Announce your upcoming public performance here!
 
(If you're shy and don't want us to see you, mention it after it 
happens.)
 
Linked between Agora and Music conferences.

42 responses total.

I will be singing harmony for Matt Watroba at the Ark on Sat, May 4, and
for Melanie at Green Wood on Fri, May 17.

        At the science fiction convention known as Top Secret ConTraption,
I am the Toastmaster.  I get to speak for the con and conchair in all the
places the conchair does not want to be public speaking.  Besides, she
dislikes seeing those little red dot appear on her forehead.  But that
is not the point, the point is to get you to click into
http://www.contraption.org and find out about this thing to be 
held in Romulus, MI June 28, 29 & 30th, 2002.  While we do expect
some Romulans to show up, Klingons and Vulcans are also welcomed.
        My first honored gig at a con.

And if a few Ann Arborians show up, you won't raise a fuss?

        ConTraption needs as many to show up as can.  I think it may
be do-or-live-and-let-die time with trying out this new hotel in
a summertime slot instead of the former springtime slot.

I've got a choir concert coming up in a week or two, but I don't remember
exactly when.  

'Traption's dates have been changed?  Last I knew it was set for June
21-23.

Right.  My choir concert is this Thursday, April 11.  It's at the First
Congregational Church, though if you ask me where that is, I'd be unable to
answer you.  8 pm.  
  It's the UM Arts Chorale and the Residential College choir, whatever they're
called.  Program is something like this  (from memory, so don't quote me)

  - RC choir doing something?
  - Soloists doing a variety of excerpts from musicals
  - Arts Chorale
    - I love my love, Holst
    - Hungarian folk songs, Bartok
    - Alleluia, Randall Thomson  (sp?)
  - AC and RC together
    - Missa Brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo, "Small Organ Mass", Haydn  
     (all the jokes have been made, trust me)
    - It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing, Ellington

THat church is on the corner of State and William, I believe.

From the Ann Arbor News arts and events calendar (somehow we didn't get 
listed in the Observer this time.  Hm.)

Sunday, April 14 

MUSIC

Ann Arbor Civic chorus: "American Stylings" 

3 p.m., Slauson Middle School, 1019 W. Washington Ave. Music from 
America's past and present, including jazz, swing and folk, as well as 
selections from "South Pacific." Free. Information: (517) 431-3049.

This response has been erased.

Big benefit show at Leopold Bros. this Friday (April 12).  I'll be appearing
in the Nick Strange Trio somewhere past the half-way mark, when the acoustic
folkies get done.

I love the name of that group -- The Nick Strange Trio.  What's the 
benefit for?

The benefit is for Project Grow.  Acoustic folk starts at 5:30, with the rock
& roll bands starting at 9:30.  I think we're on at 9:30.

Announcing a free concert:

          The University of Michigan Life Sciences Orchestra
                         Sunday, April 21st
                               2:00 pm
                         The Michigan Theatre


          Brahms - Symphony No.2
          Copland - Letters from Home
          Barber - Canzonetta for Oboe and String Orchestra
          Berntein - Overture to Candide

Er, Bernstein.

I play cello in this thing.

Cool selection.  Are you going to take Candide up to Bernstein's tempo?  Do
you pay your sheet rentals with free-will offerings?

Regarding the tempo - yes, for better or worse. ;-)

The orchestra is funded by various donors including Gifts of Art.
Too, I think the rental charge is figured into the decision to
play a piece.  Sad, but true.  Originally another Copland piece 
was planned until we found out how much it would cost.  Letters
from home was substituted.  But it is actually my favorite piece
on the whole program.

Before we had our first read through, Mitch Williams, our conductor,
simply read us a letter he had written, to show the spirit of the
song.  It was a sweet update from home, talking about a sick cow and
rain and dad's bursitis, etc.  But we knew the gentle reader was
cold and dirty hunkered down in a fox hole half-way around the world,
with gunfire heard through the isolating fog.  It's a great piece.

What was the old Copland piece?

The one we almost did?  Don't remember the name but I'll look
at a list of his compositions and maybe it'll come back.

Oh, and it's "Letter From Home".

Was it "Fanfare for the Common Man"?

Mary sure 'nuff wasn't going to play cello in "Fanfare for the Common 
Man."

Hm, guess that one's string-free, eh?  Never mind...

I believe the Copland piece was out of the Our Town suite.  I'll find out
the exact title on Sunday. 

I thought it was a "Spring" piece; I remember talking about the cost.  I'm
drawing a blank on the actual name, though.

"Appalachian Spring" was the piece discussed in Winter (2002) agora.

"Appalachian Spring" is a much longer and larger-scale work 
than "Letter from Home", so I suppose the royalty payment would be 
greater.  It also has interesting cello parts.

Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School where I work, is 
currently arguing a court case to the effect that the steadily 
increasing copyright periods (until Mickey Mouse dies or hell freezes 
over, whichever comes first) will have a chilling effect on, among 
other things, the repertoires of community orchestras, which can't 
afford to perform very many works that require royalty payments.

Thanks for doing the research, Joe.  If only the whole of my
memory was as well documented as the bits and pieces I've left
on Grex... ;-)

An odd thing about this concert, odd to me that is - the first
half of the program will be the Brahms and the second half the
shorter pieces.  I don't think I've ever been to a concert where
the largest work didn't play second half.

...which is funny, because people's patience usually diminishes over the
course of the evening.  It's easier to sit through a long _anything_ when you
haven't already sat through a bunch of short anythings.

The order ended up feeling just right, ending with the Bernstein.
Well, kind of.  We did Elgar's Enigma Variations as an encore.

Although I enjoyed orchestra a whole lot I'm relieved to be done
with it for now.  Sunday nights are again mine.

Not the whole of the Enigma Variations as an encore, surely?  The 
work's about 25 minutes long.  Maybe an excerpt, probably "Nimrod".

Serious symphony concerts generally put the larger piece in the second 
half not in defiance of attendees' diminishing patience, but more, I 
think, on the same psychological principle by which the most dramatic 
events in a novel are generally nearer to the end.  It's a principle of 
build-up.  A typical concert may begin with an overture or other short 
work as an appetizer, but the rest of the first half is not generally a 
light potpourri any more than the second half is: it could be a 
concerto or a shorter symphony.

Pops concerts are more in the form that Orinoco has in mind: first 
halves rather like symphony concert first halves, followed by second 
halves with the really light stuff, which is indeed "a bunch of short 
anythings."

I'll be playing bass in the Nick Strange Acoustic Duo tomorrow (Friday the
3rd) at The Alley in Dexter.  New this time:  I sing a few tunes!

Another free concert:

The Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra plays pops at 5 PM tomorrow evening
at St. Anne's Church in Mexican-town in Detroit as part of the area's
annual Cinco de Mayo celebration (yes, it's on May 4).

Another concert, not free ($6, I think?):

The Detroit Symphony Civic Orchestra will also be performing a regular concert
program on Sunday, May 5 at 3 PM at Orchestra Hall in Detroit.  On the program
is R. Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks and Bernstein's Overture
to Candide (just in case you missed it at Mary's concert...)

Jeff, are you playing?

I forgot to announce the GR Symphonette concert at St. Celia because of bummer
automobile accident.  Well, it was nothing to write home about anyway.  The
poor oboe solo tried to play with a new reed.  It was heatbreaking.

Matt watroba is at the ARK in Ann ARbor tonight, the opening act is Bernice
Lewis and Katie Geddes will be ther as well.  Show starts at 8:00

The word symphonette always brings the Longines Symphonette to my 
mind.  Consequently I find it hard to take a group using that word 
seriously as purveyors of classical music.

That would be appropriate in the case of the GR Symphonette as well.

It's a volunteer, community organization, playing light and brief classical
orchestral music for those who no longer can get about to hear live music.
Fortunately for the audience, most have experienced significant hearing
loss before we played our first note.   Those who have not suffered such
loss, probably can't walk out on us even if they wanted to.

I've read that the actual Grand Rapids Symphony is supposed to be 
pretty good.  It was anything but good back in the 1940s, when my 
mother nearly lost her love for music through being subjected to its 
concerts as a child, a love only redeemed by occasional visits to 
Chicago.

#38>  My experiences go back to the late 1950's and then into the 1960's, and
the GR Symphony was nothing to brag about.  After Zeller left, more
challenging music directors gradually brought it to the worthy
organization it is today.  I lived in Lansing for years and came back in
time for Comet's leadership.  Lockington is music director now.

GR Symphony concerts are re-broadcast on Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp Radio.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss