The obvious comparison is to Moonlight, and many of the same elements were there. Moody atmospheric music, slow camera pans, beautiful photography, credible and moving acting. Also, slow and plotless – but that is just fine for me.
This was a deceptively simple love story, going back in forth over time, but always understandable.
Some of the scenes were simple, but really amazing: her standing in the street as banners flap overhead, he puzzling over an unfinished block of wood sculpture as smoke swirls around his head.
I’m not sure it was necessary to have the several slide show sections with black and white photos of racial oppression – it wasn’t really needed, and seemed to break the mood. Every thing about racism was summed up in the staring contest between Fonny and the cop outside the small grocery store.
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.
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.
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.
This was the “sing along” version of Bohemian Rhapsody. It was an interesting movie because I didn’t really know that much about the band, apart from a few of their iconic songs. For quite a few of the sing-along portions, I wasn’t able to because I just didn’t know the song. However, there were some famous one: We Will Rock You, Bohemian Rhapsody, We are the Champions, Another One Bites the Dust.
Rami Malek played Freddy Mercury, the mercurial lead singer. I recognized him, but couldn’t place him until I found in Wikipedia that he had been in I Robot of course. I should have remembered those big eyes! Other Wikipedia stuff highlighted some of the inaccuracies, the main one being that the band never actually broke up, although that was a big plot point in the movie. I guess it was necessary to bring some drama, the prodigal son returning to his family, the band.
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.
