West Side Story

I'm very behind on reporting on my concert-going activities...so, a quick catch up:

A few weeks ago I went to the MSO's concert conducted by Alexander Shelley which featured a piece by Reveultas, the Concierto de Aranjuez by Rodrigo and West Side Story Symphonic Dances. I went for the Bernstein - I will pretty much go to any concert that involves Bernstein. (Although I do draw the limit at really bad school bands playing bad arrangements of WSS which I have unfortunately been privy to in the past).

This was the second time I'd seen/heard Shelley conduct the piece - the other time was in January last year with AYO. It was an exciting performance. I was listening and watching in a different way to normal as someone in the Frankston Symphony has requested that we play it in a movie-theme concert at the end of the year. In particular, I was focussing on what the strings role was and how hard their parts were. I was actually surprised at how uncomplicated yet fantastic their parts are in the first two main dances. Afterwards their parts became more challenging - far beyond our players at the moment. A highlight of the performance was Geoff Payne's trumpet solos, especially in the Mambo (always a highlight, actually) and the orchestra yelling out 'Mambo!'. Concertmaster Marcus Tomasi turned directly to the audience each time and yelled at the top of his lungs with great love and energy - looked like he was having a ball. The violas too were having fun - they seemed to pulse their instruments ever so slightly upwards. With each successive cry of 'Mambo' I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see if they would go the thole Simon Bolivar thing and jump up and down. If you haven't seen the video you need to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtnjixhvOTU

Lots of fun!!

Slava Grigoriyan (?sp) played the Rodrigo, which was great, but sandwiched between the two much fuller pieces the guitar sound seemed to pale in comparison, just to do with the orchestration. Interesting to note in my future programming.

Martin Bresnick Lecture, the MSO on Friday

Last Friday I was extremely excited to attend the first Fridays @ 3 presentation at ANAM. They're free lectures presented every fornight, usually by artists engaged at the Academy that week. I've been to a couple in the past, which were really interesting. It was packed, which was fantastic to see. The lecture 'Hidden Meaning in Music' was presented by composer Martin Bresnick (Professor at Yale) and his wife, the phenomenal pianist Lisa Moore. They opened with a performance of several movements of Robert Schumann's Album for the Young. Her playing was absolutely beautiful and riveting. Bresnick went on to explain Schumann's various sneaky devices, hidden messages to Clara, the pictures painted that contradict the titles etc. Very interesting. I was so moved I went straight to the VCA library and copied the pieces she played to analyse them. Turns out some of them are simple enough that even I can play them! Which has a dual purpose in improving my keyboard skills with something that sounds beautiful. The little electric keyboard at home doesn't quite do Schumann justice, but hey.

Friday night saw me go the MSOs concert which was: Faure - Requiem, Debussy - La Mer and Rachmaninov's The Bells. There were very interesting colours created in the Bells, which I hadn't heard before. But Lisa Moore's piano was the highlight of the day.

Randomly, I'm very much looking forward to all the upcoming opera: La Bear/Angelique and Bliss in particular (as well as the production of Tosca mentioned in a previous post).

A five concert week...phew!

Normally such jam-packed weeks involve me playing in lots of concerts, but this week it was my turn to sit in the audience.

Wednesday night was one of the MSO in the Bowl concerts with Ben Northey conducting. They opened with A Midsummer Night's Dream which was fascinating in that it was accompanied by a live Twitter stream which consisted of comments about the drama portrayed by the music as well as 'insider' type tips on parts which were difficult for the orchestra or showcased particular players. The Bowl was quite full so I'm estimating there were at least 5000+ people there, but only about 80 Twitter followers. I followed and added my two cents, but it became distracting (but this was probably due to the fact I'd never really used Twitter before, certainly not on my phone). Overall a great concert though. Rebecca Chan played the Bruch Violin concerto - she was stunning. Really captivating playing - she totally went for it! Till Eulenspiegel rounded out the program which was fun & lively. I got the most awesome surprise when Shostakovich's Festive Overture was the encore - one of my favourite pieces, and so good to see it conducted in 1, as it should be.

Friday night was a totally different affair with some students playing as a support act at the Corner Hotel. It was ridiculously loud but I was too self-conscious to wear my Musicians Earplugs, but I really should have. I'm not sure how to classify their sound...but indie/rock/psychedelic might somehow place them correctly. Either way their songwriting was fun and their orchestration interesting.

Saturday night was the next Bowl concert - Opera Highlights conducted by Richard Gill. The highlight for me was definitely the tenor singing an aria from Tosca. I had never heard anything from this Opera before and I was totally moved by it. I will have to see the upcoming Opera Australia production. It was such sensational music and he sang very emotively.

Melbourne Musicians - This was the first concert I'd been to in this group which I went to because a friend was depping. The ensemble was much smaller than I expected - I had thought it would be a full orchestra, but the strings were 3.3.3.2.1 with all wind parts covered as necessary. The program consisted of the Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 (Ian Holtham, soloist), the Barber Adagio for Strings and Mozart Symphony 39. The Chopin was played very well, however the balance of the strings suffered at times, I think just because the wind scoring was quite full in tutti passages and it was just a struggle to hear 3 first violins. Other than that it came across well. Although I really like the Adagio as a piece I wasn't completely engaged by it for some reason. The Mozart was great and really worked for that size orchestra. The first movement Introduction seemed to start quite fast and then the Allegro seemed comparatively quite slow - in 3. But as a tempo itself it actually worked as the movement got further along. The second movement had a nice lilt to it and the forging ahead nature of the third movement was also good. Now, a few days later, I can't remember what I thought of the last movement.

The BEST Concert of the week (and possibly the month - even though it was only on the first day!) was Camerata Melbourne at the Abbotsford Convent. This was the first concert of a new orchestra set up by Roy Theaker, Co-concertmaster of the MSO. Most of the players are MSO members, casuals, ANAM graduates and the like.

The venue was small but again excellent for a small ensemble. The program - as discussed by the host - was to showcase classic chamber style works as well as present playable, listenable new music.

It opened with Company by Phillip Glass which I really engaged with. Immediately recognisable as Glass it brought back many fond memories of our Music History class last year - a moment that made me really glad I learned and studied all that I did last year. The piece was in several short movements, unconducted, for string ensemble. It's one I'll definitely be hunting for a CD of. I could imagine it being really good driving music - and I don't mean to degrade it in saying that - it would just be meditative. Then there was the Mendelssohn Octet, which I hadn't heard live before. It was well nuanced and all the interrelationships were brought out really well by excellent players. Seeing the communication was lots of fun. The second half was Schubert 5 which I thought was outstanding. Despite the small room the balance was great, the architecture (of the music) made exceptionally clear and I particularly liked the dynamics. Roy Theaker gave short introductions to the concert and each work - he spoke clearly and passionately and his brief insights really illuminated the works for the listened and gave more meaning to the music.

Their next concert is going to be Dumbarton Oaks, Piazzolla and something else so, purely to hear what I think will be a marvellous ensemble do the Stravinsky, I will be there with bells on.