 |
Music •
Biography •
Press Kit •
Randomness •
Lyrics Gigs • Photos • Writing • Fun Stuff • Links • Contact |
Sunday, September 02, 2007 Concert Year in Review September begins a new concert season, and I've been keeping lists of performances I've not only given, but attended for the last seven years. It started when I was interning for an arts presenter and wanted to keep track of what I saw because I went to so many performances (the free tickets were a great job perk). That first season, 00/01, I went to a total of 37 music, theatre, and dance performances. This past season, I made it to 76. Some highlights: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater The Tempest (the Royal Shakespeare Company with Patrick Stewart as Prospero) Vienna Teng Complexions and the Joffrey Ballet Monica del Castillo Second City Chicago and ETC Eurydice (Off-Broadway) Kara Kulpa Swing Gitan Puteri Gunung Ledang (Singapore) Todd Martin Phil Keaggy What performances have you seen in the last year? ^ Top | 7:07 AM | | | 
Thursday, August 30, 2007 Recipe for a Birthday Trip to New York 1 Missed flight due to Bryan's last-minute caulking-the-tub project 2 Bumps from overbooked flights 1 Lost boarding pass 1 Additional night in Chicago 3 Total visits to O'Hare 3 1/2 Days in New York City 1 Cute pet rabbit that doesn't utilize his litter box as much as he should 1 Off-Broadway theatre production (the excellent Eurydice) 1 Free Lincoln Center performance (Kristjan Järvi’s Absolute Ensemble--it was forgettable) 1 Breakdancing performance in the subway near Times Square 2 Visits to Chinatown 3 Trips in search of quality chocolate and/or ice cream 1 Viewing of performance art that was less interesting than the view from a skyscraper (Dean Moss and Ryutaro Mishima) 1 Street performance by Chinese musicians (they were terrible) 38 Photos (the camera battery died) 1 Helping of Birthday Night Birthday Night: 1 Concert in a tiny jazz club/restaurant (Moto) 2 Borrowed birthday candles from the neighboring table 1 Dedication of "Happy Birthday" by paid-off jazz duo 3 Birthdays (at two tables!) in the same night at a jazz club that holds less than 25 people Throw all ingredients except Birthday Night into a weekend and mix until just blended. Frost with Birthday Night. Serve warm. Sure to please singer-songwriters! ^ Top | 6:29 AM | | |
Thursday, June 14, 2007 Hello my friend, we meet again. Yes, it's been the longest absence this blog has ever experienced. I apologize. We're now back in business, and I promise not to lapse so severely again. Here are some highlights from the last few weeks:
Labels: blogging, concerts, musicians, swing dancing, teaching ^ Top | 11:52 PM | | |
Saturday, March 31, 2007 Alvin Ailey, or Hearing Your Recorded Voice in a 4000-Seat Auditorium Last Thursday I was privileged to see one of my favorite dance companies at the beginning of their Chicago residency--Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is one of the best modern companies in the US and easily the world. They have a tendency to eschew sets for elegant lighting that puts the focus on their dancers, rather than on any technical aspects of production, and their pieces tend to be both artistic and accessible. The night opened with "Grace" by Ronald K. Brown. I saw Brown's company, Evidence, years ago and thought the company was mediocre--but the choreography here was simply beautiful, and combined with Ailey dancers the result was, in a word, explosive. The piece started with the spotlight on a solo female dancer in white and moved to contrasts between red- and white-clad dancers. Lord, oh Lord above / God of heaven, Lord of love / Please look down and see my people through. Arrangements of Ellington's "Come Sunday" wove themselves through the work, and days later I still have the melody in my head. It's rare too when a piece of art moves me near to tears as I watch a concert; that night the dancers weren't just performing--they were expressing a deep part of themselves and their own struggles. Carmen de Lavallade's "Sweet Bitter Love" focused entirely on another solo dancer--in this case Renee Robinson, who was celebrating the amazing feat of dancing with Ailey for 25 years--in a slim, formal gown, obviously longing for her lover. While it was an elegant piece, the movement here was nothing particularly special. Uri Sands's "Existence Without Form" was where things got interesting for me on a personal level--I was admittedly rather distracted throughout the piece, focusing instead on the music and my own performance (a little silly perhaps, since it's far too late to change anything). Composer Christian Matjias recorded my vocal improvisations over his piano work last spring, and it was at once exciting and disconcerting to hear the vocalise filling the auditorium. Christian's music is gorgeous (and while I'm sure it would often fit the Oshkosh pastor's criteria for "good" music, it definitely does make the body "want to dance"). And I liked how my work turned out as well--he juxtaposed a take where I improvised with my lower range in a continuous stream with one where I sang in my upper range and darted in and out of the piano's notes; I was singing duets with myself in a bit of a call-and-response. There's little need to comment on "Revelations," a beautiful work which has been the company's signature piece for years. When I saw Ailey last perform in the 2000/2001 season, I was privileged to see the piece combined with a live gospel choir, but only the final section missed that energy. I left the theatre thinking that I miss collaborating with artists from different disciplines, something I did more often in college--it's nice to take a break from the singer-songwriter, folk-pop sound once in a while. Labels: concerts, dance, musicians, performing ^ Top | 11:22 PM | | |
Monday, March 26, 2007 Michigan Travels I find pieces of my parents' house in my brother's. The ceramic dishes, the wok hiding under the stove, the pots on the burners. It's the first time I've been to his place since he moved in, and it feels both immediately familiar and unfamiliar. Familiar because I feel comfortable--it's the bachelor pad of my kid brother, after all, and I don't feel the otherness of a guest even though his friendly roommates refer to me as one--unfamiliar because this is the first house he's lived in without our parents, and though it's been months since he moved to Lansing I hadn't been able to visit until this weekend. I played a show at the cafe down the street. The walls are decorated with brush paintings from a trip to China two years ago, chopsticks from his fellow InterVarsity staff roommate, a jazz poster from his musician roommate, and wallpaper that was fashionable decades ago. The fridge is a relic from the 70s (much like my microwave), but with the retro feel of the house there is a footed tub in the upstairs bathroom that's begging to be photographed or painted. In Ann Arbor I slept in the TV lounge of an all-women's co-op owned by the University of Michigan and remembered what it was like to live in the dorms while walking down the hall to use a communal bathroom with four sinks, three toilets, two showers, and a tub. I walked around my old city with friends I've known for years, surprised to see that the theatre building has been mostly torn down--only a third of it still stands. Its replacement is on North Campus, home of the engineers. I wandered through the Arb and tried to avoid patches of mud on the newly-thawed ground--spring has finally arrived, and just being in the sun, strolling without a jacket, conversing on life plans and theology while surrounded by a carefully sculpted wild landscape, was satisfying. And I played Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution for the first time--an apartment's worth of guys (and me) laughed so hard when Alex belted out tenor notes in a range almost too high for him that he wasn't able to sing from laughing himself. Here I've gotten a snapshot of my brother's life, playing Settlers of Catan with the other IVCF interns, hanging out with his students from Chinese Christian Fellowship, meeting the family that's essentially adopted him as their own (recently the two-year-old daughter spontaneously started calling him "Uncle Ben"). Three concerts, two cities, one brother, and lots of friends. It's been a good trip. Labels: concerts, touring, travel ^ Top | 1:07 AM | | |
Sunday, January 21, 2007 Gretchen Witt It's a tired phrase, but it truly is a small world. I'm often surprised by how interconnected people are. Last night I was privileged to catch one of singer-songwriter Gretchen Witt's performances in Chicago; she's from Brooklyn and just happens to be good friends with Jennifer Haase, another great musician I shared a show with back in September. Lest you think that these connections are due primarily to the (small) size of the folk singer-songwriter scene, I was actually reminded to go to the concert by Jesse, who was merely forwarding an email from one of his friends who said that Gretchen had been her best friend years ago. Did you follow that? ^ Top | 12:33 PM | | |
|
