Art Whisperer

2010-04-27T08:27:00.001-07:00

HO HUM

So the Sarasota Orchestra's annual meeting --at which new board members are approved by those who have given the orchestra 50 bucks and have bought a season ticket for five performances or better. Only they can vote. There were none of the predicted fireworks. The buzz was that there was going to be a palace revolt, but that didn't happen. Various board members gave reports of their doings over the year. Chairperson Virginia Toulmin said in her remarks that the year had been a "nightmare" but no one from the floor asked her why she felt that. In fact, when it came time for voters to ask questions only one was forthcoming and that was an innocuous suggestion that more people be invited to sit on various committees.

Joe McKenna's presentation was well prepared and thorough, the accountants did their predictable slide show—all's well with the world---but no one talked much about the plans for the new season. That was too bad, because next year is far superior in concept and content than this year was. Also no one spoke about their vision for the orchestra's future. Not a word about building a hall or plans to replace the now million bucks draw down of the reserves. Strange. One could've stayed home. Oh, Marcia Penuce did make an introductory appearance as Chair-elect. She has a background in both music and business (she built her own, business that is) and we will see how she fares in the coming year. We all wish her luck. She will need it.

-Walker Meade

2010-04-14T18:37:00.001-07:00

An Outing For a Sunday Afternoon

So the Snowbirds have flown and here we are left with each other, blue-sky days, balmy nights and music at its very best.

The Chamber Players of Sarasota have plans to delight you on Sunday, April 18 at four in the afternoon at Eckerd College. It's a lovely hall, easy to get to (see below) and a program of unusual and splendid pieces including Beethoven's great string quartet Opus 95, the "Serioso" and Shostakovich's dazzling Piano Quintet, Opus 57.

The program openers are the lively Mariel for Marimba and Violoncello by Osvaldo Golijov. If you've never heard his work, now's your chance. He's still alive,after all,and you'll be glad you discovered him early on. And the Divertimento for Two Clarinets and Piano by Amilcare Ponchielli –best known for his opera La Gioconda –will make you wish you were Italian.

This remarkable concert series began when Marshall Rousseau, acting Executive Director of the Ringling Museum and a faculty member of Eckerd College, contacted Daniel Jordan about a possible chamber music series. This is the last performance of the series this year.

Jordan, who is Concertmaster of the Sarasota Orchestra says, "Of all the music I get to play, chamber music is nearest and dearest to my heart. I believe it is the truest form of expression for classical musicians, and I'm delighted to be able to present these concerts in a venue such as Wireman Chapel, on the campus of Eckerd College. I hope you'll consider joining us for an eclectic program of music from four different time periods and nationalities."

So plan to have an invigorating and life-enhancing afternoon this Sunday. For your convenience the directions are right here:

http://www.eckerd.edu/about/index.php?f=directions

Walker Meade

2010-03-27T05:56:00.001-07:00

ONE LAST CHANCE FOR THE GOOD STUFF

The Masterworks Season of the Sarasota orchestra will end with a dazzle of a program fit for the optimism that spring brings to everyone. Mozart's Symphony great Symphony 40 and Carmina Burana is it! The symphony is one of Mozart's last three and perhaps his most profound. It is a journey through darkness, sorrow, and anguish to a place of promise and hope. Brilliant in its orchestration, it has an incomparable degree of unity in which even the smallest alteration would bring down the whole exquisite work. It deeply influenced Haydn, Beethoven, and Mahler. And you can bet your ticket it will influence you as well.

Caramina Burana is another thing altogether. It is a rousing cantata of songs, lusty and vigorous are sung in lilting bastard Latin verse and mimic the form of medieval hymns It celebrates love, wine and the hippy life and includes an attack or two on the immorality of church life and church men….oh well, nothing ever changes does it. Most of the songs are anonymous—probably a good thing considering their content. There will be about 250 folks on stage for this one and it will make the rafters ring. You will stand and cheer at the end of it. I promise. Walker Meade

2010-03-27T05:55:00.001-07:00

2010-03-27T05:53:00.001-07:00

2010-03-16T04:33:00.001-07:00

Do you all like to visit art galleries around town? Which ones are your favorites, and tell me why.

2010-03-07T21:03:00.001-08:00

SYBARITE 5 RETURNS!
3 GENRE-BUSTING ONCERTS ATTHE HUB INCUBATOR- MAY 14TH
HOLLEY HALL- MAY 15TH & 16TH,

Following a sold-out 2009 performance-- which the Sarasota Herald Tribune called “heartfelt and extraordinarily riveting…simply an exhilarating evening,” this extraordinary and very hot quintet is coming to town next month. Do Not Miss!
Double bassist Louis Levitt founded the group. He's a Sarasota native and grew up attending Pine View School and played in the Sarasota Youth Orchestra Program.
Greg Cahill, Strings Magazine, said,"Sybarite5 is a New York–based group of gifted young string musicians who have gained a reputation for juxtaposing the likes of Stravinsky with Radiohead, or Dvorák with Led Zeppelin. But that doesn't even begin to describe the range of their eclecticism or the depth of their repertoire." Or the vibe you will get when you hear them!
Joey Panek, and Jay Hunsberger, Principal Tuba of the Sarasota Orchestra host Friday's New Music Idol concert at the HuB Incubator in Sarasota's Rosemary district.
In addition to Sybarite5’s unique repertoire, the concert will feature a program of new works by New College composition students. Complete with a panel of local celebrity judges the concert will feature an American Idol style critique, audience vote, and the winner's composition will be performed at Saturday’s Gala Concert at Holley Hall. In a tribute to Radiohead’s “pay- what-you-want” CD release, Friday night’s ticket price will be “pay-what-you-want.”
Saturday night’s Gala Concert will be at Holley Hall, hosted by John Miller, Principal Double Bass of the Sarasota Orchestra, and takes place in an intimate living room setting created by Showcase Designs. In addition to general admission tickets, a limited number of VIP Tickets are available, which include preferred seating and a champagne reception with the musicians. Last year’s Gala Concert was voted Best of the Suncoast by Creative Loafing Magazine.
Saturday’s genre-busting program is set to include a WORLD PREMIERE of a new Radiohead Remix as well as the Florida premiere of Furioso: Vendetta for string quintet by Thomas Osborne.
The Gala Concert program will be repeated as a matinee on Sunday May 16th at 2:30pm. Will post performance details soon.

Walker Meade

2010-02-28T05:13:00.001-08:00

YOUR LUCKY DAY!

Queen of the Night from San Francisco Production of The Magic Flute

Your lucky month is March. These are your lucky numbers: 3,7,13,18,21(Go online and buy a ticket for one of those performance dates at the Sarasota Opera House.). The prize is Mozart's The Magic Flute.
Opera, I guarantee you is not what you think it is--- if you've never been. It's dramatic, gorgeous to look at and often funny. The singing can be awful or sublime and at our opera house it is mostly sublime. It is never awful but it is sometimes only very good.
Maybe Opera is so beloved (It has after all been around over 300 years) because it combines all performance arts: singing, dancing, acting, music and drama in one big exquisite passage. There are few thrills as tingling as being in the audience and feeling the anticipation at the rise of the curtain in an opera house.
The Magic Flute is the complex story of a quest and involves a lot of searching and fainting. But it is also easy to understand if you think of it as a story about the way things are. It's a take on of how the energy of opposing forces, night and day, woman and man, nature and culture, emotion and reason, odd numbers and even numbers, fire and water make life the miracle it is.
Mostly it's splendid to hear. Gorgeous to look at, and, yes, you will understand the words because they appear electronically on a discrete screen above the stage.
In this production the conductor will be Robert Tweten and the director is Allison Grant—both making debuts here. Tenor Joshua Kohl,who is Tamino, is also making his debut.
Besides all that there us an intermission when you can head for the opera bar and watch all the beautiful people. You will never in your life see as much sparkle, mascara and divine shoes in one room ….not ever. Tickets from 35 to 120 bucks.

Walker Meade

2010-02-25T09:57:00.001-08:00

YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF

Just got back from a run through of the Chroma Quartet's program for this Sunday at Christ Church in Bradenton. They are brilliant and will rock your soul. You must not miss it. I would never, ever, mislead you!
It's a straight shot up 301 to Manatee Ave. Hang a left and go to 41st Street. Christ Church is the very beautiful building on the corner. 4PM Sunday afternoon.
Webern, Shubert, Pizzolla, Mendelssohn! They will play four astonishing quartets, each with the capacity to move stones. You will have lots to talk about afterwards.

Walker Meade

2010-02-25T04:23:00.001-08:00

YOU NEED TO DO THIS NOW!

Saturday, the 27th, Holly Hall, Sarasota, 8PM 20 bucks will get you goin' !
Not a doubt in this world about that. The Sarasota Orchestra will lay out a
program of new music. This is it….

Roberto Sierra: Sinfonia No.1
Henryk Gorecki: Kleines Requiem für eine Polka
Osvaldo Golijov: Last Round
Miguel del Aguila: Salon Buenos Aires
Matthew Hindson: Comin' Right Atcha

There is no point in telling you anything about it because none of you have ever heard any of it. Ever. No one in Sarasota has. (Besides I did that in an earlier blog). It will be like being in an audience where everyone is a virgin in a way and how often does that happen? Go. Walker Meade

2010-02-24T04:33:00.001-08:00

HERE'S HOW!

What am I gonna do with you guys? I get a letter that says going to a concert might be fairly cool, but why would you want to take a date on Saturday night to some "retro concert hall." Here's what it's about and how to do it.
You go on line to the Sarasota Orchestra and buy your tickets. You can do it online. (http://www.sarasotaorchestra.org/? ) The last row is both the least expensive and has the best acoustics. Then you call Michael's on East (941-366-0007..then press 2) and make a rez at the world-class restaurant in Van Wezel. Seating is at 7PM.
Yeah, right in the big purple building. You can have a lovely dinner, some fine wine, and LOOK AT THE WATER and the SUNSET There is no more beautiful setting in town than the Van W dining room. After dinner you can walk out on the terrace, with you coffee and feel really, really good.

The VW dining room.

Back inside, you walk up the wide staircase and do some looking around—and there is plenty to look at. Nice people will find your seat for you. You will spend about 45 minutes in it, there will be an intermission. You can go back downstairs for drinks if you like and then return to you seats in a very warm and easy mood. What you will hear when you are in the theater is an orchestra that is fast reaching prominence. It can make you dance in your seat. It can make you feel like loving someone. It can make your skin tingle. It can get you high.
Cost: 2 tickets, rear of the theater 58 bucks. Diner for two 63 more plus tax n tip. So for a little over $100 for two people you can have one of the best damn times of your life. Try it. You'll like it.

Walker Meade

2010-02-23T07:50:00.001-08:00

My Mistake Turns Out Good For You Thirty-Somethings

I said in the last post that you guys had a chance to get some joy by getting your butts to the Sarasota Orchestra's performance of Carmina Burana. You will have a chance more quickly than that to find out what big sound is really like. Lucky you.

March 4 through 7, the orchestra will pile on some Brahms. First half will be the Brahms Piano Concerto 1 one with Andreas Haefliger (dazzling guy) at the keyboard. The second half is the tremendous Symphony No 3. It is a killer of a program.

Brahms looked like many of you guys. He talked like most of you. His father was both a double bassist and his teacher and you know how tough that can be.

The Man Himself.

Now what can I tell that will make you go stretch your emotional life? Brahms was called "Johnny" by his friends. He loved to play the piano and drink. Particularly at the Red Hedge Hog Tavern in Vienna. He was a friend of both Robert and Clara Schumann and in love with Clara although he never made love to her. At least as far as anyone knows. But there is no doubt that this emotional triangle played a big part in his life.

You probably have wanted someone who didn’t want you. So you know what that particular kind of longing feels like. Johnny Brahms can take you on a journey though the mine fields of that feeling and out the other side, into a clear and tranquil place. He has a simply amazing ability to do that.

He was a religious skeptic and sometimes shot off his mouth only to wish he hadn't. In 1860, Brahms wrote a manifesto with his friend the violinist Joachim which attempted to organize a public protest against some of the wilder excesses of the Wagner's music. Richard Wagner was a very big deal at the time. That failed, and afterward he kept his strongest opinions to himself or expressed them only in his music.

In fact, you know many people like Brahms but you know no one with his genius at creating sound—layer upon layer of sound. No one. Not in this life. So go hear what that feels like. Go hear a dead man rip your heart out. Dare you.

-Walker Meade.

2010-02-22T19:32:00.001-08:00

Leif Bjaland, the Conductor of the Sarasota Orchestra wrote me the following note, which I think should be passed along to readers of this blog. I have always listened to his opinions and think this one is especially cogent.
-Walker.
------------------------
Dear Walker,

All of us at the Sarasota Orchestra appreciate your passion and love of our music and orchestra, and I know your comments are a reaction to a general trend in orchestras throughout the country to program more conservatively in these challenging economic times. I am concerned however that this can also be read as an indictment of the angels who support our own Sarasota Orchestra with their time, expertise and generous donations. You make the comments that “They now think of themselves as arbiters of programming” and take an “I pay, you play what I want you to play,” position. In the case of Sarasota Orchestra, nothing could be further from the truth. Boards certainly have fiduciary responsibilities and set the strategic direction for all non-profits. But the programming of the Sarasota Orchestra season is solely my responsibility, and I believe the Board does a wonderful job of walking the sensitive line of providing advice as informed and interested parties with a fiduciary responsibility while leaving final artistic decisions to me. I am always open to their ideas, and some have been quite insightful. And though some of our board members may be more musically knowledgeable than others, each and every one of them is passionate in their desire that the organization flourish artistically, as well as being sustainable financially. Your implication that Board members participation in the organization is more about “social prominence” than a true passion and love for the orchestra is completely opposite from my personal experience.

As an arts community, I believe we need to come together, to reject the fear and regression born of this challenging economy and focus on the passionate creativity and celebration of what it is to be human in the “here and now” that is at the heart of all great art. This is a cause in which we all can share, and one that I embrace with all my heart.

Best regards,

Leif Bjaland,
Artistic Director,
Sarasota Orchestra

2010-02-22T09:31:00.001-08:00

Where did you go this weekend and what did you like? Sound off!

2010-02-22T03:56:00.001-08:00

UNDER THIRTY?

How To Change Your Life In 90 Minutes

If you are under thirty and did not hear the Sarasota Orchestra's blast of a concert this weekend you will be over thirty without the stretch of your capacities that it takes to survive in this world.
The Saint-Saens Symphony No.3 is a work so literally earth shaking that you hear it in your bones. It passes through your body; you can feel the cells of your heart respond. It vibrates the seat you are sitting in and makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
You just cannot go on denying yourself this sort of experience. The audience on Sunday went out of its head at the conclusion of the piece. The practically full house screamed and yelled and roared the feeling it produced in them. BUT you were not there.
I saw precious few young people. And that is close to heart-breaking. Classical music is not boring and tedious. It actually can put you in a state of rapture that very few Rock concerts achieve.
Nothing sounds like a great symphony orchestra in full throttle playing music that truly changes your life. And what we have here, in Sarasota, is a great orchestra. It is not some regional make-do group of citizens. Artists in the best schools in the world have trained its players. Julliard and Curtis Institute are well represented among them. And they are led by a man of clear vision who has an astonishing capacity to pull feeling from the score, through the players, and into your life. Leif Bajland's part in making the Sarasota Orchestra the splendid ensemble it is should be acknowledged by everyone in this town
Now, damn it go hear them. The next Masterworks on March 25 through March 28 is Carmina Burana and I promise you it will sell out. I want to see you there! And if you just can't wait for Masterworks, the brilliant New Music program is on the 27th of this month at 8PM in Holly Hall. Tickets start at 20 bucks. So go! Do it!

Walker Meade

2010-02-21T19:37:00.001-08:00

Hot Stuff

Abe Feder
Michael McClelland
Jennifer Best
Chris Takeda

You've got to hear them to believe them! If on Sunday, February 28th, you get yourself to this venue you will have one of the best times of your life. Promise.

4PM at the Christ Church of Bradenton
4030 Manatee Avenue West
Bradenton (941) 747-3709

The Chroma Quartet—four of the Sarasota Orchestra's most gifted players— prepares their programs with a scary intensity. And when it comes to performance, they leave audiences just plain dazzled by the joy that only devotion can produce. Come. Hear for yourself.
They will play four astonishing quartets, each with the capacity to move stones. The opening Quartet 1905 by Anton Webern is a one-movement work (15 minutes) in three sections corresponding to the three panels of Italian painter Giovanni Segantini's triptych, "Werden - Sein - Vergehen" (Becoming - Being - Passing away), that inspired Webern.
It was written in 1905 when the composer was 22 and a student of Schoenberg. All string quartets are conversations between the four players, and that means intelligent, witty, clever and opinionated voices. Because of its density, the complex language of the score, the piece requires both attention and concentration. Once heard, you'll never forget it.
On September 15th 1945, Webern stepped out of his house to have a cigar and not disturb his sleeping grandchildren. He was shot and killed by an American soldier, Pfc. Raymond Norwood Bell, for violating a curfew.
The Tango Ballet is a conversation in an entirely different language. It was the great French teacher Nadia Boulanger—who also taught Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Philip Glass and David Amram, as well as jazz musicians and arrangers, including Quincy Jones, Burt Bachrach and Donald Byrd—who helped Piazzolla find his voice. Piazzolla says in his Memoir that when he confessed he wrote tangos, she asked him to play some bars of one. "She suddenly opened her eyes, took my hand and told me: 'You idiot, that's Piazzolla!' And I took all the music I composed, ten years of my life, and sent it to hell in two seconds."
The Quartettsatz is generally acknowledged as the first of Franz Schubert's mature quartets, written when he was 24. It makes enormous technical demands including virtuoso runs for the first violin that whip upward over a span of three octaves. It is in a single movement. One scholar said, "The quartet is so hard it hurts, so edgy it cuts, and so lyrical it sings"
The String Quartet in F minor is the last piece that Felix Mendelssohn wrote. It followed on the death of his adored sister, Fanny in 1848. Six months later, Mendelssohn himself died of a stroke. He was 38.
The first movement of the F minor Quartet alternates music of rage and lamentation. The second movement, which might have otherwise been a Mendelssohn scherzo, light and airy, is in this work bitter and sardonic, more like Mahler than Mendelssohn. The third movement is a long elegiac adagio with echoes of the anguished wails of the first movement. The finale returns to the rage and grief of the first movement, with no sense of acceptance or resignation.
After hearing this young quartet play music that will reorganize your mind, you'll walk out into the evening air refreshed, stronger and more in love with life.

Walker Meade

2010-02-21T15:40:00.001-08:00

Who Does What To Whom At the Sarasota Orchestra

Symphony Orchestra boards —which are typically made up of the elderly, often musically challenged, and rich— have gotten into a dangerous game. They now think of themselves as arbiters of programming. Once their interest was confined to the stewardship of an orchestra, which meant keeping it stable financially. Now they get involved what ought to be the sole purview of the conductor.

Ask almost anyone over 50 if they know the music of Henryck Gorecki and you will produce the look of a stunned bunny. Yet his Third Symphony is eleventh on the list of best-selling CDs of all time. To be fair, it is to the credit of the Sarasota Orchestra that his, Requiem For a Polka, will be played on the New Music Concert on the 27th of this month in Holly Hall. You had better be there!

Still, it is not easy to get such works on a Masterworks program these days. I doubt Gorecki's gorgeous Third Symphony will ever enliven the Van Wezel. What is the well-spring of the intrusion of governing boards into performance matters?

It came about with the advent of Opera in the 17th century. Opera required a real theater and composers had begun to write music for particular groups of instruments as well. Monteverdi wrote Orfeo in 1637--the only early opera which still survives. It was performed in the first opera house in Venice in that same year.

So instead of waiting to be invited to some chateaux or other for a week end of fun and games, fashionable ladies could put on the silks, get out the diamonds and make an appearance. You know how important that is.

Flash forward. It soon became essential not only to appear in a grand way, but also to control what it was that got one out of the house. That meant governance. These days, it takes big bucks to get on a board of even a regional orchestra like Sarasota's. You must, in fact promise to support the orchestra with your "treasure" It costs 50K to fund a place in the sun here.

The result is the board covers a significant part of the operating cost of the modern symphony. And they should and do protect and govern its resources. But the "I pay, you play what I want you to play," notion that has come to the fore lately is absolutely unacceptable. Most board members know very little about music. They do, however, know about social prominence and how to achieve that.

When you consider the nervousness in high place that programming Stravinsky here produced--and he wrote Rite of Spring 97 years ago! —You may begin to suspect why modern orchestras face audience defection. They are terrified of the very music that speaks to the emerging generation.

And why is it that if you give big bucks to a hospital you do NOT get to say," Let's have more kidney transplants. Let's not do so much of that brain stuff!" All you get is a wing or a ward named after you and the personal satisfaction of having been of benefit to your community. Should that not be enough?

Oh, by the way, while leaving the extraordinary, brilliant performance of Rite of Spring in the Masterworks 4…the house—which gave it an extended standing ovation appeared to be sold out--I overheard more than one set of concertgoers say: "I didn't know I'd like that!" And that is my point. Walker Meade

Walker Meade

2010-02-19T07:11:00.001-08:00

This is an awesome weekend for theater, ballet, art and music. What will you be partaking in this weekend?

2010-02-19T07:10:00.001-08:00

This is an awesome weekend for theater, ballet, art and music. What are you going to see today?

2010-02-17T02:13:00.001-08:00

wants to know what you've seen around town lately that you'd recommend.

2010-02-16T06:41:00.001-08:00

has been going to a lot of theater lately. What about art exhibits? Who's got the skinny on those?

2010-02-10T06:20:00.001-08:00

Right Now In Our Town

Who do you think comes to town to see Heinz Lechner? That would be: Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Quincy Jones, David Bowie …those kinda guys. And they come cuz Heinz knows music and makes mind-bending pictures. Still pictures. Very still pictures. Of reflections. It is hard to believe any photographer can do what Heinz does.

Sometimes it takes him weeks of looking at a reflection, of the street, of cars, of trees, of lights, of Sarasota Bay until he believes he can get the shot he wants. His shots are not manipulated. They are exactly what he sees.

Each has a little piece of reality in it and each has many, many reflections. They come in single shots and in Triptychs (the Triptychs are all named for musicians like Quincy Jones). They are shown here at The Gallery Reserve and in galleries in New York and Austria, where he was born.

He's about to go to NYC to photograph Philip Glass, Steve Reich, LaMonte Young, Terry Riley, Michael Harrison--all minimalist musicians that the Metropolitan Museum has commissioned him to catch on film.

Call him up ( at 355 0393) and he'll show you some. Or call Jim Leiberick at the Gallery Reserve (at 447 9076). You gotta see to believe. The man is the future.

-Walker Meade

2010-02-10T06:18:00.001-08:00

Who's Got The Right Stuff?

Wonder what the young people are up to--besides all the stuff you wish they wouldn't do? The Arts Council, Sarasota Public Schools and the Herald Tribune have joined hands to show you. Bring the whole family this week-end to the Herald Tribune building on Main to see and hear what's in the minds and hearts of people you think you know. Be prepared to be surprised.
The Herald-Tribune lobby and part of the community room will be filled with student art work from most schools in the county. The rest of the community room will be used for digital art presentations in the form of movies, short subjects and special projects. A stage will be set up in the plaza area on the west side of the building with performances every 30 minutes from 12:00pm until 5:00pm. Included in these performances will be the finalist of the High School Idol, Pine View String Quartet and Dancing for Education program, Booker Middle School Dragonfly Café Poets, Emma E. Booker Chorus and Drum line, Sailor Circus and others. We will have representatives from High School, Middle and Elementary programs. You want to see what energy looks like....come and get your spirits raised.

-Walker Meade

2010-02-10T06:09:00.001-08:00

Letting Go
Saturday Feb 27th
8 pm Holly Hall

You get one chance a year to hear the Sarasota Orchestra turn itself loose from traditional stuff…say Hallelujah! Last year it drove the audience for New Music out of their skulls with a program of such brilliance, such daring, such outright courage that there was nothing to do at the end of it but scream your head off. So if you missed it, don't ever do that again. This year there is a certain Latin thrill in the program.

Roberto Sierra—fast becoming a living legend—has done a number that may make you think of Beethoven if he had been a Latin dancer. His Symphonia No 1 is a compact piece that makes sly reference to Beethoven's First Symphony. The excitement and rhythmic energy of Latin music drives the piece.

Henryk Mikolaj Górecki's Kleines Requiem für eine Polka has the emotional power and clarity of music that has attracted a wide public following, boosted by record breaking sales of discs on the Nonesuch label. These new dances are stunning and hypnotic.

Osvaldo Golijov's Last Round, in his own words, is "A sublimated tango. Two quartets confront each other, separated by the focal bass. Bows fly in the air like inverted legs in a crisscrossed choreography, always attracting and repelling each other, always in danger of clashing, always avoiding it with the immutability that can only be acquired by transforming passion into pure pattern."

Comin' Right Atcha was written by one of Australia’s leading contemporary composers, Matthew Hindson. Inspired by the funk music of James Brown, the spoken rhythm of the title, “Comin Right Atcha,” provides the driving motive for this composition. It's an extremely fun piece that features small solos for several instruments of the orchesta.

The evening's killer, the OMG piece, is the world premier performance of a work-- commissioned by the Sarasota Orchestra-- by internationally recognized composer, Miguel del Aguila. His Salon Buenos Aires is a rhythmic masterpiece that highlights three different Latin dances. Like all of Aguila's work, it combines his natural gift for writing beautiful melodies with his sense of swinging, dancing rhythms that make it difficult to stay in your seat.

On this very special night, Miguel del Aguila will be in attendance! Yeah, you can talk to him--- if you're able to speak after you hear Salon Buenos Aires! Last year his Conga for Orchestra brought the house down. Be there this year! Miss it and you'll hate yourself in the morning.
Walker Meade

2010-02-04T08:57:00.001-08:00

is curious... how do you define Art? What falls under the umbrella of Arts in our community?

2010-02-03T14:13:00.001-08:00

thinks that the Sarasota Arts community is sexy.

2010-02-02T04:24:00.001-08:00

I want to know what you did this weekend. See a show? A movie? An exhibit?

2010-01-31T09:06:00.001-08:00

There are lots of matinee and evening performances today. Try to take one in.

2010-01-30T14:26:00.001-08:00

is going to spend this rainy night inside of a theater. Lots of choices this weekend. What are YOU going to see?

2010-01-28T21:12:00.001-08:00

Name one Arts event you are going to support this weekend. Go!

2010-01-28T04:58:00.001-08:00

The weekend is getting closer. Get yourself some tickets to something... Anything!

Two Musical Warriors and the Sarasota Orchestra - By Walker Meade

2010-01-27T14:29:00.000-08:00

It’s possible that there never have been two more riotous premiers of classical works than those of Beethoven’s 6th symphony and Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

Both composers tried to break the mold of the acceptable in their time. Both succeeded so well that the audience of one nearly revolted and the audience of the other actually did.

Imagine. Vienna in the winter of 1808 three days before Christmas. You go to Theater an der Wien to hear what the most famous composer in the world has been up to. The program is astonishing long and includes the Fifth Symphony, the Fourth Piano Concerto, items for soloists and chorus and, in conclusion a Choral Fantasy.Concertgoers wondered if they could hold out. Johan Friedrich Riechart, a well-known German writer and composer watched this titanic performance from Prince Lobkowski’s box near the stage. “We held out in the bitterest of cold,” he wrote, “and experienced the fact that one can easily have too much of a good and even more of a loud thing. Many a failure in the performance vexed our patience to the highest degree.”

The evening was also fraught with drama. Having finished conducting the premier of his 6th symphony, the maestro apparently forgot that he was supposed to play his own 4th piano concerto and when prodded, he rushed to his place, made an expansive gesture with his arms, hit the page turner in the face, and knocked over both candles that were set to illuminate the keyboard. Groucho Marx could not have done it better. It was downhill from there.

But the 6th Symphony, with it’s gorgeous and painterly evocation of nature has survived to become one of the most beloved pieces in the concert repertoire. Almost no musical work has ever done what Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score, The Rite of Spring accomplished.

The police had to be called at intermission to subdue the audience. Imagine. It’s 1913. A lovely May night in Paris. You have gone to the ballet at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. The program begins with Les Sylphides, a work you know well. It is followed by the premier of a new ballet starring Vaslav Nijinsky, already both famous and notorious. The audience expected to be entertained in comfortable fashion, but was immediately shocked out of their seats by an insistent and unmistakably erotic drumbeat at the opening of the ballet.

Before long things got completely out of hand. The complex music and violent dance steps depicting fertility rites first draw catcalls and whistles from the crowd. At the start with the opening bassoon solo, the audience began to boo loudly.

There were loud arguments in the audience between supporters and opponents of the work. These were soon followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The Paris police arrived by intermission, but they restored only limited order. Chaos reigned for the remainder of the performance.

As Harvard professor Thomas Kelly states, "The pagans on-stage made pagans of the audience." Despite its inauspicious debut, Stravinsky's score for “The Rite of Spring” today stands as a magnificent musical masterpiece of the twentieth century. To modern audiences it seems only intensely dramatic and thrilling. And that’s a good thing. Hear both at Van Wezel on the 29th,30th and 31st of this month.

2010-01-27T12:55:00.001-08:00

improv was awesome last night... very cool crowd.

2010-01-27T06:06:00.001-08:00

working on the next Art Whisperer show

2010-01-27T05:58:00.001-08:00

What is an Art Whisperer? I think of myself as the art critic for the art cynic (it rhymes :)) http://ping.fm/i283P

2010-01-27T05:43:00.001-08:00

Working on a cool site for the whisperer http://ping.fm/quoUp

2010-01-26T13:00:00.001-08:00

Did you get tix to the improv yet? (what are you waiting for)

Who is the Art Whisperer?

2010-01-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

Joey Panek is the Art Whisperer - the art critic for the art cynic. His mission - to take a different look at the arts locally in Sarasota.