Off to San Antonio…

Posted on February 26, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

…where I’m staging a special event for a corporate meeting on Wednesday night. But the big thrill is the weather there – 80 degrees! In the meeting, I’ll be teaching a roomful of employees in the Du Pont Performance Coatings division to play the Ode To Joy – one note to a person – using my gifts as an artist and educator to help the meeting participants experience the power of teamwork firsthand. If it goes well, I’ll write more about it here. If not… well, mum’s the word.

UPDATE: two weeks later, and I think I’ve caught my breath. San Antonio was a mad dash – just over 48 hours from departure to return – but the members of the band “X-Factor” and I managed to rock the 600 meeting participants. Fifty dozen Rhythm Band resonator bars rang out loud and strong with the strains of the “Ode to Joy” and a good-natured VP and I belted out a couple choruses of the Who’s “Come Together.” While I was there, I also managed a quick glance at the Alamo, a stroll along the Riverwalk and a 20-ounce Margarita. This is me backstage – “can I have a blue spotlight, please?”

Back 2 Back 2 Back

Posted on February 24, 2007
Filed Under Professional, School | Leave a Comment

Time to start thinking about the spring musical at U Arts – rehearsals start next week and I need to get revved up. If you don’t recognize the title, I’m not surprised – it’s a program of three one-act musicals (previously produced elsewhere) that are being done as a trilogy for the first time. A premiere – of sorts. I love doing new work and work that is unfamiliar to my students and colleagues. Here’s the rundown on the three musicals:

Lavender Girl – First up is John Bucchino’s lyrical mystery about a ghost who becomes the belle of a Southern ball in the 20’s. Produced as part of a show called 3hree that premiered at the Prince Music Theater in 2000. Bucchino’s songs are a staple of the students’ repertoire at U Arts, and can be heard on the CD Grateful and many other places.
Back To Back – The second piece on the bill is by writer Winnie Holzman (Wicked, My So-Called Life) and composer David Evans, written 20+ years ago when they were grad students at NYU. Eric Salzman introduced me to this piece, and I recommended it for production in the Festival Cabaret Theater when I was the producer for that venture back in 1985. The show got produced – with Mary Ellen Grant, a wonderful singer and actress who’s currently a colleague at U Arts, in the cast – in 1985 at the Palladium, a restaurant on the Penn Campus. It’s a quirky duologue sung by two urban strangers who share the same therapist.
The Mice – The final show is the creation of Nell Benjamin and Larry O’Keefe, the songwriters responsible for Bat Boy and, currently, Legally Blonde. Also from 3hree, this show tells the story of the town exterminator in Chippewa Falls, Minnesota and the mousy housewife with whom he has an affair. Based on Sinclair Lewis’s short story “Allan Cedar and Virga Vay,” it’s a quirky tale of two lovers who are willing to take drastic measures to be together.

The interesting challenge for this project is finding ways to make these three shows fit together into an evening that also adds up to a satisfying whole. To this end, I’ve asked my talented colleague, the composer Evan Solot, to orchestrate Back To Back for the same instrumental ensemble that was used for 3hree at the Prince. In design conferences, I’ve tried to articulate my ideas about the theme that links the three shows together: though they take place in different worlds, the three musicals in “Back 2 Back 2 Back” are all about two people seeking an intimate connection – soul reaching out to soul – in a world that puts unnecessary barriers in the way of that attempt.

In Lavender Girl, barriers of social class stand between Colin and Emily, and yet they are unexplainably drawn to each other. So strong is that attraction that it reaches beyond the grave; the spirit of Emily awakens something in the callow Colin.
In Back To Back, both He and She feel unexplainably drawn to each other as well. They’ve never met, only glimpsed each other in passing as they come and go to their psychiatric counseling, and yet each is aware of a powerful attraction. We learn about the feelings of these two acutely lonely people through private monologues, memories and fantasies. When it comes time for them to meet face to face, they are shy, awkward, inarticulate. The music that accompanies their encounters, however, tells us that there are powerful unspoken feelings operating just below the surface.
In The Mice, both Allan and Virga are trapped in unhappy marriages. Because of the attraction they feel for one another, however, they’ve already commenced an affair by the use of an ingenious device: she raises mice and sets them free in neighbors’ houses, the neighbors call Allan to exterminate, and that leaves the “infested” house free for them to use as the site of their dalliance. Once their ruse has been detected by Allan’s wife, Bertha, they conceive of one final, desperate plan to be together forever: a joint suicide. Their deaths are a happy escape, allowing their souls to be together forever.

The worlds of the three plays are quite distinct and different: the gracious, wealthy South in the 1920’s (Gatsby meets Gone With The Wind); the neurotic present day (think Monk or Sex in the City); and the wintry world of Chippewa Falls Minnesota in the 1940’s. Not only are the locales different, but so are the styles. Lavender Girl is lyrical and romantic; Back to Back is like a modern opera, full of odd meters and jittery leitmotifs; and The Mice has a cartoonish, grotesque quality to it. This phenomenon of unity-in-diversity is a big part of what’s intriguing about this particular project for me.

Performances start April 20 at the Arts Bank. Stay tuned!

The Wilder Centennial

Posted on February 18, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

This weekend is the centenary of composer Alec Wilder’s birthday. While I’ve never written about Wilder in this blog, a few of my close artistic associates know that I’ve had a major crush on Wilder’s work, practically since high school. It was my high school classmate Tom Di Sarlo who first played me an LP called “Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder.” I read news of Wilder’s death in 1980 in the New Yorker; became acquainted with some pop songs through published portfolios; and noted that the musical “Alec Wilder: Clues to a Life” played off-Broadway in the late 1980’s just as I was starting to contemplate a similar idea for a show. My Wilder project is still very much a live prospect for the future, but has taken a back seat to other original works I’m focusing on at the moment.

Meanwhile, I thought I would offer a quick shout-out in praise of a composer whose work is undeservedly little-known. In honor of the occasion, I loaded up my iPod with some new Alec Wilder tracks. A generous fan has posted 100 songs for Wilder’s 100th birthday here – an unbelievable bounty of musical riches! In addition to a number of the legendary Octets, there’s Brill Building pop, novelty records, children’s songs – quite a musical feast for online listening. If that isn’t enough, you’ll find a surprising selection of classical tracks at emusic.com. I opted for some cuts from a CD of entitled “Music for Winds and Brass” by the Lawrence University Wind Ensemble, conducted by Robert Levy. I found the sophisticated “third-stream” fusion of jazz and classical idioms and the masterful use of orchestral color really thrilling – how is it that I never heard this before? Do your ears a favor and introduce yourself to the work of this American original!

Welcome to the Chazzyverse!

Posted on February 17, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I decided that my site needed an overhaul, and that WordPress would give me the tools to manage it. It’ll take a little time til all the content from the old site is transferred, but eventually you can expect one-stop shopping here: blog, news, portfolio, the works! Meanwhile, the old site and the old blog are still there. Stay tuned…

Off to San Antonio…

Back 2 Back 2 Back

The Wilder Centennial

Welcome to the Chazzyverse!

Recently

Categories

Archives

Recently Written

Blogroll

Find It

Admin

Design