March 2010 Archives

If you are prepping for concerts to come during this SLSO break-in-the-action week, maybe pull out your old Beatles White Album or your sophisticated remastered CD and re-listen to "Revolution 9." According to Alex Ross in The Rest Is Noise, you can hear the final chords of Sibelius 7 for a split second.

There: Sibelius 7 (April 9-10) and Classical Mystery Tour (April 30) promoted in one post.

We may be getting new neighbors in the form of arts students taking up residence in a new arts school in the Beaux Arts building across the street from Powell. I'm all for a contingent of black-clad art students hanging out in Grand Center. The Beaux Arts building has been in many people's dreams over the years, but nothing has come to fruition until now. My experience of the Beaux Arts was a fantastic party celebrating the 20th-anniversary of the local alternative weekly way back in another life. Good vibes reside there. Here is a story with the info: click.

You are probably well aware of my colleague Adam Crane's friendship with Nathaniel Ayers. Mr. Ayers was the subject of Steve Lopez's book The Soloist, with was made into a film of the same name starring Jaime Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr. One of the things that I find so amazing about Mr. Ayers' story is how it continues to affect so many people's lives.

John Kasica's two-fisted beating of dual snare drums; Henry Claude emphatically slapping a tambourine; Tom Drake's frenzied trumpet; the SLSO trombones driving a relentless music machine: just a few of the afterthoughts that came to me after the astounding Shostakovich Symphony No. 8.

David Halen says something in this week's video blog about how you may experience a whole lifetime through Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8. I'd say at least one lifetime. And with Orli Shaham playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20 to start the concert, there's the inclusion of a dream of life. Since I've borrowed one Patti Smith phrase I'll borrow another, through Mozart, Orli hurled beauty around to start the Friday morning concert, with it landing like light on water.

"Happy Birthday"? "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer"? "Frosty the Snowman"? What was Danny Lee playing? They all sound exactly alike to me.

I visited the break in the Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 action Wednesday morning for this week's video blog. David Halen attempts to speak of the deep significance of the composer's work, until Danny Lee breaks into "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer," (which for some reason sounds to me like "Happy Birthday" at the moment). David recovers admirably. And Erik Harris explains the podium manner of a brilliant Russian conductor, Vassily Sinaisky.

Richard Holmes was backstage with timpani mallets in hand, constantly flicking his wrists as if he were playing the skin of the air. Special Ops Forces Commando Maggie Bailey sashayed by with a newly delivered package for Richard, a long cardboard tube. He appeared very pleased but made me wait patiently before he told me what was in it.

I was looking through my notes from a conversation I had with David Robertson about the 2009-10 season way back when. He said of the Shostakovich Symphony No. 8: "It has the type of energy with which you could run a small country's power grid."

Whenever I'm not around, the high drama ensues: flight delays on the Carnegie tour last spring; this weekend the radio feed wasn't working at the start of the KFUO broadcast; then the elevator got stuck between floors with orchestra musicians inside. I take sick--the hounds of hell arrive.

My lay-in-bed-with-the-flu reading turned to Terry Teachout's splendid biography of Louis Armstrong, Pops. I went through the index the other day to see if there was a mention of Andre Previn that I could post here, Previn being a fine jazzman, but no such luck.

I've been out of commission with some sort of nasty flu bug, so there have been no posts and no video blog. I've also been unable to find out if Andre Previn has recognized the son of his former baton maker, who is now a 57-year-old bald viola player in the SLSO. As Chris Woehr wrote when he made this weekend's program one of his Musician Picks:

An SLSO fan had tweeted that a stagehand (or Henchman, as we say with love on the slso blog) had fallen off the stage during the arduous Bartók stage change on Friday night, and had received a round of applause from the audience for his efforts. (The SLSO performed a special "Corporate Partners Appreciation Concert" Friday night.)

I was down with a bit of a bug earlier this week, and as sometimes happens when I'm laying in bed on a cloudy day and not capable of doing much else, I thought about culture, and how culture moves.

Amy Kaiser, Saint Louis Symphony Chorus director, sent in a clarification to clearly identify the beautiful voices that were singing in Wednesday's rehearsal:

Meredith Monk's appearance in St. Louis has gained attention both locally and nationally with mentions in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Riverfront Times, and she'll be on KWMU's Cityscape Friday morning and on KFUO's intermission interview with David Robertson and Ron Klemm Saturday night. And, Alex Ross gives her a shout out in Unquiet Thoughts.

With March Madness imminent, it's only appropriate that the SLSO play in Columbia Tuesday night, offering the Mizzou Tiger fans the precision and elegance of Stravinsky and Mozart to appease their roundball hungry hearts. For what else in sports has quite the precision and elegance of the 64-team bracket?

On just about every night that David Robertson conducts the SLSO, he has a piece of the famous (or should be famous) flourless chocolate cake that is available at the pastry table in the foyer. It comes from Truffes, created by the master baker Helen Fletcher. While I was waiting in line for a piece of that cake one time, a woman told me that she was from Austria, and whenever she was in St. Louis and took in an SLSO concert, she made a point of getting that cake. Austrians know their cake. I don't know too many people who can eat a single piece by themselves, except maybe an Austrian. And, of course, David.

In this week's video blog, Chris Woehr praises youth orchestras, Stephen Lange dispraises the classic rock band Chicago, and the SLSO rehearses a Mars attack.

My favorite David Robertson directive to the orchestra during the rehearsal of Stravinsky's Danse concertantes Wednesday morning: "Could you be slightly more mindless in the way you're playing?"

A member of the Saint Louis Symphony Chorus, who shall be identified as the SLS Chorus mole for this post, sent in this report:

Dare I say it? It is starting to feel a little bit like spring is a possibility this year. And if you're feeling it too and you can afford the gas--time for a road trip!

In the seventh-floor conference room there is an easel with a large tablet with many pages for people to draw graphs and charts and such so that they can impress others in meetings. The seventh-floor conference room also serves as a dressing room for guest artists, especially when we have an array of vocalists as we did last weekend for Mozart's Requiem. I know, it looks like a great big hall from the outside, but inside we are always scratching for space.