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Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concert’ reprised Feb. 28
Last year, it was beyond standing room only when Austin Chamber Music Center hooked up with Huston-Tillotson University choirs and other performers in a rousing performance of Duke Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concert.’
People filled the aisles and even stood out in the hall of HTU’s King Seabrook Chapel last year as the choirs, jazz orchestra, soloists and an accompanying tap dancer made Ellington’s oratorio mighty.
Now, ACMC and Huston-Tillotson is reprising the concert at 3 p.m. Feb. 28, once again in King Seabrook Chapel on the HTU campus at E. Seventh St. and Chicon.
The concert is free. Seating is first-come, first-served. Early arrival is advisable if you want a space.
Ellington wrote three massiive works he called ‘Sacred Concerts, sprawling collections of songs and suites that blend gospel music with jazz, classical music, spirituals, blues, choral music and even dance and oratory. They were performed in cathedrals and churches during the last decade of his life, including 1973 in London’s Westminster Abbey.
Read more about last year’s joint performance with ACMC and HTU.
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Review: Golden Hornet Project: Symphony VI
If alt classical music presenters Golden Hornet Project accomplished nothing else Saturday night at two sold-out concerts at Austin Ventures Studio Theatre, the group made clear that their raison d’etre is relevant: Audiences are hungry for new composed music - or new classical music. And if you offer it in an accessible manner, they’ll be there to listen.
And listen eagerly and appreciatively the audience did as GHP co-artistic directors Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski debuted their respective sixth symphonies, each written for string orchestra.
To add a little context to their alt classical genre-less starting point, Reynolds and Stopschinski added ‘Popcorn Superhet Receiver’ to finish the program, a two-movement symphonic work by Jonny Greenwood, BBC composer-in-residence and leadman of alt rock band Radiohead.
And the audience got it — the alt classical context, the sense of occasion of new music being debuted, the energetic yet unassuming vibe that both Austin composers project.
And the audience loved it: the energy in the room was palpable.
At times, though, that rawboned energy got the best of the orchestra, leaving spots in all three pieces in messy, if breathless, disarray. Conductor Ludek Drizhal did his best to corral the energy and maintain focus with each piece’s singular, and volatile, musicality.
Reynolds’ ‘The Difference Engine’ was triple concerto in five movements for violin (Leah Zeger), cello (Jonathan Dexter) and Reynolds on piano. Reynolds’ packed ‘Difference’ with his signature musical devices: plaintive melodies, charging rhythms, percussive splashes that were realized in Reynolds playing the piano strings with mallets and a few hyper-virtuosic solos (this time mostly for violin). Reynolds maintains something of a narrative thread through even his most varied works, a thread for the listener to make their way through even some of the most rapid-fire musical routes.
Stopschinski’s ‘Rough Night With Happy Ending’ traded on lots of harmonic and rhythmic complexities to terrific effect. Dark yet melodic colorations strode on top; a little rough scratching and other instrumental noise-making percolated throughout. Toying even further, Stopschinksi placed the violin section on both sides of the orchestra to simulate an echo. It was Surround Sound, the non-electronic version if you will. Though a mash-up of many things, ‘Rough Night’ made all its experiments rewarding.
Greenwood’s ‘Popcorn’ also aims to imitate electronic sound with unplugged instruments, riffing on the whooshing white noise that radio emits as a signal scoots up and down the dial. But at Friday’s first show, not all of the discrete glissandos and slow explorations of almost atonal clusters manifested as clearly as they could have which left Greenwood’s piece bereft of its clarity.
It’s a challenge of brand new compositions — the energy they demand. But it’s a challenge Austin musicians and audiences are clearly eager to take on.
Photo: Peter Stopschinski (foreground) with conductor Ludek Drizhal. Photo by Callie Richmond.
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Review: ‘John & Jen’
Penfold Theatre distinguished itself last year, surprising Austin theater-goers with ‘The Last Five Years,’ a one-act, two character musical. The production garnered Penfold, and Michael McKelvey, the show’s director, rave reviews and several nominations from the Austin Critics’ Table.
Now, McKelvey and Penfold bring us ‘John & Jen’ another modern chamber musical at the Hideout Theatre.
With music by Andrew Lippa and lyrics Tom Greenwald ‘John & Jen’ charts the story of two siblings growing up against the shifting American political landscape as the conservative 1950s gives way to the liberal, volatile 1960s.
Backed by a trio of piano, cello and percussion (in the tiny Hideout the musicians were shoehorned backstage revealed only partially through a gap in the stage set wall), Andrew Cannata and Sarah Gay had enormous tasks in shouldering the entire two-act sung-through musical. They also had to convincingly play their characters as children, teens and adults which they did with composure.
Jen leaves her younger brother along to survive in their stifling, repressive household when heads to college and the hippy lifestyle. John later heads to Vietnam. In Act Two, Jen is single mother struggling to raise a son, not uncoincendentally named for her brother.
If the plot of this two-actor three-character rapidly moving show is rather sentimental and predictable, McKelvey’s production nevertheless remains sharp and compelling.
Perhaps that’s because McKelvey know what makes the intimate chamber musical mode work to its best: a combination of energy and straightforwardness.
Simple staging and lighting enhanced but didn’t interfere with the rapidly changing moods of a story that veritably rockets through the years.
Cannata’s fairly relaxed tenor has good tone and when he hit the open phrases, he unleashed a Broadway-style boom - impressive, but almost overwhelming for this small-scaled show. Gay has the more emotionally complex and challenging role to sing which she mostly handled with grace.
Small is good when it comes to musicals, despite the typical penchant for the spectacle. And in the hands of a good director, small proves surprising and convincing.
‘John & Jen’
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 5 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 21
The Hideout Theatre, 617 Congress Ave.
$10-$20
www.penfoldtheatre.org
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Arrivederci Petrobelli Altarpiece, hello ‘Desire’
It took art historians 200 years — and a good measure of serendipity — to put reconstruct the Petrobelli Altarpiece after the gorgeous 16th-century massive canvas by Renaissance master artist Paolo Veronese was chopped apart in 1788 when the Northern Italian church it was created for was destroyed.
And Sunday is the last day we’ll have to see the Petrobelli Altarpiece at UT’s Blanton Museum of Art. Actually it’s the last chance we’ll ever have to see the reconstructed monumental painting.
On a visit to the Blanton in 2006, British scholar Xavier Salomon realized that a small Veronese painting of St. Michael from the Blanton’s Suida-Manning Collection was actually a missing piece of the Petrobelli Altarpiece.
Salomon’s discovery led to the unique reconstruction of the fragments of the Petrobelli Altarpiece.
And when the exhibit closes Sunday, the fragments will go back to their respective homes at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, which also hosted the exhibit, and to the National Gallery of Scotland.
So this is the last chance, ever, you’ll see the Petrobelli Altarpiece as a whole. Get to the Blanton!
And read the full art history mystery story here.
While you’re at the Blanton this weekend you can also catch the first weekend of ‘Desire’ the intriguing new exhibit featuring more than 50 works in all media from the likes of Bill Viola, Glenn Ligon, Mairly Minter, Isaac Juilien and many others. ‘Desire’ examines desire in its myriad creative manifestations.
On Saturday at 2 p.m., join Ligon and Minter in the Blanton auditorium for a talk moderated by ‘Desire’ curator, Annette DiMeo Carlozzi.
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Two new symphonies, with a little help from Radiohead, make their debut
It’s not easy for a genre-blurring musician in a genre-focused music industry. When it’s simpler for the music biz to sell its cultural product in neat categories, any music that bridges or blurs those market-described categories often gets left behind.
Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski know that all too well. The pair of genre-defying Austin composers, well-known to arts audiences for their myriad collaborations with theater and dance productions, will debut their respective sixth symphonies on Saturday at Austin Ventures Studio Theater inside Ballet Austin’s downtown headquarters.
Read the rest of the story here.
Preview the music:
- Graham Reynolds: ‘The Difference Engine’, Movement 2: Ada
- Peter Stopschinski: ‘Rough Night with Happy Ending’, Movement 4
Photo by Ralph Berrera/Austin American-Statesman.
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Weekend Arts Pix
Today through Sunday
‘Arrhythmia.’<br>
Hip-hop theater artist Zell Miller III debuts his latest performance piece. Through music, slam-style poetry, hip-hop movements, ‘Arrhythmia’ examines love, in all of its ugliness and splendor and political overtones. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays through Feb. 20. Vortex, 2803 Manor Road. $10-$30 sliding scale. 478-5282, www.vortexrep.org.
Friday and Saturday
‘Meg.Anne.Maud.’
Performance artist Meg Sullivan transforms the Off Center theater into a mapped imaginary landscape where the audience will be invited to think about how archives evoke remembrances of things past and how our favorite book characters — for Sullivan it’s Lucy Maud Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables — inhabit our imaginations. 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo St. $7. www.rudemechs.com.
Saturday
‘Black History Month Concert.’
Celebrating works by African American composers, this annual event at UT’s Butler School of Music features traditional spirituals along side works by jazz greats such as Duke Ellington, and classical composers and arrangers Eugene Hancock, Dorothy Rudd Moore, and Moses Hogan. Ensembles and soloists from Huston-Tillotson and UT will perform under the direction of Jeff Hellmer. The concert this year is accepting donations at the door for Haiti relief efforts. 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Bates Recital Hall, Music Building, UT campus.. www.music.utexas.edu.
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Michael Dell’s $100 million purchase of Magnum Photos archive to live at UT — for five years
The University of Texas’ Ransom Center will be home for five years to nearly 200,000 original press photographs taken by the legendary staff of Magnum Photos, the long-standing international agency, the university announced Tuesday.
The Magnum Photos archive was purchased last year by MSD Capital, the $10 billion private investment firm for the family of Michael Dell.
Officials from MSD Capital and Magnum Photos would not disclose the purchase price of the private sale. But UT officials said that the Ransom Center insured the collection for $100 million.
The Magnum collection contains photographs dating from the 1930s through the 1990s and includes images of major world events, celebrities and startlingly candid shots by famed photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Leonard Freed and Bruce Davidson.
As part of the arrangement, the Ransom Center has agreed to catalog and preserve the entire photo archive as well as host exhibitions and public programs. The Ransom Center will also make digital scans of every image. However, the cost to UT and the Ransom Center for the Magnum archive’s care and cataloging has not been determined, said Ransom Center spokeswoman Jen Tisdale.
Magnum and its photographers retain the copyright and licensing rights to the images. Dell’s MSD Capital will retain ownership of the photographs.
A spokesman for MSD Capital said that both the investment firm and Magnum Photos are making financial contributions to the Ransom Center to support the care and archiving of the collection, but he would not disclose the amount of those donations.
Cataloging, digitizing and publicly exhibiting an archive ultimately adds to its value.
The agreement between the Ransom Center, Magnum Photos and MSD Capital comes as the university is facing budget cuts including the controversial move to shut down the Cactus Cafe and cancel the UT informal classes program.
With the purchase of the Magnum archive, Dell himself joins an exclusive club of high-tech titans who have purchased important photography collections. In 1995, Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates, through his privately owned digital stock photo company Corbis Corp., purchased the Bettmann Archive, a collection of some 19 million prints assembled by German collector Otto Bettman.
And this is not the first time that MSD Capital and its members have gotten involved in the art market.
Co-managing partners Glenn R. Fuhrman and John C. Phelan both collect contemporary art.
Fuhrman’s Flag Art Foundation in New York — which presents exhibits of contemporary art — co-produced a recent exhibit at Austin’s Lora Reynolds Gallery that featured the work of Noriko Ambe.
The Flag Foundation’s next exhibit for its Chelsea gallery? ‘Size Does Matter,’ a show curated by basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal.
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Review: Tim Miller’s ‘Lay of the Land’
When solo performer Tim Miller takes the stage, it seems like he can’t breathe. When Miller shifts into his performance persona, he always seems to be gasping for air.
The acting choice alternates between producing a sense of anxiety or exasperation as Miller’s streaming delivery goes on a journey through his take on what it means—and more importantly—how it feels to be queer in the US.
In Miller’s newest piece “Lay of the Land,” Saturday at Vortex, Miller targets his exasperation toward the ongoing battle over same-sex marriage. As is always true with Miller’s shows, the mix of comedy, pain and exuberant politics produces an unsettling mixture of empathy and indictment. “Lay of the Land” asks the now perhaps old, but still true feminist question: how do personal stories become political? And how do political decisions affect individual people trying to love each other and live together?
“Lay of the Land” focuses most directly on Miller’s experience in one the Californian same-sex couples able to marry during five months in the summer of 2008. But the show’s structure allows Miller to cover a huge swath of topics. “Lay of the Land” follows Miller’s participation in November 15 protests following the California Prop 8 anti-gay marriage vote.
Popping in and out of his role as activist in the street, Miller recalls vignettes from his life as a queer man. Perhaps the most intense recounts a harrowing moment as Miller’s father stood over his nine-year-old son, preparing to do an emergency tracheotomy on the kitchen table to remove chuck steak stuck in Miller’s throat
In one of many examples of the play’s web like writing, Miller relates the moment to his childhood hatred of baseball games—he saw the stadium as a tool for fathers to masculinize their gay sons—and Miller uses the steak as launching pad to discuss the queer issues, as he says, stuck in the throat of the nation. The many-tentacled writing can be dizzying to follow, but it’s fascinating in its scope.
Reflecting “Lay of the Land’s” title, Miller offers a stunningly broad view of the place of queer Americans in the national landscape. From an ode to Iowa — the state Miller calls the freest of the free after its 2009 unanimous State Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex marriage—to his queer ode to state university mascots, Miller surveys the variety of American positions on gay and lesbian issues in even the most unlikely of places. After seeing “Lay of the Land,” no audience member will ever look at the University of Wisconsin’s hyper-muscular Bucky the Badger the same way again.
“Lay of the Land” is unabashedly political. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Miller’s positions, it would be nearly impossible to remain conscious through this show and not rethink gay rights in the US. And it would be impossible to sleep while Miller gasps and entertains.
Kudos to the Vortex for their long-time commitment to bringing this important artist back to Austin again and again.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
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Magnum photos to reside at UT
The University of Texas’s Ransom Center will be home for five years to some 200,000 original press photographs taken by the legendary photographers of Magnum Photos, the long-standing international photo agency.
The Magnum archive — which was purchased last year by MSD Capital, the private investment firm for the family of Michael S. Dell — will be housed at the Ransom Center for five years for exhibition and study. It is the first time the Magnum archive will be available to the public.
The collection contains photographs dating from the 1930s and include images of major world events, celebrities and starling candid images by photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Elliott Erwitt, Leonard Freed and Bruce Davidson among many others.
Magnum, founded in 1947, is owned and managed cooperatively by its member photographers. Magnum continues to provide photographs to the media, publishers and advertising agencies.
The New York Times reported that the Ransom Center had insured the collection for more than $100 million.
As part of its agreement with Magnum and MSD Capital, the Ransom Center has agreed to catalog and preserve the entire photo archive. The Ransom Center will also make digital scans of every image.
The Magnum archive joins other important photography collections at UT including the Gernsheim Collection which includes the world first photograph made by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826.
Photo: Bob Adelman. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during his “I Have A Dream” speech, 1963. Copyright: Bob Adelman/Magnum Photos
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Q-and-A with Anne Akiko Meyers, violinist
Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers burst onto the international concert stage when she was just 11 years old. Now, the California native is a sought after soloist with a busy schedule of concerts around the globe.
Meyers is also a new member of the faculty at the University of Texas Butler School of Music.
On Sunday, she gives her first recital since moving to Austin, with Anton Nel at the piano at UT’s Bates Recital Hall at 4 p.m. See www.music.utexas.edu for ticket information.
A-AS: How did you select the program you’ll be playing?
Anne Akiko Meyers: I programmed Schnittke, Beethoven, Vernon Duke, Gershwin and this amazing premiere by Jakub Ciupinski with several things in mind. I love how Schnittke took classical themes and sacred music such as ‘Silent Night’ and put such an ironical twist on it. Usually music like that can be so overdone but when you hear his music, he spins everything very subtlety on it’s head and ends up making a very dramatic original statement. That originalality is uncanny and very brilliant. There is also a seasonal thread through the program with me visiting spring in the Beethoven ‘Spring’ Sonata, summer with the Gershwin, autumn via Vernon Duke and winter with the Schnittke. The premiere by Jakub Ciupinski is with electronics. This is a first for me, exploring the rich tapestries of a musical universe using a recording to accompany the solo violin.
AA-S: You started your career at a preciously young age. What kind of career advice do you give your college-age students at UT?
Meyers: Yes, I began my career at a very young age and relished every bit of it! Everybody’s development is very different and most my students have no desire to be soloists. Being a soloist must start at a very young age and by the time one is in college, that choice should have been made much earlier in one’s life. I think it is very important to be honest with one’s abilities in order to focus on learning and making the most of one’s talents and capabilities. This way, the path is clear to make plans with one’s life and hopefully make an impact with the environment around you.
AA-S: You’re new to town. What are some your favorite places in Austin?
Meyers: Being that I travel so much, my favorite place to be in Austin is at home. I love being able to sleep in my own bed, crawl to the kitchen and serve myself loads of ice cream. Other places I love visiting are Mount Bonnell, Zilker Park, the shops and restaurants at the Domain, Whole Foods and the Milk and Honey Spa. I seem to spend a lot of time on Research Blvd. as well!
Anne Akiko Meyers
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Bates Recital Hall, Music Building, UT campus
Tickets: $10-$20
Information: 471-5401, www.music.utexas.edu
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Arthouse goes viral with a micro-giving campaign
In a clever move perfectly in sync with not only our recessionary economy but also our Twitter-happy Internet-based times, Arthouse, the Congress Avenue contemporary arts center, has launched a micro-giving campaign that’s being worked entirely via Twitter and email.
The ‘I Heart Arthouse’ campaign launched today seeking $5 donations from 2,000 people. Appeals are being sent via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook and by email lists.
Arthouse is currently in the midst of a major $6.6 million renovation to its downtown Austin home. More than $5 million has already been raised. Arthouse is set to re-open in late October.
Through Arthouse has big dollar donors, it also has a large audience of younger art patrons as well as artists themselves who love the free exhibits and programs Arthouse offers. Hence the month-long micro-giving campaign makes sense. No costly direct mail campaigns or expensive special events. Just a virtual passing-of-the-hat asking for a modest sum.
And that’s smart.
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Blanton Museum re-organizes management staff
After seven months on the job, new Blanton Museum of Art director Ned Rifkin has re-organized some of the senior staff.
Said Rifkin: “When I arrived, the Blanton had vacancies in a few important areas: museum education, Latin American art, and then, most recently, administration. My decision to create two deputy director positions to be filled by current talented and qualified staff members was an obvious move.”
Here’s a run down from a release sent over the weekend:
- Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, curator of American and contemporary art and also director of curatorial affairs, will become the Deputy Director for Art and Programs, and will oversee curatorial, education and collection management areas of the museum.
- Simone Wicha, director of development, will become Deputy Director for External Affairs and Operations, supervising fundraising, membership, communications, admissions, the cafe and museum store, as well as other financial and operational aspects of the museum.
- Jonathan Bober, who for more than 20 years served as both curator of prints and drawings and also curator of European paintings, will now focus primarily on works of European art, including works on paper. Multiple curators, according to their specific expertise and research areas, will now oversee works on paper.
- Ursula Davila-Villa, interim curator of Latin American art will be promoted to associate curator of Latin American Art.
- Sue Ellen Jeffers, registrar will become manager of collections, overseeing all art handling and preparation within the museum. Meredith Sutton, associate registrar, will become the registrar.
Carlozzi’s promotion means that the Blanton will soon be seeking a curator in the area of modern and contemporary art once they get the go-ahead from UT administration.
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Review: Austin Lyric Opera’s ‘The Star’
Combine a zany plot propelled by wacky characters, charming music laced with witty dialogue and a mad world made into a visually arresting mod funhouse and you have the utterly entertaining production of Emmanuel Chabrier’s ‘The Star,’ now getting a turn by Austin Lyric Opera at the Long Center.
Only now recognized for its brilliant goofiness after a century in obscurity, Chabrier’s 1877 opera bouffe is a sparkling confection — a bon bon for the opera connoisseur in this impressive, inventively-designed production by New York City Opera and Glimmerglass Opera.
And yet, with its mix of dialogue and singing — and thanks to some very clever direction by Alain Gauthier and droll dance moves by choreographer Jeff Michael Rebudal - this version of ‘The Star’ is also pure delight for any opera novice or musical theater aficianando.
Superbly conducted by Richard Buckley, who brilliantly extracted the lyrical wittiness in Chabrier’s exquisite score, ‘The Star’ is an opera bouffe that gently satirizes opera itself.
In this comic confection, King Ouf the First (tenor Jean-Paul Fouchecourt) scours his kingdom to find a subject to impale — a public execution, after all, being Ouf’s favorite birthday celebration. But unluckily, Ouf chooses a young peddler Lazuli (mezzo-soprano Deborah Domanski), whose star, the king’s astrologer, Siroco (basso buffo Kevin Glavin), reveals, is linked to Ouf’s.
And the problem? If Lazuli dies the king will die a day later — and Siroco 15 minutes after that. To complicate things, Lazuli falls in love with Ouf’s fiancée, Princess Laoula (soprano Nili Riemer)
After that, well, the plot spins comically out-of-control.
As Ouf, Fouchecourt is a remarkably gifted comic actor and sang with terrific lyricism. Domanski did well in the classic trouser role, all gangly moves capped by a sweet tone. Riemer impressed as Laoula. But it was the ensemble together in comic play that impressed the most.
So did the crazy yet stylish sets and costumes. Set designer Andrew Lieberman and costumer Constance Hoffman created a world where characters clad in saturated hues stood out against bright white surfaces and curving funhouse mirrors. Costume silhouettes are part period Toulouse-Lautrec, part animated Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Characters rode goofily adorned scooters on and off the stage. Ouf’s throne is giant, inflatable and yellow.
Special props have to go to the chorus who not only sang well but managing the abundant comic choreography with aplomb.
For a relatively young regional company, Austin Lyric Opera has made many a sophisticated gestures itself in its almost 25 years through tackling challenging contemporary repertoire, staging productions in non-traditional venue and premiering new operas.
Now, ALO demonstrates its sophistication again by joining the strata of international opera presenters who are smartly resurrecting forgotten jewels of the repertoire.
‘The Star’ continues at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3 and 5 and 3 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Long Center. $29-$133. www.austinlyricopera.org
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No Grammy for Conspirare, but cheers at the ceremony
No Grammy this year for five-time nominated choir Austin Conspirare.
But we did hear audible cheers and hollers in the audience when Conspirare and artistic director Craig Hella Johnson were named. Johnson is at the awards with a contingent of family, friends and Conspirare supporters.
The Grammy’s pre-telecast show is being Web-cast live at www.grammys.com/live with Aretha Franklin hosting the classical awards.
Conspirare was nominated in the Best Classical Crossover Album for ‘A Company Of Voices: Conspirare In Concert,’ recorded live at the Long Center for the Performing Arts and released on the Harmonia Mundi label. It’s the fifth nomination for the non-profit organization.
The winner of the Best Classical Crossover Album was ‘Yo-Yo Ma & Friends: Songs Of Joy And Peace’ (Sony).
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Review: Headlong Dance Theatre
It’s hard to have a dinner party when some guests insist on pretending to be horses. That’s not definitely the tension at the heart of Headlong Dance Theatre’s “More,” but it could be. The delightful dance, a collaboration between the Philadelphia dance company and choreographer Tere O’Connor at the Long Center Friday, exploits dance’s most interesting quality: the form’s poetic porousness. With the coupling of O’Connor’s high concept approach to choreography and Headlong’s wit, “More” offers the audience a chance to revel in the gaps between knowing.
Who knows what “More” is “about.” It doesn’t matter. Dancers neigh and paw like hyper horses. Furniture suggests a suburban parlor gathering. The pieces don’t necessarily add up, but they do seem to serve a larger structure. I did not know what was going on. But I was not lost.
Headlong and O’Connor approach everyday, mundane aspects of performance with precision. A brilliant blue vinyl couch, an Oriental rug and a microwave are among the items that create the work’s domestic atmosphere. Somehow when they’re moved into a giant junk pile and lit with a soft white light, the ordinary becomes beautiful, yet still haunted by functionality. Earlier when the furniture is still set up like a living room, dancers enter with several large trees. Once the dancers insert the trees into the existing set so that limbs and leaves cover huge swaths of the stage, the effect is beautiful. Then there’s the last Headlong touch: Nicole Canuso sits, her face now obscured by a limb, adding a witty wink to the lovely landscape.
Precision drives the dancers’ performances, too. Their partnering of flat affect with exact, unison series of tiny gestures produces a quirky juxtaposition that never grows tiring. What could be excessive repetition is fascinating. Dancer Devynn Emory has a special gift for pairing muted, but not vacant facial expression with total body engagement.
I’d describe how Emery’s final horse dance ended the show with another moment of beautiful humor, but then I’d rob future viewers of another moment of “More’s” pleasurable confusion.
The show continues tonight at 8 p.m. at the Long Center.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
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For a third time, Conspirare heads to the Grammy Awards
For a third time, Austin-based choir Conspirare is headed to the Grammy Awards.
That’s a remarkable feat: Conspirare is the only Austin classical music group to ever be singled out so repeatedly by the industry. And to boot, Conspirare is a non-profit organization that only started year-round programming in 1999 and has a current annual budget in the $1.3 million range. Their artistic achievements are nothing short of outstanding.
Conspirare is nominated in the Best Classical Crossover Album for ‘A Company Of Voices: Conspirare In Concert,’ recorded live at the Long Center for the Performing Arts and released on the Harmonia Mundi label.
Last year, the choir, founded and directed by Craig Hella Johnson, netted two Grammy noms for, “Threshold of Night,” also released on Harmonia Mundia. The nominations were for Best Classical Album and Best Choral Choral Performance. “Threshold of Night” featured a song cycle by award-winning young British composer Tarik O’Regan.
And in 2006, Conspirare received two Grammy nominations for the CD “Requiem,” in the categories of Best Choral Performance and Best Engineered Album, Classical.
The classical music categories aren’t part of Sunday’s prime time telecast. But earlier in the afternoon, can follow the results and see a live stream of the ‘other Grammy’s’ here www.grammy.com.
We’ll also be posting the results in this blog and its accompanying Twitter handle, artsinaustin.
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Weekend Arts Pix
fFRIDAY
‘Imagining Mexico: Expressions in Popular Culture.’
The Mexican flag, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and the Mexican Revolution — all regular symbols found in Mexican and popular art. Pulled from public and private collections, a new exhibit assembles an array of art that celebrates Mexico. Reception: 6 to 9 p.m. Friday. Exhibit continues through April 18. Mexic-Arte Museum, 419 Congress Ave. $10. www.mexic-artemuseum.org
Miro Quartet
UT’s string quartet in residence celebrates this year’s Samuel Barber centenary by playing the entire String Quartet, Op. 11 from which Barber’s greatest hit comes — the mesmerizing and oft-played Adagio. Also on the program are Shostakovich’s Two Pieces for String Octet and Schubert’s String Quartet in G. 7:30 p.m. Bates Hall, Music Building, UT campus. $10-$20. www.music.utexas.edu
FRIDAY AND SATURDAY
Headlong Dance Theater’s ‘More.’
Philadelphia-based company brings its 80-minute fiendishly intense dancework that imagines human movement after our bodies have gone away. In a constantly morphing landscape, an all-American house is built, dismantled and built up again while Doris Day songs play. 8 p.m. Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. and Saturday. Rollins Studio Theatre, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive. $14-$18. www.danceumbrella.org.
SATURDAY
‘60 Second Southern Video Festival.’
From the Nashville-based artist collective Fugitive Project comes a collection of one-minute art videos by artists from around the globe. 7 to 10 p.m. Saturday with the 90-minute screening starting at 8 p.m. Co-Lab New Media Project Space, 613 Allen St. Free. www.colabspace.org
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Anybody want some prime gallery space?
After nine years of presenting exhibits in the East Austin arts warehouse known as Flatbed, UT’s Creative Research Laboratory will be moving out in June this year as UT’s art department gets ready to open its new Visual Arts Center next fall.
The VAC will occupy 22,000-square-feet of space left behind in the Art Building when the Blanton Museum of Art got its new building across campus. A new venture for UT’s art department, the VAC will be home to changing exhibits of student and faculty work as well the work of visiting artists. It will also include some badly-needed graduate art student studios as well asa new home for the Mesoamerica Center.
The VAC is hosting an open house this Friday with tours from 6 to 8 p.m. You’ll need to RSVP to the free event. Click here for more info.
In the meantime, Flatbed is looking for a new tenant for the 4,000-square-feet of gallery space CRL is leaving behind. Any takers? It would be great to see an adventurous contemporary art effort take over.
On E. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Flatbed was one of the earlier pioneers to stake out an arts destination in East Austin.
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Review: Austin Chamber Music Center
Concerts by Austin Chamber Music Center never fail to impress. And Saturday night’s program at the First Unitarian Church once again proved that ACMC is one of Austin’s most notable music groups.
Part of what makes ACMC’s programs so appealing is their, well, appealing-ness. There’s none of the classical music exclusivity to the tenor of ACMC’s audience
For starters, pianist ACMC artistic director Michelle Schumann eschews written program notes in favor of informal introductions she gives before each piece — wonderful, friendly short talks that reveal not only clever anecdotes into the composers and their lives, but Schumann’s own intelligent musicological insights
Such short chats seem like such a minor detail, but those chats have a way of prepping the audience as a group, getting them ready to listen, together. A little reaching out to the audience goes a long way in the usually stuffy classical music world.
Which is good because Schumann and ACMC are serious about the type of music presented.
Bucking the big B’s of the repertoire — Bach, Beethoven and Brahms — Schumann opted for chamber music by the R’s: Rossini, Ravel and Rachmaninov.
Schumann along with violinist Teresa Ling and cellist Greg Sauer were locked in a tight embrace for Ravel’s Piano Trio in A, full of energy and ardor for the composer’s colorful ride through myriad, diverse influences: Basque dance, Malaysian poetry, Baroque formalities. Whew.
Dedicated to his mentor, Tchaikovsky, Rachmanivov’s Trio Elegiatique No. 2 is utterly poignant and its sprawling length makes it more than reminiscent of the composer’s symphonic music for which he is much better known. Schumann brought her laser-like emotional committment to the virtuosic piano writing together the trio shoulder the weighty mournfulness with considerable inspiration.
Sauer opened the evening’s program with a cello transcription of Variations on One String on a Theme by Rossini, a rollicking virtuosic delight that he played with aplomb.
Yes, chamber music can be fun.
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Tonight: Arthouse Visiting Lecturer Series
Tonight, the Arthouse Visiting Lecturer Series continues with Hou Hanru, director of exhibitions & public programs and chair of the exhibitions & Museum Studies program at the San Francisco Art Institute. Hanru was also curator of the 2009 Biennale de Lyon.
The lecture is free.
7 p.m. tonight
George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center, Boyd Vance Theatre, 1165 Angelina St,
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Q-and-A with performance artist Tim Miller
Clare Croft, American-Statesman freelance critic, interviews Tim Miller.
Two weeks ago in San Francisco arguments began in the federal trial regarding the constitutionality of Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban of same-sex marriage. This weekend, Austin will hear a slightly less somber challenge to Prop 8: queer performance artist Tim Miller’s one-man show ‘Lay of the Land.’ at the Vortex.
Miller gained national headlines in the early 1990s when he was one four artist performances artists whose NEA grants were yanked by conservative lawmakers intent on curbing their sexually-oriented creative expression. In response to what became known as the culture wars, the NEA — which was nearly abolished in the process — stopped awarding individual grants to artists.
Miller spoke with Statesman about the performance’s timeliness, sexiness and meaning.
American-Statesman: How did the November 2008 vote for Proposition 8 catalyze the creation of ‘Lay of the Land?’
Tim Miller: This piece really began from questioning what it means when your state completely messes with your family—when 52 percent of the voters vote to deny rights to 10 percent of the citizens. It’s a response to this kind of crazy thing: having your neighbors vote to take your rights away.
AAS: You perform ‘Lay of the Land’ with American and California state flags on either side of the stage. Why did you choose those symbols?
TM: They’re clear markers of civic identity. Every high school cafeteria has a state and national flag. Every courthouse. The spaces I tell stories about are almost always public spaces—where individual identity clashes up against national status. I also travel constantly, so if it doesn’t fit in my carry-on bag, it ain’t part of the show.
AAS: Why do you talk about sex so much in your work?
TM: Well, in mainstream representations of gay people on television, it’s pretty much forbidden for sex to even be mentioned. It’s usually just the gay minstrel clown with snappy one-liners. I want to create the images I would say are invisible in mainstream culture: a queer citizen, a queer husband, [and] a queer activist.
AAS: What gives you hope — the drive to keep performing, despite the passage of legislation and referendums with which you disagree?
TM: I was performing at Texas Tech in Lubbock last year and a bunch of ROTC students wanted to talk to me. I thought, ‘Oh, they’re going to mess with me.’ Instead they only wanted my take on how they could be better officers and more effectively dismantle ‘Don’t ask; don’t tell.’ This is a bunch of 21-year-olds in Lubbock wanting to talk to the gay performance artist about dismantling ‘Don’t ask; don’t tell.’ It was so great. My own prejudices were exposed. I had thought the only narrative would be queer bashing, and I was completely wrong. Moments like that are the currency of hope. The story can change. The narrative is not fixed.
‘Lay of the Land’
When: 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday
Where: Vortex, 2307 Manor Road
Cost: $15-$30,
Info: 478-5282, www.vortexrep.org
Photo by Leo Garcia.
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Wow !! Magnum Photos … Will there also be shots of Higgins and the Ferrari ?
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Can’t wait to see them and that Joseph Nicephore Niepce pic.
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