NEW classical MUSIC TUESDAY
O, as a young grasshopper in this wide world of classical music, I was first introduced to New / 20th Century Music in my theory classes. Oh how I miss traditional melody (like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star) and harmony (think like good barbershop quartets and high school choir). I ventured far from the safety of Hammerstein’s ‘Doe, a deer, a female deer…’ and into Hans Werner Henze’s atonal abyss (reference song from ‘The Extorist’ soundtrack). Curtis Opera Theatre in association with Opera Company of Philadelphia presented Elegy for Young Lovers this weekend at the Perelman Theatre (Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts).
Elegy for Young Lover centers on a poet Gregor Mittenhofer who is visiting an inn in the Alps with his over-worked secretary and his young lover Elisabeth Zimmer. Gregor’s doctor Wilhelm and his son Toni are also in attendance. The inn is a dark place and death looms on the mountain, where many have died before. Long story short, Elisabeth has an affair with Toni and leaves the old poet alone. But as the two lovers go out on their first mountain hike together a storm comes to doom the new lovers.
As a young singer it delighted me to hear singers from Curtis’ world class conservatory perform these vocally stunning roles. But it wasn’t just the singing that captured me, it was the acting elements that drove the story and therefore had to be in the forefront of the singers minds. The Orchestra was also a standout featuring instruments like classical guitar and a plethora of percussive toys that I have never hear played in ensemble, but added to the mysterious and melancholy tone of the whole opera.
The scenic design by David Zinn and lighting by Allen Hahn really set the stage intimately, and it gave the impression a cold minimalist take on a winter hideaway, it was the furthest thing from a cozy inn as you can get, and it framed the music and story well. The minimal sleek setting was in steep contrast to the colorful characters and the various moods they display throughout.
Overall Elegy… was very entertaining and although not the mainstream worth seeing if you like good dramatic storylines and psychological looks at the good and bad side of people’s character. Runs through 3/18/2012.
Scottsboro Boys: From Broadway to Broad Street
February marks African American or Black History month and there were many cultural events that take place to observe and remember the contributions, struggles, and stories of people of the Diaspora. I had a thrilling opportunity to see Philadelphia Theater Company’s production of The Scottsboro Boys (music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb) at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre.
Getting a ticket to this show was a task in itself, I tried twice to get rush tickets before I caved in and bought a $25 advanced sale ticket. For a college student, this was on the high end of my cultural enrichment budget. But the investment turned out to be well worth every dollar.
The Scottsboro Boys is a piece of musical theatre that recounts the events of nine young black men who were on a boxcar train going through Alabama in 1931. The boys were falsely accused of raping two white women and swiftly tried and convicted of the crime. These were in fact boys with the youngest being only 13. News about the boys quickly spread nationally and sparked protests in 110 cities in the U.S. Even with overwhelming public support all nine were not completely exonerated of the crime until 1976.
Taking such a subject matter and projecting it into a medium like musical theatre on surface seems risky. I was at first skeptical of the treatment of such a serious issue, because typically musicals tend to deal with fantasy or takes a real surrounding circumstances and inject larger than life characters. This show does do this, but our need for fantasy with fantastical characters is challenged by the use of having a minstrel show within the structure of the play. This leaves no room for comfort in mainstream ideas and sensibilities, but transports us to a time of backwards thinking and racist logic.
Scottsboro Boys is most certainly geared at waking us up to the story of real individuals with hopes and dreams. I bought into the story of these twelve actors who played the nine boys, authority figures both white and black and even women. The singing and dancing was awe inspiring and I enjoyed the fact that it did not take away but complemented the story.
The Scottsboro Boys is a unique musical that did not take me away from reality but brought me closer to it, and history. In the end nine lives were destroyed but ultimately the triumph was in the fact that the truth was told. Clarence Norris one of the boys said, “The lesson to black people, to my children, to everybody, is that you should always fight for your rights, even if it costs you your life. Stand up for your rights, even if it kills you. That’s all life consists of.” WORDS TO LIVE BY.
If Schubert, Schumann and Prokofiev won a GRAMMY?…
For my first post of the year I thought I would ground myself back in music. As a kid I grew up in the inner city of Chicago and although I knew what classical music was I did not know it had a place in my life. I knew I loved music and performing so much so that I would stand in my living room in front of the mirror covered wall and sing and dance for hours. So, when I looked at The Grammys on Sunday I could definitely appreciate the mash ups between pop and rock and hip hop. But I felt that classical music always gets the blunt end of the stick.
I always ask myself is the classical medium that I’m studying antiquated in some way and generally worthless in the eyes of the public. To reassure myself I went to Curtis Institute of Music to see a student recital in Field Concert Hall (1726 Locust St in Rittenhouse Square). When I first entered, I was taken aback by the space which was a mansion that has since been remodeled to accommodate the 300 students of this prestigious conservatory.
Field Hall feels like I have been invited to a very exclusive salon party. It feels like you have gone back in time to experience this music of the past. For you information the students played works by Robert Schumann (Märchenbilder Op.113 for viola and piano), Sergey Prokofiev (Sonata in D Major, Op. 94) and Franz Schubert (Trio in E-flat Major D. 929). Okay now I know I’m throwing a lot at you but listen to the Schubert Trio and tell me that some parts aren’t the most beautiful music you’ve heard in sometime.
Now I can’t speak to all classical music because with in it are so many genres and flavors that some I like and some I don’t. Going to Curtis or Rock Hall at Temple for a recital of any kind is worth your time (Because most of them are FREE!). See if you like the flavor they’re playing that night, if not try something different and maybe it’ll work for you.
So I know I have a bias because I am in school for classical voice and I have a vested interest in it, it’s my career! But seriously, experiencing live music is the best way to receive it. I don’t care if it is rap, country, pop, or dub-step go out to the concert venues and experience sounds from live instruments that have color and life as you hear them.
Now returning to The Grammys, will classical music ever really be featured on the show, probably not, but it is really a loss. Instead of creating categories for distinction between genres there must be room to make the classic modern for audiences and make the experience collaborative instead of isolating classical music as the past.
I think the ultimate solution is for a younger generation to reclaim these pieces by the masters and represent them in different ways. I want to hear a Schubert ‘sample’ in a Lady Gaga song or a Mozartian run in Beyoncé’s next performance. Classical music maybe history but it is not disconnected from the performances we see today. To the next generation of artist use what is classic to create something new.
Leave a comment recounting your greatest musical moments and what you think about pop verses classical.
November should be National Opera Month in Philadelphia. As a voice performance major I knew I would have to write a blog about the world I’m immersed in through my studies. This past month, area colleges and conservatories all mounted productions of operas in the city. Starting on campus Temple Opera Theater produced Mozart’s The Magic Flute, which I had the honor of participating in. In Center City, Curtis Institute of Music produced Gounod’s Faust and the Academy of Vocal Arts had an inspiring production of Offenbach’s Les Contes D’Hoffmann.
I decided to see the extraordinary singers at the Academy of Vocal Arts and their production of Hoffmann. I first fell in love with this play when I saw a New York Metropolitan Opera broadcast on television. This opera is in the style of grand French opera. It’s grand because like a musical it features lots of spectacle think Moulin Rouge; it’s French because it’s in French (with English subtitles of course). The singers at the Academy of Vocal Arts are also special because they are some of the most elite singers in the world. It is a training boot camp for turning out world class opera singers.
I trekked out of the city for this excursion to the Main Line area. The Haverford School hosted this production and student tickets are only $10. The opera is a fictional tale centered around the very real E.T.A. Hoffmann, a German romantic writer and composer. In the show he recounts the stories of three women to a group of men in the local bar. The tales are so outlandish and whimsical that anyone would be enchanted by the piece. My favorite moment is that of the Doll song, where Hoffmann falls in love with a mechanical doll that of course can sing better that any human woman. Below is a snippet featuring Maria Aleida. She is an amazing singer with lots of rocket launching high notes that are spectacular.
If you’re interested in learning more about these amazing singers go to www.avaopera.org or their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/AVAOPERA?feature=mhee
Flamenco Fire!
Hey readers it’s been a while since I last wrote but I’ve been visiting some exciting places in mean time. I had a chance to use my PEX pass to explore the art of Flamenco dancing at the Temple Performing Art Center (TPAC). On a Friday night I got a chance to experience Compañia Flamenca Jose Porcel. I have never been to a Flamenco performance and that was a part of the thrill of going.
The show opens and I am greeted to the live band, complete with guitars, flute, percussions, and singers. They immediately set this mystical mood in the room. The singers evoked the image of something sacred. The music sounded similar to a cantor calling the people to prayer. In this moment the dancers gathered on stage, the lights went up and the action began. Eight dancers gather together to make the whole earth shake. They brought an energy that was contagious, and really the atmosphere felt like I was observing a party in Spain.
The program was titled Gypsy Fire and the flamenco dancing proved to be hot. The art of Flamenco uses dance to tell a story, and the techniques pull from many genres. At times I thought I was watching a step show, and then tap dancing exhibition, and then a graceful and seductive ballet. This combined with bright colors from the lights and the costumes made for a spectacular spectacle. Jose Porcel the founder of the group ended the show with a rising solo number where he put is soul, quite literally his sweat on the dance floor.
Overall the performance was a melting pot of cultures. The Spanish flavor is primary but because Flamenco is a dance of a nomadic people (moorish-gypsies), and I hear more influence from Islam and Jewish traditions. This combined with the percussive traditions of many cultures on the African continent make Flamenco a world tradition.
This was a one night event but I’ll leave you with a video to recap some of the action.
My Chemical Fate!
When it came down to picking a location to feature this week, I decided to let fate take the lead. I flipped through my PEX pass with cursory intention and the page featuring the Chemical Heritage Society was destined to be my next adventure. Before I came to music for my degree I had most of my training in the biological and chemical sciences. This was the perfect opportunity to reconnect with this part of my life and experience something out of the ordinary.
The Chemical Heritage Society is an organization dedicated to preserving the history of the chemical sciences, inspiring a new generation of scientist, and educating the public about chemistry’s impact on our daily lives.
When I first walked into the exhibition space I was surprised by its modern design. I felt as if walked into ‘the Apple Store of chemical knowledge’. Along the side walls were different categories of chemical history. Every panel was like a chemistry book jumping off the page. The experiments I remember reading in text books, were made real by actually being able to see the instruments up close. The center piece of the museum is a giant rectangular column displaying all the elements in their practical forms. The other side of the column has an interactive touch screen where you can explore the lives of great chemist or look at how chemistry has been perceived in the media over the years.
My favorite part of the museum is a temporary art installation called, “Elemental Matters: Artist Imagine Chemistry”. This collection featured sculpture, painting, photography, and multimedia to display each artist representation of what chemistry means to them. The entire experience at the museum made clear that chemistry is as small as all the atoms that compose myself and as large as the atomic bomb. Chemistry is one of the many ways to understand life and the museum added the visual element to make that clear.
The Chemical Heritage Society is a great stop if you’re in Old City (315 Chestnut St.). And on November 4th (First Friday) there will be Apple Cider tasting every hour (5-8pm). Visit their website at www.chemheritage.org
Pay to Pee Please!
Temple Theater’s 2011-2012 season kicks off this month with Urinetown: The Musical. “What is ‘Urinetown’ you ask?”– well as Officer Lockstock would say, ‘You have to wait till’ the second act to see Urinetown’. Urinetown is a satirical musical, about a place where everyone has to ‘pay to pee’ because of a water shortage. People become disgruntled and are led in an uprising by Bobby Strong, the plays’ hero. The musical sketches a struggle between the masses and corporate greed, love verses practicality, and questions the sustainability of our planet – all in one show!
This is truly an experience to see and what makes it great is that it is in Tomlinson Theater on Main Campus. Every year I am amazed by the wonderful musical theater productions put on at Temple. Peter Reynolds, the head of the musical theater department and director of Urinetown consistently mounts productions that are worthwhile and adventurous and speak to issues relevant to a college community. The show was solid with great song and dance numbers performed exceptionally well by the ensemble. My favorite moment was in the finale where an actress portraying the grandmother pulled all the stops and contorted herself into a split. I could not hold back the tears from laughing so hard (and neither could my friends Eugenia and Gabby). There are many moments like this in Urinetown and I felt as if every ensemble member received a featured line in the dialogue or a song. The sets and lighting also come together to make the experience even more magical and it makes me proud to see such a high quality college production.
As Sustainability Week is underway I encourage you to catch Urinetown running through October 30th at Tomlinson Theater on Main Campus. Temple student tickets are $10, faculty and staff $20 and general admission is $25.
‘I saw the face of Jesus…’
This week I had a chance to venture to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I had the pleasure walk up the stairs that Rocky triumphantly jogged up as apart of an intense and instantaneous workout only seen in movie montages. I was winded. Beside the point, this week I wanted to see Jesus (or at least Rembrandt’s interpretations of the man).
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is hosting a special exhibit titled ‘Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus’. The collection consist of paintings, sketches, and etchings that chronicle an artist’s endeavor to portray the likeness of Jesus. Rembrandt is shown to be a religious scholar in the way he took up liturgical and supporting texts as a basis for the face of Jesus. Rembrandt also showed a humanist perspective by taking careful study portraits of young Jewish men in his Amsterdam town.
The exhibit shows first a finished product, ‘The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple’ which is a stunning portrait that is full of texture and light and you’ll have to see it in person to really appreciate it. But then it back tracks and shows the many sketches and small portraits he completed as his process to get to such a masterpiece. The collection has three to four jewels and a depth of possible inspirations and variations on the subject of Jesus as portrayed by Rembrandt contemporaries and students alike.
There is an added multimedia dimension through use of the audio tour which was really informative and added to the experience and a short documentary on the creation of etchings in the time of Rembrandt.
I went with my friend Brenna and we happened to be at the museum during their Art After 5 performances, where they bring in musicians from all genres and have a good spread of food for purchase and a happy hour for the after work crowd. It was an added bonus to top off a Friday night at the museum.
The Logistics: The Philadelphia Museum of Art is located on 26th Street & the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Student Tickets are 20 dollars and includes entrance to the main museum and the Rembrandt Exhibit.
GO! SEE IT! AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK.
Terror on Fairmount
Last weekend I was asked to go on a Paranormal experience with my closest friends. They dared me to explore the inside of Eastern State Penitentiary on 20th and Fairmount. Now in the past I have been brave enough to take a tour during day, and I have to say it’s still a creepy place to wander about. In modern terms its Philadelphia’s equivalent to ancient ruins. My fellow blogger Victoria knows all about that experience at you can read about it here. But this time I venture to experience Eastern State for it’s horrifying Terror Behind the Walls attraction.
The experience is fully mind blowing and starts even before you have paid admission to enter the building. First is the waiver you have to sign before you go into the Penitentiary. Never would I have thought that I would actually have to really sign my life away, in order to get my scared out of my mind. But as I was signing the form a strange whisper was snarling in my ear, and yes I knew that I was in for a great time.
Once you enter the yard of the jail, you our totally immersed in the world they create. The line is made to feel like you are actually being processed into this weird after life jail. It features not just one themed haunted house, but three. You explore, the Infirmary, the Gauntlet and the Night Watch. Each section provides you with insight into your deepest fears, whether its the dentist or doctor gone mad or as simple as being afraid of the dark. They take these basic fears and turn them up by 100 percent.
Overall the 3D, smoke, lights, and mirrors make the Terror Behind the Walls experience great, but truly the actors make it the most worthwhile! Their interacts play the most tricks on you, and you really never know when one is going to come after you. My personal trick, stare into their eyes you’ll see the humanity in them and I think it struck some of the actors at first.
As you can see I made it out! And I hope you challenge yourself and experience the Terror on Fairmount!
The Break Out! (Guess who doesn't belong in this picture?)
Julian Otis: PEX Pass Cultural Connection
Click on the image to get your EZseatU membership
Welcome Class of 2015, and all Temple Owls across the web. My name is Julian Otis (Class of 2013) and I will be one of your guides to getting the inside scoop on what’s HOT and COOL in Philadelphia. But I’m just not reporting on interesting places and events, I actually want YOU to get out there and visit them too. Temple University and the GenEd Program have combined to provide PEX passes to all incoming students so that you can explore Philadelphia’s cultural offerings at a discounted price. If you think I’m joking I’ll give you an example. Last year I used my PEX pass to buy an EZseatU membership from The Philadelphia Orchestra. I paid $25 to get unlimited access to orchestra concerts throughout the entire year! Your PEX pass will give you access to art, music, museums, theater, and other cultural activities in the Philadelphia area. Here is where I come in. As your PEX Pass Cultural Correspondent I’ll prevue interesting activities on a weekly basis and give you my recommendations on what I think are events too worthwhile to miss. After you’ve visited a venue, comment on my blog and let other students know how you liked the event. Hold on tight, I’ll keep you in the know. Until the next event, this is your PEX Pass Cultural Correspondent, Julian Otis signing off.
UPDATE: College Night at The Orchestra is October 6th. It a free concert for area college students and believe me it is a lot of fun.
