Ira Glass on Taste, Storytelling and the Path to Success
Posted on May 29, 2008
Filed Under Professional | Leave a Comment
Kahane on the Brain
Posted on May 28, 2008
Filed Under Musical Theater, Personal, Professional | Leave a Comment
It happened so quickly that it’s hard to recall when Gabriel Kahane showed up on my radar. I went back and searched my Google Reader sources and discovered that he had already gotten attention from Alex Ross (two years ago!) and Jeremy Denk, along with this fairly recent review of a Joe’s Pub concert on Sequenza21, a contemporary music blog. A couple weeks ago, I saw a DVD of a workshop of a new musical at the Ravinia Festival (filmed in 2003) and as Gabriel’s name flashed by in the end credits, I recall thinking, “The music director for this piece did a hell of a job playing faux-Ravel and decadent Viennese music.”
Recently, I went to his site and downloaded the Craigslistlieder (he’s posted the complete set!). It took a few days before I got around to listening to them, but I had a lot of listening time while setting up my new office/studio and gave the tunes a spin. Somehow the songs were the perfect soundtrack for my current state of mind: creative, smart, poignant. In a twinkling, I’d bought his EP CD on iTunes and found it equally felicitous. I ogled his music-theater credits via Google (Kyle Jarrow, Les Freres Corbusier, boy soprano in Street Scene in Berlin). And before I knew it, I was on a train to NYC to see him in concert at Ars Nova.
It was a fine show, though the circumstances were a bit less than ideal (tinny sour piano, bad mix), and affirmed my opinion of him as The Real Deal, a singular talent. Without meaning to sound dismissive or unduly reductive, I think it’s fair to describe him as the next generation’s Adam Guettel. (Only one per decade!) I remember the excitement I felt hearing Floyd Collins in the early 90’s, and Kahane’s work gives me the same buzz. He shares with Adam a Pop-Song-Meets-New-Music sensibility, a blithe commingling of high and low-brow influences that shows up often in sophisticated musical theater (Weill, Bernstein, the usual suspects). Interesting to note that he’s the son of conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane – raised in a hyper-musical family, again like Adam. The Ars Nova show began with a 7-song cycle of settings of Robert Lowell poems, after which he announced that he and his band would play through the music from an album he’s just finished recording. The instrumental ensemble was substantial in size and talent: violin (doubling electric guitar), viola, cello, clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), flute and trumpet joined the composer, who sand and played piano and banjo. He writes beautifully for this ensemble and they manage to navigate the jagged edge between new-music precision and downtown scruffiness adroitly. The encore was “Neurotic and Lonely,” from the Craigslistlieder; the audience’s delight was audible. The album’s definitely worth looking forward to, as is whatever else this guy chooses to apply himself to. Stay tuned!
Alice
Posted on May 22, 2008
Filed Under Personal, Professional | Leave a Comment
Alice
This is a fabulous creation – a trippy Disney remix!
AM Radio
Posted on May 15, 2008
Filed Under Personal | Leave a Comment
Sitting at the kitchen table tonight, listening to the Phillies on AM radio. Cole Hamels just shut out the Braves, his first complete game shutout in the majors. AM radio is definitely old technology but it gets the job done! I was out for a Mothers’ Day drive with my mom and her husband on Sunday; a sudden encounter with a Fairmount Park pothole led to a flat tire, and we listened to the entire Phils-Giants game on the car’s radio before we were eventually rescued by road service. The low-fi sound, the endless banter of the play-by-play guys, the din of the crowd in the background: somehow it’s enough to transport me there in my imagination.
Recently
- 2009 – the year, and the decade, in review
- “Saturday Night” on Sunday and other London adventures
- 2008 – The Year in Review
- Professor of Smirkology
- Watch The Birdie
- Who I Am Makes A Difference
- Ira Glass on Taste, Storytelling and the Path to Success
- Kahane on the Brain
- Alice
- AM Radio
Categories
Archives
- December 2009
- March 2009
- January 2009
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
- January 2005
- December 2004
- November 2004
- October 2004
- September 2004
- August 2004
- July 2004
- June 2004
- May 2004
- April 2004
- March 2004
- February 2004
- January 2004
- December 2003
- November 2003
- October 2003
- September 2003
- August 2003
- June 2003
- May 2003
- April 2003
- March 2003
- February 2003