March 2009 Archives

Signs of spring in St. Louis include the reports from Florida about the Cardinals finishing their Grapefruit League games, the redbuds blooming, and Mike Lynch and the Henchmen packing for Carnegie (as well as Ann Arbor this year). Trunks of various sizes carrying percussion, double basses, cellos, other assorted instruments and wardrobe are lodged in the foyer. The Frankenstein!! noisemakers are ready to go as well.

More Bloggers' Night 2 posts. Jen considers the SLSO's secret strength and Patrick gives the evening's performance a grade, with room for improvement.

Chris King always seems to have a sketch pad in his hand, as he did during Bloggers' Night 2. Find his word-and-image impressions of David Robertson conducting Sibelius 5 here.

At least from where I stood and sat and listened and talked and drank and ate french fries (at the William Shakespeare's Gastropub afterconcert gathering), everyone had a terrific time at Bloggers' Night 2. And some posts are already in.

First, Julie Dill, of vowel movements, has a photo of Chris King and Danny Lee, and some thoughts on being open to Mirage. Click.

And Chris King delivers two posts for the price of one (I owe him a drink ticket). First, he is mesmerized by Wagner, and then the amazing poet K. Curtis Lyle offers him a take on Canto di speranza. Click.

The next day, Chris' daughter lends her illustrative hand in describing a spirit woman. Click.

Overheard in the hallways: "Gruber, Karttunen, Mattila--oh my!"

Not only did Karita Mattila blow everybody away in the rehearsal for Sibelius' Luonnotar Thursday afternoon, she carried a flamingo pink purse, shiny as lip gloss. Dazzling.

HK Gruber's Frankenstein!! calls for a number of toy instruments including car horn, plastic hoses that make fantastic whooshing noises, toy piano, kazoos and a lot more.

Those of you who are really, really keeping track may have noticed that in yesterday's post I changed "Those crazy surrealists" to "Those crazy dadaists" later in the day. I figure with the bouncing cannon dance and the lost coffin, Dadaism wins over Surrealism in René Clair's opus, but it's not an easy call.

The upcoming Carnegie Hall Preview performance that includes the wild-and-crazy stuff of Mozart's Musical Joke and HK Gruber's Frankenstein!! at the St. Louis Art Museum Saturday is officially sold out (well, not exactly sold out since it's a free concert, maybe way way out or outtasight or outtathere).

Violist Kathleen Mattis performs Bloch's Suite hébraïque as part of the final Classical Detours program of the season, Middle East Crossroads, Friday night. She arrived at the hall to find the Green Room specially adorned for her. Even Richard Goode doesn't get this kind of treatment.

Violinist Cece Weinkauff was glowing with anticipation before the rehearsal of Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto, with guest pianist Richard Goode. "I'm so excited to be playing with him," she said with a joyous smile.

At a break in the action, and there is plenty of action in Strauss' Ein Heldenleben, David Robertson was talking to Resident Conductor Ward Stare about the wonderful things that happen when a conductor actually goes back to the score. As David explained, a conductor can perform a work plenty of times "doing the cool things you've heard before," but then when he/she actually decides to get into the work itself, what is found there may be incredibly illuminating. For example, David was talking about some of the tempo markings in Ein Heldenleben. In passages that are traditionally performed at a slower pace, Strauss actually calls for a swifter tempo, so that when the orchestra gets to one of those grand, slow tidal waves of sound, it actually has a more profound effect because of the heightened contrasts in tempi.

A Tuesday with no rehearsals in the hall, most everyone wearing green, most everyone wishing they were outside in the 70-degree spring day, and a few wishing they were in Dogtown with a Bushmills or a Jameson in hand for St. Patrick's.

From Sunday's St. Louis Post-Dispatch profile of the Cardinals' new shortstop, Khalil Green:

After the concert I saw violist Shannon Farrell Williams and told her "Nice concert," rather than making a fool out of myself and gushing "What a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful concert!" But it was nice to see that she was beaming in the aftermath of the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful concert too, especially, for her, Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, "I'm so happy I was finally able to play that," she said. And I'm pretty sure most everyone in the hall was very happy to have heard it.

After the week with Hubbard Street, looking on the stage and just seeing an orchestra is kind of calming.

"Have you ever been on stage when they play this?" Jim Wehrman asked me. Jim plays horn for the SLSO, and he is also assistant orchestra personnel manager, which means a lot of things, including putting data into a computer using two fingers on the keyboard, as he was doing Wednesday afternoon. But he was also listening to the SLSO strings rehearsing Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, with Nic McGegan conducting.

I received a number of deliriously happy e-mails from those who experienced the SLSO/HSDC weekend, from both the audience and the stage. "My mom was ecstatic and elated, talked all the way home about how beautiful it was" writes one audience member. Another described the "Hubba Hubba Hubbard Dancers," and from the orchestra, a violinist writes: "I hope this collaboration will become an annual event."

I just checked the SLSO website and saw that Friday night is officially Sold Out! Saturday still has limited seating available. There are still seats for the Sunday afternoon Family Concert. I predict that after this weekend's performances of the SLSO and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago we will be the Talk of the Town (with thanks to Chrissie Hynde).

 

When the musicians arrived Wednesday morning, for some of them the first question was, "How do I get to my seat?" The Henchmen built a raised platform for the orchestra upstage, to provide dance space for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago downstage. Also, the audience can get a view of the musicians with them set a few feet above the stage, and the musicians get a view of the dancers with whom they are performing. (Answer: there are doors upstage from where the chorus normally enters and exits.)

I had the privilege of getting some great views of the rehearsals today, even though they were only glances on the way to other busy-ness: looking through the upstage door to glimpse Danny Lee playing cello and the form of a Hubbard St. dancer turning, twisting, gliding downstage; and the finale of the Bernstein Prelude, Fugue and Riffs as seen on the backstage monitor--and even from that remove I could see it is an absolute showstopper (you wouldn't expect anything less from Lenny).

Arriving at the hall Tuesday morning I found the activity of the Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (HSDC) load-in in progress, with lots of stuff--lights, light stands, mats, cables, wardrobe, props (including a car seat)--I can't keep track of it all, which is why I do what I do and Henchmen do what they do.

One of the Henchmen was up on 7 grabbing a cup of coffee. "What are you up to on a Monday morning?" I asked.