Posts Tagged: Classical Music

A New Season

Well, it’s official: I’m a music director again. A full-time conductor at the helm of a performing organization. It’s a group in Seattle (well, two groups in one) called Orchestra Seattle and the Seattle Chamber Singers, an august institution fifty years in the making.

And what’s more, I’m extremely happy about it, though it was not obvious to me that I would again endeavor to fill such a role. For the past two years, I’ve been living the life of a full-time composer/orchestrator and a very part-time conductor. Before that I’d been a music director, an assistant conductor, and a music teacher, mostly all at the same time, and after five years of that, I thought it was time to focus on my composing career (writing / recording / promoting my own music, conducting and performing it, serving as a guest clinician, etc.)

But then this job came open, and it seemed like such an ideal match for my talents and goals that I couldn’t wait to pursue it. And it’s turned out to be true. OSSCS combines the best aspects of a professional, youth, and community groups. Its players and singers take their music-making very seriously and they operate at a pace that keeps things interesting but allows them to go deep into the music.

Programming-wise, it’s a kid in a candy shop situation for me; with a chorus and an orchestra that concertize together as one, the sky’s the limit. I can program a single concert with oratorio, a cappella, symphonic, concertant, and chamber music. It’s about making the most compelling music statement possible and expressing Big Ideas.

I wanted to do something really special for my inaugural season, so I’ve decided to present a retrospective of the music of Lili Boulanger. Here’s the season overview, and here’s a video I made laying out the concept and repertoire:

Of course being a music director comes laden with responsibility. A conductor is the focus of a community, a rabbi, a priest, a teacher, but also a scholar, and a dancer, and a performer. The best ones find a way to be simultaneously a celebrity hovering in the clouds and a mensch walking upon the earth.

A composer, on the other hand, is a kook living alone on an island who crafts meticulous messages and places them in delicate bottles and throws them into a vast, chaotic ocean. It’s a monk-like existence where you can live inside the sound world of your own imagination and not talk to another person for days at a time.

What I’ve found is that I need a little of both if I’m going to stay sane, and that’s why I’m so in love with this job. It roots me in an open-hearted musical community full of artistic possibility, while still allowing me to pursue the composing life of my inner weirdo. I consider myself awfully lucky to be in this situation and I can’t wait to get started.

 

Great Moments in Classical Music Cinematography

Lots of blog space has been devoted to the various horrors of classical music LP and CD cover art.  But methinks a great deal of plumbing is left to do in the world of video!

1. Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1
Alexis Weissenberg, pianist; Herbert von Karajan, conductor

Let’s start with this chestnut from Herbert von Karajan, an entertainment dynamo whose vast ego pushed him to ever more creative, and ludicrous, video projects.  It’s moments like this that have made his an ever-reliable name in the cringe department:

The color scheme, the obvious miming on the part of the musicians, the irreverent placement of wind players, the great “action shot” literally coming from the piano’s action with no discernable movement from the hammers: it’s a veritable smorgasbord of delights.  [Not to mention that 2:10 – 2:20ish makes a very convincing case for filming classical music performances in 3D!]

2. Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra, mvmt. 4
Lorin Maazel, conductor

So, lot to pick apart here.  First, there’s the fact that Maestro Maazel seems to be communicating with his home planet during the opening 10 seconds of this clip.  Then there’s his utterly unique solution to the tricky meter transition right around 2:19. [By the way, let me just interrupt here and say that one often hears about Loren Maazel being a conductor with a flawless technique.  I mean, 4rlz?  My sneaking suspicion is that the original source for this popular opinion is none other than… Lorin Maazel.  I’m not saying that he’s a bad conductor AT ALL… or am I?]

Then of course there’s all the camera spinning, the gong action, the trombones, etc…

3. Beethoven, Egmont Overture
Sergiu Celibidache, conductor

OK, so I’ll finish this installment with a little gem that first came to my attention via one of those “The Art of Conducting” VHSs that I used to watch like 10 times a day when I was in high school.  A very young Celibidache conducting Beethoven’s “Egmont”:

There’s no fancy camera work here, but there is some amazing editing (I mean, come on, 7:13? Srsly u guys?) and the fact that Celibidache’s hair looks like it was spring loaded by the special effects department.  And then there’s that set, which, what exactly is it?  Might it be a discarded “Lion’s Den” from a production of Der Freischütz.  For a nation destroyed by war, trying to reclaim its international reputation by means of its illustrious artistic tradition, this was an… interesting choice.