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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > February
February 2009
Giant mushrooms emerge on Auditorium Shores
Those giant mushrooms that just emerged on Auditorium Shores? They’re not a sign of early spring. They’re a sign that the Texas Biennial is almost here.
The indie artist-run biennial is this time coordinating with the City of Austin’s Art in Public Places program to launch seven temporary outdoor projects. The outdoor projects complement the biennial two group exhibits and four individual shows, spread around town. Check the Texas Biennial web site for complete information.
In all some 73 Texas artists are featured in the Texas Biennial 2009.
Earlier this week, artist Bill Davenport and an assistant began installing “Giant Mushroom Forest” onto its site on the west end of Auditorium Shores.
The temporary outdoor artworks will be on exhibition from March through December, in various central and east parkland locations.
- Ryah Christensen, “Door/Not Door,” sited in parkland bordering the east-side Hike and Bike Trail, just south of Nash Hernandez Road
- Bill Davenport, “Giant Mushroom Forest,” sited in the west end of Auditorium Shores, near the Ladybird Lake Hike and Bike Trail
- Sasha Dela, “Variegated Continuum,” sited at the Mexican-American Cultural Center
- Buster Graybill, “Bait Box,” sited adjacent to the boat launch on the east-side Hike and Bike Trail, just south of Nash Hernandez Road
- Ken Little, “Homeland Security,” sited in the clearing between Doug Sahm Hill in Butler Park and the Palmer Events Center
- Colin McIntyre, “Emergence,” sited on a landscaped mound on the west side of Butler Park, immediately east of the parking lot next to the Dougherty Arts Center
- Jill Pangallo, “Looking Glass,” a free public performance scheduled for 8 pm, March 27th at the Fiesta Gardens Courtyard
Photo courtesy Meghan Turner/AIPP.
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Weekend Arts Pix
Lots of openings and new things to choose from this weekend. And if you don’t already have tix to the Conspirare concerts — Rachmaninov’s Vespers on Saturday and the American gospel program on Sunday — you’re out of luck. Both concerts have been sold-out for over a week.
Here’s the best of what’s new:
TODAY
‘Furniture Landscapes & Oceans of Ink.’ For her digitally based collages, Leslie Mutchler uses catalog imagery from IKEA, Crate & Barrel and other slick bibles of better living to probe the desires behind consumer behavior. Naomi Schlinke uses ink on clay board for her paintings, which evoke sensuous dancelike movement. Opening reception: 6 to 8 p.m. today. Regular gallery hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays. D. Berman Gallery, 1701 Guadalupe St. Free. 477-8877. www.dbermangallery.com.
THURSDAY-SATURDAY
‘Bombs in Your Mouth.’ A hit at the New York Fringe Fest in 2007, Corey Patrick’s darkly comedic compact play is a witty portrait of the love-hate relationship of today’s fractured families. Liz Fischer and Joey Hood star as the distant half-siblings who must sort out their father’s death. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through March 28. Hyde Park Theatre, 411 W. 43rd St. $16-$18. www.hydeparktheatre.org.
SATURDAY AND SUNDAY
‘Women: Voices and Whispers; Crossing Boundaries and Cultures.’ Classical Indian dance choreographer Anuradha Naimpally collaborates with two of Austin’s award-winning choreographers — Toni Bravo and Sharon Marroquin — for a dance theater work inspired by notable female historical figures: a 19th-century Indian warrior princess, St. Teresa de Avila of Spain and French chanteuse Edith Piaf. The show is performed by an ensemble of 24 performers from ages 6 to 84. 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Ballet Austin’s Austin Ventures Studio Theater, 501 W. Third St. $25 premium seating $20 adults, $15 seniors/Students, $10 child. www.austix.com.
SATURDAY
Marcin Dylla. Young Polish classical guitar phenom Dylla won the Guitar Foundation of America’s first prize last year, the most prestigious award on the guitar scene. Now, Austin Classical Guitar Society brings the fast-fingered Dylla to town for a solo concert. 8 p.m. Saturday. Northwest Hills United Methodist Church, 7050 Village Center Drive. $20-$40. 300-2247, www.austinclassicalguitar.org.
SUNDAY
Cage Percussion Players. Thad Anderson and his ensemble thoughtfully channel the early experimenters of the modern percussion ensemble who in the mid-20th century radicalized notions of what music can be. Named in honor of the groundbreaking innovator John Cage’s own group, Anderson and company will play Cage’s Imaginary Landscape No. 2 and Third Construction along with works by William Russell, Lou Harrison and the often over-looked Johanna Beyer, one of the few female early experimental musicians of the 1930s. 2 p.m. Sunday. Bates Recital Hall, Music Building, University of Texas campus. Free. www.cagepercussionplayers.com.
Image: ‘Oceans of Ink,’ Naomi Schlinke. Courtesy D. Berman Gallery.
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Are the Obamas the first family of the arts?
Are the Obamas the first family of the arts?
Since taking office just over a month ago, the first family has already attended a performance by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Kennedy Center for the Arts.
LA Times blog Culture Monster outlines the Obamas arts-going habitats and arts backgrounds. The Obamas seem to make the arts a regular part of their lives. That bodes well for American culture.
By the way, Alivin Ailey American Dance Theater will be here in Austin for two shows at the Bass Concert Hall, March 24 and 25. which means you can see the same show the Obama family did.
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Free opera Saturday, composer Robert X. Rodriguez to boot
Two short operas. Two fantastic tales. And both for free.
On Saturday, Austin Lyric Opera teams up with the University of Texas Butler School of Music to present ‘La Curandera,’ a one-act comic opera by San Antonio-born Robert Xavier Rodriguez, who has composed music deeply rooted in the Hispanic culture of the American Southwest.
Rodriguez will be on hand Saturday to introduce, ‘La Curandera,’ which is based on an original story inspired by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s short opera ‘Bastien and Bastienne,’ which is also on the bill.
Both operas, each about an hour long, will be performed together.
Mozart’s opera follows the story of Bastienne, a shepherdess, who seeks the help of a sorcerer to help her win the love of her desired Bastien.
For ‘La Curandera,’ Rodriguez updated the story, replacing the original sorcerer with a Mexican curandera, or practitioner of folk healing and magic. The troubled lovers of Mozart’s tale become a young American young couple traveling to Mexico looking to overcome obstacles in their relationship.
‘The two operas go together beautifully to provide contrasting looks at the same subject,’ Rodriguez told a reporter soon after ‘La Curandera’ premiered at Opera Colorado in 2006. ‘I even used one of Mozart’s themes and ‘mariachi-ized’ it in my opera.’
Rodriguez’s opera is sung in English with brief dialoge in English and Spanish.
‘I grew up in a world where magic and the interplay between the real and the objective and the unreal and the magic coexisted on a daily basis,’ Rodriguez has said. ‘This has been a way of life in many of the cultures of Hispano-America.’
Mozart’s ‘Bastien and Bastienne’ and Rodriguez’s ‘La Curandera’
When: 3 p.m. Saturday
Where: Mexican American Cultural Center, 600 River St.
Cost: Free
Information: 472-5927, www.austinlyricopera.org
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Ten days til the Texas Biennial
Full of brio and Lone Star chutzpah, the Texas Biennial opens ten days from today — March 6 — with opening receptions for the two group exhibitions.
Los Angeles-based curator and critic Michael Duncan served as the Biennial’s curator, a mighty task which he clearly embraced. And we’re flattered.
In Duncan’s own words:
But while a certain sense of isolation fuels their work, they are hardly oblivious of what’s going on in New York, Berlin, and Los Angeles - as well as Dallas, Austin, and Houston. The state seems newly aware of its own various scenes …
Still, Texas seems largely a self-contained world and that’s what’s good about it.”
“Yellow Line,” Charlotte Smith
“Figure #6,” Jade Walker
“Sideshow,” Jeannette Hernandez
All photos courtesy of the Texas Biennial
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Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concert’ a glorious collaboration
Not a seat was empty Sunday afternoon when Austin Chamber Music Center teamed up with Huston-Tillotson University’s Concert Choir for a joyous version Duke Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concert,’ presented free as the Chamber Music Center’s annual Black History Month concert.
People spilled into the hall of Huston-Tillotson’s King-Seabrook Chapel. And the stage brimmed full too with the Concert Choir, led by soprano Gloria Quinlan, along with a 15-piece big band led by Keith Winking.
Part choral song cycle, part big band concert, part collection of gospel song, Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concert’ is a brilliant musical mashup. The jazz maestro considered it the most important music he had ever written and spent the last decade of his life devoted to it. Actually, there were three versions of the ‘Sacred Concert’ the first presented in 1965, the last in 1973 one year before Ellington’s death.
But because of the sheer scale of the works, versions of the ‘Sacred Concert’ aren’t often performed. Austin Chamber Music Center artistic director Michelle Schumann has been dreaming of presenting Ellington’s sprawling masterpiece for years. She deserves many kudos for pulling together the considerable forces to make it happen — and offer the concert free to the Austin community.
Certainly, Austin loved it on Sunday. The applause started rippling about two songs into the hour-long program that featured nine selections. At times the chorus alternated the spotlight with the big band. Quinlan showed her clear sweet soprano on “Heaven” even if some micing problems left the volume drift. Winking’s whip-smart ensemble piqued during several impressive solos. Trumpeter Curtis Calderon gave sublime swaggering minor-chord swing that nevertheless still rang as a clarion call. (‘Sacred Concert’ was Ellington’s most direct expression of his faith.) Tenor saxophonist Russell Haight offered a nicely nuanced spin on the bluesy, soulful “TGTT (Too Good To Be Titled).”
But what brought the house down was a surprise add to program, phenom tap dancer Jason Janas of Tapestry Dance Company, who blasted out a brilliant tap solo to “David Danced Before the Lord.” Janas’s storm of sound — all loose legs and furious footwork — begat a spontaneous standing ovation.
Good things — glorious music — happen when people collaborate, Sunday’s concert proved. Now, how about an annual Ellington ‘Sacred Concert’ here?
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People’s Choices exhibit winners at Austin City Hall
The people have chosen.
“Buba at Barton Springs” a photograph by artist Roy Mata is the winner of 2008 People’s Choice Award from the annual People’s Gallery exhibit at Austin City Hall. The winner was announced Friday at the opening of the 2009 People’s Gallery exhibit.
‘Buba at Barton Springs,’ Roy Mata. 2003/
Each year, a purchase is made from the People’s Gallery annual exhibition of work by more than 100 Austin artists to build a permanent collection of art for City Hall. Each year, the public is invited to recommend art pieces for the purchase. Mata decided to forego any payment from the city for his artwork which was priced at $100.
And in an interesting development, Zach Booth Simpson interactive video piece “Elevator Goblins” was also elected for the People’s choice. But because of the high price tag of the complex artwork — said to be upwards of $20,000 — the city couldn’t afford to purchase it.
However given that the “Elevator Goblins” was so popular, Simpson offered to loan City Hall “Elevator Dragonflies,” another interactive projection piece that “lives” on the first floor elevator entrance. “Elevator Dragonflies” — which uses infared lights — will be buzzing elevator riders at City Hall for the remainder of 2009.
You can see a video Dragonflies here.

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Review: ‘Heroes’
Don’t go to “Heroes” looking for Tom Stoppard. Although the French play, originally by Gerald Sibleyras, was translated by the writer of “Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead,” it has almost none of his characteristic complications or often bitter wit. And it would be a mistake to miss them. Instead, in Austin Playhouse’s new production, we’re treated to wistful banter and a story about French veterans of World War I looking for a better life than their retirement home.
Within the first few moments of the play, we already know essentially what will happen: Michael Stuart as Henri will capitalize on his hangdog eyes and gentle nature; David Stahl’s Phillipe will drift between paranoia and epileptic flashbacks; and Don Toner’s Gustave will provide a brusque, curmudgeonly counterpoint. Those patterns and personalities play out as the three plan for a getaway—“a commando expedition”—to a hill some miles away where the wind blows through the poplars.
There are other events that happen off stage, but what action there is is constrained to a garden terrace and three old men arguing with each other. What keeps it from becoming “The Odd Trio” is a more measured, paced, and friendly tone to the group’s ribbing. Felix and Oscar have grown up, developed a sense of nostalgia, and found a friend
There is zaniness to be sure, ranging from a canine statue that takes on an imaginary life to physical comedy as the threesome preps for its trip, but it’s always balanced by more heart and pondering than Neil Simon or Stoppard usually managed. There’s a sentimentally that threw me off initially when I was expecting more bite than warmth, but under Lara Toner’s direction, the veterans don’t so much grow so much as grow on you.
Indeed, there isn’t much variation, and that’s the only real problem with the production. The trio’s comic timing is by and large on point, but, by the end, that means you can see more than a few of the laughs coming. It has the effect of building affection, but in the same way you grow to love a grandfather who tells the same jokes over and over again. It can be amusing, comforting, and a little wearying all at once.
Fortunately, the play itself is short and the three never really wear out their welcome, even through an ending that carries the one heavy handed note of symbolism in the play. Instead, we’re left, as after a pleasant visit, with fond memories and good laughs.
(“Heroes” continues Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. through March 15 at The Austin Playhouse, Larry L. King Stage, 3601 S. Congress, Bldg. C. $10-$20. 476-0084, austinplayhouse.com)
Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
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Review: Philip Glass ‘Book of Longing
Philip Glass and his ensemble only had about two-thirds of an audience at the 3,000-seat Bass Concert Hall Saturday night. That’s a departure from years past when the famed composer has usually filled the house for many of his concerts here.
What gives? Is it the recessionary economy? Or is Austin over its infatuation with everything Glass does? Then again, perhaps there just wasn’t much interest in “Book of Longing,” Glass’s musical treatment of poems by Leonard Cohen from Cohen’s volume of the same name.
Though the piece was co-commissioned by the University of Texas’ Performing Arts Center, the ‘Book of Longing’ premiered in 2007 and has toured since then. Both the live show, and the CD, have garnered mixed reviews. (The UT showing of ‘Book of Longing’ was on hold while Bass underwent an 18-month renovation. Bass re-opened in January.)
Glass and Cohen are longtime friends, artistic equals and their work shares essential similarities: Glass builds with essential musical elements repetitive; Cohen also reduces language to its rudiments.
But none of it seemed to gel in Glass’s 22-song series Saturday night, and while likeable, “Book of Longing” seemed ultimately too disparate.
Behind the nine musicians (including Glass and his longtime collaborator, Michael Riesman, both on keyboards) on stage were large images of Cohen’s drawings arrayed on a backdrop with a central video screen showing a constantly changing stream of yet more drawings.
The four vocalists, Broadway regulars, had strong, distinctive voices, alternating solos with quartets and duets. But the bright show-style vocals didn’t mesh with Glass’s mostly minor-chord machinations nor with Cohen’s terse, often humorously absurd lyrics.
Cohen and Glass each had their own solos of a sort. Cohen’s voice was heard on recordings reading some of his shorter poems. And Glass delivered lovely idiomatic solos for several members of the ensemble which provided the true highlights of the evening’s performance.
Cellist Wendy Sutter cello rendered an hauntingly beautiful melody. Saxophonist Andrew Sterman had an appropriately jazz inflected turn. And violinist Gloria Justen evoked a classical concerto.
But inbetween the solos, Glass’s music was at its most formulaic and repetitious. In the end, the individual pieces — the Broadway voices, the broken arpeggios and rhythms of Glass’s distinctive style, the spoken words, the instrumental solos — never melded.
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Review: ‘An Ideal Husband’
Would that Oscar Wilde could be a media pundit for our times. The ultra-clever Victorian wordsmith and incisive observer of human behavior could inject some sorely needed wit and ironic humor into today’s culture of unceasing and shallow chatter.
Alright we can’t resurrect Wilde the man. But we do have Austin Shakespeare’s current smart and charming production of “An Ideal Husband,” Wilde’s comedy of blackmail and political scandal, to enchant us with — and remind us of how timely and relevant Wilde’s criticism of politics and society is today.
A co-production with the University of Texas’ theater program, and directed by Austin Shakespeare artistic director Ann Ciccolella, this “Ideal Husband” snaps thanks to uniformly sharp acting. And played in the round in the Long Center’s Rollins Studio Theatre (the first production to take advantage of the black box theater’s flexibility), Wilde’s intrigue-filled drawing room comedy clips along briskly. And sumptuous period costumes by Abbey Graf aptly suggest the materialistic milieu.
A rising young member of parliament, Sir Robert Chiltern (Mark Scheibmeir) has the ideal career, the ideal adoring wife (Sydney Andrews) and the ideal society ranking in the hyper class-conscious London of the late Victorian era where, just like today, politics is celebrity.
But all of Sir Robert’s social and political eminence is suddenly endangered when the scheming Mrs. Cheveley (Verity Branco) — a mysterious woman from his wife’s past — threatens to blackmail him and expose the youthful act of corruption that leveraged his fortune.
“Everybody turns out to be somebody else,” Wilde’s one-liner filled script quips.
Indeed. The ambitious upstanding Sir Robert isn’t exactly what he seems. And to rescue his career, marriage and social standing he must rely on best friend, Lord Goring (Shaun Patrick Tubbs), a dandy who spends his days dressing fastidiously for one silly social event after the other. Yet for all his foppery and carefree lifestyle, it’s Goring who saves the situation thanks to his supreme understanding of the follies of human nature, particularly the vagaries of love.
Branco makes a devilish icy beauty of the kniving Mrs. Cheveley while Scheibmeir’s Sir Robert is suitably full of a combination supreme self-regard and total naiveté.
But it’s Tubbs, one of five UT graduate student actors in the show, who shines brightest as Goring, combing impeccable comedic timing with a dollop of psychological complexity to make the dandy Goring well-rounded.
“Ambition is unscrupulous always,” Goring observes. Indeed. More than a century after Wilde penned his satire of political ambition, its incisive observations still ring true.
“An Ideal Husband” plays 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 3p.m. Sunday at Rollins Studio Theatre, Long Center, 711 W. Riverside Dr. $20-$32. www.austinshakespeare.org.
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Two weeks til the Texas Biennial
Signs of the Texas Biennial are starting to appear around town. Yesterday Houston artis Sasha Dela began installing her work ‘Veriegated Continuum 2009’ outside the Mexican-American Cultural Center.
Alberto Martinez/AA-S
Dela’s work is one of four projects that are being installed around town in the Biennial’s first foray into public art. The MACC is also host to one of the Biennial’s two group exhibits, “Big Tall Texas Group Show.”
The “Wide Open Texas Group Show” is at Women & Their Work. The opening reception for both shows is 6 to 8 p.m. March 6.
And four artists receive a more considered treatment in individual solo shows at four indie galleries. William Cannings, an English-born sculptor now living in Lubbock, will have his beguiling inflated metal sculptures at Okay Mountain. The group exhibitions will be celebrated with an opening from noon to 5 p.m. March 7.
Photo courtesy Okay Mountain.
More info and previews to come!
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Weekend Arts Pix: 2
More, more, more: Here’s even more of the best what’s new and opening this weekend on Austin’s busy arts landscape.
SATURDAY ‘Book of Longing.’ Philip Glass returns to Austin with his latest, a 100-minute song cycle based on a volume of poetry by legendary wordsmith Leonard Cohen, a rumination on past dreams and desires. 8 p.m. Saturday, Bass Concert Hall, University of Texas, 23rd St. and Robert Dedman Drive. $26-$49.50. 477-6060, www.utpac.org
Read about Glass’s influence on and history with Austin.
SATURDAY“Fantasy and Variations for Two Pianos and Orchestra on the Gypsy March from Weber’s ‘Preziosa.’ “ After years of academic detective work and countless hours piecing together heavily revised manuscripts, Southwestern University professor J. Michael Cooper will reintroduce Feliz Mendelssohn’s “Fantasy and Variations” to the world when the Austin Civic Orchestra performs the full piece for the first time since 1833. 8 p.m. Alma Thomas Theatre, Southwestern Univ., 1001 E. University Ave., Georgetown. $15. purchase tickets at www.austincivicorchestra.org.
Read more about Cooper’s re-discovery of the Mendelssohn manuscript.
J. Michael Cooper with pages from the resurrected Mendelssohn score.
SUNDAY
Duke Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concerts.’ Ellington might be best remembered for his swinging orchestral jazz. But he considered his most important work to be three massive works that he called his ‘Sacred Concerts.’ Now, an ambitious collaboration between Austin Chamber Music Center and Huston-Tillotson University brings Ellington’s masterpiece to Austin. 3 p.m. Sunday. King-Seabrook Chapel, Huston-Tillotson Univ., 900 Chicon St. Free. www.austinchambermusic.org.
Read about more this enormous undertaking and rarely-heard musical masterpiece.
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Weekend Arts Pix: 1
It’s a busy weekend, so here’s the first blast of the best of what’s new and opening.
FRIDAY
People’s Gallery opening.
The people have submitted their artwork, and the jury has chosen. The 2009 People’s Gallery exhibit at City Hall opens Friday. Each year the city’s Cultural Arts Division selects works by regional artists; the works are then displayed in the hallways and public areas of City Hall. And each year, the public votes for its favorite artwork, which is then purchased by the city. At Friday’s opening, the 2008 People’s Choice purchase will be made. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday. Austin City Hall, 301 W. Second St. Free. Parking is available in the underground garage off Lavaca Street. City Hall parking tickets will be validated.
‘This Time It’s Personal.’ Vivacious husband-and-wife team, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Petillot and violist Aurelien Petillot, join their good friend, star pianist Michelle Schumann, for an intriguing program. The lush romanticism of Brahms’ ‘Two Songs’ balances the dramatic ‘Sifting Through The Ruins,’ composed by Libby Larsen in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy of Sept. 11. Also on the program is ‘Light The Lovely Candles,’ a world premiere by Austin composer Russell Reed. 8 p.m. Friday. St, Michael’s Episcopal Church, 1500 N. Capital of Texas Highway. $15 ($12 seniors, $8 students). www.violabychoice.org.
SATURDAY
‘States of America’ and ‘Outside Realism.’ Join artists Lordy Rodriguez and Clifford Ross for a gallery tour of their pair of solo exhibits. Ross produces massive high-resolution panoramic photographs such as a 10-foot-long image of a twin-peaked mountain in the Colorado Rockies. Rodriguez reconfigures existing maps to create imaginary, symbolic lands. 3 p.m. Saturday, Austin Museum of Art, 823 Congress Ave. $4-$5. 495-9224. www.amoa.org.
SUNDAY
‘Birth of the Cool.’ The most anticipated museum exhibit of the spring — and sure to be the most buzzed about — ‘Birth of the Cool’ charts everything about California mid-century groovy style. Eames chairs, Noguchi sculpture, a jazz lounge, Van Keppel Green furniture — it’s all on view and it’s all cool. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tuesdays-Saturdays, 1 to 5 p.m. Sundays. Blanton Museum of Art, Congress Ave. and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. $3-$7 (Thursdays free). www.blantonmuseum.org.
‘Suites and Sweets’ CD release party. Violinist Jessica Mathaes, concertmistress of the Austin Symphony Orchestra, celebrates the release of her debut album with a recital that includes the world premiere of a piece by Canadian composer Pierre Jalbert. 2 p.m. St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, 8134 Mesa Drive. Free. www.jessicamathaes.com.
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Hunting Art Prize finalists announced
A total of 134 Texas artists have been selected to move on to the final round of judging in the 2009 Hunting Art Prize, Hunting PLC, the Houston-based oil services company that grants the award announced today.
The $50,000 prize — a bit of a curiosity in the Lone Star State art world — is open to established, emerging, or amateur artists that are residents of the State of Texas and who are at least 18 years of age or older. Only paintings or drawings can qualify and an artist can only submit one work. No prints, photographs, collages, sculpture, found object assemblages or computer-generated works
The award came to Texas in 2006 from the UK when Hunting PLC moved its corporate headquarters. This year’s winner will be announced at a gala in Houston on May 2. Previous winners Wendy Wagner, Michael Tole and Francesca Fuchs.
Among the finalists are 20 artists from the Central Texas area:
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Luis Abreu, Austin
Andrew Anderson, Austin
Heyd Fontenot, Austin
Joshua Kight, Austin
Ashe Laughlin, Austin
David Leonard, Austin
Suzanne Lewis, Austin
Katie Maratta, Austin
Erick Michaud, Austin
Skip Noah, Austin
David Ohlerking, Austin
Anna Marie Pavlik, Austin
Ellen Tanner, Austin
Krutie Thakkar, Austin
Leanne Venier, Austin
Matthew Winters, Austin
Carol Grigsby, Bastrop
Kathleen Holder, Buda
Randolph Nesbitt, Round Rock
Yuko Fukuzumi, San Marcos
Keith Sanders, Wimberley
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‘Lion King’ choreographer comes to Austin
For more than three decades, Jamaica-born dancer has been crafting a singular style of dance sourced in many origins: the torso-centered movement and energy of Afro-Caribbean dance, the speed and precision of ballet and the rule-breaking experimentation of the social and street dance.
That singularity netted Fagan a Tony Award for his choreography in Disney’s “The Lion King.”
Now, his Rochester, NY-based company comes to Austin.
Garth Fagan Dance performs at the Long Center for the Performing Arts at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 18. Go to www.TheLongCenter.org for tix and info.
“The dancers he has trained,” writes Ballet Review, “are virtuosi, no doubt about it, and fearless too, able to sustain long adagio balances, to change direction in mid-air, to vary the dynamic of a turn, to stop on a dime.”
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YouTube creates an orchestra
Consider a 21st century version of a standard joke:
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? YouTube, YouTube, YouTube.
Mixing internet technology with “American Idol” sensibilities, YouTube is putting together the first orchestra selected entirely from video auditions posted online and chosen in part by online votes.
Through Feb. 22, you can vote online at www.youtube.com/symphony for one of the 200 finalists which have been culled from more than 3,000 video submissions from 70-plus countries.
About 80 musicians will be selected and results will be announced March 2.
On April 15, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra will premiere at Carnegie Hall on under the direction of conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.
Auditions were open to any musicians, professional or amateur playing any instrument. A panel of judges from leading symphony orchestras culled the 3,000 submissions to the 200 up for the current final audition. In suitable e-democratic fashion, there’s little info on the individual musicians. You have to vote based simply on the quality of their playing.
Video auditions aren’t entirely new to the opera and symphony world. Plenty of producers and directors pre-screen performance candidates via online videos. But assembling an international orchestra entirely from video auditions arguably hasn’t been done before.
Some of the first-round entrants took on the challenge set-up by YouTube and posted video performance of snippets from Tan Dun’s “Internet Symphony for YouTube,” a new piece written for the occasion by the renowned Chinese composer. Members of the London Symphony Orchestra posted master classes to offer tips on how to tackle the Tan Dun piece and more general advice on auditions.
A spirited fanfare inspired by street sounds the world over, Tan Dun says of his symphony in a YouTube interview, “It’s very important to have symphony culture relate to today’s street sounds because there are oh so many invisible Beethovens behind YouTube.”
All the Tan Dun submissions will be compiled into a mashup video which will be premiered at Carnegie Hall on April 15 and will be hosted on YouTube on April 16. No other news on what will be on the Carnegie Hall program though likely Tilson Thomas will pull together his own mashup of what classical music can be in the year 2009.
Here’s Tan Dun talking more about his “Internet Symphony for YouTube” and workshopping it with the London Symphony Orchestra:
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Synergy — and DJ Spooky — in the house
Sometimes synergy happens. And when it does, things sizzle and explode.
There’s plenty of synergy flowing around Golden Hornet Project these days. Composers Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski took their decade-long collaboration to a new level last year when they formed the Golden Hornet Project into full-fledged 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization.
Now, the two indie musicians have a platform to refine and promote their considerable vision. Reynolds and Stopschinski — along with a board of trustees that includes Alamo drafthouse founder Tim League, public relations whiz David Wyatt, club booking master minder Graham Williams and Tosca String Quartet violist Ames Asbell. among others — have re-doubled their efforts to present new musical works.
Golden Hornet Project is on a mission to collapse the barrier between the nightclub and the concert hall, conflate the academy with the underground. And that’s long overdue in Austin, and everywhere for that matter. The limits of categorization — classical music, new music, pop music — impose too many boundaries between composer and listener.
Sunday night, Golden Hornet Project’s new found synergy was in full force at a preview of the group’s March 1 Tenth Anniversary Concert which will feature Tosca String Quartet.
As dusk fell about 70 people gathered at The Plant at Kyle, the post-modern architectural jewel that’s under the co-stewardship of Dana Friis-Hansen, Golden Hornet Project board member and director of the Austin Museum of Art.
The evening’s special guest was Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid. Something of a conceptual music artist who applies DJ techniques not only to music and found sounds but to film and multi-media, the New York-based world-traveling Miller was a guest of Golden Hornet Project all weekend, giving a show Friday night at the Mohawk with Reynolds and Stopschinski. Miller also stopped by the Alamo Drafthouse to present “Rebirth of a Nation,” his re-mix of the D.W. Griffith’s 1915 infamous film “Birth of a Nation.”
But at The Plant on Sunday, Miller gifted a CD of his latest mix to everyone in the audience before the Tosca String Quartet played a snippet of Miller’s “Nature Morte,” the nine-movement piece which is the composer’s musical meditation on global climate change. Ethereal and dissonant, “Nature Morte” suggested a sound portrait both sad yet beautiful.
Despite the evening’s chill — which caused Tosca’s string instruments to slip out of tune; remember why Izthak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma played to a recording at the Inauguration? — the quartet gave a nice turn to excerpts of pieces by Reynolds and Stopschinski that will be heard in the entirity at the March 1 gig.
Afterward, as darkness spread, Miller signed copies of new book “Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture.”
“Music is exchange,” said Miller. “Today, you are what you play and sound is global.”
Graham Reynolds, Paul Miller, Peter Stopschinski
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Review: ‘Shooting Star’
We’d all like to think we’ve escaped our youth. Actually, we’d all like to think that everyone else forgot us too when we were flush with idealism, when we were confident that our life would go exactly according to a grandiose plan, when we were certain we would do great and different things.
Steven Dietz sends a tender valentine to middle-age in “Shooting Star,” a smart and sweet comedy from one of American theater’s most-produced playwright and now getting a polished premiere at Zach Theatre.
Years ago, when they were in college, Elena Carson (Barbara Chisholm) and Reed McAllister (Jamie Goodwin) were madly in love and living the bohemian life together. Elena was the ultimate free-spirit and Earth mother-in-the-making; Reed tried be a free-spirit, but wrestled with his more thoughtful nature. They experimented with an open relationship, they told each other they were both destined for significant and soul-changing lives.
Then they broke up. And they didn’t see each other for 20 years. Now they’ve run into each other again, both stuck at a snowed in airport.
Dietz’s gift as a writer is an acute attention to our modern language. He elevates ordinary conversation to a kind of music with precise rhythms and exquisitely timed phrases. In Dietz’s hands conversation sounds natural, but smart.
That kind of linguistic precision could weigh down an actor. But Chisholm and Goodwin deftly handled the clever banter, never letting the energy slide during the 80-minute intermission-less play. And though the plot may see the characters traverse a mountain of emotion — the regret, the unfulfilled dreams, the acceptance of the reality of one’s present life — Chisholm and Goodwin shoulder it with sincerity.
Played tightly in the round on Zach Theater’s Whisenhunt Stage, “Shooting Star” doesn’t let you get far away from the bittersweet actuality of life considered at middle-age. But then why try to? Dietz makes reality poetic.
“Shooting Star” continues 8 p.m. Wednesdays—Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays through April 5. Whisenhunt Stage, Zach Theatre, 1510 Toomey Road. $15-$39. 476-0541. www.zachtheatre.org.
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Review: Ballet Austin’s ‘Hamlet’
Opera and ballet fans often overlap: both forms tend toward spectacular extravagance. While story ballets may be replete with costumes and sets, it’s rare to see a production where choreography and design work together as well as Ballet Austin’s “Hamlet.” Artistic Director Stephen Mills’ 2001 rendition of iconic Shakespeare returned to Austin on Friday at the Long Center. The staging and the stage picture were always stunning and smart.
“Hamlet’s” design, created by Jeffrey Main and Mills, and lighting, designed by Tony Tucci, manipulated space to tell the story of the despairing prince and his wounded lover. Hamlet could be the story of one man’s tightly wound mind, and Phillip Glass’ swirling music kept focus on Hamlet’s (Frank Shott) journey. The set’s sense of scale, a mix of openness and elements that are so large they are monstrous, makes Hamlet’s intensity more painful.
When the second act opens at Ophelia’s funeral, the white hammock-like bed for Ophelia (Ashley Lynn) floated high above the mourners against a huge blue-lit scrim. Ophelia and Hamlet are always cast as outsiders in the ballet. In the opening moments, Hamlet sits on an elevated platform similar to Ophelia’s funeral bier. Then he moves through the crowd largely unseen. Ophelia dances with everyone, but her hair is down; the other women’s hair is tightly bound. Her dress is light pink; the other women wear deep colors.
Hamlet and Ophelia serve as observers and mirrors to a community unaware it has been unleashed from ethics in the wake of the murder of the king, Hamlet’s father. The people’s unfounded innocence unfolds most obviously from Ophelia’s brother Laertes. As Laertes, Johntuart Winchell’s fluffy blonde hair and earnest attack at movement made Laertes’ connection with the new King Claudius (Edward Carr) believable.
The completeness of the ballet’s narrative has much to do with the intelligent coupling of design and dance, but Shott and Lynn bring nuance to roles that can be stereotypical. In several solos, Shott foreshadows Hamlet’s breakdown through energetic choices. His knees suddenly jerk and bend. Hamlet’s ground is being torn from beneath him. Lynn’s Ophelia seems doomed by vulnerability Her open chest and deep lunges speak to her sensitivity, but also her undoing.
Choreographically, Mills’ work for Ophelia might be the best in the production. Her steps tap the softness of the other women’s classicism, but Ophelia’s are rooted. The combination illustrates how Ophelia is a woman who chooses to be different. Perhaps she goes insane because she, like Hamlet, is honest.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance critic.
Photos by Tony Spielberg.
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Remixing cultural history: DJ Spooky’s ‘Rebirth of a Nation’
Musician/multimedia artist DJ Spooky — aka Paul D. Miller — applied his brainy DJ techniques to probably the most infamous movie in American history, D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film “Birth of a Nation,” based on an explicitly melodramatic staged play and novel “The Clansman.” As bigoted as Griffith’s movie is, even today, film scholars note its groundbreaking cinematic innovations and technical effects.
Miller — an Ivy League grad whose work has often been presented at museums around the world — re-mixed Griffth’s film into “Rebirth of a Nation,” performing it as a live multimedia performance with Miller’s score. Think multiple screens flashing images and Miller at the turntables.
The live performance of “Rebirth of a Nation” was then made into a film with Miller’s score performed by none other than the notable and adventurous The Kronos Quartet. (Hey — Miller is smart. He edited “Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture,” a brainiac compendium of texts by musicians about music, sound and contemporary culture.)
Sunday, Miller comes to Austin to introduce a screening of “Rebirth of a Nation and conduct a Q & A afterwards.
‘Rebirth of a Nation’
WHERE: The Alamo Drafthouse RItz
WHEN: 2 p.m. Q & A to follow
TIX: $15 at the door or online at http://www.originalalamo.com/
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Talking, about cities and arts and music
Next American City — a national quarterly magazine published by a non-profit organization of the same name dedicated to promoting socially and environmentally sustainable economic growth — is setting up camp in town next week for two public discussion forums.
Admission for non-subscribers is $15 in advance or $20 at the door and includes a free one-year subscription to Next American City.
UrbanNexus Lecture Series
‘The Place for Culture’
6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 18
George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center
1165 Angelina Street
Featuring Michael Oden, graduate advisor for community and regional planning at the University of Texas at Austin. Can a vibrant cultural scene bolster economic growth? Join Michael as he discusses the relationship between artistic and cultural activity and local economic development. A panel of representatives from the arts community - Bobby Garza, Ann Graham, Jason Neulander and Beatrice Thomas - will respond.
‘The Future of Live Music’
The Independent, 501 Studios
501 North IH-35
Guests include host Mike Henry of Austin Poetry Slam and a panel of local music industry professionals including Paul Oveisi of the Live Music Task Force, John Riedie of Rampart Art Management and musician Chris Nine. The night will feature food, drinks and a salon-style conversation on Austin’s viability as a legendary music community.
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International dance teacher’s to descend on Austin
Ballet Austin’s Butler Dance Education Center selected as the site for the 2009 International Dance Teachers Seminar, April 3-5.
This intensive 3-day course, presented and organized by The Institute for Dance Education Arts will focus on enhancing teaching and coaching skills and the underlying methodology and technical understanding of imparting this knowledge.
The seminar has been held for the past five years in Miami at the New World School of the Arts.
The central presenter in this year’s three-day conference will be Dinna Bjorn—one of today’s most respected master teachers. Ms. Bjorn is recognized throughout the dance world as one of the premier pedagogues of the Bournonville style. The philosophy of the method of teaching employed by the Bournonville School along with basic understanding of the student’s development with class progression, placement and style, will be comprehensively covered.
REGISTER: By March 25 at www.americanballetcompetition.com
COST: $350 for teachers, $35 - $175 for intermediate-advanced students age 13-19
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Philip Glass (hearts) Austin
Philip Glass sent something of an early valentine to Austin today in a phone interview I had with the venerable composer.
For more than two decades Glass has been making almost yearly visits to Austin, garnering a large and loyal audience. Likewise the composer has grown to appreciate Austin.
“There are certain cities in the country that have always been beacons of culture in unexpected places,” said Glass by a phone from his home in New York. “My performing career really began in places like that — places that are not on the main road to speak but were still important places. There seemed to be a connection between my artistic interests and what was going on [in Austin].”
Beginning in the early 1990s, former UT Performing Arts Center director Pebbles Wadsworth was instrumental in getting Glass to Austin on an almost annual basis and she instigated UT’s commission for “Book of Longing,” which the composer brings to the Bass Concert Hall on Saturday.
Based on a book of poetry by legendary wordsmith Leonard Cohen, Glass’s musical version crafts Cohen’s poems — a personal, confessional rumination on the loves and losses of bygone days — into a 100-minute, 22-song cycle. Cohen’s recorded voice, along with projections of his paintings and drawings, add a multi-media touch.
The last time Austinites got a glimpse of Glass was in 2007 in a non-UT gig: Austin Lyric Opera presented the United States premiere of “Waiting for the Barbarians,” the composer’s politically forthright opera that other U.S. opera companies were reluctant to premiere.
“I’ve been able to do things (in Austin) I haven’t been able to do elsewhere,” said Glass. “And I’m grateful for that.”
Philip Glass’ ‘Book of Longing.’
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Austin Wind Symphony joins ‘Orchestras Feeding America’
A little orchestra does good. One of Austin’s smaller and newer orchestras is the first in the area to join an important national hunger relief campaign.
Austin Wind Symphony will participate in Orchestras Feeding America, the first national food drive sponsored by America’s symphony orchestras.
The food drive — to take place in March and April — is organized by the League of American Orchestras, which represents the nation’s professional, volunteer and youth orchestras.
To date, over 160 orchestras have come together to combat hunger in their communities through Orchestras Feeding America. Austin Wind Symphony is the only Austin orchestra so far to participate in the program.
Volunteers will collect non-perishable food donations at the Austin Wind Symphony’s performance on March 26 at the Monarch Event Center.
The national food drive is inspired by the true story depicted in the upcoming film “The Soloist.” The movie is based on the story of the friendship between Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers, a gifted Juilliard-trained string player whose mental illness landed him homeless on the streets. Starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr., the film is due for release April 24.
“I am very inspired by the number of people coming together during this time of need for so many people,” said Austin Wind Symphony Vice President Shelly Eager in a released statemen. “So often as musicians we are speaking through the music, telling stories, and teaching valuable lessons. This was our opportunity to step outside of the music, and truly make a difference.”
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Review: ‘The Secret Live of the InBetweeners’
“The Secret Lives of the InBetweeners” launches with a musical number exploring the mind of the urban hipster as an artist, two women, a gamer, and rich Lothario pine for a breakthrough, love and independence, the next level and sex. Unfortunately, the mind of a stereotype doesn’t leave much room for secrets.
The new musical from Aaron Brown proceeds largely according to the pattern set by its first song. Joe is struggling to get his play and love life together. Tina, his sort-of sweetheart, wants affection, but falls for slime ball Harry. Her friend Charlotte, a computer programmer with dreams of the stage, warns her off but becomes caught up with video game fanatic Waldo instead.
Were it not for the addition of personified Hope and Fear, the plot would run like “Rent” revised by the “Sex and the City” team—with less of a sense of humor. Even these, though, are more clichés than archetypes. Hope, played by a doe-eyed, Raphaelite Betsy McCann, is indeed hopeful, but Fear, played as a snarky goth by Rudy Ramirez, doesn’t exactly set the knees knocking.
That may be part of the point. His opening number — in the vein of “Sympathy for the Devil,” but with less bravado — establishes him as the source of history’s problems, though he’s reduced by modernity to playing on personal insecurities rather than terror. Regardless of how the last eight years might stand against that, it makes for a less-than-compelling emotional conflict.
That’s particularly problematic as the second act of the play makes an abrupt jump from an urban relationship story to a supernatural wager, replacing Job with Joe. Except where Job had boils and a family massacre, Joe is a 30-year-old director with an overbearing mother who, in his moment of catharsis, he runs away from before getting scared and hungry after an hour.
The music itself is prone to quick switches, with most songs bouncing wildly around the thematic map and to the border of or out of many singers’ ranges. Instead of catchy hooks, it feels more like a mash-up collection of Muzak.
That’s too bad because the book and score obscure some performers that could do well elsewhere. While I found Waldo’s constant video game references annoying (or, as a gamer who also enjoys musical theater, almost frustratingly mocking) at first, Errich Petersen’s bouncy enthusiasm for Waldo’s lack of shame is winning. And when Charlotte, even more charmingly energetic and strong in Jo Beth Henderson’s jazzy numbers, finally sees that in him, the love story gets one of its few “awww” moments.
Musicals don’t have to be big and epic — Penfold Theatre Company’s recent staging of “The Last Five Years” proved that — but “Secret Lives” just doesn’t feel original.
(“The Secret Lives of the InBetweeners” continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays through March 7 at the Vortex, 2307 Manor Road. $10-$30. 478-5282. vortexrep.org.)
[Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance critic.]
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Review: KDH Dance and Mary O’Donnell
Saturday brought celebrations of arrival and longevity in Austin dance. Choreographer Mary O’Donnell introduced herself to Austin with “Eyes of Innocence” in the afternoon, and KDH Dance Company continued its 10th anniversary season with performances at Café Dance in the evening.
O’Donnell refers to “Eyes of Innocence” as an example of “responsible anarchy.” Some movement and ideas are set and remain the same across the piece’s rehearsals and performance, while some performers work to challenge that stability.
Five performers, embodying ideas more than characters, moved largely oblivious to each other. As the severe, black-suited Thunder, Kent de Spain was a constant presence around which Derrick Washington bopped, eyes darting. Julie Nathanielsz seemed Washington’s counterpoint; her movements were equally detailed. But where Washington settled into curves, Nathanielsz felt angular, though paradoxically soft. As Angel and Addiction, Lucila Velez and Seunghee Yang performed oblivion more consciously. Bellydancer Velez floated through curving paths, her turns signaled by the soft jingle of her costume. Yang’s sunglasses and a remote control truck, which had several crossings prior to Yang’s appearances, provided an aloof, but comedic layer. Teen-ager Lariza (identified by only her first name) functioned as audience surrogate, walking amidst the random environment, sometimes trying out performers’ movement and other times ignoring it.
KDH continues to build toward its 10th anniversary gala, slated for June 18-20. The current walk down recent memory lane features the company, led by artistic director Kathy Dunn Hamrick, in excerpts from four pieces made during the past seven years. A close-up view and Dunn Hamrick’s friendly introductions to each piece make the studio show a good way to ease in to dance spectatorship, even though Saturday felt more like a reunion of company family and friends.
KDH repeats the Café Dance program for the next two Saturdays, Feb. 14 and 21, at 6 and 8 p.m. For tickets call 512-934-1082 or go to www.kdhdance.com.
[Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance critic.]
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Austin Symphony Orchestra names new executive director
Austin Symphony Orchestra has named Galen Wixson as the organization’s new executive director. Wixson is currently serving as executive director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. He begins his job March 16..
Wixson will be in charge of all daily business operations of ASO supervising marketing, public relations, policy development and fundraising. Peter Bay remains music director.
Wixson is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management with a Master of Arts Management degree. He also holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Cello Performance from Wichita State University.
His previous positions include executive director for the Symphony of Southeast Texas, Reno Philharmonic, Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
Previous executive director Jim Reagan retired in 2007.
Galen Wixon.
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Review: Jupiter Quartet
Friday night at the University of Texas’ McCullough Theater, the Jupiter String Quartet demonstrated again their exceptional technical and artistic quality. Following two previous engagements at the Austin Chamber Music Festival (in 2005 and 2007), the Jupiter on this visit offered a strikingly organized program performed with the tonal intensity and refined expression that are becoming familiar.
The first and last of the three works played were both in A minor and shared more than simply a key. Beethoven’s towering Quartet no. 15 in A minor, among his last compositions, is in five movements with a large central slow movement inscribed by Beethoven, “Holy song of thanks from one recovered to the Divinity.” This rewarding, uncompromising quartet received a young people’s performance, though these young people grasped the technical problems of the music almost flawlessly and were persuasive and self-assured in their expression. Their readings of it should be tremendous before long.
The 18-year-old Felix Mendelssohn intensively studied Beethoven’s last quartets when they were new publications; the boy’s Quartet in A minor, published as no. 2, was his response. Containing several allusions or quotations to the Beethoven quartets, especially no. 15, Mendelssohn’s is ambitious, with his artistic reach exceeding his grasp a wee bit. The Mendelssohn opened the evening, getting a serious, sophisticated treatment from the Jupiter that wanted a sharper interpretive focus.
Bringing the first half to an intriguing conclusion, ‘Arcadiana’ by the British composer Thomas Adés had the players acting independently of each other, producing unusual sonorities laced with numerous allusions to other composers, most notably Edward Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations. The players executed the piece with care and enthusiasm, sounding both angular and sweet.
Between having the Mirò Quartet in residence at UT’s Butler School of Music and receiving periodic visits from the Jupiter Quartet, Austin’s chamber music scene is blessed these days with high-quality string quartet playing.
[David Mead is an American-Statesman freelance critic.]
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Conspirare misses out on Grammy
Austin choral group Conspirare missed out on a Grammy Award today, the second time around that the group has been nominated.
Conspriare’s CD “Threshold of Night: Music of Tarik O’Regan” was nominated for Best Choral Performance and Best Classical Album.
Winning for Best Choral Performance was “Symphony Of Psalms,”
 with Sir Simon Rattle, conductor and Simon Halsey, chorus master (Berliner Philharmoniker; Rundfunkchor Berlin
Winning Best Classical Album was “Weill: Rise And Fall Of The City Of Mahagonny (Los Angeles Opera Chorus and Los Angeles Opera Orchestra).
Conspirare’s next round of concerts in Austin comes Feb. 28 and March 1.
Rachmaninov Vespers, 8 p.m. Feb. 28 Regarded as the crowning achievement of the “Golden Age” of Russian Orthodox sacred music, as well as one of the greatest works of choral music ever written.
‘American Songs & Spirituals,’ 2:30 p.m. March 1 Back by popular demand, this concerts includes such favorites as “Shenandoah,” “Deep River” and Moses Hogan’s glorious arrangements of African-American spirituals.
Both concerts are at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church
606 W. 15th St. Tickets $26, $36 and $46 (Half-price tickets for youth, ages 6-17).
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A rarity: Ellington’s ‘Sacred Concert’
Pencil it in: On Feb. 22, Austin audiences will get the relatively rare chance to hear Duke Ellington’s “Sacred Concerts” when Austin Chamber Music Center joins forces with Huston-Tillotson University to present selections from the three sweeping musical works that the jazz maestro himself called the most important music he had ever written.
The free concert is at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22 in the King-Seabrook Chapel at Huston-Tillotson Univ., 900 Chicon St. That’s right, the concert is free.
In the last years of his life, between 1965 and 1973, the jazz genius Ellington composed three massive works he called the ‘Sacred Concerts.’ They were performed in cathedrals and churches around the world. Based on Ellington’s own astute spiritual writings, the concerts are sprawling collections of songs and suites that juxtapose gospel music with jazz, classical music, spirituals, blues, choral music and even dance and oratory.
But because of the sheer scale of the ‘Sacred Concerts’ — they require huge choruses, ensembles of musicians, dancers, solo singers — they have rarely been performed in a grand scale since Ellington’s death in 1974. Also complicating things, the scores were never published in a definitive version.
ACMC artistic director Michelle Schumann has worked for several years now to assemble the kind of collaborators to mount a Schumann’s teamed up with Texas State Univ. prof Keith Winking who will lead a big band. Soprano Gloria Quinlan, Huston-Tillotson music professor and director of choirs, will solo and lead the Huston-Tillotson Concert Choir.
The Feb. 22 concert promises to stunning, accomplished — and moving. Ellington himself wrote expressively in the program notes for the first ‘Sacred Concert.”
“As I travel from place to place by car, bus, train, plane … taking rhythm to the dancers, harmony to the romantic, melody to the nostalgic, gratitude to the listener … receiving praise, applause and handshakes, and at the same time, doing the thing I like to do, I feel that I am most fortunate because I know that God has blessed my timing, without which no thing could have happened—the right time or place or with the right people. The four must converge. Thank God … .
… In this program, you may hear a wide variety of statements without words, and I think you should know that if it is a phrase with six tones, it symbolizes the six syllables in the first four words of the Bible, “In the beginning God,” which is our theme. We say it many times … many ways.”
[The Duke Ellington Reader, ed. Mark Tucker (Oxford University Press, 1993)]
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Rude Mechs grow new Shoot
Congratulations to Austin theater collective Rude Mechs. They’ve raised $80,000 toward the creation of a new home for Grrl Action, the Rude’s writing and performance program for teenage girls.
The Rudes have secured 1,400-square-feet of warehouse space adjacent to their current East Austin venue, the Off Center, to transform into the Off Shoot, a dedicated space for Grrl Action participants to research, write and rehearse for performances and to create their multi-disciplinary year-round projects. It will include a studio space with sound and light equipment, desks, lockers, seating and a resource lab with video and computer equipment, and a library.
A recent gift of $40,000 from The Laos House—Center for Personal Learning brings the campaign closer to finishing in time for the 10th anniversary class of Grrl Action beginning July 2009.
Local architectural designer Nicole Blair, of Studio 512, is providing her services pro bono to realize the design. She has enlisted local contractor Ramirez Homes, Inc to oversee the project.Also providing support for the Off Shoot are Impact Austin, The Meadows Foundation, Austin Community Foundation and Dollar General Corporation.
Go girls!
A room of her own: before. Raw warehouse space waiting for renovation.
A room of her own: after. Designer Nicole Blair’s plan to tranform warehouse space into a workshop for Grrl Action.
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Barbara Smith Conrad’s amazing grace
It was a heartfelt homecoming for Barbara Smith Conrad last night when the celebrated mezzo-soprano gave a solo recital at the University of Texas’ Bates Recital Hall.
“I never dreamed I would be so happy to be back at the University of Texas,” the silken-voiced Conrad told the audience.
Understandable. After all, in 1957, UT administrators, pressured by some members of the Texas Legislature, removed Conrad from the lead role in a production of the opera ‘Dido and Aenas.’ Conrad was one of the first African American students to attend UT and she was cast to play opposite a white male student.
Conrad is in town this week for several celebratory events, including receiving a proclamation in her honor today from the Texas Legislature.
“It’s all the emotions you can imagine,” Conrad said last night. “I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry. Thank you for believing that my dream was a worthwhile dream to share.” When news broke in 1957 about Conrad’s dismissal of the role, it attracted national attention. After she graduated from UT, she went on to a recognized career as a professional opera singer.
You can read a detailed version of Conrad’s inspiring story here.
Though no longer singing the large dramatic roles she once did, the 68-year-old Conrad, who lives in New York, now nurtures her life long passion for spirituals. Last night, her eight-song program included several arrangements by Hall Johnson, the noted African American composer who gave the spiritual a new sophistication with marked by classical stylings.
But when it came time for “Amazing Grace,” Conrad had something else in mind.
“We all have to sing church style together — stand up everyone!”
And we did. And it was amazing.
Conrad rehearsing last week at UT.
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Blanton gala nets $2.325 million in donations, tickets sales
Saturday night’s gala at the Blanton Museum of Art welcomed more than 450 guests who fashionably partied in honor of museum namesake and donor Jack S. Blanton.
Beyond the impressive $600,000 in ticket sales, the gala and celebration of Blanton was also cause for announcing some $1,025,000 in gifts to the museum’s $40 million endowment.
The children of Jack Blanton — Eddy and Kelli Blanton, Jack Jr. and Leslie Blanton, Elizabeth Blanton Wareing and Peter Wareing — donated $1 million in their father’s honor, with the monies going to the Blanton’s endowment campaign. The LBJ Family Foundation donated $25,000.
The Blanton also raised $275,000 in in-kind support from corporate sponsors for the event.
Making the biggest visual splash of the evening were the two arts works unveiled. Donated by contemporary collectors and Blanton supporters Jeanne and Michael Klein, a massive site-specific installation by Macarthur “genius grant” award-winner Teresita Fernandez and an untitled wall sculpture by Ghanan artist El Anatsui. The two piece together are valued at $700,000.
El Anatsui, Untitled, 2007, Copper, aluminum, 144 x 195 inches, Promised gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein.
Always visionary in their taste in art, the Kleins took the forward step of commissioning Fernandez to create something that could aesthetically defuse the Blanton’s massive white atrium. Fernandez succeeded brilliantly. “Stacked Water” makes an invigorating yet sublime statement as visitors enter the museum. It encourages thoughtful looking — exactly the mindset needed for a satisfying museum experience.
Teresita Fernandez, “Stacked Waters.” 2009. Gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein.
Teresita Fernandez, “Stacked Waters.” 2009. Gift of Jeanne and Michael Klein.
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Viewpoint lectures announced
Chatter, chatter, chatter
The Department of Art and Art History at the University presents the 18th annual Viewpoint series of visits by leading curators, critics and scholars. The year’s series runs through April with public lectures and seminars by Los Angeles Times visual arts writer and author Leah Ollman, and artist, writer and curatorial adviser Phong Bui.
Admission to the lectures and seminars is free and open to the public.
When:
Public lectures will be held at 4 p.m. on Thursdays: Feb. 5, March 26 and April 16.
Seminars will be held from 2-4 p.m. on Fridays: Feb. 6, March 27 and April 17.
Where:
Art Building,23rd and San Jacinto streets
For lectures, room 1.102
For seminars, room 3.206
Ollman has been writing criticism and features on the visual arts for the Los Angeles Times for more than 20 years. She is a corresponding editor for Art in America and the author of numerous catalogue essays. Her publications include: “Strangely Familiar” (2008), “The Photography of John Brill” (2002) and “William Kentridge: Weighing…and Wanting” (2001). She lives in San Diego and is working on a project exploring the affinities between poetry and photography.
Bui is an artist, writer and curatorial adviser at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Museum of Modern Art affiliate. His numerous installations over the last two years have earned the Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Eric Isenbeurger Annual Prize for Installation from the National Academy Museum. He is the editor and publisher of the monthly journal The Brooklyn Rail, a critical perspective on arts, politics and culture in New York City and beyond.
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Council, mayoral candidates to meet with arts groups
Pencil it in: Candidates for the Austin City Council and Mayor will meet with Austin arts supporters as part of an open forum on April 1.
No April foolin’ either.
A roster of major arts organizations — Arthouse, Austin Lyric Opera, AustinMuseum of Art, Austin Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Austin, AustinTheatreAlliance, Conspirare, KMFA, The Long Center, Paramount & State Theatre Company and Zach Theatre — have come together to ask the candidates to speak about arts issues.
Up for election May 9 are council places 2, 5 and 6 and the mayor’s slot.
The forum will be moderated by the Honorable Betty Dunkerley
7 p.m. April 1
Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress Ave.
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Kennedy Center sets up crisis line for arts managers
The Kennedy Center is amping up its national role moving beyond being a performing arts center. Beyond hosting performances, sponsoring theater festivals, competitions and otherwise serving as the nation’s theater, the center has initiated a new program to share its management experience with struggling performing arts organizations across the country.
Announced yesterday, “Arts in Crisis: A Kennedy Center Initiative” is an online support service through which arts administrators from non-profit theaters, dance companies and music groups around the country can seek advice from the Kennedy Center’s personnel on issues such fundraising and audience development.
The program’s Web site explains that it will provide information “pertinent to maintaining a vital performing arts organization during a troubled economy.” Assistance — which is free — will be provided mainly through e-mails, telephone calls and Web chats.
“These are times of economic crisis and as the nation’s center for the performing arts, we wish to help,” said Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser in an official statement. “If any arts organization in the United States believes we can assist, the senior staff of the Kennedy Center and I offer our collective skills. We are at your service.”
Kaiser is the author of “The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations.”
The initiative also asks that administrators at successful arts organization get involved as mentors.
“There are many talented arts administrators around the country and we encourage them to lend their expertise,” said Kaiser. “If all of us work together, we can turn a time of crisis into a time of opportunity.”
Kaiser told the Washington Post yesterday, “I’m worried that people are cutting the wrong things first, and that makes it much harder to compete for funding,” he said. “Those who cut the programming first wouldn’t look as attractive to the funders.”
Kaiser also cited the president’s recent call to community service as reason for creating the program. “This is in the spirit of President Obama saying we have to volunteer and get involved,” Kaiser told the Post.
The new program received $500,000 from two individual donors.
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Review: ‘Legally Blonde the Musical’
Make way for chill-bump inducing major chords and overly earnest, but oddly touching love duets.
Broadway’s back.
Tuesday’s performance of the movie-made-musical “Legally Blonde” marked Broadway Across America’s return to UT’s Performing Arts Center. Over the next seven months, musicals take over Bass Concert Hall for at least one week per month. (In August, “Wicked” gets two weeks.) As “Legally Blonde’s” central character, Elle Woods would say, “Oh my God!”
While the bevy of musical theater might be reason for excitement, there’s not much to exclaim about in “Legally Blonde.” The 2001 movie allowed Elle, played by Reese Witherspoon, to have a bit of pluck, even in her earliest, pinkest scenes. The musical’s Elle (Lauren Ashley Zakrin) lacks depth for far too long. When boyfriend Warner chooses Harvard, then a brunette, over Elle, she responds vapidly. Only when Elle’s Harvard law school mentor Emmett Forrest (D.B. Bonds) — an older student with a hard-luck story — forces a study routine on Elle does she exhibit intelligence or tenacity.
The only early onstage evidence of Elle’s intelligence comes in an early showdown with a conniving saleswoman at a dress store. Shopping sets the scene for another key moment in the musical: Elle and Emmett sing their way to tentative love in a department store, belting “Take It Like a Man” as Elle helps Emmett transform from corduroy elbow patches to a Brooks Brothers clone. The musical’s message: love (and shopping) will keep us together.
Jerry Mitchell’s directing and choreography don’t do much to deepen the show — quite literally. Most of the musical uses only the front half of the stage, and the choreography is two-dimensional. Dancing the cast looks militaristic: They face front, then flip to face the wing. The musical’s movement palette, contemporary cheerleading, is constricting, but anyone who’s seen “Bring it On” knows dance for cheerleaders can be more creative.
The set, designed by David Rockwell, also suffers from flatness. The only time the overall stage picture feels expansive comes courtesy of the backdrop of a jail, where Woods visits the second-act celebrity defendant, Brooke Wyndham (Colleen Sexton). Why would jail be the site for a stage space to open up?
“Legally Blonde” eventually proves that Elle has more to her than her valley girl squealing suggests. There is no similar secret buried in the musical.
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Conrad’s story evokes memories
Sunday’s front page story about Barbara Smith Conrad, has provoked memories in some who were close to the 1957 incident. Conrad was a 17-year-old voice major — one of the first African American students to attend the University of Texas — when she was denied the chance to perform in a UT student opera after she was cast in the lead of “Dido and Aeneas” opposite a white male student.
Conrad’s story reverberated around the country. But not before it shocked many here in Austin.
Phyllis Rothgeb Schenkkan was on the UT campus at the time, assigned to oversee the costumes for “Dido and Aenas.” Schenkkan writes:
“Each time I see recognition of Barbara Smith Conrad’s achievements, I feel some measure of relief and satisfaction. As a Teaching Fellow in Costume Design under Lucy Barton, I was assigned the task of supervising the construction and fitting of the costumes and, during performance, dressing Barbara Smith for her performance as Dido in “Dido and Aeneas.” After attending rehearsals, seeing to the construction of the simple concert-style costumes (there were severe budget restraints on costumes for operas in those days), I still relive the shock of going to assist Ms. Conrad and finding another artist in her place. Thanks to the Texas Legislature and the American-Statesman for its role in addressing these wrongs.”
Conrad gives a solo recital of spirituals Wednesday night at UT’s Bates Recital Hall. On Thursday, she’ll be honored with a resolution by both houses of the Texas Legislature.
Barbara Smith Conrad.
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Bass’s brave new world of sound? Not quite
A couple of weeks ago, the Bass Concert Hall welcomed its first audience since undergoing an 18-month $14.5 million renovation.
The primary venue of the University of Texas Performing Arts Center — and for more than three decades, the primary performing arts venue for any symphony, opera, ballet or other fine arts in Austin — the Bass was ordered shut by the state fire marshall to update fire and safety features. While closed, UT officials opted to tweak the acoustics and upgrade the lobbies.
So how does the new improved Bass sound? After all, the 1981 3,000-seat hall was always criticized for the way in which it seemed to swallow and flatten sound.
The first concert a couple of weeks ago — featuring Grammy Award-winning singer John Legend and rising star Estelle — was over-amplified. Road shows not only bring their own systems, but artists insist on using their own sound people who are typically not familiar with individual halls. The result? Like in the past, Legend’s amplified show just sounded loud and monolithic. The only improvement could be heard from a little bit better amplified sound absorption. But once again, it seemed like that in place of making subtle adjustments, yet another a road show dropped into the Bass and merely cranked up the volume.
Last Friday night, the Bass’ re-opening was celebrated with a show produced by UT’s Butler School of Music. Getting top billing were opera singers Frederica Von Stade and Samuel Ramey, who together sang an all-too-brief program of arias and show tunes.
Also on the roster was special guest Barbara Conrad, the mezzo-soprano who, as one of the first African American students to attend UT in the 1950s, was denied the chance for a lead role because of prejudice.
That Conrad was featured center stage for Joseph Schwanter’s “New Morning for the World” — a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for wind symphony and narrator — gave Friday’s concert, dubbed “World of Sound” a meaningful resonance.
Too bad, then, the hall itself didn’t have more acoustical resonance.
Despite the improvements made — there’s a new prosenium, new adjustable acoustical curtains and a more open ceiling construction — for an acoustical or classical show, the Bass sounds dry, dry, dry. There’s none of the reverberation or resonance that a good hall should have. Sound comes at you. It doesn’t surround you.
As something of an encore, Austin indie band Ghostland Observatory came on for two songs at the end of the overly long show (a half dozen Butler School of Music ensembles and choirs performed). And not only were the oddly compelling duo accompanied by a zoomy laser light show, but the Longhorn marching band made a surprise visit for Ghostland’s song “The Band Marches On,” the orange-uniformed band members filling out the front of the stage and trickling out in the aisles of the first few rows.
Judging by the screams coming from the balcony, plenty were there to just to see Ghostland. Those fans got at least a fun mini show that sparkled. The Bass, however, didn’t get the sparkling sound improvements it could have.
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‘When I Rise’ — Filming Barbara Smith Conrad
This week, the Texas Legislature honors Barbara Smith Conrad, an African American mezzo-soprano who lost a leading role in a University of Texas student opera production in the 1950s because of prejudice, when she was among the first African American students on UT campus. Conrad’s case attracted national attention; singer Harry Belafonte offered to pay her tuition to any school she wanted to attend if she wanted to leave UT. She did not. After graduation, Conrad headed to New York and embarked on a career that took her opera houses around the world.
You can read Sunday’s front page story on Conrad’s inspiring journey here.
Conrad makes several appearances this week, including a recital on Wednesday when she’ll sing spirituals. The free concert is in UT Bates Recital Hall. While she’s in Austin, Conrad is being followed by the folks at Alpheus Media who are in the process of shooting a documentary film on Conrad.
And from the looks of a six-minute trailer, ‘When I Rise’ promises to be a compelling film. You can view the trailer here. The movie is due to be finished later this year.
We asked the film’s director, Mat Hames what his favorite moment has been in the year-long filming process.
“One of the best experiences in making “When I Rise” has been learning about Barbara’s family history, and the community of Centerpoint, the home of her parents. Centerpoint was an African American community, hidden away in the woods from the segregation of East Texas.
Barbara’s parents were both highly educated and taught at the local school. In that community they all looked out for each other. They also encouraged everyone to really dream big. On a given Saturday night they would sing spiritual music and play Mozart.
There was a rich heritage of music, art and knowledge that was passed down through the generations to Barbara, and I think this helped her survive the racist climate of the late 1950’s when she arrived in Austin. Even though Austin was pretty progressive in the 1950’s compared to other southern capitols, it was completed segregated and potentially violent outside the safety of the college of Fine Arts.
Delving into this history of this has helped me understand what happened to Barbara, and how she survived it, and I think her story is going to inspire a lot of people when the film is finished.”
Barbara Smith Conrad.
Services at Centerpoint Baptist Church.
Photos courtesy Alpheus Media.
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Review: Austin Lyric Opera’s ‘Rigoletto’
For any readers who have been waiting for an excuse to get tickets for Austin Lyric Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Rigoletto” that opened Saturday, I’m giving it to you now: This is a vivid and exciting realization of one of the blazing masterpieces of the operatic repertory, and you must get to Dell Hall at the Long Center to see it. This is a “Rigoletto” staged (pretty much) as specified in the score with musical artists who can perform it well.
Let the record show that every single opera with an orchestral introduction performed before 1950 was intended to be played with the curtain down; while the staging of the Prelude by stage director Kay Walker Castaldo was unobtrusive, it was completely unnecessary. But once past that, her staging frequently satisfied the requirements of the score in a dramatically credible fashion.
The three principal singing actors — baritone Todd Thomas in the title role of the hunchbacked court jester, soprano Lyubov Petrova as his daughter Gilda, and tenor Chad Shelton as the charming, licentious Duke of Mantua — are human, and they get a single try each night to sing their roles straight through. Each of them had an insignificant number of notes slip out of control, but each voice was appropriate to its role, and they brought the characters to life. In the crucial supporting role of the professional assassin, Peter Volpe was the Sparafucile of one’s dreams (or perhaps nightmares), with a steely gaze and a low register that seemed to go off the charts.
Also excellent were the remaining members of the supporting cast, the ALO male chorus prepared by Marc David Erck and the ALO orchestra, outdoing itself in this production. Richard Buckley, as on most other occasions with ALO, makes this piece work — but understand that, for a conductor, making an opera “work” involves understanding a score’s strengths and weaknesses, making the orchestra a participant in the drama without swamping the singers, and providing an artistic foundation upon which the singers can sound their best.
I also want to give a special shout-out to lighting designer David Nancarrow, who makes just about every ALO show look great, but in this show he makes visual sense of an opera about half of which takes place outdoors at night. And his effects for the storm in the last act will have you reaching for an umbrella.
Austin Lyric Opera’s ‘Rigoletto’ continues at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Friday and 3 p.m. Sunday. The Long Center, 701 Riverside Drive. $20-$175. 472-5992, www.austinlyricopera.org.
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