Steven Douglas Maloney

Archive for the ‘The Music City’ Category

A follow up query, if I may.  My beloved Nashville, is it in “real America” or “fake America?”  Think about it.  The city votes Democratic, it has an outstanding symphony, Vanderbilt the best Starbucks I’ve ever been to (on 21st Avenue next to Mellow Mushroom) and a nice Opera season.  It also has the hony-tonks, the UNDEFEATED TITANS, pro hockey, Music Row, elite golf and raquet clubs, and Cheekwood.  I say, we let Mindy Smith begin the healing and call the whole thing off:

Before I try to sort through reactions and the import of Boumediene v. United States, I wanted to mention that I will be doing so listening to Emmylou Harris’ new CD, All I Intended to Be. You can get it for 9.99 on direct download from Amazon.  ”Gold” features Harris with Dolly Parton again (woohoo!), and “Take That Ride” features her with Buddy Miller.  Both Buddy Miller and Dolly Parton are good friends with Mindy Smith — would someone please, please, get Ms. Harris and Ms. Smith in a studio together to record a song (or even better, an album!) so that I can die happy?  

I just love going to the Opera hear in Nashville.  It’s a real occasion for most of the people who go.  They get dressed up, they donate money to stuff, have nice drinks and mingle, and they really put a lot of feeling into the applause at the end.  Nashville’s attendees of the Opera are not just paying customers, they are very glad to be there.

And why not?  What’s to complain about when one gets to see Kallen Esperian, Tennesee native, perform Madame Butterfly?  The show was lovely.  The child they got to play “sorrow” was adorable.  The supporting vocals were quite good.  Jennifer Hines was a superb Suzuki… but for me, it was Frank Hernandez as the American Consulate Sharpless, who really stood out.  He really nailed that part last night, and it was his sense of dutiful sorrow that really sets the tone for our own sense of dutiful sorrow.

Once again, I thought that the set was quite beautiful.  There was one hilarious malfunction last night, where Act I ended with a shooting star shooting across the skyline… that then hit some sort of wall at the end and bounced halfway back across the night sky!  Now that’s some serious retrograde motion!   Also, I could see the orange tape showing the marks for where people needed to stand in the house and also a couple of the marks for where the house was supposed to sit when it gets turned during the performance.  But these are minor quibbles.

The bottom line is, it’s Puccini.  It’s sung brilliantly and it’s performed brilliantly by the Nashville Symphony.  While everyone was talking about the shooting star at intermission, on the way out everyone was talking about how much they enjoyed the performance.  It’s wonderful, it’s moving, and if you’re a student, it’s ONLY $10 if you buy tickets the day of.  I highly recommend that you consider going to the Saturday night show, TPAC will be packed, and a good time will be had by all.

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcDBgXbGskc"]

Mindy Smith is at the center of my non-classical music universe right now, but I fear overplaying her two albums… who’s got some recommendations for some comparable Country/Americana/whatever you want to call it for me to get to help diversify my country holdings without going into the pop/campy territory?

I’m leaning towards K.D. Lang and the Recliners, as I already am playing her Hymns of the 49th Parallel to death (by the way, the cover of Neil Young’s “Helpless” is utterly breathtaking). Ooh, I have just discovered Kate Walsh… not technically Country, but I feel an impulse buy coming on anyway. Also, ITunes recommends The Wailin’ Jennys and Rosie Thomas, and the clips of both of them sounds quite nice… who knew that “other listeners have bought” box could actually be useful? Anyone else have any other picks?

I went to Schemrerhorn tonight and saw Phillip Glass.  No, not just a performance of a Phillip Glass piece, actually Phillip Glass.  For one thing, he gave a talk for an hour in the Education Hall before the performance tonight.  He talked about working as a film composer and writing opera’s and the difference between them (and their many similarities as well).  Glass also poked fun on his early years reputation for incredibly long pieces as lampooned in an episode of The Simpsons:

Homer: You know, Marge, I was thinking about how much I enjoy       your interest.  So I wandered over to that theater you        went to last night and I bought tickets to their entire        season. Look, "Mostly Madrigals"...         [faking interest] Yeah, that might be good.

       Ooh, ooh, "An Evening with Philip Glass."         [overacting]  Just an evening?

Glass himself mentioned that he has been writing shorter and shorter operas because, he claims, he gets tired and wants to go to bed earlier.  Glass also happened to mention that he is good friends with film composer Danny Elfman, who coincidentally, does The Simpsons.  At any rate, his talk was interesting, and he explained why he wrote the piece we heard tonight and what his overall hopes were for the piece. 

For another thing, when the performance started, Phillip Glass sat right below my seat!  Well, sort of.  He sat in the row right below my seat, which had four chairs, three unoccupied, and Glass sat in the fourth aisle seat, furthest from my box.  Still, he was right there.  It was a great moment to see three teenage girls walk up to him at intermission and ask for his autograph, which he graciously gave.  This also made me slightly peeved, because I had had the same thought, but did not have a pen. 

In terms of the evening, I thought that NashSO was outstanding again.  I think the place still sounds terrific.  The Beethoven was very nice, and the Haydn was pleasant, but, as the person I went with said, "I mean come on, it’s Haydn, you can’t do too much with it."  As for the Glass piece, I thought that it was quite nice.  Choral works in English still sound a little klunky too me.   Many of the great Brittish choral pieces had the good sense to do Latin, but I try and remind myself of the Vaughan Williams pieces I enjoy that use English (‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ is a favorite right now, and one probably deserving a blog post at some point.) 

Still, it was a good night, a privilege to see Phillip Glass both in the flesh and through his music.  another great show in a long line of great shows this year at Schermerhorn.  This season is not a good season "for Nashville," this is a good season PERIOD.   And there are still a couple of stellar shows looming on the horizon… in case Phillip Glass, Leila Josefowicz, and the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra weren’t enough.  And let us not forget Madame Butterfly on April 12 and 14 is on the horizon as well! 

The Leila performance at Schermerhorn was absolutely AWESOME.  Worthy of the countdown.  We had great seats, three rows back in the "Orchestra View" section.  Close enough to hear the snaps on the fretboards when the Bassists would pick their strings.  Close enough to see clearly all of Leila’s crazy facial expressions.  Close enough to see the hairs fly off her bow.  It was fantastic. 

The first movement was good, but it’s the second and third movements of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor where a violinist where the soloist is really allowed to shine.  And shine she did.  Leila even let out a "wooo!" after the second movement ended.  I have never been so completely sucked, so completely transfixed by a performance before, maybe in any medium. 

I went out during intermission and got an autographed CD of her recording of the very same Shostakovitch piece.  Leila was very friendly and conversant with the people in line.  I was so thrilled to get to meet her, and was so utterly astonished by just how good I thought her performance was, we didn’t go back in for  NASHSO’s Prokofiev piece that finished the show… It just didn’t seem right to have another long performance run interference with my memories of the night.  Memories that I hope to keep with me for quite a long time. 

An unbelievable night… details to follow after I get some sleep.