Music: The Seasons Project

Last night, my husband and I attended the awe-inspiring live performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by the Venice Baroque Orchestra. Led by soloist Robert McDuffie, the orchestra followed Vivaldi’s composition with Phillip Glass’ "Violin Concerto No. 2". This performance, called the Seasons Project, showcases Glass’ reconstruction and American adaptation of Vivaldi’s original composition. I cannot remember the last time I was so stirred and inspired by such a performance. The sensory feast lay not just in the emotional power of sound, but in the visual effects of men and women whose music playing becomes their sole purpose of being.


The violinists stood to perform. During Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the group swayed and bent in the emotional heights and tinglings of Baroque. Like fields of tall grass that ruffle and splay in wind, musicians alternately seemed to bow under the roll of music. Clusters of complementing accompanists nodded in wordless communication to each other. McDuffie himself, his eyes often closed and his face unable to restrain the effects of his own playing, conversed with his fellow musicians through leaning, turning, and bowing gently. Music swelled and receded. Notes painted pictures of falling leaves, rain, and yawning summer fields. My husband, with his leg pressed against my own, closed his own eyes under the dancing and tumbling notes. Crescendo after decrescendo, he fought to remain seated against the tide of harmonious string.

After intermission, McDuffie and the orchestra plunged into Glass’ concerto. One can easily trace the elements of Vivaldi that appear, but Glass’ composition is not at all as delicately structured as Vivaldi’s Baroque pieces. Glass is American by birth and his music is as dramatic and powerful as the reputation this country has developed. There is strength the sound of his simplified orchestration. Musicians suddenly no longer worked in conversation, but drew together as a unified team and moved sharply together. The seasons seemed to not be so separate as much as they merged, and the feeling, which is most American, can only be summed up by this word: forward.

A little glimpse of Glass’ concerto is here http://modlin.richmond.edu/events/great-performances/the-seasons-project.html as it is discussed by the conductor working with the symphony in the video. For those of you who don’t think you are familiar with Glass, if you click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4-W4qjsBi4 you can listen to Glass’ composition, "Truman Sleeps", for The Truman Show. A segment of the composition for the pinnacle of the film, which you are most likely to have heard, is this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBu9l_EKWVs&feature=related.

Handel's Messiah a la Mall

A wonderful performance of Handel's Messiah, promoted as a random act of culture in a Philadelphia mall, can be seen and heard here: http://www.operaphila.org/backend/News/csNews.cgi?database=wings.db&command=viewone&id=85.
Who could not be moved by this most powerful and uplifting orchestration of voice and organ?

Big thank you to my adoring sister who sent it this morning! Happy listening!

Return to Me

I am just in this thing right now, this awkward place. I know who I am, but where am I going? I have been considering a multidisciplinary PhD program at a prestigious university and even the research for the application has opened holes in my heart that are bigger than the ones already there. One of the current students there had the following beautiful *video on her blog:

 

Listening to the music, I began to realize how much I miss a true life in the arts-- the smell of paint, the sound of musicians warming up in their studios, the exchange of ideas--and really, the vast realm of possibility that exists in such an environment. If you watch this embedded video, truly look for the expression in the face of the violinist, the source of the percussion (a magazine shredded one page at a time, a rapping on the elevator ceiling), and the density of musicians performing elegantly in a packed and unlikely space. I ask myself, who thought of this?

An artist did. I am an artist. At least I was once. And I miss her terribly.

*"Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire

Put Mrs. God on the Phone

I received the most awe-inspiring gift this past week in New Orleans, a spontaneous, live, private performance by acoustic/folk/blues genius Teresa Tudury whom you can visit here: http://www.teresatudury.net/. She was visiting a cousin and we just happened to connect by timing of our visits. The morning following our dinner, my father and I bumped into her cousin and wound up together again. Teresa had brought her Gibson, which was objecting to New Orleans humidity, but she coaxed it into life anyway.


To say Teresa sings and plays guitar is an understatement. She bursts forth in controlled displays of power, her voice escalating and retreating, filling the room, and drawing you into the soul of one who sees life, notes the irony, and capitalizes on it with great intellectual prowess, outstanding comedy, and creative risk. One of the songs she played was Put Mrs. God on the Phone (click on the link for it at her website to hear it: http://www.teresatudury.net/music.html), which reminded me of the many hysterical prayers I have put forth to God in my most awkward and frustrated moments. They aren’t a far stretch from Richard’s placating pleas to the Lord in Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love. He asks God for help, but asks to please be gentle when delivering direction, because as we all know, forced change drops like a sledge hammer from His hand. Tudury herself sings that she has been calling God many times (don’t make her come to His home, she says) and tired of his masculine point of view (death, destruction), she would love to speak to Mrs. God, who might, in fact, have some very nice ideas, as opposed to say, nailing your best employee to a cross. Theresa is irreverent and forthright in all her songs on the CD she gave me.

Inspired by the comedy and honesty of Mrs. God, here is a list of things I have prayed over the years.

Dear God, I really hate the stomach flu. Please don’t let me throw up and die. Please spare me from retching. I’ll do anything. Please.

Followed by:

Dear God, please let me die. The retching is awful. Just let me die nice and quietly on this cool tile floor.

On other days:

Dear Lord, please show me what is wrong with my relationship.

Soon to be followed by:

Lord, was that really necessary?

Another favorite:

Dear Lord, I have been ruthlessly trying to find employment and am willing to clean houses. Please open a door or window and show me the way.

Also followed by:

Dear Lord, this is ridiculous. Were food stamps really a part of your plan? And the cat box in that woman’s office is really offensive, but I’ll deal.

And ultimately by:

Dear Lord, thank you for the new job, but it still does not pay the bills and my client is so mean I lost ten pounds from stress. I would appreciate clearer direction on what this is doing for me.

My favorite answer to one of my most earnest prayer was a very clear, bone-chilling statement: Child, wait. And another one, I swear, came in a bumper sticker. Both came with an incredible wave of reassurance.

I just told a girlfriend over lunch that I don’t mind at all doing what God says, but for crying out loud, can He just speak plainly? All this digging around, moaning, begging, pleading, trying so hard to look for signs and listen. Honestly, it flabbergasts me. When my prayers are answered clearly, He likes to respond with a kind of blast followed by my long suffering. I often ask God why if we speak so often, I still on occasion have to yell to be heard. And like Richard, I have started asking if He could make direction slightly less painful. Thanks to Teresa though, I think I am just going to start asking for Mrs. God.