SLSO Blog

"Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea." -- Robert Rauschenberg, 1925-2008

With the orchestra and conductor Stephen Lord on stage for a rehearsal of Tales of Hoffmann -- the season premiere for Opera Theatre of St. Louis -- this morning, in the Green Room I spied the most curious sight: Mike Lynch and two Henchmen and percussionist John Kasica putting together some metal tubing to create a rectangular, three-tiered structure. Once the structure was solidly in place it was time for the ceremonial hanging of the Japanese gongs for Madame Butterfly. Each gong is set at a different pitch, and under John's directions, the Henchmen hanged each in its appropriate place.

For those of you who were unable to attend the sold out Carmina Burana concerts this past week, I can now inform you of the mystery effect that was part of Christopher Theofanidis' Rainbow Body. As the work moves toward its mesmerizing, shimmering, harmonically convergent finale, from those musicians who aren't engaged with a mouthpiece comes what has been described as a "beer-hall yell," an exultant whoop to match the ecstatic progression of the music. The story goes that when the London Symphony was first rehearsing the work, the musicians spontaneously made this noise, and upon hearing it, the composer made it forever part of the score. An SLSO fan who had heard the Detroit Symphony perform Rainbow Body, said of the effect: "It's such an obvious, pedestrian sound, but it's so incongruous with the rigidity that I associate with big time orchestras. Even when I figured out what it was, I couldn't believe what was happening. These orchestral string players were (gasp!) shouting?  Don't they know this is a real concert hall? We don't allow that sort of nonsense!"

The other day the man who delivered the Playbills reminisced about his high-school graduation in Powell Hall back in '82. Powell has served as the ceremonial vessel for high-school and college graduations for generations. Today (Friday) Harris-Stowe State University holds its graduation ceremonies at Powell and there will be many others in the coming days.

An SLSO fan writes, in response to the last post on Christopher Theofanidis' Rainbow Body:

"If the mystery effect is what I think it is... that is one of the coolest and most unexpected things I've ever heard an orchestra do. In a Detroit Symphony (conducted by Peter Oundjian [this week's SLSO guest conductor]) performance last summer, I couldn't figure out what it was the first time or two it happened.... Even when I figured out what it was, I couldn't believe what was happening.... I love the piece, just when you think it's going to be a gooey Romantic cheese-ball, [Theofanidis] does something completely unexpected."

I visited the stage after Rainbow Body rehearsal to inquire about a certain effect that I am not going to give away in this post. I think it should be kept a secret and you should be surprised when it happens in performance. Zip. My lips are sealed.

The joke around the stage prior to rehearsal this morning was "Can I play a little softer for you? Am I playing too loud?" This was in response to a front page Post-Dispatch story that appeared Monday about the decibel levels of a symphony orchestra and the long-term effects on musicians.

As you walk along the St. Louis boulevards over the next few weeks, you might happen along a promotion for Casual Classics, the four-concert series in May and June that features summerlike selections by George Gershwin, Vivaldi and Piazzolla, Johann Strauss, Jr., Copland and more. You might see the CC logo stenciled along sidewalks in various locations in downtown St. Louis. My intrepid colleague Dale Fisher went out and took some pics along Washington Avenue. And here they are.

Principal Viola Jonathan Vinocour has some devilishly tricky passages to play in the Stravinsky Concerto in D with some severe bowing demands. He accomplished these, in the morning Coffee Concert, with delightful musicality, as we have come to expect from Jonathan, who joined the SLSO as principal in September. I looked up the Meet the Musician interview we did earlier in the season, because of something he said about his former teacher at the New England Conservatory, Kim Kashkashian: "Through the example of her own playing she inspired creativity with sound color. She really encourages her students to use their imaginations and explore sounds on the instrument. She's very technically minded also, but her way of playing is not cut and dry--what she does is music." Which is a good reflection of how Jonathan played the Stravinsky, what he did was music.

As I've mentioned before, you hear music all over the hall on any given day at any given time: fiddling in the lunch room, a string quartet in the Green Room, brass warming up in the boiler room. This morning I heard some sizzling violin playing coming from, of all places, the conductor suite. And then I remembered that our guest violinist is also our guest conductor this week, Leonidas Kavakos.