Music

The Shanghai Quartet

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Shanghai Quartet playing black and white

There was a surprise opening to this concert with ten young singers from the Chinese Children’s Chorus. The boys had vests and bow ties, and the girls all had white frilly dresses. They sang a Chinese folk song in honor of the Year of the Pig, as it was Chinese New Year. Fitting therefore to have the Shanghai Quartet in the house.

The concert opened with a Haydn quartet, but not one that I recognized, and it was not as light as what I think of with Haydn.

The second piece was a Hop commissioned “revising” of a quartet first written in 1982. The composer Tan Dun is well know for his Oscar-winning music for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The composer also knows the quartet quite well, and agreed to collaborate while at a party at the violist’s house a year ago. They had asked for a concerto, but he decided to do this instead. He sent many revisions over social media. This was the premiere at the Hop. The composer was unable to be here because he was doing a premiere of his Buddha Passion in Los Angeles. I have to say that I didn’t enjoy this modern piece, although it started to grow on me a bit at the end of the second movement, and with the third movement.

After intermission was the the Beethoven Razumovsky quartet, a beautiful piece that I have frequently listened to. I could have listened to it all night. This is what defines great chamber music.

After the well-deserved ovation, they played a short folk tune Harvest Dance, arranged by Yi-Wen Jiang, second violin.

Shanghai Quartet post-performance Q&A

At the Q&A, we learned that the quartet started 35 years ago with students from the Shanghai Conservatory, right after the end of the Cultural Revolution. The composer Tan Dun was a school mate, although 5 years older. The current group has been together for 19 years, with cellist Nicholas Tzavaras joining in 2000.

Regarding the pieces, Nicholas mentioned that the Haydn piece featured the cello, unusual for him (but I hadn’t noticed). They wanted to play a Beethoven piece, as they have been playing a lot of Beethoven all over the world, and this was one of their favorites. Mine too.

Shanghai Quartet playbillDownload
Shanghai Quartet press releaseDownload

Hop Backstage article

Carmen

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It was not a big crowd for HD Live in Spaulding. Not “Live” of course, since it was a day later, and the actual live event had been the day before at Loews. But it did allow a front row seat in Spaulding for this show.

This is a opera with beautiful and memorable music. Clémentine Margaine had the lead as Carmen, and she definitely embodied the role. Don José and Micaella were played by husband and wife team Roberto Alagna and Aleksandra Kurzak. This must be fairly unusual in the opera world. I also enjoyed the Russian baritone Alexander Vinogradov who played the bullfighter Escamillo.

The stage was unusual with two concentric rotating circles that could open and close a scene. The complexity really came out when they show what happens behind the curtain in the video.


Carmen playbillDownload

Indigenous Rising

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This was going to be an experiment. At the Top of the Hop, professor Bruce Duthu talked to Andre Bouchard, curator of the show, and Jami Powell, Associate Curator of Native American Arts at the newly re-opened Hood Museum. Andre is the only agent for Native artists in North America (and he is looking for an intern), and Jami is one of the few Native people curating Native art.

The show was in the Bentley, and was well attended for artists that are relatively obscure.

Storme Webber

The show opened with Storme Webber reading some poems with a backdrop of archive slides. This was a bit clumsy in that Storme said she had just reworked the stories, and also commented at several points about how she only had time to do several more, then one more. It seemed a bit disorganized. The stories seemed kind of random, and the best parts were when she broke into song

Ronee Penoi

The second part was a trio of singers doing songs from the Carlisle Project. This was in relation to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School founded in 1879 in Carlisle, PA. The songs were well done, particularly Sarah Corey.

Scotti Clifford and Spirits Cry

The last, and my favorite act, was Scotti Clifford and Spirits Cry. This was father Scotti with 19-year old son Welby June, and 17-year old daughter Wahpe Louella on drums. They did some fun uptempo rock songs, and it was a good way to end the evening.

PlaybillDownload

The Dartmouth article

Orlando Consort Voices Appeared

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Orlando Consort

I had seen Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc several times, but a long time ago. I remember it as a striking and memorable movie, and very modern for a silent movie: no melodrama or stilted movements.

This show was at Spaulding, and not very crowded. The 5 singers were in black to the left of the stage, with the movie on the big screen.

The singing was like Gregorian chant, and I have to admit that it was slightly soporific, and I did doze off once. That makes sense, because the music is all from the period, the early fifteenth century. The contratenor was featured whenever Joan was speaking on the screen, and other deeper voices were the judges and soldiers. The lyrics seemed to be in Latin – I caught a few kyrie eleison here and there. One scene was Joan receiving the sacrament, and the Consort sang the mass, matching the mute voice on the screen.

I liked this with the music – but I’m not sure it needed to be live, frankly.

Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan of Arc

I had forgotten that the movie was based closely on the trial of Joan of Arc in 1431, and they actually have something like actual court transcripts.

PlaybillDownload

Ana Tijoux and Flora de Toloache

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Ana Tijoux

I think we watched the wrong preview video for this first part of the concert, as it turned out that Ana Tijoux is a Chilean rapper. Although there were a couple of ballads mixed in, I did not enjoy the rap songs. I also didn’t understand them as they were in Spanish. It also seemed to me that the piano timing was off for many songs. It seemed like they needed a few bars to get in sync each time.

Flora de Toloache

I’m glad we stayed for the second half: an all-female mariachi band from New York. The four performers shown are Eunice Aparicio, Shae Fiol, Julie Acosta and Mireya Ramos. There were two additional performers, one on violin and the other on trumpet. They played a lot of original and great tunes. They are a good tight band. I did have an issue with the overly long and out of place violin solo. Why didn’t they do the short call and response like the violin and trumpet solo? It kind of spoiled the concert finale.

Although the band was ready for more, there wasn’t an encore as I think the audience was exhausted after three hours!

Press releaseDownload
PlaybillDownload