December 2008 Archives

I'm off for an extended stay in my own private Idaho. My next blog post will be January 6. Happy holidays to everyone!

Powell Hall went from a Holiday Free Zone on the most recent Classical Detours concert (no holiday jingles or carols or fa la la la la to be heard, just American music by Williams and Copland and Rodgers and Bernstein and "the Bronx is up and the Battery's down") to a Holiday Free Fly Zone with John Adams' nativity oratorio and now Gospel Christmas and the Holiday Celebration and more fa la la la la la la la la la la la than you can shake a stick at. But please, don't try. No sticks. Santa will be here for the Holiday Celebration and he's still watching. Don't blow it this late in the game.

Not only is Molly Morkoski preparing diligently for Messiaen's Vingt regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus, which she performs at the Pulitzer tonight (Wednesday, still some tickets left, available at the door, which opens at 7pm, concert at 7:30pm), but our resident page-turner Eric Gaston (among his many hats in the artistic dept.) is practicing the art of giving the soloist an uninterrupted and timely flow through the performance. Messiaen, as you can imagine, can be tricky in this regard. I remember a rehearsal of Messiaen's Oiseaux exotiques with Peter Serkin a little while back, and as exciting as that piece was to hear and to experience through Serkin's virtuosity, I became fascinated watching Eric as he turned, and prepared to turn, the pages. In a way, it gave me a sense of the shape of the piece, the timing, how the work expanded and contracted. You'll get some of that Wednesday night at the Pulitzer. Plus, it sounds fantastic.

I was thinking about the Depeche Mode song, actually the Johnny Cash version of it, "Your Own Personal Jesus." Tis the season, after all, and the SLSO just concluded an awesome performance of John Adams' El Niño, in which there were a number of jaw-dropping, eyes-misting moments for me. Here's just one: When Jonathan Lemalu was singing as a betrayed Joseph, accusing Mary of making him cuckold, Jessica Rivera let out a cry of "No," her face wide and her heart breaking--and for a moment she reminded me of the face of Eve in Masaccio's "Expulsion," which I hadn't thought about in many years. Amazing what a little music can do.

You may know that the Honorable Francis Slay has a blog as part of the official St. Louis Mayor's website. Back when we had Bloggers' Night, I invited the Mayor to the event. He was otherwise engaged, but sent in his stead Carson Minow, who creates a videoblog that fits into the other officialdom of Hizzoner's website. She shot some of Powell and the audience that night and interviewed Andy Gott and Jonathan Reycraft prior to the concert in the Met Bar. Carson felt she needed some more stuff so she returned to interview David Robertson and myself not long after. And now it's live: Click.

The other morning a neighbor of mine, who happens to be a member of the Saint Louis Symphony Chorus, stopped to chat before we headed off to work.

A colleague told me that she saw the title to yesterday's post and thought I was going to comment on the Governor of Illinois.

This morning as I waited for the elevator (totally legit, auditions hadn't started yet) the racket from the musicians' lounge was amazing. With the second full day of extra auditions imminent, a diverse ensemble of strings, brass and woodwinds were going at it something fierce: warming up, practicing, showing off. (Yes, musicians have been known to try for a psychological advantage in the audition process--a kind of "check this out, you got nothin" ploy. And you thought this was a high-minded profession.)

The SLSO is replenishing the ranks of extras with auditions today and tomorrow, so the staff has been in a bit of a lockdown. To allow musicians to have ready access to the elevator to get to their auditions without having to suddenly tramp down the stairs when they're called (you don't want to be an out-of-breath horn player for your audition), the staff has been instructed to use the stairs, which means I stay at my desk rather than attempt seven floors. After New Year's I'll move toward more physical challenges, for sure, but not on a Monday (or Tuesday). 

Peter Henderson, who frequently plays keyboards with the SLSO, was looking for a piano to practice on the other day. But since the featured soloist this weekend, Louis Lortie, was toiling away at Chopin's First Piano Concerto in the Green Room, Peter had to bide his time before he could work on his part in Barber's Essay No. 1.

To all of those who made the Rest Is Noise Reading Group such a pleasure. It was quite a commitment: we began in mid-October and just finished Tuesday night. But a very smart, sweet, complementary group of about 20 made it for nearly every session and made each meeting interesting, even revelatory at times. I think my favorite comment over these weeks was, "I find myself listening more." You couldn't ask for better than that.

And thank you, Alex Ross, for writing such a terrific book and helping all of us to listen more.

Thanksgiving remains the official start of the holiday season (unless it's actually Halloween, which seems to be when the catalogues begin these days), and around the hall that means food appearing in every nook and cranny of the place. Candy, a cornucopia of Bundt cakes, cookies, all sorts of baked goods make their way into the office terrain, and by the holiday finish line many of us are bloated and hitting the treadmills.

Poppy Mom couldn't make it to Bloggers' Night, but she and husband and daughter were able to attend Sunday's Family Concert and posted this report, in which her daughter makes a friend and becomes even more enamored of the tuba. Click.