Mark Likes Music

On every January 1 since 1939, the Vienna Philharmonic has been waltzing in the new year at the Musikverein. In all of these concerts, Johann Strauss Jr.'s music is the most prominent musical fixture. Although it was his father, along with Josef Lanner, who popularized Austria's indigenous 3/4 dance music, Johann Strauss Jr. was the true "Waltz King"; by the time he passed in 1899, his music was beloved worldwide, from Bosnia to Boston. Most people are familiar with his "Blue Danube" Waltz; the Vienna Phil plays it on every New Year's Day concert--and of course, it's part of the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack: As respected for his dance music as he was in his time--Brahms was but one noted admirer and friend--and as historically important as he is for it today, Strauss was also a successful stage composer. He wrote a ballet based on Cinderella, and provided competition to Offenbach with operettas such as his Die Fledermaus (1874): This year...

On his Age of Raven s blog, Hoosier Lowell Francis wrote about classical music he likes --and wrote exclusively about Michael Daugherty . He sums it all up like this: Daugherty's a good ways away from some of the more narrow and completely dissonant forms in 20th Century music. He doesn't echo any of the minimalism of Philip Glass or even John Adams. There's more a Charles Ives in there-- but without being awful like Ives is. There-- I said it. He's more listenable that some other 20th century stuff (to me at least) like Boulez, Messiaen, or Carter. I will note that he's routinely criticized for being kitschy-- and that may be why I like him.   It's as good a description as I've heard. Red Cape Tango - Metropolis Symphony - Michael Daugherty

The dreary business of the Louisville Orchestra's restructuring is going forward, with the CEO threatening to close up shop if he has to pay the band. Today, a US Bankruptcy Court judge ruled that the organization can't cut its budget by voiding its contract with its musicians ,who will now get cheques until April as a result, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. In testimony prior to the ruling , the board president, Chuck Maisch, said that the orchestra could only honor the contract by dipping into its endowment; the orchestra's CEO, Robert Birman, said that the orchestra would simply have to liquidate assets. It looks as if that  the proceedings start up again in Louisville on January 6 .

Thanks to Steve Rochen for this through Facebook. ( Who's Alastair Macaulay ?)

Usually toy instruments are useless, but Hearth Song's Melody Lap Harp is the real deal. What I particularly like about it was that you can tune it with an accompanying tuning hammer; so many children's musical toys either clang horribly upon arrival or go out of tune quickly. You don't need much skill to start: it comes with tablature sheets that sit just underneath the strings. My daughter's really into it. Our Christmas-Eve visit to church left my son a little rattled; he took solace the next day in They Might Be Giants's Here Comes Science.  The group's Here Come the 123's was a pre-Christmas gift for our daughter. The songs are catchy, groovy, and even at times poignant:

Today's the first day of Kwanzaa , the seven-day festival that black nationalist Maulana (Ron) Karenga started back in 1966. Each day celebrates a theme, and today's is umoja , unity. Karenga founded the US Organization in the wake of the 1964 Watts riots to build a positive, independent self-identity for African-Americans; the seven-point Nguzo Saba v alue system that Kwanzaa reflects was meant to help achieve this end. Kwanzaa has a definite Afro-centric political bent (the Nguzo Saba principles are Swahili words), and Karenga designed it specifically as a secular cultural celebration that African-Americans could observe in conjunction with any religious holiday (it's a common misconception that Kwanzaa is tied to a religion). Across the US, a number of organizations are marking the start of Kwanzaa: in Charlotte, the Harvey B. Gantt Center has events planned from 1-5 PM; in New York City, the A merican Museum of Natural History , from 12-5 PM.

I've been looking for a version of "Silent Night" that captures its sacred nature, its ethereality. If I can stop thinking about lumber while watching, this clip might be it: Everyone's favorite "great Inuit violinist," John Clare , sent me a link to this earlier today. So you can thank him.

If you're in Chicago for Christmas--and you're a big geek--you'll want to check out Commedia Beauregard's A Klingon Christmas Carol : Christopher Kidder, the director and co-writer, tells the Wall Street Journal , "It's like an opera." I'm sure it is. But at least it's not this: (Thanks to Symphony Nova Scotia and Erika Beatty for the tip.)

Here's a video ( sent by--you guessed it--my sister-in-law ) of Los Straitjackets doing "Sleigh Ride" in Portland last December: A few days after their show, coincidentally, Andy Williams, also a noted "Sleigh Ride" interpreter, was on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me .   Be warned if you listen to the interview: the guy's kind of a jerk. I'm not going to post his "Sleigh Ride" here. I will post this, though:

My sister-in-law is at it again : Before LeBron, Akron was probably best known as the place where The Waitresses came from. (I don't know if that's really true; I just found that out on Wikipedia.) You might not know "Christmas Wrapping," but you probably remember this:

In an article for the Huffington Pos t, Jennifer Edwards helps to explain why Alastair Macaulay's Nutcracker review --with the uncalled-for crack about two dancers' weight--was worse than just rude: While Macaulay clearly knows his history, taking 13 paragraphs to extol the magnificence of Balanchine's vision and Tchaikovsky's musical genius, this Perez Hilton-esque comment degrades not only the work of the dancers, but the art of cultural criticism. Commentary of this nature does nothing to educate, inspire, or bring about innovation in the field.  Edwards also cites critic Eva Yaa Asantewaa , who seems to have already given up on the Times as a source for intelligent, insightful dance coverage: Since Times arts editors apparently condone or encourage snarky writing in its dance reviews--and since Times reviews, regrettably, are crucial to the careers of artists and survival of arts institutions--we will have to push on and create viable, respected alternatives. Most...

My friend Peter MacDonald, the Music Director at Local 107.3 FM in St. John  and someone  who really needs to update his blog , posted this little gem to his Facebook page this morning: The longer you listen, the more you realize just how great this is. No joke. I love it. And the band's pretty tight, too.

From the San Francisco Ballet's 2007 production :

It's impossible to know everything about every art form that enriches our culture. We all have blind spots, and filling those in for us is where a critic can be most useful. Alastair Macaulay failed in this role when, in his now much discussed review , he said this about Jenifer Ringer and Jared Angle's performances in the New York City Ballet's Nutcracker : Jenifer Ringer, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, looked as if she'd eaten one sugar plum too many; and Jared Angle, as the Cavalier, seems to have been sampling half the Sweet realm. They're among the few City Ballet principals who dance like adults, but without adult depth or complexity.  Because Macaulay didn't explain to us how Ringer's and Angle's weight related to the superficiality of the dancing, we can only conclude that he was taking a cheap shot at dancers he just didn't like. ( Ringer went on the Today Show t o defend herself .) Macaulay missed an opportunity to explain the connection betwe...

In an editorial this morning , Hawaii's Star-Advertiser pointed out an unmentioned, unfortunate consequence of the Honolulu Symphony's Chapter 7 bankruptcy : But even in the best of times, symphony musicians had to supplement this part-time salary with side jobs -- usually teaching private lessons to Hawaii's music students. If former symphony members no longer have a base salary to keep them here, many of them will leave the islands, taking an invaluable instructional resource away with them. The resulting "brain drain" will deal another blow to an arts education that already has been suffering from budgetary cutbacks for years, a situation further degraded by the economic recession. As the debate goes on in cities around the country about the value of regional orchestras, it's good to keep in mind that as musicians lose their jobs and leave, the community also loses teachers, homeowners, consumers.  It's something that doesn't get discussed often e...

The night before our trip to Manhattan for the New York Theatre Ballet's abbreviated Nutcracker last Sunday, I came across, on Netflix, the 1986 film version with the Pacific Northwest Ballet and the London Symphony Orchestra. To cut down the ballet to a child-friendly one hour, the New York Theatre Ballet omitted the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, so I thought I'd post the clip from Nutcracker: The Motion Picture here; Kadoty86 has a number of scenes  on her YouTube channel . The dancer is Patricia Barker, who retired back in 2007  as a favorite of many dance fans in Seattle. The NYBT production we saw with the children the next day was precious, in a good way. The choreography made it easy to follow the story while also giving the dancers lots of room to show their stuff. It was a young group that danced with verve; my daughter was transfixed. The only distraction was the tinny recorded music. I know that the company can't afford a full band, but surely som...

Back in March, the Honolulu Symphony filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy  (as the Louisville Orchestra recently did ) to get out from under their debt. Today, the board acknowledged that the financial weight was overwhelming when they asked a US bankruptcy court to change their status to Chapter 7 and let them liquidate all assets. The judge granted the reques t.

So, my sister-in-law sent me this, with the note: "I thought of you when I saw this one." When did the gesamtkunst-lightshow at Christmas become so popular? There's even a website . Thanks for the tip, Sabrina .

Has anyone in Utah seen The Rose ? Thanks, Robyn. I couldn't resist.

There are a many ways to enjoy the magical sounds of Christmas. With a bagpipe in your living room is not one of them. They may take our eardrums, but they'll never take our egg nog!

There was a whole lot of nothin' going on in Detroit toda y, but yesterday in Charleston it looks as if the orchestra will be up and running again. Although the Charleston Symphony Orchestra board and musicians reached a contract agreement last week, they hadn't settled the sticky matter of a National Labor Review Board complaint that the musicians' union had filed against the orchestra  for stopping work last March. Yesterday, as reported on the Charleston Post and Courier website , the union will drop the complaint in return for musician control over 23% of the board seats. As constituted, that means that the musicians will nominate members to hold 5 of 21 seats. They had asked for 10. They had also asked that the board president and negotiating chair resign; no word on whether that will happen. The Charleston Symphony lost 12 musicians in this contract--they're down to only 24--and their base pay is now only $14,000. But hopefully, the musicians now can feel ...

Somewhere there are photos of me, decked out in wire-rimmed hippie glasses, sitting at a piano and playing "Imagine" with my junior-high rock band at a school talent contest. As a kid, I was a bit of a John Lennon fan--needless to say--and it was great to see Open Culture  post, among other things, Lennon and Yoko Ono's  Dick Cavett Show interview   as a tribute on this anniversary of the Beatle's death . I've already shown you some Christmas music that's just so wrong , but today it's worth mentioning John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" as music that's pretty well the best there is, at least of the last 40 years of so. There are tons of homemade videos of the song on YouTube; here's one:

Jacob Stockinger at The Well-Tempered Ear is crowing about his hometown orchestra , the Madison Symphony. Apparently, they practically sold out their holiday concerts this season, and are fiscally sound. It's hard to compare this group to the Detroit Symphony, which has a more extensive season and a much larger budget ( or did before the strike ), but the energy of their marketing--which should be a statement of faith in the music and the performances--is a model everyone can follow.

Never were truer words ever spoken. If you like curse words, take a look at this video from Drew . He's an Ohioan . Otherwise, enjoy the Slayer light show . 

They're certainly keeping things interesting down there. Last Wednesday, we heard that the board and musicians had agreed to a contract that would get the Charleston Symphony Orchestra up and running again . ( The CSO suspended operations in March .) It cuts the number of musicians from 36 to 24 (who will only get $14,000/year plus health insurance) and trims the budget by $1 million (to only $1.3 million). But there's still one small matter to settle: the musicians still have a complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board against the orchestra brass (no pun intended) for shutting down operations back in March. The musicians and the local American Federation of Musicians are smartly using this as leverage to gain some board powe r. First, they want board president Ted Legasey and board bargaining committee head Marty Klaper gone. Then, the musicians want 10 new board members to be appointed from a list of nominees they provide. Today, the board made their ow...

It ends up that Hungarian composer Bela Bartok lived in the Bronx, just down the street from where I live now. Small world, eh? After leaving Europe to avoid the Nazis, Bartok settled in Forest Hills, Queens in 1940. The next year, he crossed the Harlem River to Cambridge Avenue in Riverdale. Apparently, the well-treed parks of the neighborhood put the composer at ease and reminded him of Budapest; he stayed for three years before moving to 57th Street, close to Carnegie Hall. He passed in 1945. While in Riverdale, Bartok worked for Columbia University as a researcher--he was a renowned collector of Hungarian folk music--and also composed his most famous work, the Concerto for Orchestra, which the Boston Symphony Orchestra premiered in 1944. Here's the last movement: You can hear snippets of this piece and get a little background on NPR.org .

Earlier this week, an anonymous donor helped the Louisville Orchestra make payroll . Clearly, the gift wasn't enough to help in the long term. Today, the o rchestra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy . This doesn't mean the end; it does, however, signal big changes as management throws itself on the mercy of the courts. In particular, it looks as if they want to cut the number of musicians to 55 from 71. Because they're paid up to December 15, the orchestra will play their Nutcracker performances--they begin tomorrow--up to that date. How depressing. 

The downtown bar (Le) Poisson Rouge on Bleeker Street in Manhattan is opening its doors this Sunday at 11 AM for the second Baby Got Bach  children's concert. Baby Got Bach is a new series founded by pianist Orli Shaham. The inaugural show was November 21 , and this weekend Baby Got Bach is all about dance, complete with ballerina. It looks as if there'll be lots of stuff for the youngsters to do. Family (two adults, two children) tickets are $40. 

WFPL in Louisville noted yesterday  that a donatation from an anonymous source helped the Louisville Orchestra to pay its musician s. Last week, it looked as if the group wouldn't make payrol l and was even possibly moving toward bankruptcy. This is a sad fall for an orchestra that once had done so much for new music in the US . As late as the summer, it looked as if the orchestra management and board was working on a plan to turn the Louisville Orchestra around .