Tag: 04.05.06

Memorializing Katrina, But With A Universal Touch

The first major work of classical music to commemorate the flooding of New Orleans gets its debut in Madison, Wisconsin this week. But composer Luna Pearl Woolf didn’t want her “Apres Moi, Les Deluge” for solo cello and a cappella choir to be simply a one-hit wonder that would be forgotten once the shock of Katrina abates. “Message pieces are awful and I won’t do them. This is an allegorical text. We tried to eliminate forms that are so specific that they would only apply to this one case. As you move from this one case and how we feel about it, the event becomes more universal and more worthy of being set to music and being listened to.”

Chicago – City Of Dance

“Chicago is fast becoming a ballet boomtown — a magnet for long-necked beauties with narrow, gently sloping shoulders. And with this weekend’s formal announcement that this fall the New York City Ballet will make its first visit to Chicago in more than 25 years, the city’s dance calendar has begun to rival its classical music lineup.”

How Do Our Bodies Respond To Music?

Scientists are trying to measure it in an experiment with the Boston Pops. “Instead of his usual suit jacket or tuxedo, conductor Keith Lockhart will wear an armband and a black Lycra top that looks more like a biking jersey. They will both be wired with a series of sensors that will measure his heart rate, movements, muscle tension, and other physiological evidence of emotion. Five musicians will be similarly wired to measure how they react to his conducting and to playing the music. In the audience, some children and adults will wear these same sensors on their arms and fingers, allowing their bodies to tell the scientists what kinds of emotional intensity they are feeling.”

Museum-By-Phone

“In recent months, a number of museums nationwide — including the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles — have begun offering audio tours that can be accessed via mobile phones as an alternative to the audio devices often available for rent at exhibitions. Museum visitors are given a phone number to dial to begin the tour. Then information on individual artworks is heard by entering various codes on the keypad.”

Bay Area Critic Judith Green, 54

Short of stature, round of figure, Judith never merely walked into a theater; rather, she marched in like an officer about to review the troops. She was a complicated, passionate woman who seemed to have no filtering mechanism whatsoever. If something displeased her, her face would redden in an instant. If one of her favorites succeeded in a performance — people like Margie Jenkins, Ashley Wheater, Joe Goode, Joanna Berman — she was on her feet before the curtain fell, yelling “bravo” with no apparent regard to whatever is meant by “critical distance.”

Ottawa Theatre’s Bold Move

Peter Hinton, the new head of Ottawa’s National Arts Center English is planning a bold first season. He’s offering an all-Canadian program that “draws heavily on the work of small, independent theatre groups across the country and includes five world premieres. Gone are the familiar classics or the recent Broadway hits that are the foundation of subscription seasons in big theatres across North America. In their place, Hinton is daring Ottawa’s notoriously unadventuresome audiences to try something new and unknown.”