part of our historical conditioning and thus results in a phenomenon I like to think of as "pre-conditioned taste." I have a lot more books to read and ideas to explore over the next year (obviously), but I'd like this discussion to be a part of CMM4. From the start, CMM has championed music that is perhaps more challenging to the ear than Mozart, Bach, et al. and I think the above discussion is REALLY helpful for looking at this stuff: if we are cognizant of our historical conditioning (ie preconditioned taste), we can understand it and eventually move beyond it. That is to say, things like Mark Rothko won't seem so "meaningless" (the old, "my kid could do that!" argument); Schoenberg's imitation will gain clarity.

The above is just one facet of next season, the more obvious one is music and text. We're talkin' song cycles people. I'm completely nuts for the art song, and if we're going to discuss mimesis, there is not a better place to start than so-called "word painting." We're looking at Schoenberg's Book of the Hanging Gardens (!!!!!), any number of cycles/songs by Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, Ravel...the list goes on. It would fulfill a dream of mine to program and perform Pierrot Lunaire, but we'll see.

Lastly, I'll mention that we're hoping to program some Helmut Lachenmann. From what I've listened to, his music is not at all mimetic, in that it is like nothing I have ever heard before. The Kinderspiel, for example, explore sonic possibilities of the piano in the same way that Pollock explores the possibilities of raw materials (house paint, for example). I could certainly see where Lachenmann's music would be threatening to the American musical avant-garde (such as it is); I'm recalling something James Dillon (an advocate of Lachenmann, and another excellent composer) once said to me about Lachenmann's reception in the US. If I am remembering correctly, Dillon implied that Lachenmann was perceived by the US as a "de-composer" in that by redefining the means by which classical instruments were to be used, he was writing "anti-music." The pejorative connotation of these statements ought not to be ignored; it is a real shame, actually, as I think the music is quite good. Below is a video of Kinderspiel as played by pianist Seda Roeder. When you listen, try to notice all the sounds--in these pieces the residual is just as important (if not more so) as the initial sound. Though I must say, as wonderful as YouTube is for this sort of thing, to fully appreciate these pieces, you really have to hear them live (enter CMM4....).

brettl lieder

Soon enough I'll be writing copious notes on Schoenberg and his fin-de-siecle compatriots, but for now here is the great Jessye Norman singing Brettl Lieder.

scholars agree

A dear friend of CMM, Brad Horras, reminded me of this today:

Dean of University of Minnesota CLA James A. Parente announces Brad at commencement 2009. Thanks for the free advertising!

season three: second viennese school of rock...

...or pain, if you prefer. I am pleased to announce that planning for Chamber Music Midwest 2010 is well underway. Unlike past seasons, CMM3 concerts will be held exclusively at First Lutheran Church of New Richmond and will take place May 15-June 15 and July 30-August 7. Conductor and oboist Joseph Peters will return to perform (among other things) Jacob ter Veldhuis' Garden of Love for Oboe and "Ghettoblaster."

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty excited to hear this live!

I am also happy to welcome back composer and baritone, Scott Sandersfeld. If you attended his CMM2 concert, you'll most likely recall his music to be both accessible and engaging. If not, go here to sample some of his work.