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Last night traveling through my city there was a low level buzz: "Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson." Everyone was talking about the news. Michael Jackson dying at 50 has an impact like...well, that's still to be revealed. But today the shock waves and analysis sure seem in the Elvis/Lennon category of response.
For better or for worse, news about his death has bumped stories like Iran off the front page of publications like the Huffington Post -- Jackson was a strange and fascinating and without question significant figure in popular culture, music, and dance. (Maybe especially dance...)
How do you feel about the current wave of intensity about Jackson's premature passing? And of course, about his music...
If you haven't seen Dust Films "literal videos," watch this. The horse montage alone is worth the following 3:00 of your life:
And that's your Wednesday night diversion. If you want some less trivial but also fun musical diversion -- tune in to The Signal tonight. Guitarist Bernard Falaise does another kind of re-interpretation of popular music, in this case, the the popular music of Quebec. In his original work you can hear bits of famous Quebecois songs from people like Robert Charlebois and Michel Rivard. (We're still waiting for the video version.)
Calling all sound explorers. Newfoundland's Sound Symposium is on the lookout for "musicians, artists from all disciplines, scientists and others who work in the world of SOUND to propose projects and performances for 2010 Sound Symposium."
Meanwhile, The Signal broadcasts some music tonight from a previous edition of the symposium -- Christina Petrowska Quilico performing music composed by Ann Southam.
The composition is called Soundstill: Ponds, Creeks And A Noisy River, inspired in part by the creeks and rivers of Newfoundland -- some of the movements named after specific bodies of water. It's not a first for 'water as inspiration for music,' but quite possibly it is a first for Commotion Creek, Fidget Creek, Fiddle Creek and Noisy Creek. (Newfoundland has the best place names.)
Some pretty major musical anniversaries happening this weekend. You're probably thinking the Haydn 200th, and sure, that's big. But how about this: In Tune turns one today! That's why the Radio 2 Blog brought in a cake AND a panda.
Katherine celebrates a few other notable anniversaries on the show too. The Vienna Opera turns 140 and celebrates with a series of outdoor operas on the big screen. And the aforementioned Haydn 200th - Sunday marks 200 years since his death. He's still very much alive to string quartet players though, and Katherine talks to one of them -- Geoff Nuttall of the St Lawrence String Quartet -- about why he's so passionate about Haydn.
On the non-anniversary front...some other stories Katherine's following:
Jazz drummers with opera singers; classical violinists with DJ's, folk singers accompanied by trombone -- apparently anything is possible at the Record Of The Week Club. The "club" is in Winnipeg, and if they want you as a member, it's a club you'll want to join -- if you're an open-minded musician. Because once a week (from spring to fall) musicians who in the normal course of things might never cross paths, come together to create a new piece of music. And by the end of an evening, that new music is recorded, mixed, and online.
While no doubt some collaborations work out better than others, overall It's a nifty idea. The Signal thinks so too -- tonight they're playing one of them -- Weakerthans frontman John K. Samson with Inuit throat singer Nikki Komaksiutiksak and electronic artist Blunderspublik.
There's also an opportunity for you to participate in in an upcoming Club night, whether or not you are in Winnipeg.
After last week's Susan Boyle-athon nothing can grab the music blogosphere's attention with such single-mindedness. So although as usual on Sunday evening The Radio 2 Blog looks back at music matters blogged about the past week, this edition covers a couple of quieter music stories.
First B.C. Scene -- a mega event taking place in Ottawa as we speak. Canada Live (8 p.m.) broadcasts a couple concerts this evening recorded there -- Dan Mangan with special guest Shane Koyczan, and singer songwriter Danny Michel.
Musings On Music And Family Life does a splendid preview of the whole Scene, and among other recommendations gets behind the "Build Your Own Ukulele" workshop which comes up next Sunday May 3rd. "This isn’t a Kleenex box with rubber bands – this is a high-quality wooden instrument that will last for years."
Music Monday is coming up May 4th -- the day when kids from coast to coast to coast all sing the same song -- at the same time. Literally hundreds of thousands of kids! The purpose is to raise awareness of music education, and the concept has spread from Canada to the U.S. and Australia.
There will be lots of neat Music Monday happenings on air May 4th (see Radio 2's Music Monday). And if you happen to be in the vicinity of Toronto tomorrow, Sunday April 26th, you can attend one of the big events connected to Music Monday live at the Glenn Gould Studio.
In a celebration of Earth Day this evening Canada Live (8 p.m.) broadcasts a unique concert recorded by CBC Radio 2 and Espace Musique: 7 Continents 1 Earth.
It features environmentally aware performers from around the world performing a wide range of music -- from the gorgeous Corsican singing of Petru Guelfucci to China's Mamer, described as "the Lou Reed of the grasslands." For full details, please continue reading.
Many seemed amazed that an apparently sheltered ("never been kissed" etc.), unglamorous woman from "a cluster of villages," could actually sing. This, frankly, amazes the Radio 2 Blogger. (Do we not all know some pretty good, not-famous singer who doesn't pay much attention to hairstyles?)
Well, here's what others in the blogosphere had to say about why Susan Boyle's performance has reduced so many to a big puddle of mush:
Although it may seem BillyBobGate is the only story The Week In The (Music) Blogosphere has to tackle, it is not so. But before we leave it totally behind us, have a look at Canadian singer Jeremy Fisher's interpretation of what really went on between Billy Bob and Jian, if you haven't already. Now onto other blog worthy news from the past week.
Some were agitated by the news that Frank Zappa may have conceived of file sharing...in 1983.
If you're ready to come out of the closet (or the shower) as an opera singer, take note. The Calgary Opera is holding a contest -- and among the prizes is a chance to sing with the company. It's one of the stories Katherine covers today on In Tune -- which, I should point out, has a delayed start because of the opera.
But back to Calgary. If your application is successful, you will perform in front of a live audience, and if you win, you will sing with the Calgary Opera Chorus next season, as well as having the opportunity to take some classes with the Calgary Emerging Artists Programme. But you'd better get cracking, the preliminary round takes place April 20th!
Reminds me a bit of Bathroom Divas, and just for the fun of it, here's a glimpse into the audition process on that show...those judges were sure going at it!
Quite the most bizarre musician interview I've ever heard happened yesterday on CBC. Billy Bob Thornton, interviewed about his band The Boxmasters, took umbrage (massive understatement) about a reference to his acting career.
Seems he is just the tiniest bit sensitive about how he is represented. (Musician vs. actor.) If you haven't already heard/watched it, you can do so here. It was so downright bizarre that the interview is making news around the world. (BBC's story Thornton Clashes With Radio Host as just one of many, many examples.)
Jian Ghomeshi at Radio 1's "Q" did the interview which leads me nicely to this Radio 2-related segue.
Everyone has their little procrastinatory pleasures, whether it's watching Law & Order repeats (apparently broadcast 24 hours a day) or CrackFacebook. But why the guilt? Feh. If it's a pleasure it's a pleasure, right?
One regular in my list is Web Zen. And the current edition is devoted to the song. Song Zen will take you to such delights as Songs For Ice Cream Trucks. Despite the fact that it is snowing, yes snowing as I write, Songs For Ice Cream Trucks is a great way to musically feel like it's spring.
The Week In The (Music) Blogosphere begins with a much blogged about story, the Queen's iPod. It was a present, as you probably know, from the Obamas.
We know there were Broadway show tunes, but what else? The Guardian's Music Blog provocatively hopes they avoided numbers like: "Stone Roses' anti-royalist Elizabeth My Dear, the Smiths' The Queen is Dead, the Sex Pistols' anti-Jubilee anthem God Save the Queen..." I think we can safely say they did.
Next, to the economy -- music may make you feel better about your stock portfolio.
That music has power to heal is an idea as old as the hills. Newer than the hills is the idea that we can understand how this works -- scientifically, in the brain -- and then prescribe music like medicine. You may have seen a feature article about this recently, Composing Concertos in the Key of Rx. It's a story Katherine will be covering today on In Tune today (5pm/5:30 NT).
My favourite quote, from the "chief wellness officer" at a "wellness institute" in Cleveland:
"Listening to finer music and attending concerts on a consistent basis makes your real age about four years younger...attending sports events like soccer or football offers none of these benefits."
You mean large quantities of greasy stadium food washed down by beer, in between screaming for your team isn't as healthy as soothing music in your living room? Shocking!
A song written by Twitter might go something like this (taken from real life "tweets"):
"Bought a new camera today.
Now I have to wait for Android to arrive in Canada (sigh).
Maybe the turtle ate your donut.
Is resting after bellydancing."
Even so, you knew it was only a matter of time before some songwriter capitalized on the massive outpouring of words that is Twitter, and invited fans to focus their tweets for the designated purpose of a composition. And that songwriter is the highly talented Somali-Canadian K'naan.
As reported in Exclaim and elsewhere, he's invited fans to write a song by Twitter (@ Dustyfoot) -- and you have until May 1st to make your contribution. You could view it as pure gimmick, but as K'naan tweeted yesterday (is there a past tense for tweet? there is now) "it's not help that i need to write a song... it's an opportunity for other creative people to feel inspired to write."
If you are on Facebook, probably you'll have seen the "Five Albums That Shaped You" thing. You go to a database where you pick five recordings that had a profound positive influence on your musical tastes.
This has migrated to the blogosphere, where bloggers are expanding the idea beyond a limited choice database and just posting their Five Albums. (For example, and another example, and yet another. Just google for more.)
We're still two months away from the National Jazz Awards, which take place May 14th in Toronto. But the early bird mention is because these awards are decided by you. If that is, you vote.
So if you're a fan of the many fine Canadian jazz musicians you will frequently hear on Tonic (6 p.m.) (for instance Oliver Jones, Emilie Claire Barlow, Phil Nimmons, Jane Bunnett etc.) go on and cast your vote.
The most nominated musician is multi-instrumentalist Don Thompson (bass, piano and vibraphone) who received seven nominations in seven categories, including Jazz Recording of the Year.
CBC Radio 2's Katie Malloch, who hosts Tonic during the week, is up for broadcaster of the year. Good luck, Katie! Not to ignore weekend Tonic host, Tim Tamashiro either, since he will be co-hosting the May 14th event, with fellow CBC broadcaster Karen Gordon.
And if you have a a minute or eight, have a look at the much nominated Mr. Thompson at the piano, performing with his quartet, courtesy of Jazz Yukon:
So if you're thinking of putting up a video on YouTube of your kid doing something adorable to music Warner's "owns," think twice. (Of course, if you're thinking of putting up a video on YouTube of your kid doing something adorable you should think twice anyway.)
Next, Leonard Bernstein's composition studio is being moved to Indiana, as Soho The Dog tells us in a post called Take Care Of This House. (Always wanted to see Bernstein's electric pencil sharpener? Now you can.)
An eye-catching headline earlier this week: "Barbican Transformed By Dancing To Bowie And Venezuela's Maestro." As it turned out the Venezuelan maestro, 28-year-old Gustavo Dudamel, is not actually providing dance music at the Barbican with David Bowie -- both are concertizing at that famed hall, is all.
But the very fact that it seemed a potentially plausible scenario says a lot about how much of an impression Dudamel has made to date. (Or, as that same article in The Guardian put it: "[Dudamel is] a young, dynamic artist who has been like a jolt of electricity in the world of classical music."
The Week In The (Music) Blogosphere was not surprised at the news of Michael Jackson's determination to have a comeback. Not in these times. Or as Gawker pithily says: "He's broke, so he needs to go on tour." (They also report on the announcement itself: The press conference he staged was very odd—audio problems, mumbling, eerie Hitler-like gestures. News people were befuddled.")
This week the YouTube Symphony concluded auditions and made decisions. Among the ninety members of the orchestra (who head to NYC in April for workshops, rehearsals and ultimately to play at Carnegie Hall under Michael Tilson Thomas) are five Canadians.
It's one of the stories Katherine has on today's edition of In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT) -- and purely coincidentally one of those Canadian musicians to make the final cut is her neighbour, Donovan Seidle, violinist with the Calgary Philharmonic. (The other four are vibraphone player Gael Chabot-Leclerc of Saguenay, Que., viola player Yunior Lopez from Toronto, Montreal cellist Stephane Tetreault, and bass player Ian Whitman from Kitchener, Ont.)
The YouTube Symphony page is reported as attracting 12 million views since it went up in December, and three thousand plus audition videos were submitted -- so to be chosen is no small feat. Here is some "reax," as we say in the biz, from a few of the Canadian contingent upon hearing they were chosen:
In fact he says, vis a vis his upcoming TV appearance: "I just expect to be mocked and humiliated in a way that ultimately makes me and my writing appear more interesting, which is the comedy-ju-jitsu service he performs for the book world night after night."
Non-Cohen Canadian #2: Steven Page has not bared all in his explanations as to why he left the Ladies. No, it's been very polite. Even so, he's been interviewed a lot about it, so that's worked out well. But Radio 3's Craig Norris asks the (1) million dollar question: "BNL without Steven? I don't know." Numerous other people weigh in too, but that seems to be the consensus. We just don't know.
And finally, the end note you've been seeking. One blogger thinks it sucks to live on Abbey Road. Watch it. (I did. For at least the first :30 seconds. Something tells me not much changes on Abbey Road after that.)
And that's all the music news that's fit to blog...this week.
Of course that was a year ago, so The Really Terrible Orchestra may have improved since then. Katherine Duncan may have some views on that when she profiles them today on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT).
I first came across the Edinburgh based RTO a couple years ago producing for a CBC arts show. I was trying to book their bassoonist for an interview, but "his people" told me he was just too busy.
I would have thought "c'mon, he's a bassoonist with something called The Really Terrible Orchestra and he's too busy for an interview?" except the bassoonist in the RTO is Alexander McCall Smith, the guy who wrote those very charming #1 Ladies Detective Agency books. I think he was on a book tour in Australia or something at the time, so it was a pretty good excuse.
Many of us play or sing in really terrible (or at least not great) orchestras or choirs or bands, and get a great deal of pleasure out of doing so. But most of us don't travel overseas to make our New York debut at the Town Hall, as RTO is on April 1. They attribute this in part to specific encouragement from no less than President Barack Obama:
A CD Cover meme has been making the rounds, and the results range from hilarious to ho hum to weirdly provocative. The uncanny thing about it is how frequently the randomly selected band name, album title, and image, come together as if by design. Have a look.
Here's how you can make your own.
1. Create a name for your band by clicking here. The randomly selected article title is the name of your band name, embrace it.
2. Your CD title comes from the last four words of the randomly selected quote that pops up last here.
3. You'll find your CD cover (licensed by Creative Commons) here. (Although many are using non-creative commons from flickr's Most Interesting photos page.)
4. Then you photoshop (or whatever programme you prefer) the results together and lo, band name, album title, art, without a single hair-tearing moment over whether it should be THE Beatles, or just Beatles.
My own CD is not posted here due to certain extremely annoying computer issues, but the randomly selected album title is a gem: Our Longing For Righteousness.
Thanks to Peter Cook for minding the blog while I was under the weather -- and if you missed his very nice Podcast Update post, have a look.
But this is not The Cook Files, as grateful as I am to Peter. No, it's The Cohen Files, a brief update on the man and his music in the news. As you may already know, CBC Radio 2 is the Canadian broadcast presenter of the Leonard Cohen World Tour 2009, which is quite an honour.
Cohen has spent the last 12 months touring the world, from Romania to Australia from London to Rome -- and is not ready to stop. Naturally, he takes Manhattan, as well as many other North American stops on this extension of the tour.
After his first American concert in more than 15 years he sat down with the New York Times (well, a reporter and a photographer, at any rate) and talked about how he -- a 74-year-old man who recently lived a secluded, monastic life -- is coping with life on the road:
Possibly your pajamas, if you stay up to the end of the Oscars tonight. Because the Oscar awards happen after The Week In The (Music) Blogosphere appears, it's obviously impossible to look at the blogging about the musical aspects of the awards show.
But one prediction is that this year's performances will be an improvement on the typical year, where according to one writer "the musical numbers...often go down in infamy as the lowest of awards-show lows."
And then there's been the speculation about the possibility of M.I.A performing. If you watched the Grammys you'll know the very pregnant M.I.A. performed on her due date -- and shortly after gave birth. So at first I took the idea that she might now perform at the Oscars as a joke. However, according to this report from the BBC, it is so. (Or should I say, it is written.)
A. R. Rahman, composer of two Oscar nominated songs from Slumdog Millionare is quoted as saying "She wants to [perform at the Oscars.] In fact, she said she'll do it with a hologram." (I think he means "via a hologram," but shan't quibble.)
What we can look back on this week is the bloggin' about last Thursday's Brit Awards:
"I was mulling over a lot of things then, thinking about all my friends who all had way too much stuff...I was determined to dig my way out of my own problem with stuff."I Feel Bad About My Stuff
Do you suffer from too much stuff? And is a portion of that stuff too many CDs? Despite downloading, the too many CDs problem does not seem to go away for some of us. If you're a hoarder it may because you're thinking, 'who knows when I might suddenly be struck by the urge to hear that compilation of almost inaudible field recordings?' Or it might be due to lack of alternative ideas. And if you are determined not to Feel Bad About Your Stuff, some of these suggestions might be helpful:
That radio inspires art is nothing new -- think of the novels that have scenes in radio stations (Elizabeth Hay, anyone?) or songs referencing radio. But never before, to my knowledge, has CBC inspired an online play.
It's called The Magic Necklace, and it's by a playwright who goes simply by "Julia." You can see the opening illustration to the right. Apparently the music Julia heard playing on Radio 2 inspired some of her own creativity -- for a few more scenes you can go to her blog: Mrs. Twigg. (OK, so it's her Mom's blog. Julia is a novice playwright and does not yet maintain her own blog.)
And on the subject of radio-inspired art, perhaps slightly more evolved -- have a look at this radio art by designer Ewa Bochen.
Unless you have been living in a very remote place or under a self-imposed media ban you are likely aware of Twitter. In fact maybe you already tweet. On the other hand, maybe you want to find out why the hell you should.
One reason is because there is now a CBC Radio 2 Twitter feed. For those who already tweet, you know what to do. For those who aren't sure, here's the lowdown.
If you click on the last link you can join to receive updates, either via your phone or your computer (or both). So you'll get little news bulletins with updates on Radio 2 happenings, big or small, and links to other fun stuff.
But it isn't a one-way tweet (heh), you can also respond with reactions to what you've heard, suggestions, cool music links, whatever inspires you.
The Week In The (Music) Blogosphere turns to two recent losses -- the great Cuban bassist, Orlando 'Cachaito' Lopez, and the great jazz singer, Blossom Dearie.
The former you'll know as the Buena Vista Social Club bassist, although his career was much more than that. From playing bass in 1952 with the cabaret orchestra Bambú, to working with the popular Havana big band, "Riverside, to becoming bassist with the National Symphony to playing jazz -- he was a phenomenal musician.
So who stayed up and watched The Grammys to the end last night? Once I knew that Alison Krauss and Robert Plant were going to perform I hung on all the way to the end, finally drifting off during Stevie Wonder. (Sorry, Stevie.) It was gratifying that that great Krauss/Plant collaboration was so well recognized -- and almost surprising, given that it's not exactly mainstream in the way, say, Coldplay and Jennifer Hudson are.
But as always with major awards shows, there is a second set of awards, the smaller categories that never make it to the broadcast, let alone mainstream attention. You can see video of some of those presentations here, and this post is just wee a nod to a few:
The Week In The (Music) Blogosphere was dominated by the odd story of 71-year-old Etta James seemingly savaging Beyoncé's performance of a song famously associated with the former, At Last. Specifically Beyoncé's performance of the song at Barack Obama's inauguration. (Sung for the Presidential first dance.)
Now, Ms. James is said to have talked about "whupping" Beyonce's posterior, but if the audio of Etta James posted here is correct, it sounds like she said "whipped," not "whupped." Of course you may be thinking, "whupped, whipped, whatever." But extreme behavior elicits extreme curiosity, when coming from a star like James. What was behind it remains a mystery -- ill health, ill temper, ill-conceived notion of comedic stage patter?
As you likely know, 2009 is Mendelssohn's bicentenary. (See Happy 200th, Felix!) He's a beloved composer to many...but not to all. One of the most famous Mendelssohn doubters is the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. Or rather one of the most famous doubters was Anne-Sophie Mutter, because she's had quite a change of heart.
As recently reported in the New York Times, (Finding Her Mendelssohn Sweet Spot), she said that in Europe, apart from the Violin Concerto the symphonies and the Octet, his music "is underestimated and rarely performed." She went on to say that many listeners don’t find his works "profound or deep enough" and then confessed that "for many years I was a member of this league, just not really believing in the sincerity of the music...We all change."
Thankfully her open-mindedness has led to her new recording of Mendelssohn, some of which you can hear today on In Tune at 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT. (You can also watch a video of her performing some of that music here.) Part of her about face came from learning more about the man:
What's the difference between Anti-Folk and Freak Folk? Alt-Country and Country?
England's The Sunday Times has undertaken the brave (or maybe foolhardy) task of creating an online Encyclopedia of Modern Music to answer these and other questions.
And get this -- right above Neo Pyschedelia is an entry called "Montreal Scene." Defined thusly:
"Leonard Cohen’s home town, the Wainwright family seat (Rufus and Martha are natives), a hub of post-rock: Montreal’s place in pop history is assured."
The Encyclopedia does go a little deeper though -- each entry has a list of essential recordings, and some analysis. But do you buy this analysis of the Montreal scene?
Much Canadian music news on the radar this week. The Juno nominations and the announcement of the five finalists in the Evolution composers-in-residence competition, (see Evolution Composers, Juno Nominees Unveiled) for example.
He's not the first, and not the only to try and improve the lot of the many extraordinary musicians on the island, but Vogel has concentrated his efforts on the post-Hurricane Ike losses of instruments, particularly in Holguin.
Evolution, as in CBC/Radio Canada not Darwin, is a challenge that was set for Canadian composers. In early March the five finalists go to the Banff Centre. There they will have a great view of the mountains and also be given a musical theme and a set of constraints (in terms of ensemble size etc.) and then get cracking. They'll proceed to write a new work within a few weeks.
Online it gets interesting towards the end of Februrary as the composers begin to document their creative processes at the Evolution website via blog and vlog. You may even be agog! They are, after all, extremely creative, interesting composers.
Dylan and Will.I.Am (whose name is the bane of all music writers, honestly, where do those periods go again?) perform the song over what Pepsi calls "a visual collage of iconic images celebrating generations past and present." (Including Gumby! Definitely iconic.)
Electric Roulette was not forgiving of this decision on the part of Dylan: "He's an old tart isn't he? Spent all that time being prickly about the meaning of his songs, almost like they meant somethin' to him... and now? Well, he's a shill."
Right Wing Bob points out that: "Contrary to what early media reports conveyed, Bob Dylan himself didn’t do any work for this Pepsi advertisement, which was put together to air during the Super Bowl in the U.S.A this Sunday. The footage of him in the ad is from the 1960s."
Sounds like it could be the name of a soap opera, or at least some epic about a multi-generational family. But "The Raga Saga" is a "webisode" that follows the development of a new composition for sitar and orchestra, written by Ravi Shankar and performed by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Shankar's daughter, Anoushka Shankar.
It's one of the stories Katherine Duncan will be covering on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT) today. And the work itself has its world premiere tonight at Carnegie Hall.
So far I've only watched one episode, but can easily imagine watching more -- the music is really interesting, and while edited it's still a nice bird's eye view of rehearsal. To watch, go to Orpheus Raga.
Anoushka, like her father, has continued to explore collaborations between North Indian classical music and other, western forms. It's interesting to read her take on how North Indian classical music intersects with western classical music, in one recent interview:
We all sing. And some of us regret it. Such as those who are victims of "karaoke rage." (As reported by Slate: Karaoke Rage: When Innocent Singing Turns Violent.) But karaoke aside, I am willing to put virtual money down that if you are reading this, you like to sing. Maybe not with an audience, maybe not even beyond your shower/car/imagination -- but still you are drawn to singing.
We are possibly not the only species who has the urge to sing -- some believe that mice "construct complex songs." And of course we all know singing is for the birds.
Why humans feel such an urge to sing continues to be hashed out by science and evolutionary theorists though, as nicely outlined in a recent Economist piece (Why Music?)
But why do you sing? Where do you sing? And what do you sing? Several questions for you, should you feel like taking a minute or two to comment.
If you answered Argentina you're probably not in the minority -- that seems to be the most widely accepted version. But as we all know, it takes two to do it. And for decades Argentina and Uruguay have both laid claim to the invention of tango, causing a surprising amount of international strife.
"The use of contested tunes at international cultural and sporting events, including the Olympics, snagged diplomatic relations and prompted accusations of cultural piracy," reports The Guardian.
They also report a recent truce. Argentina and Uruguay have finally buried the hatchet (the rose? the high-heeled shoe?) to petition Unesco for "world heritage status" for tango. If they do, they'll jointly build massive tango museums, cataloguing some 50,000 tango recordings among other tango-analia.
You often hear that "tango was born in the slums of Buenos Aires," and yet the most famous tango, La Cumparsita, is by Uruguayan, Gerardo Matos Rodrígues, written 90 years ago. That is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tango-tension though. But some might have it that the struggle which now sees these two countries locked in passionate embrace is not unlike the tango itself. (Or at least, I would say that.)
In the words of one tango poet, "Tango is as old as men, it was born with the first pain of the soul." Maybe that's the safest way to look at it -- particularly when it gives you a couple dancing to La Cumparsita like this:
Some drama on an operatic scale this week, right here at home. American tenor Jon Villars departing hastily during a public dress rehearsal of Fidelio on Wednesday made national news. A blogger named Brice was there, and reports:
"Right up until about 5 minutes before the end of the show: Jon Villars, playing Florestan, lost his place. To assist, the conductor started singing Jon's part...
If you happen to attend Vancouver Opera'sCarmen this upcoming Tuesday Jan. 27th, and notice four people rapidly tapping away on laptops as you pass through the lobby, don't be afraid, they're meant to be there. Or maybe do be afraid, because although they have been invited by Vancouver Opera, they're blogging, and opera bloggers have a tendency not to pull too many punches.
It's the Vancouver Opera's first Blogger Night @ The Opera, and it's one of the stories Katherine is covering today on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT).
There are no shortage of opera bloggers (see end of post). But what makes this enterprise interesting is that among the four Vancouver bloggers are a couple of people who have never been to an opera. (As opposed to the more typical opera bloggers, who follow the ins and outs of the opera world like Perez Hilton follows Madonna and baseball players.)
If you want to follow along, here are the Vancouver bloggers, as well as some of the usual suspects from the opera blogosphere:
As the world economy continues to do whatever it is the world economy is actually doing, music writers and thinkers regularly chime in with their perspective on its impact on music. Sometimes it's the obvious -- such as yesterday's announcements about cost-cutting measures at The Met and Carnegie Hall. (Although it's still possible to rent Carnegie Hall, as this wonderful story of a singer from British Columbia shows -- see Tenor Buys Dream Ticket For $200,000.)
But does popular music (at least, some popular music) immediately reflect the tenor of the times?
Last night the annual Maple Blues Awards were handed out -- and the big winner was the late Jeff Healey. His band took home a total of seven out of the seventeen honours handed out – including Entertainer, Electric Artist, Guitarist and Recording of the Year (for his posthumous album Mess Of Blues, produced by Healey and bassist Alec Fraser). And Healey's accompanists Al Webster received the Drummer of the Year award, Dave Murphy won Piano/Keyboard Player of the Year and Alec Fraser took home the Bassist of The Year award.
So in Jeff Healey's honour The Radio 2 Blog presents this great version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
One listener said of that performance: "The way I see it, people should be trying to do covers of Jeff Healey's While My Guitar Gently Weeps!"
For the rest of the winners of the Maple Blues Awards, please keep reading. Also, blues fans, take note -- this year's annual blues event, the Women's Blues Revue, will be broadcast on Canada Live (8 p.m.) this Thursday, January 22nd.
Hopefully, this won't seem too excessively morbid a topic, but rather a natural one to contemplate -- funeral music. What prompted thinking about it was following a thread in a music list I subscribe to, Maple Post (which for those of you interested in roots and folk and blues music is an excellent source of info and lively debates -- you can access it through the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals).
First it began with someone seeking some advice re: singing at funerals. But this led to legendary Canadian folksinger Bob Bossin posing what he called the obvious question: "What songs would YOU like played at your funeral?"
The responses ranged from the funny: "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life... but then again, I don't really want a funeral," to the also funny: "Frankly, I was hoping to sing at my own funeral." And one person said "The more ukes, the better." Now that's a wake!
But of course it is also a serious subject. And, no surprise, there are some really interesting suggestions out there, for instance this one at BlogCritics magazine, which suggests music from Tom Waits' Come On Up To The House to Mavis Staples singing I'll Fly Away -- with thoughtful explanations as to why each piece of music was chosen. There are also plenty of standard rep funeral songs, if you will, some of them listed at websites like Heavenly Doves.
I'll Fly Away frequently turns up in many contexts. And when it turns up like this at a funeral -- well, this is the way to go out. Incredible.
A New Orleans Jazz funeral for tuba player Kerwin James -- now that's "celebrating a life." Apparently later it turned into a bit of a fracas, according to this report. (That's life, I guess.)
Now this is just a weird story. Neil Young fans are upset that he is releasing a new recording. At least, according to this story in The Guardian, which says that they would rather have a recording of archival material that has been pending. But the new recording, called Fork In The Road, has apparently pushed back the release of the archival stuff.
You might think it's a case of people preferring the hits, but no. This report has it as down to lyrics like these:
Full disclosure: I know nothing about football, other than the seemingly never ending saga of Brett Favre, and that only because of the Packers fan in my life. So the upcoming Superbowl game itself is not high on my "must watch" list. Don't know if Katherine Duncan is also in the football ignoramus camp -- but like me she is interested in Superbowl music, as you will hear today on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT).
More specifically she'll be talking about Yo Yo Ma, Hyundai and the big football game -- it's connected to the annual hoopla over advertisements specifically created for the Superbowl. But here's what the ad agency says about the inclusion of the cellist's playing, as reported by Reuters:
"Within the context of all the other advertising, which can be so chaotic that it almost becomes white noise, a quiet, gorgeous solo cello moment can be very arresting."
Good thinking. Contrast is often what catches the ear. In a biography I'm reading about Peggy Lee (Fever: The Life and Music of Miss Peggy Lee) there's a section about how she first came to sing quietly, in that understated way -- not typical at the time. Fairly early on in her career she was performing in a bar called The Doll House, it was very noisy, and she was petrified:
Let's start with favourites. Favourite Blue Note Recording: The Sidewinder, by Lee Morgan. Favourite Motown single: Four Tops, I'll Be There. Now that was tough -- there are dozens of other pieces of music that come to mind, given the longevity and quality of the music associated with those two labels.
It does seem nothing short of a miracle that any record label could last the 70 years that Blue Note Records has, or the 50 of Motown, both celebrating birthdays this month.
Blue Note began in January of 1939 when a young German immigrant (and huge jazz fan) named Alfred Lion fled Nazi Germany to re-settle in New York (he originally left Berlin in 1925 but returned, briefly, to Germany during the depression). After hearing boogie-woogie pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis he started up the label. (No doubt not that uncomplicated, but that's the nutshell.)
Earlier this winter there was a concert in celebration of CBC's 60 years in Cape Breton, held at the Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay. And three of the performers in that concert are featured tonight on Canada Live (8 p.m.) -- including headliner, country singer/guitarist par excellence Gordie Sampson (recently nominated for five East Coast Music Awards -- a.k.a ECMA's).
One listener to the CoD version said: "My only complaint is that I wasn't there to witness it live." And you too can have the "next best thing" experience either by listening online to Gordie Sampson in Glace Bay, or simply by turning your radio on tonight at 8 p.m. to Canada Live. The other two performers tonight are Molly Rankin of The Rankin Family, and multi-instrumentalist whiz, JP Cormier.
Cape Breton music may no longer have the high-beams of the world on it as intensely as it once did, but the music is quietly flourishing -- as representation in the upcoming ECMA nominations indicates. (And as reported in the Cape Breton Post.) Of course saying "Cape Breton music" is totally general, but it's true that a lot of people still jump to the conclusion that means traditional/Celtic. With some justification -- that music still continues to inspire new generations.
As the week at Radio 2 has been focussed on Obama's Playlist, it seems appropriate to start off this week's roundup with the news that Canada's Nathaniel Dett Chorale will be performing at two Obama-inauguration related events in Washington D.C. -- singing at the Smithsonian on Martin Luther King Day (Jan. 19) and at a party at the Canadian Embassy on Jan. 20th. Kudos!
The blog Africlassical makes note of this good news, and Good Deed A Day ends a post with a video of the group in performance with Jackie Richardson. It's pretty great.
Apple ditching Digital Rights Management (DRM) on iTunes inspired some conversation right here on The Radio 2 Blog, in response to our Resident Geek's weekly Tech Q? column. Elsewhere, one blogger asked: "I thought Apple learned their lesson the last time they raised the price of DRM-free songs? Yeah, you don’t remember that? It’s because it didn’t last long. There was an uprising and quickly the price was lowered back to $.99."
A few years ago researchers in Taiwan studied the sleeping patters of 60 elderly people who were having trouble sleeping. They had a choice of listening to music or not, before going to sleep. (Music that was all around 60-80 bpm, so on the slow side, of various styles.) The people who chose to listen to music reported a 35% improvement in their sleep. (For more details see this BBC story.)
This strikes me as surprising -- since music is stimulating, and never really background, not unless the volume is almost imperceptible. In any event, something tells me that the music they used (not stated in the article) was probably not subject to lots of rhythmic shifts or fluctuating dynamics. (It's also probably not the kind of "sleep" Gregory Charles had in mind when he put together Sunday's In The Key Of Charles -- that theme inspiring this post. Not sure what music relating to sleep Monsieur Charles will play, for that you will have to tune in.)
Of course there is music "designed" to help you sleep, and websites out there promoting it. The website Sound Sleeping is a biggie in the sleep music biz. And in this digi-age, it's no surprise that you can create your own personalized "sleep music," downloadable, natch. No doubt this works for some people. But some of the musical ideas behind this "science," strike me as debatable, eg. "The sound of the vibraphone is calming." I have never found this to be true, in fact listening to Gary Burton usually inspires the urge to whip around the room playing air mallets. But others may find this a useful bit of info.
This morning while Tom Allen was talking about "blow drying geese," the headline Introducing Hockey (in a BBC RSS feed of music news) jumped out at me. (So did Tom saying "blow drying geese." Never did catch the rest of that story.) Anyway, the Hockey that BBC was talking about is a band from Portland, Oregon.
But such is the nature of the web that one thing surfs to another, and so this "introducing hockey" post is for those who love the game...and its related music.
There are The Zambonis, from Connecticut, who claim to be "North America's Favourite ALL-HOCKEY Band!"
For a hockey music clearing house, you'll want to look at the Canadian website, Hockey Music. Among other things, there you will find forums about Hockey Music. You may freely discuss your computer set-up for sound at the rink; which teams use live organ music, and so on.
But the greatest find has to be "Toronto Mike's" list of best songs about hockey, illustrated with video examples. To have a look and listen, go to Hockey Songs: The Best Music About Our Game.
If there is one thing that has unified the music press in 2009 so far, it's the inevitable urge to forecast what's to come, musically speaking. The Radio 2 Blog joined in on the weekend with Classical Music Crystal Ball. But what about other kinds of music, and other prognosticators?
The Guardian asks questions like: "Will the Blur reunion be any good? Are the Invisible going to own 2009? Who will save the music industry?"
Blogger Niyam gives it a partial thumbs up, as it were, while taking a few shots at Steve Jobs along the way. We'll stick with the thumbs up bit:
"...the new ad, with a digital re-incarnation of John Lennon. Okay, it’s a bit cheesy, the voice and accent are quite fake, but the message is strong and somewhat inspiring. "
Laptop Magazine's blog polls its readers as to whether Lennon would have endorsed the project were he still extant -- at time of bloggin' the "yes" vote was decidedly out in front.
Then there was the totally shocking and unexpected news that CD sales dropped in the U.S. in 2008, but digital sales increased.
Today on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT) Katherine does a little classical music forecasting -- suggesting some of the music people will be talking about, reading about and (obviously) listening to in 2009.
So this is a bit of a companion piece, without the benefit of having heard Katherine's show. You could do your own set of predictions if you like too -- and see how they all match up.
1. Much Mendelssohn:
Why? He was born in 1809, so this is his bicentenary year. To keep abreast of all things Felix, you may wish to follow Jessica Duchen's Felixitations.
Sub-Prediction: You will hear a plethora of Purcell, Handel and Hayden as well.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Dec-31-08 at 01:02 PM
As I set about to write this, my last post of my week's tenure at the R2 blog and the last post of 2008, I'd like to say I'm thinking back over the year that was. The truth is, I'm casting my mind over what has been a challenging week. Sure, there were the holidays to navigate, but more than that, there was the weather.
Over the past week, the storms that wreaked havoc in much of the country - dumping snow in Vancouver, snarling traffic and postponing flights for holiday travelers at airports across the land - caused their own special brand of trouble for me at the old home-office blogging-post.
My internet connection was literally blown away by high winds several times over the past 7 days - once for a 17-hour stretch, once for 25 hours. I was without electricity at home for hours on Sunday (me and 1/4 million other households in Ontario). In my efforts to stay on top of posts, I wrote blog entries from a variety of novel places: my in-laws' living-room, the local art gallery where I volunteer; a friend's painting studio; and even from my car, tapped into a vacationing friend's wireless service (with permission) via lap-top perched precariously on my knee.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Dec-30-08 at 02:00 PM
There's sad news from the world of jazz. Freddie Hubbard, the virtuoso hard bop jazz trumpeter, has died at age 70. He died Monday morning at Sherman Oaks Hospital near his home in California, following a heart attack in November.
The Grammy Award-winning trumpeter met John Coltrane at a jam session at Count Basie's home in 1958 when he was just 20 years old. It was a meeting that would catapult him into the sphere of jazz luminaries. Soon his playing was heard in concert with - and on albums by - Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins, to name just a few.
Posted by Philly Markowitz on Dec-28-08 at 01:43 PM
A few key themes have come to the forefront as I've scanned my favourite music blogs over the past week - I'll explore those themes in detail further along in this post.
First, though, I'd like to acknowledge the passing of a true original. Eartha Kitt died on Christmas Day at the age of 81. She passed as radio stations around the world offered us her kitten-ish voice crooning the perennial Christmas favourite, Santa Baby.
Eartha Kitt captivated audiences with her dazzling smile, husky-yet-coquettish voice and comic timing. As a child, I discovered her as the cat-suit clad sexpot on the Batman TV series, where she was listed as an Extra Special Guest Villainess in the credits for her portrayal of Cat-Woman. It was a simple role - she slinked around and rolled her "R"s a lot, but it had an enormous impact... or so all the men in my life who were pre-pubescent boys at the time tell me.
There was another Eartha Kitt, as well. Eartha the civil rights activist was an outspoken critic of the war in Viet Nam and the plight of inner city American youth - so much so that President Lyndon Johnson effectively blacklisted her in the USA. For more about that Eartha Kitt, here's an article from Earl Ofari Hutchinson of the Huffington Post.
There are so many wonderful ways to remember Eartha Kitt. I offer you one of my favourites. Here's Eartha (in a shirt-dress and pigtails, no less!) in concert in 1962.
Christmas CoDs might sound like some seasonal form of fish, or maybe message board shorthand, LOL, IMHO, ETC. But no, they are a series of Christmas music Concerts On Demand that have gone up on the Radio 2 website in recent days, featuring a range of styles.
So for Christmas music day or night, night or day, here is a handy guide. Merry listening!
CBC Christmas Sing-In From Montreal 2008: "A kaleidoscope of Christmas music for choir, brass, percussion, organ and an audience of 1500 from The Church of St Andrew and St Paul in Montreal."
Winter Solstice With The Spiritus Chamber Choir: "Some beautiful 20th century a capella works about light, warmth, sleep and birth. For the second half, the choir invited three of the singers from Calgary Opera's Emerging Artist program to join them for a rarely heard Resphigi work which tells the story of the nativity."
Handel's Messiah: "This performance features the National Arts Centre Orchestra, soloists, and two choirs: the Cantata Singers of Ottawa, and Seventeen Voyces, all under the direction of leading Baroque interpreter Trevor Pinnock."
Earlier in the week the Radio 2 Blog made note of the passing of British folk musician Davy Graham. Naturally there has been some blogging about his passing, at age 68. And almost without fail every blog posted this video.
I'd like to start today's This Week In The Music Blogosphere with it as well because it's a great if poignant introduction to his music. Shot in 1959 for a documentary about the rising popularity of guitar playing in the UK, it features the then unknown nineteen year old, Davy Graham:
And moving on....another subject completely. It being the time of year that it is, there has also been some bloggin' goin' on about Christmas music.
The Canadian Music Centre has introduced Centrestreams, thousands of archival recordings by Canadian composers which you can listen to online. Bravo, CMC.
And then, a contested news story, first blogged about in Cohen's Hallelujah...Again! As predicted, Alexandra Burke won X Factor, and as a result there are three versions of Leonard Cohen'sHallelujah on the charts in the UK: "This is one of the most unexpected gambles in music betting history. Punters who backed it could be screaming Hallelujah on Sunday."
The holiday fast approaches, and with it Radio 2 has holiday programming on air, December 24th and 25th. But before getting to that piece of business, there's this piece of business: two special holiday broadcasts coming up soonest -- on Sunday, December 21st, the annual Euroradio Christmas Day broadcast, Joy To The World, presented by the European Broadcasting Union. It will be hosted by Radio 2's Peter Togni, host of Choral Concert. If you click on the "continue reading" thingie at the the end of this post, you will see which choirs are scheduled to sing when.
Also on Tempo (10 a.m. - 3 p.m.) on Dec 22nd, Robert Harris joins host Julie Nesrallah for the "the greatest concert of all time!" Here's the back story:
200 years ago to the day, December 22, 1808, Ludwig van Beethoven, in his triple-threat roles of composer, conductor and performer, produced a concert unlike any before or after in the history of music. On the programme you'll hear four premieres including the 5th and 6th symphonies, the Piano Concerto No.4 and a choral fantasy.
Julie Nesrallah and time-traveling guide Robert Harris feature pianist Robert Levin and conductor Thomas Dausgaard leading The Danish Radio Symphony in concert. You can hear this in part 2 of Tempo, Monday December 22 at noon, 12:30 in Newfoundland.
As to that December 24/25th Radio 2 Holiday Programming, you will find the schedule by clicking the last link. Note that it is still being updated, as is the way with radio. Similarly, if you continue reading for the list of choirs performing on December 21st, do bear in mind the schedule is subject to change.
Despite the ongoing trauma, and I don't think that's overstating it, of the state of the world economy, people continue to play, listen to, and write about music. In tough times, the tough get music. Sometimes even get a little weird about music.
The blogosphere reeled at the news that there will be a new stage adaptation/musical based on Star Wars -- The Guardian's theatre blog saying, (Skywalker: The Musical!): "The mind truly boggles with the possibilities: could we really see a Close Every Door-style ballad as Luke hits his lowest ebb after the revelation that Vader is his father? Or an ailing Padme Amidala lamenting Don't Cry for Me, Naboo before dying in childbirth?"
Recently Rolling Stone mag published a 100 Greatest Singers Of All Time list. What makes the list interesting is that they got musicians, famous musicians naturally, to write about why these singers are the greatest.
So the number one pick, Aretha Franklin, is written about by Mary J. Blige, for example, who says of Aretha: "You know a force from heaven. You know something that God made. And Aretha is a gift from God. When it comes to expressing yourself through song, there is no one who can touch her. She is the reason why women want to sing."
This may be true, just as it may be true that Nico is the reason why boys want to dance.
If you look at the list though (here's the condensed version) you will see that it represents a pretty small slice of music styles. And that bugs me. (It also bugs some of the people who commented -- for example a reader named "Null" who said: "Two words: Billie Holliday. For god's sake.") After all, if you're going to call something "greatest singers of all time," you might want to broaden it out to include, say, jazz, classical, and "world music."
Another respondent said "There is no greatest singer," and of course that is true. But if you're listing 100 voices surely you could have a wider cross section of genres? (Aside: what's with the gravitating to 100/1000 lists, anyway, 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die, 1001 Wines You Must Taste Before You Die...what's next, 1002 Thoughts To Think Before You Die?)
Now, there is no way I would attempt a 100, let alone a 1000 list, but here are NINE SINGERS WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE LIST, in no particular order.
Youssou N'Dour
Cecilia Bartoli
Emmylou Harris
Sarah Vaughan
Milton Nascimento
Carmen McCrae
Maria Callas
Johnny Cash
Odetta
"How long how long, rivers of tears are crying...Time to bring about change for children...set yourself free, you can heal your heart and soul, help bring about change for children..."
Change For Children Association (CFCA) is an Edmonton based NGO, trying to do just what their name implies, making things better for children living in poverty.
Of course they are not the only organization with this in mind. But for some time they've been associated with a music project called Instruments Of Change, spearheaded by Edmonton violinist Frank Bessai. He lived in Nicaragua for a while, doing music and theatre with street kids, and that led him to working with various NGO's like CFCA.
What they've done is collect donated instruments in Edmonton, and sent some of them to Nicaragua. Another Canadian musician, Bill Bourne, was so impressed by this that he wrote a song called Change For Children, lyrics excerpted at the top of this post. You can hear it by clicking on that link. (And for that matter you can also hear Bill Bourne in another musical guise on the R2 website as well, at Concerts On Demand: Tri-Continental.)
Bourne supports the idea that improvement of life circumstances for children is linked not just to the essentials of daily survival, but to culture:
But more interestingly, they've got Fleet Foxes as #1. (A favourite of Tom Power's, incidentally, host of Deep Roots.)
FF's music is difficult to resist -- in a slightly throwback way. There's a sound, an aesthetic to their approach to music that seems to have great appeal these days. (Kind of like the look of the old radio in the photo accompanying this post -- could the timing of this be somehow connected to "New Depression Chic?").
As the review for their #1 spot on the Timesonline 100 list puts it:
"Usually, when an album’s reviews has references to the Beach Boys or CSN&Y, it simply means that more than one person in the band sings at the same time. But in the case of this uplifting, timeless yet fresh debut, comparisons with the peak of West Coast pop are entirely justified."
Maybe in a way it's part of the same trend (even though the music is obviously totally different) towards revivalism of traditional R&B, soul and funk. There was a great article (Soul Reviver) over the weekend about the phenom of Gabriel Roth's Daptone Records that touches on this.
Reader, it was a tough week. On the micro, week-in-the-life-of-a-blogger level, technology was intermittently uncooperative, too much time was spent in meetings (always the sign of a bad week in anyone's life, I should think), and who had time to buy groceries. No one in the house I live in, apparently. And on the macro, well, there was the proroguing and all that which led up to it.
So no wonder the following diversions provided by the blogosphere are so welcome this week. Think of them as little tastes of alternate universes. You might not want to dwell in all of them, but worth the virtual visit.
While many south of the border hold their breath hoping that President- elect Obama will somehow reverse the economic tide of woe, others are banking on him to do something about the arts. Others as in Quincy Jones. (Pictured here, with a gymnast flying over his head. I wonder if he knows?)
Yes, the mighty Q has said he plans to ask Obama to create a position called Secretary Of The Arts. Naturally, this led to an online petition. At time of bloggin' there were a couple thousand signatures -- don't think that's quite going to swing it. (btw Obama does have a platform on the arts, which you can read about here, and it will take you to a PDF from the Obama campaign of that platform in full.)
But another twist in the Obama arts/music story is this. Some in the world music industry, and world music performers themselves, believe that Obama is going to improve the ongoing trauma of obtaining visas to perform in the U.S., something that has been considerably more difficult for musicians (including some from Canada) since September 11th. You can read more about the hopes of world music types in the Boston Globe -- Sound Off.
"Goodness gracious, how many times I don't know, people have come and thanked me for healing. But it's the music that does that, I don't do that. It's the music." --Odetta
Yes it was the music, but it was also the woman who sang that music. She told me that she viewed herself as a "medium" for the music (the above quote is from an interview I did with her a few years back), which was so characteristic of her modesty and graciousness throughout that interview.
"Those of us who are still interested in the area of folk music and still do the folk music, I think of us as bookmarks," she said. "We keep doing it. If people hadn't kept doing it, I, or the others around at the beginning at the folk music boom wouldn't have heard the stuff. You know what I mean? And the music in my end is the history of us as regular people."
One voice for the history of regular people, Odetta's incredible voice, has been stilled. She passed away yesterday at the age of 77. (You can read more about her life in this Washington Post obituary called Odetta, Sang The Soundtrack For The Civil Rights Movement.)
Of course it was only a matter of time. What with the 21st mania for contests (and musicians like Yo Yo Ma holding remix contests as a result) plus the general reliance on all things Tube of You, there just had to be something on this scale: Google, the London Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Lang Lang have joined forces for an initiative entitled the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
It's actually two contests. One, you learn some new music by Tan Dun, (pictured here) submit a video of your performance, and then if you are selected your performance will become part of a giant mashup.
Two, you submit a video of yourself playing some designated standard repertoire pieces, and then musicians picked from this audition will perform in the YouTube Symphony at Carnegie Hall in April 2009.
It all sounds pretty wacky and gimmicky and potentially a lot of fun. And bound to get a loads of attention given the considerable "star power" involved. (Here's a video explanation of the contest featuring Tan Dun and various musicians.)
The deadline for submissions is January 28, 2009, so you'd best get cracking if you're thinking of auditioning. Particularly if you want to make it to Carnegie Hall. (You know the old joke, How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall? They ask it, on the YouTube Symphony Orchestra website. Their answer? "Practice and upload.")
All this week Tim Tamashiro is sitting in for Katie Malloch on Tonic (6 p.m.). If you are a weekend Tonic listener, you already know Tim, since he's the weekend host of the show (as well as being a musician and special events host, he's a busy guy).
And maybe it's down to that cliché ("want to get something done, ask a busy person") but he's also the man behind an interesting project called The Ten Million Songs Challenge, subtitled "Can 100 Artists (You've Probably Never Heard Of) Sell 10 Million Songs On iTunes?")
It's just as the subtitle says, a way of getting less obvious/commercial/known music into a very commercial venture -- iTunes. Why's he doing this? I'll let the man put it in his own words:
As the week winds down and starts turning towards Monday morning again (no! no! sorry, yes it does) it's time for This Week In The (Music) Blogosphere.
There's been the expected sniping over Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy, a fair bit of traffic about the Robert LePage visual treatment of Faust at the Met, and much to do about a former star of Dynasty who is going to be on Coronation Street. (Whoops, sorry, wrong blog.) But here are a few less obvious music stories/issues covered in the past week:
Apartment Therapy finds a cache of photos from the archives of LIFE mag that look inside the homes of parents and grandparents of musicians like Frank Zappa and Grace Slick. They're pretty great, as you'll see if you click on that last link.
Christie's held its first auction of punk memorabilia, and Monitor Mix plays devil's advocate by asking, "After all what is it about the marriage of Christie's and Punk that is so threatening?"
If your response to the idea that animals react to music is "in a pig's ear," think again. A new book called Through A Dog's Ear is all about how music can be used to help anxious dogs. (Today on In Tune 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT, Katherine covers this story, among others.)
Having once been a horsey girl I've seen first hand the way music works in barns -- the horses used to whicker softly while bossa nova was played, and also seemed fond of Schubert's Trout Quintet. And everyone's heard stories of how music makes cows keener to produce milk. (Not sure which kind of music, that's another book, possibly called In One Ear And Out The Udder. Sorry, I promise to stop now.)
At a glance the premise behind Through A Dog's Ear is that it is classical music in particular that has this effect. But a closer look reveals that it is more than just any old classical music, it's "Psycho-acoustically designed classical compositions clinically demonstrated to calm dogs, and in many cases, reduce anxiety."
Breaking News! The winner of this year's The X Factor is "reportedly" going to record Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah to release as the show's annual Christmas single. (Maybe this post should have begun: "Breaking Rumours!")
But the significance of this is that in the past few years The X Factor's single has gone to the top of the UK charts. The X Factor, should you not be familiar with it, is American/Canadian Idol with better accents. (And not all of them belong to Nigel Lythgoe or Simon Cowell.)
But the choice of Hallelujah, if true, is not without controversy. Apparently one of the contestants, the lovely Diana, is considered a shoo-in to win, and the song was chosen because it "suits her vocals." At least, so says NME ("A source told the paper: 'Tempers are running high. They feel it is just the latest in a series of stunts that have left them wondering if the competition has already been won.'") Egad! A reality TV show rigged? Never.
But one thing to come out of the X Factor gossip that really is worth paying attention to is a brief but interesting chronology of the history of Hallelujah covers. (A topic that has come up recently on the Radio 2 Blog in a post called Lenny Mania.)
Oh no, it can't be that time already! While looking for something to do with David Byrne I came across the first indication of end-of-year listmania that always seizes the media. I thought at least they'd have the decency to wait to be seized until a little closer to the end of the year, but no.
That said, I must admit I really like the approach of Bob Duskis of Six Degrees Records, from their blog, Global Noize. Rather than the usual Top Ten Albums blah blah blah he's mixed it up, and his list is a fine example of a more creative (and entertaining) approach -- there is more to life than the Top Ten Albums blah blah blah, after all.
Categories like "Best Ethiopian Dub Electronica Record By A Former Member Of Transglobal Underground" and "Best Swedish Vampire Film" are a lot more fun.
Also, I should point out that Six Degrees have started gathering lists from people like Shelia Chandra, and Canada's own Bob Blumer...likely more will come in as they go. Of course, should you feel inspired you can contribute your own to the Radio 2 Blog as well.
Which brings me to this small piece of business -- the blog is now being moderated by a fleet of highly trained moderators working around the clock, and to send in your comments you do need to sign up first. This will take you under a minute. I know, I timed it. :47 seconds. Am still waiting for someone to better my record.
Actually, the change is to how you comment to the Radio 2 Blog, as the blog moves to an outside moderation system today. It's the same system used by much of the CBC website already. And in fact within a matter of months, all of the website -- blogs, stories, anyplace where you can comment -- will also switch over to this system.
The only change for you is that you have to sign up (just once!) to make a comment. The sign up thing is not a big deal at all. It takes literally under a minute. (I just tried it -- :47 seconds, actually. Though if you dither over creating the perfect Password or User Name, it might go as high as :90.)
Here's an example in action. Say you wanted to comment on the arts news story: 'Controversial' George Harrison Interview Comes To Light. If you click on that link, not only can you read about how George may have said blunt things about drink and drugs (there's a shocker), you can also scroll down and see what the new comment system looks like. [UPDATE: The commenting system is now in place on the Radio 2 Blog, so actually you can just "continue reading" to the bottom of this post and see it in action, since there are a number of comments up.]
There are a couple of reasons that this new system will be advantageous for you:
Here it is, a Sunday evening in late November, hopefully you managed to enjoy some of the daylight hours today. One evening last week while waiting for a bus a woman walked by and said, apropos of nothing, "I got up and went to work and it was dark, now I'm coming home and it's dark." Then she laughed with astonishing good cheer and continued on her way.
But that's why weekends and days off were created. Also so that one can have time to waste spend in a leisurely fashion, such as reading blogs.
This week's blogbits come from a range of blogs, and cover a range of subject matter, starting with an update on how Guitar Hero may help amputees...
Remixes are as common as, well, remixes in popular music. Safe to say less so with classical music. But Yo Yo Ma, as Katherine explores on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT), is inviting people to remix his latest. (Although it must be said, while remixes tend to imply beats and electronics, that's not necessarily what this is all about -- but it is an opportunity to "virtually collaborate" with the great cellist.)
The album, which came out mid-October, is called Songs of Joy & Peace, and it already has a cast of performers you might not expect, including James Taylor, Alison Krauss, Diana Krall and Chris Botti, as well as one you might -- Renée Fleming.
Yo Yo Ma is not actually suggesting that people take a crack at remixing the entire recording, but he has offered up one piece -- he's recorded the traditional Dona Nobis Pacem ("Give Us Peace") and is inviting come who will to write counter-melodies, a set of variations, or presumably some fresh arrangement using his cello on the melody. You can submit your own remix, and hear some of the remixes people have already sent in here.
It's also a contest -- the winner gets to record with Yo-Yo Ma in a one-on-one collaboration! So get remixing! You have until December 31st.
This weekend, Deep Roots host Tom Power will be one of the presenters at the Canadian Folk Music Awards. You'd think Canadian folk music awards must have been around forever, given how long people have been singing I's The B'y or (somewhat more recently) carrying on (at full volume) about being "a broken man on a Halifax pier."
But no, the fact is awards for folk music in this country only started three years ago. And it seems 2005 must have been the moment for Canadian folk getting tired of being chopped liver -- that's also the year that the Mariposa Hall Of Fame was created. Last night two significant Canadians were inducted -- the late Estelle Klein and Ken Whiteley.
Estelle Klein was with the festival for years as as an organizer and "driving force," and is said to have created the idea of "workshops" -- forever changing the nature of music festivals across North America. And Ken Whiteley has been connected to Mariposa since the 1960s as a performer, a member of the Board, and as an Artistic Director. Good to see both acknowledged.
And then there are the aforementioned Canadian Folk Music Awards, taking place this Sunday in St. John's -- their mission to "celebrate and promote Canadian Folk Music in all its forms." Tom Power will play some of the nominees on his popular weekly folk show, Deep Roots (Saturday 11:00 a.m., 12:00 AT, 12:30 NT).
So what does all this add up to? I think there's a wind stirring, no not a mighty one, just a healthy wind of change whereby "folk" may no longer be the "f" word. Who knows, maybe one day people will even go so far as to drop "roots" and "singer songwriter" and go with just plain folk. Any bets?
An exhibition dedicated to Serge Gainsbourg opened recently in Paris; an exhibition of Leonard Cohen's drawings opens in Vancouver next month; Dylan is everywhere, Gordon Lightfoot is feted as he turns 70, Joni Mitchell at 65...we seem to have reached the era when popular music icons, (both those who are still with us and those who are not), are venerated with fresh intensity.
But while Canadians' love for Cohen et al is a powerful thing, I'd venture to say it still doesn't hold a candle to the intensity of the French adoration for Gainsbourg. (Why that is is a subject for something much more in depth than a blog post, likely written in French.) But back to the exhibition. It's at the Cite De La Musique, a great music museum in the 19th arrondissement, in the north part of Paris. (It runs until March 2009, fyi.) It presents excerpts from films, movies, his own paintings, original manuscripts, stuff he owned or was inspired by (including Paul Klee's painting, Bad News From The Stars, which became the name of one of his recordings Mauvaises nouvelles des étoiles).
Speaking to The Independent, the curator of the exhibition, Frédéric Sanchez, described the decision to focus on Gainsbourg as "a consecration and an apotheosis" -- and that alone indicates the depth of the Gainsbourg worship.
On the weekend a Radio 2 listener/blog reader wrote in about the Jeff Buckley cover of the Leonard Cohen song, Hallelujah. It's not a very long limb to go out on to say it's one of the best -- a wrenchingly beautiful version of a wrenchingly beautiful song.
In fact recently the BBC aired a documentary about the song itself, called The Fourth, The Fifth, The Minor Fall, frustratingly not available online. But what is available, is the December 2008 cover story in Mojo magazine, called The Incredible Resurrection Of Rock's Greatest Poet by journalist Sylvie Simmons, which "looks back over a life brimming with music, women, Zen and the devil with the man they once called Captain Mandrax."
And it's accompanied by a 15-track Cohen Covers CD, featuring Allison Crowe, Judy Collins, Dion, Linda Thompson, Katie Melua, Nick Cave, among others. Due to some poor consumer habits I've not yet procured magazine and disc, but have every intention of doing so before it's off the stands.
Korea's Kim Yu-Na, a champion figure skater, has been landing her triple-lutz triple toe loops, sow cows, shoot the ducks and all those other fancy moves to a classical score, something Katherine will talk about more on today's edition of In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT).
Kim Yu-Na recently won Gold at the 2008 Skate America, skating Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Seans. (Incidentally, she trains in Toronto.) The choice of music is, as any skater or skating coach will tell you, a big deal. Skaters like Kim Yu-Na obsess about which music to use in a routine:
"I've tried several kinds of music and classical kind of fits me. I feel comfortable when the music is classical and I like to skate to it. I played a bit of piano when I was young, but no more. Now I listen mostly to Korean pop music. I can find it online," she told the the skating publication, Golden Skate.
So, for any skaters out there, or just the skate-music curious, here are a few thoughts:
Whoo hoo! And other expressions of enthusiasm, since some of the documentaries broadcast on Inside The Music are now available as streams online.
The reason for the huzzahs is because on a regular basis queries come into the Radio 2 Blog that read like this:
"I read about the Daniel Lanois/Joni Mitchell [fill in the blank] documentary, and intended to listen, but got busy filing the tax receipts/raising families/watering the cat again and forgot. Can you help me?
Signed,
Absentminded, in Canada "
Now there is help, with the Inside The Music Audio Archives. It's just in its infancy, at the moment what's there is most of the series RPM: Indispensable Canadian Albums. (Featuring programmes about the seminal recordings of Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn, The Band, and Daniel Lanois. This weekend's broadcast, about Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People, on air Saturday at 12:00 p.m., 1:00 AT, 1:30 NT, will be on the website next week.)
It's not easy to approach Remembrance Day in any way, including musically. For many people there are so many emotions connected to the day, personal histories, and the realities of war.
Even posting J.P. Cormier's song Afghanistan (see last post) gave me slight pause. Would anyone be offended that it was not connected to World War I or World War II? Would the implicit politics of the song (though so very respectful to all concerned) disturb any viewer? For anyone programming music, or writing about it, there's always that question -- how can music best be used to reflect Remembrance Day, and respond to it?
It poses this question: "Remembrance Day presents a unique challenge to musicians -- how do you elicit emotions without being heavy handed?"
One response came from Paul Halley, conductor of the choir of St. George's Anglican Church in Halifax:
"The main thing is the music needs to be moving. It can’t be trite. It can’t be… simplistic. But you don’t want to get into the realm of being overblown."
One way to do this of course is to play (or listen to) the 20th century requiems that were written in response to war:
You will most likely have heard by now that Miriam Makeba died following a concert yesterday in Italy. (To read more, here is the NYTimes obituary.)
The concert she'd sung at was in support of Roberto Saviano, an author who received death threats for writing about organized crime. Not a surprise, given her dedication to human rights -- her involvement in the anti-apartheid movement is legendary, and caused her three decades of exile from South Africa. (She did not return until invited by Mandela in 1990.)
And yet she always claimed to not be a political singer.
Much of the life of someone writing a blog is spent reading a blog, or twenty. (Note the avoidance of the term "blogger," which always conjures up words like "plodgy" and "stodgy" and "blah.") Yes, reading other blogs is an occupational hazard, but with stoic (but not bloggish) determination I set about this task on a near-daily basis.
You, however, may be otherwise occupied, with revolutionary medical breakthroughs, raising triplets, thinking great thoughts, whatever the case may be, and therefore not facing this same reality. If this is the case, you may enjoy this new weekly weekend feature on The Radio 2 Blog: This Week In The Music Blogosphere, a summary of the previous week's finds. Here goes:
This evening Canada Live (8 p.m.) has the blues, with live sets from "Ottawa Blues Night," recorded at the Rainbow Bistro, featuring Tony D, Tracy K, Robert Farrell and Maria Hawkins. Plus you can hear a bluesy CBC studio recording from Melissa McClelland & Julian Fauth.
Which brings me to some blues news. This week, the Toronto Blues Society announced the nominations for the 2009 Maple Blues Awards. The voting is underway -- to cast your ballot, go to Maple Blues until 11:59 pm (PT) December 6th, 2008, when the "polls" close. (The Gala Awards Ceremony will take place in Toronto at 8:30 pm on Monday, January 19th, 2009.)
It's nice to see that the award nominations are led by the late Jeff Healey, with a total of seven nominations. Also nice to see that this year's "Blues Booster Of The Year Award" goes to the "Professor of Rock n’ Roll," Rob Bowman for his outstanding contributions to the Canadian Blues industry.
You've probably heard Rob on CBC airwaves over the years, talking about various aspects of music (Bowman is a five-time Grammy Award nominee, and one-time winner -- in 1996 for Best Album Notes The Complete Stax/Volt Soul Singles, Vol. 3: 1972-1975). Congratulations Mr. Bowman. But as to the nominated artists -- that's up to fans -- so blues lovers, don't forget to vote at Maple Blues.
Please continue reading to see the full list of nominees:
Earlier this week the news broke that Peruvian singer and Hollywood legend Yma Sumac died. Her stardom was based on a combination of things -- the costumes, her supposed and mysterious status as an Inca princess, the cultural attitudes of the day (the height of her fame being the 1950s).
But there was also that voice, with its extraordinary range said to be over four octaves. (Most of us are lucky to get three -- Mariah Carey and Minnie Riperton are other exceptions -- though of course there are inevitable debates over what is truly vocal range -- and what is the so-called whistle range, or just plain squeaking.)
Something tells me not too many Americans will need Woody Guthrie's Election Took Kit this election day. (It includes "Don't Come Back Til You Register To Vote" magnets and other such aide memoires.)
Also in case you missed it, and because Hank Williams Sr. has rightfully been posthumously making news of late, there's Hank Williams Jr's McCain-Palin Tradition song.
"Interprète masculin de l’année" somehow sounds so much more suave than "male singer of the year," but either way the honour came to Gregory Charles last night at the ADISQs. (Frequently referred to in English language media as Quebec's "equivalent to the Junos.")
If you are an anglophone who is pretty much unaware of the 30 year history of the ADISQs, rest assured if uncomfortably that you are not alone. A piece called Are We Tuned In, which ran in yesterday's Gazette before the big Sunday gala, put it this way:
According to one calculation, jobs for string quartet players increased 896% between February 2007 and August 2008. Seems preposterous and it is. But it is probably safe to say the string quartet's popularity has not waned in the 21st century.
Tonight The Signal (10 p.m.) is starting a new feature -- String Quartet Sundays -- no, not an entire programme of string q's, but a regular part of the Sunday evening edition -- in this instance the string q in question is the Molinari Quartet.
One of the permutations of string quartets in popular culture is the phenom of Vitamin Records. They cover pop and rock music -- performed by string quartets. They started in 1999 with The String Quartet Tribute To Led Zeppelin, and since then have covered the likes of Ani DiFranco, Outkast, Tool and Kraftwerk -- among their 185 releases to date.
And it being Halloween weekend this provides me with a nifty segue to a Vitamin version of My Chemical Romance'sHelena.
Kind of an odd experience watching this, not a string player in sight of course, but interesting how the strings seem to drive the video regardless. (Here's where you can hear the original, btw.)
Or not? Here's the story (with thanks to Katherine Duncan, host of In Tune, Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT, for the tip):
The car company Honda cut grooves (a.ka. a rumble strip) into a stretch of city road in Lancaster California, which is north of L.A. When driven over (at a certain speed, I think 55 mph) the grooves play the William Tell Overture. (Badly, it must be said.) Honda used the road (the video of the making of the road is more interesting than the musical results, by the way) in a commercial. But then it became an unlikely and controversial tourist attraction -- as this news story points out:
Of course wouldn't you know it -- the Honda Road is not the only example of "musical roads." The following video shows one in Japan which was designed specifically as a speed control device -- to hear the song you have to drive steadily, and slowly.
Given that as a musical experience it's, shall we say, less than satisfying, do you suppose it's possible someone might be tempted to speed just to get past the thing? However, in the name of innovative uses of music, more power to them. (Even if it's not quite in the groove.)
Earlier this fall Zimbabwean singer Chiwoniso launched an annual world music festival held in Toronto called the Small World Festival. She's a powerful singer, and her music is a very contemporary take on tradition of Zimbabwean Shona music. (The mbira, if you're unfamiliar, is sometimes called a "thumb piano," although really, it's not that hard to say "mbira"; pronouncer = em-BEER-uh, which sounds a lot nicer.)
Anyway, the concert is being broadcast Friday night on Canada Live (8 p.m.). Though for the last few years there's been quite an interest in mbiras coming from non-Zimbabwean musicians, Chiwoniso is more of an example of young, urban Zimbabwean's becoming increasingly into mbira. Some of the resulting music is even less traditionally oriented than Chiwoniso's. And all of it, it being Zimbabwe, is political.
Paul Brickhill, who runs a cafe in Harare called The Book Cafe was interviewed about this back in 2002.
"You see these young people, they are very experimental, and they are very free in the way they think. They are not so bound by categories as we older musicians are. You would see them looking towards the cutting edge for them of contemporary music internationally. So they would be into rap and there is in fact a version of Shona rap developing. Or they'd be looking into Hip-Hop and all this kind of thing. It was very noticeable how increasingly they put away their electric guitars and other electric instruments and started to pick up mbira and percussion because mbira always goes together with percussion, but then they mix it with other stuff."
There are few things that thrill the way finding hidden musical treasure does. Particularly when it is from the beginning of the very history of recordings, as is the case with the discovery of some cylinder recordings that represent the "largest cache of classical music from the dawn of the recorded age known to exist: hundreds of cylinders incised on an Edison phonograph from the 1890s by a music-loving businessman, Julius H. Block."
And today a find of another musical kind finally sees the light of day -- radio broadcasts by the great Hank Williams. Serious fans have long know about these recordings -- 143 never-before-released recordings from a radio series sponsored by Mother's Best flour in 1951.
It was the height of Williams' career -- Cold Cold Heart had been covered by Tony Bennett and Perry Como, he was on national TV shows (including Como's).
In the ongoing Radio 2 Blog exploration of music and its connections to/reflections of the U.S. election, we present Music For Sarah. No, not Song For Sarah by the two young Russian guys who responded to Ms. Palin's comments about seeing (or not) Russia from Alaska -- this is music written as accompaniment to Ms. Palin, and it's quite an interesting example of music created as a response to the cadence of speech.
Jordan is a virtuoso guitarist, an innovator, and not coincidentally, the other day I posted a video of him playing on two instruments simultaneously. You can see that here, second video down. He's an amazing musician.
He's also completing a grad programme in music therapy. This I did not know, until snooping about the World Wide Web reading about what people think the musical response to the current economic chaos will be.
That led to an article called Guitarist Stanley Jordan: Music Therapy For People And the Planet. A remarkable coincidence, I thought. More remarkable though, is this notion of Jordan's that music therapy should not be seen as restricted to the (music) therapist's couch, as it were, that we should actively use music outside the clinical situation to improve our own every day health. (Many of us already do that, I suspect, whether or not it is as conscious as all that.)
Jordan's Relaxing Music For Difficult Situations was something he recorded for himself before going to the dentist. Really. "I had to go for three days of dental work, so I needed something really powerful," he says. Ouch, three days!
But what about those of us who can't cope with the dentist (or the economic chaos) by recording our own music to combat the anxiety? Here are a few of Jordan's other tips:
Norman Lebrecht thinks The Fate Of Music Hinges On A $20 Million Violin. He also thinks that musicians -- at least, top flight classical musicians -- will weather the "economic crisis" just fine, thank you very much. (I think we need a new term for the "economic crisis" don't you? How about "chaos" instead of crisis? In response, SNL fans may wish to join me in a hearty cry of "FIX IT!")
Anyway, another response to music and the credit crunch is to listen to Bach's Cantata 168, and here's why, according to blogger Paul Lay:
"The opening bass aria is a pungent, ardent attack on the money men of 1720s Weimar, around the words Tue Rechnung! Donnerwort! literally 'Give an account of yourself, word of thunder,' but sometimes translated as 'Thine Accounting! Judgment Day!' The bass vents his spleen amid a swirl of music like a demented broker seeing all his screens turn red, who thrashes around before finally pledging to be a good steward who puts his trust in the lord. "
"Chihuahua Themed Embroidery." "Life In Plastic, It's Fantastic." "You Say Professional Like It's A Bad Thing."
These are just some of the blog post headlines that gave me pause earlier today. But putting aside the obvious charms of Chihuahua Themed Embroidery, (oh alright, here's the link) the headline this post focuses on is perhaps less eye-catching, but of no small significance: "Why The Fate Of Music Hinges On A $20 Million Violin."
It's the title of a post by Norman Lebrecht, and the story is this: A 1741 Guarnerius del Gesu violin, owned by an elderly merchant banker, has been put on sale for $20 million --Lebrecht says this is "twice as much as the highest sum ever paid for a musical instrument."
It's a lead in to an exploration of how musicians survive recessions and depressions. (Not talking hairlines and the state-of-mind many artistic souls are prone to, but the economic kind.)
"The pianist Artur Schnabel, his share holdings suddenly worthless, lifted his firm ban on making records and signed with EMI to play the 32 Beethoven sonatas. Jascha Heifetz, another crash victim, put his spare income into buying rare first editions of English literature, which he could barely read. Igor Stravinsky composed a simple Capriccio for piano and orchestra that he could play himself as soloist, earning two cheques every time he took it on tour. Sergei Rachmaninov bought property in Switzerland."
How many of us have wondered "how long will it be before we get Barack, The Musical?" Not you? Well, I'm willing to put imaginary money on it that the day will come to pass.
Meanwhile, here's this low-fi attempt to capture Barack Obama's life story -- recently released by New York City comic book artist and "antifolk" performer Jeffrey Lewis.
Perhaps it could use a little melodic development, but at least it's succinct.
It continues to fascinate (some of us, anyway) that music, in various guises, continues to be such a part of the Obama campaign, from the previously linked to Ralph Stanley endorsement (see O Barack, Where Art Thou) to original songs -- Obamapedia has a partial round up of music associated with the presidential hopeful. (Always loved that term, "presidential hopeful." Somehow seems oddly innocent. As opposed to the reality of politics.) Then there's Obama Rap -- Top 10 Rap Songs About Obama.
And wouldn't you know it, if you google Barack, The Musical, you will turn up a number of attempts of a kind, like this -- though no full blown musicals yet. Still, I bet (with more of that imaginary dough) that someone out there, even as we speak, is trying to figure out if Hilary is an alto or a mezzo, and whether or not will.I.Am might be will.I.ng to play himself...
Ideas about what composition is and how and where it should happen evolve and change -- witness CBC/Radio Canada's new competition, Evolution (and the discussion it has raised right here on the Radio 2 Blog -- in response to a post called Evolution: Canadian Composer Competition Announced.)
Tonight The Signal (10 p.m.) features what many would not consider composition at all, as it is music "composed" in the moment. It's "instant composition," a term first coined by the great jazz guitarist Jim Hall in the late '50s, then later taken up by the (also great) jazz pianist Misha Mengleberg.
Mengleberg is at the core of the group you can hear Laurie showcase tonight -- the Instant Composers Pool (ICP). (The other musician at that core is drummer Han Bennink -- and the concert Laurie plays is the ICP recorded by CBC Radio 2 at the Guelph Jazz Festival.)
According to the history of the group, when Mengleberg used the term, it was a way to describe (or perhaps really more to legitimize) improvising.
Sometimes music stories emerge thematically. Young women pop singers have "issues" with addictive substances. Oboe players are obsessed with reeds. This past week, a trickle of stories connected to kids and music. For example:
Story 1: "Babies as young as five months old can distinguish between upbeat and gloomy music, providing more evidence that the brain's ability to detect emotion develops early, researchers report. 'They can tell emotions apart,' said study author Ross Flom, an associate professor of psychology at Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah. 'They don't understand that this is happy music and this is sad music, but they know they're different.'"
Leaving aside the debatable issue of what is happy music and what is sad music, the above will come as no surprise to anyone who has every dandled a babe or tottered around a living room with a small child on their shoes in time to some bright tempo or danceable rhythm.
This study was based on findings from 96 babies who responded to music that included the theme from Peanuts, the Ode To Joy from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 and Tiger Rag performed by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. (That's the "happy" music, click on the source to find out the "sad.") Researchers watched the babies (nice work if you can get it!) and noted whether they "perked up" as the music was played, or did the opposite of perking up.
No doubt you've heard songs or read stories that were written from a non-human perspective, but have you ever kept up with one of your favourite musicians by getting daily bulletins in the voice of their instrument case?
If you're a serious fan of Hilary Hahn's you have -- via Twitter, a way of staying in touch with all your friends and strangers, all the time. (Sometimes called "microblogging." So, for example, were I writing the Radio 2 Blog by Twitter right now you'd get a note saying something like "I'm writing about violin cases!" Then you could Twitter me back, saying "wow!" or something similarly inspired.)
So why twitter on about this? Well, it's one of the Hahn stories Katherine looks at today on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT). But just to give you a sense of what kinds of utterances are coming from the violin case, here's a brief sample:
"There was an afternoon concert today. Hilary was a little under the weather, so she went to the pharmacy, where someone called her 'Sir.'"
"Hilary likes me! Today, in the rain, she held the umbrella over me instead of herself."
"Gah! Bedtime."
C'mon, it's a violin case, what do you expect? (And yes, it's whimsical in the extreme, but fun for diehard fans.)
Meanwhile, Hilary Hahn's violin case makes waves for other reasons on Violinist.com:
"...in the Hilary Hahn's part, I have seen her with her violin case covered with a much bigger violin case cover and strapped up with two coloured straps. As she mentioned in her lastest dvd portarit that she doesn't like the violin to bump around during flights."
As opposed to all those fiddlers who prefer the violin be bumped? But seriously, if you are in the market for a good violin case, that last link will take you to a discussion board where you can gab away for hours about violin case possibilities. (Did you know that "Cushy" cases are "absolutely bullet proof?" I'm hoping the person who said this didn't put it to the test.)
As the week draws to a close, I wanted to acknowledge the recent passing of two great musicians, both of whom made tremendous contributions to jazz, and in the case of one of them, to popular culture.
First, Canadian jazz man, guitarist Nelson Symonds, a musician B.B. King once called "one of the greatest guitar players anywhere."
He was a Montreal institution for many years. Or, as jazz critic and author Mark Miller put in Jazz In Canada -- 14 Lives, "equally an institution and a legend.":
"The Symonds sound is raw, his attack rough, with a kind of backwoods virtuosity, and his phrasing jagged and cutting . . . equally an institution and a legend . . . has the power to impress, and his influence on other guitarists in the city -directly through teaching privately, and indirectly- is marked.
For more about Mr. Symonds life, please see this obituary at cbc.ca/arts.
And the American jazz composer Neal Hefti also died this week. Though Hefti was a trumpet player he was probably best known as a composer and arranger (for people like Woody Herman and Count Basie). But outside of jazz he was most famous as the composer of the themes for both the movie and TV incarnation of The Odd Couple, and for the theme music to the TV show Batman.
Interestingly, his son, Paul Hefti, speaking to the International Tribune Herald, said that "He felt his true work was done for the movies and television," not his work for big bands.
As to the Batman theme, Hefti Jr. said, "He had to find something that worked with the lowest common denominator, so it would appeal to kids, yet wouldn't sound stupid. What he came up with was a 12-bar blues with a guitar hook and one word."
Next week on Tonic (6 p.m.) the music of both men will be featured; please stay tuned to the Radio 2 Blog for more about that.
Five composers, somewhere in the middle of the Canadian Rockies. Each one is burning the midnight oil, furiously writing music for one appointed ensemble. Who will be the first to snap their pencil and pack their bags? Sent home, their manuscript paper trailing behind them?
You'll be relieved to know that it's actually not that kind of "reality" contest, but "Evolution"is a new approach to a competition for composers. It's a new CBC/Radio Canada project, and basically it works like this:
Composers (who must be Canadian and between the ages of 19-35) enter the competition by submitting a work "of unlimited length, composed for a music ensemble of their choice," by December 15th to the competition headquarters (address at the end of this post).
Five composers will be chosen by a jury of smart music people. That's when it gets interesting for the rest of us. In early March those five finalists enter into a residency at the Banff Centre where they are given a theme, and a set of constraints -- for example the kind of ensemble they are writing music for. (So one composer can't decide to write for harp and ukulele, while another goes the trombone quartet route or what have you.)
They have a certain amount of time (not much, about 18 days) in which to work on their piece before rehearsals start in late March. For about four days (this is the end of March 2009 we're talking about), at The Banff Centre’s Rolston Hall, the five composers and the music ensemble will rehearse the five finalists’ works.
And then on March 26, 2009, a major concert featuring the five works will be held at the Banff Centre, broadcast live on CBC Radio 2, CBC Radio 2 online, Espace musique and on Espace classique, Espace musique’s Web radio service (video and audio). (And the five finalists’ works will be available via podcast starting March 27.)
What will be most exciting for the audience throughout the process is that the finalists will be followed by a CBC/Radio-Canada Web audio/video team, will blog about the experience etc., so it will be a kind of "composition-enthusiast's eye view" on the experience.
If you're already sharpening your pencil, read on for the address and the prize info.
It's one of the odder moments in the many odd moments of the history of the Beatles. The day that Ringo Starr told his fans to quit sending him fanmail.
If you haven't seen the video yet, here you go:
"Grouch" is probably the mildest description of Mr. Starkey out in the blogosphere today as a result. Much breast beating about turning his back on his fans, and 'remember who got you where you are' sort of thing. Though there's truth to this, it seems an odd conclusion to draw -- that just because people like someone's music (or painting or book) automatically means the creator of said artwork is obliged to sign autographs. And yet many seem to feel it's a fan's "right."
Why do fans place so much value on an autograph, anyway? (Leaving aside the matter of selling autographs, which is not why a true fan wants the signature in the first place since they won't sell it, except under duress.) It's one thing to get an autograph as part of actually meeting the person -- then it seems a personal seal of the occasion.
But Ringo, as he "warns" his fans "with peace and love," is trying to get fans to simply stop mailing in their requests. Surely he's suggesting fans save money on postage and find something else to obsess about, like the music? (Not to mention that he's certainly still willing to autograph a drumhead for the lucky winner of his All Starr 2008 Photo Contest.)
Besides, as the Times online points out "For $12.95 ( £7.35) they [fans] can purchase a ying yang necklace featuring the soon-to-be retired Starr autograph stamped on the back."
I suppose because Thanskgiving makes one's thoughts turn to the idea of counting blessings and giving thanks, it's a mere hop, skip and a lateral thought away to thinking about singing religious music.
As anyone who has ever sung good devotional/religious/spiritual music will likely attest, even if you are not a believer it can be an elevating experience. Yet I've always wondered how those who are deeply religious view those who are not, when it comes to singing the music associated with various religious traditions. So it was interesting to see this post in a blog I've been reading of late called Lies Like Truth, the post titled I'm A Believer?
Its writer suggests that you don't have to "be a believer in order to sing religious music masterfully," and I would agree. But she takes it further -- she asks a number of people in the gospel singing community what they think about this, and without exception they all pretty much agree with what chart topping gospel singer Marvin Sapp says: "Gospel music is about conviction. it isn't easy to have a conviction about someone if you don't have a relationship with them."
In light of the past few weeks on the economic front, and in light of the fact that The Signal (10 p.m.) is playing some music by Ólafur Arnalds this evening, I give you this. (The music starts at around :45 into the video.)
As young Mr. Arnalds said (and this a year or so ago, but rather a propos today), while it may seem the skies are falling, the stars still look beautiful. And as he also phrased it, though the world "will always be falling apart," when we say things like this we usually follow the statement with a "but..."
Wise words, and something to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Sunday.
I hope you could get past the slight audio issues (that buzz), and enjoyed Arnalds' (simple but lovely) music. He's from Iceland, is still in his early twenties, and I think he's emblematic of a new crop of new music composers/performers. Both in terms of his compositional approach and attitude.
"Music for humanity" sounds like it could be a slogan in some Utopian campaign. And it seems to be a concept that's been gaining momentum -- the idea that music can be used to increase understanding between diverse groups of people. Whether or not this is actually true is probably impossible to quantify. But certainly it's something people have been gravitating towards.
Why mention it right now, today? Well, tomorrow would have been Daniel Pearl's 45th birthday, Daniel Pearl being the reporter who was murdered "at the hands of extremists" as it is frequently phrased, in Karachi, Pakistan in 2002.
Following his death his friends and family formed a foundation in his name, their mission to promote cross-cultural understanding in part through music. Music, because Pearl himself was a musician as well as a journalist -- he was a classically trained violinist who also played mandolin.
An "awareness raising" event known as Daniel Pearl World Music Days has existed ever since. It takes place for a month, and last year involved 537 concerts in 42 countries.
Someone once told me that in a job interview the employer makes their decision -- hire or not -- within something like the first 90 seconds. I don't know if that's actually true, but first impressions do seem to be given a lot of weight in our culture -- musically as much as anywhere else. But not always in the way we expect.
"Shuffling on stage with her head bowed, her guitar hung haphazardly around her neck like a baby chimp, spilling liquid from a cup in one hand and carrying a plastic bottle of water in the other, Dement looked like she was carrying huge bags of groceries to her front door rather than getting ready to play before a packed house at one of the west coast's premiere jazz clubs."
Well, Ralph Stanley endorses Barack Obama. Yes, legendary, 81-year-old bluegrass singer Ralph Stanley (that's him on the left with the banjo) of O Brother Where Art Thou? fame. He sang Oh Death (soundtrack recording is a better performance than the one this link will take you to, but it will serve as a reminder); the NYTimes called it "a masterpiece of primitive mountain gospel." I called it beautiful.
Seemingly its singer would be an unlikely conduit for the political ad linked to at the top of this post though. He's one of a handful of elders from the early era of bluegrass music still around -- and the ad is playing on radio in Southwest Virginia -- some are calling it the best ad of the campaign to date.
Are you a "thrill seeker?" Then you must gravitate towards music videos. A "self-medicator?" Then you probably have a few Smiths recordings in your collection, or maybe Portishead. And naturally you're neurotic to boot. Are you an introvert? Then you must like music with the symmetry of, say, Bach fugues.
If just about now you are forming a question with the phrase "off her rocker" in it, let me assure you these are not my theories. But they are theories about taste and personality which I have heard about in passing so many times recently I finally decided to go to the source. It's an article in Psychology Today called Accounting For Taste, subtitled "our choices in books, movies, music and art go to the core of who we are." And the sub-subtitle is "what your tastes reveal about you."
It makes for interesting reading, although I'm not sure if I buy the link between personality type and what kinds of music you listen to. The piece cites John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats as an example of the kind of person who is "highly open," and the conclusion is that his insatiable appetite for a wide range of music is as a result. But what is a "highly open" person? What if I'm a thrill seeking introvert (I'm sure it's possible) and I too "spend hours in the garage rooting through jazz records?" (With due respect for Mr. Darnielle, as rooting through jazz records is a fine way to spend time.)
But my favourite part of the article comes under the heading "there is no gene for jazz." Even though a study of 3,000 twins "revealed that whether we like jazz or not is partially heritable." Say what? Is it not possible that parents of said twins played Coltrane during bath time or something?
Today on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT) Katherine brings listeners up to date on what's making classical music news, and one of those stories is that the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra is joining Isabel Bayrakdarian on her 6 city tour stateside, which began on Oct. 4th, and winds up later this month in NYC -- where they will play Carnegie Hall.
(In a related note -- Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra is heading to an even more southerly direction, with a performance in Sinaloa, Mexico at La Feria de las Artes Sinaloa, Mexico's international multi-disciplinary performing arts festival.)
But also making news is a tour that isn't really about performing music. This week Canadian musicians Feist and Martha Wainwright (pictured here) joined other performers (including Laurie Anderson and KT Tunstall) and boarded a boat heading to Greenland -- as part of a British project called Cape Farewell -- the trip is meant to inspire works about climate change, to create a "cultural response."
The Ron Sexsmith contest (if you win, Ron comes to your house to play a concert for you and your nearest and dearest) has raised the whole notion of the house concert on the R2 blog recently. In an odd bit of synchronicity something came across the transom the other day about the growth of house concerts in Canada's music community.
For a long time folk music has supported itself in part through house concerts -- usually hosted by a fan for a small number of people. This is not a "hootenanny" where you get out your spoons, dusty harmonicas and, gulp, autoharps (although the musician "starring" may encourage this if he/she wishes). No, the house concert is a way for musicians to perform an intimate concert. And in some cases playing house concerts is a necessary economic reality, when venues for the music are far and few between.
But in the past few years musicians have been doing house concert "tours." One of the conduits for this has been Mitch Podolak's Home Routes. (Podolak being the founder of the Winnipeg and Vancouver Folk Festivals and Winnipeg’s West End Cultural Centre.). Home Routes puts musicians in touch with home owners who want to provide their homes for income-generating performances. Income generating for the performers, that is, the homeowner doesn't make a cent, but they do reap the benefit of the music, and of "community building."
"Is rap poised to initiate a pan-African renaissance? Is music journalism just an industry mouthpiece? Is genre determined by social, not sonic, factors?"
These are some of the questions posed by Pop Montreal's Symposium, which begins tomorrow and runs until October 5th.
But if all that is too cerebral for you, on Thursday Montreal musicians collaborate to bring the music of Neil Young to North America’s oldest porno theatre, the legendary "erotic movies" theatre, the aptly named Cinema L’Amour. They'll be performing Tonight's The Night from beginning to end. Ah, Montreal, always imaginative, and often making music news.
But this is not the only Canadian music news today, post Polaris. Folks in Beaumont, Alberta are celebrating as they can boast the first semifinalist in the Hockey Anthem challenge. There were 14,871 entries, five have been picked, and the semifinalists will be played in their entirety on Oct 4 on CBC TV at 9 p.m. local times.
Tonight is it, the big day, the holy hoopla resolved. In a few short years the Polaris Prize has come to represent an oft' debated but significant marker of achievement in Canadian music. This year's contest concludes tonight, when all will be revealed, and one of the ten recordings on the Polaris shortlist will take home the $20,000, not to mention the subsequent media attention.
As I'm on the jury, I don't think it's appropriate for me to editorialize about the nominees, but I did want to draw attention to each of them with their thumbnail MySpace category and slogan (when available). If you don't know their music, click on the links and listen to a tune or two, and then you be the judge -- which of these ten would you vote for? You can also tune into Radio 3 at 8 p.m. tonight to hear some of the nominees playing live at the gala event, and the winner will be announced at around 10:00.
So here they are. In no particular order, honestly:
There was a time when the TV theme song ruled. Probably at around the same time as the TV show when watched in real time ruled.
Tonight on Tonic (6 p.m.) Tim Tamashiro features some TV themes gone jazz, from those good old days. Actually no days pre-PVR were truly good in terms of ease of TV viewing, but they were definitely better days in terms of signature musical themes composed specifically for a particular show. (Although I would make a case for the creativity behind taking an existing piece of music and cleverly re-working it, as was the case with the theme used on Weeds, Malvina Reynolds Little Boxes, or on The Wire, Tom Waits' Down In The Hole.)
Tellingly the jazz versions of themes that Tim is playing are from shows like The Price Is Right, The Waltons, and The Flintstones -- old shows. Gone, it would seem, are the days when a TV theme song was part of the aural lingua franca. Or as Pop Vultures put it:
"Once upon a time, each television show had a memorable tune that would imprint itself on the collective pop culture psyche. I mean, who among us does not know every single word to The Brady Bunch song? Nowadays, we get digitized letters (Lost, Supernatural) or eight bars of instantly forgettable music (Grey’s Anatomy). Is that really the best they can do?"
Personally I wish I could forget the Brady Bunch theme, but that's neither here nor there.
Alex Ross, he of The Rest Is Noise fame (and recent recipient of the MacArthur, so he's now a certified genius to boot) has been quoted as saying "The overarching problem with classical music is the tuxedo." One way around that is to take the tuxedo off, something Katherine explores today on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT).
The main trend involves not a literal taking off of the tux though, it's a trend towards nudity in the world of opera. Last winter in Paris at a production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress I witnessed this trend myself. It was but one of the arresting moments in the production, but arresting it certainly was. (Also commented upon by Intermezzo in a blog post with the compelling headline Tenors In Their Underpants, Part 2. Part two no less!)
And more recent productions are stripping down as well, for instance in the opera The Fly, based on David Cronenberg's movie of the same name, Canadian baritone Daniel Okulitch spends much of the opera without benefit of a costume. Why the nakedness? No doubt some will see it as an attempt to provoke, others as a lessening of taboos, still others as a way of keeping up with the times -- it's become quite typical for models, for example, to appear in a state of semi-nudity. (On the catwalk, I mean.)
It could also be viewed as a gimmick, or as a genuine attempt at an artistic expression that moves towards a more naturalistic view of what it is to be human, naked, with all our beauty and all of our frailties.
Well, before you know before what, the guy with the scythe. 1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die is the name of a book that came out towards the end of the summer, and even at 1,000 recordings it would be easy to assume that it would be primarily obvious "desert island" picks.
Earlier today I stumbled on the 1,000 Recordings etc. website, and took a look at the list, and was struck by the diversity -- if you filter by artist you start with something from ABBA, then from Dimi Mint Abba (Moorish music from Mauritania) then the Muhal Richard Abrams Orchestra, and in short order you're onto John Adams with the SFSO, etcetera.
The book was put together by music journalist Tom Moon, and in an interview on the NPR website he said that it's driven by the idea that "the more you love music, the more music you love."
Over on Radio 2 Morning Tom has been receiving interesting suggestions for campaign songs for the upcoming national election, some revealing the suggestor's own politics (eg. To Dream The Impossible Dream for Mr. Layton), and other similarly pointed song titles.
But in the world of stumping it does appear that there is a paucity of music that's strongly connected to the candidates -- very much in contrast to the election process south of the border. Yesterday Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama released what is considered "the soundtrack" to the Democratic campaign -- called Yes We Can, (you can listen to excerpts if you click on that link) after the famous tribute video to Obama based in turn on the famous speech.
And the analysis of why candidates use the music they use to pump up their crowds has been going on for months, stateside, with blogs like Dial M For Musicology reflecting on Candidate Tunes way back last January, to cite just one example. Then there are the music videos in support of candidates, for example, famously and weirdly I Got A Crush On Obama.
Groucho Marx famously said he said (he took credit for it in his autobiography, though funny how often you see it attributed to Woody Allen) "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." Well, if you are interested on keeping abreast of what's happening on Radio 2, or with Podcasts, here's one club you may wish to join, via the CBC Membership Centre. (Besides, you're not Groucho, as far as we know, nor am I.)
What it is is the new and improved CBC newsletter service, a guide to upcoming special programming, Concert On Demand highlights, and basically anything new about R2. So it's an easy way of knowing what's coming up, quite often in advance of the website.
The Radio 2 newsletter is published every Thursday, and you only get it if you sign up for it. (I believe that's what's called "permission based marketing," because everything has to be called something, but all that means is you sign up for it, and it comes to your email inbox.)
But back to Groucho Marx. He's also credited with saying that "money will not make you happy, and happy will not make you money," which is maybe why he chose to sing this with Frank Sinatra, hoping to kill two birds with one stone. Yes, it's out of sync, but still a bit of a hoot, and somehow so timely.
Coming up this week on Radio 2 is a live broadcast of the opera competition, Operalia. It was founded in 1993 by Plácido Domingo -- its intent to discover new young opera singers. You can hear it on Wednesday night at 8pm ET on CBC Radio 2 and it will be repeated next Saturday, September 27th (1pm ET, 2pm AT).
It comes on the heels of much busy news in the world of opera, news tidbits really, rather than headline makers. But some of that news has been most entertaining. So to tide you opera buffs over until Wednesday night, some operaabilia from the past week.
Every day there are news stories about music -- and a good place to turn to for your classical music news is In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT). But there are also music stories that are less newsworthy, and more about ideas. They tend to require more reading, more reflection and more, well, time. Which means that sometimes, in the daily dailyness of life, they get pushed to the back burner. You know the scenario, so much to read, so little time.
So sometimes on the Radio 2 Blog I like to corral some of this recent writing about music in one post, in case you have even less time to nose around the net than I do -- and point you to some of the music issues and concerns that others are having, while we go about that dailyness. Here is some of that writing, on all manner of musical subject matter.
Tim Tamashiro, host of the weekend edition of Tonic (6 p.m.), tells me that "there's no such thing as a grumpy ukulele player." I wonder if this is true? Certainly there is something to the claim made earlier this year in the NYTimes (Those Four Irresistible Strings), that "What the world seems to need now is something tiny, fun and inexpensive." (And that written before the markets did whatever it is they are currently doing.)
The reason Tim Tam is emailing me about the uke is not to debate its virtues though, or those of its players, but because it is one of the many instruments featured in Tonic's upcoming "All Canada All The Time" feature. On both Saturday and Sunday Tonic "takes the moose by the rack," as a listener/blog reader named Andrea suggested this action be called, by playing only Canadian artists.
And ukulele player (sometimes called "the Wayne Gretzky of the uke" ) James Hill among them, as part of a feature called "String Monsters." You can also hear "Chance Take Hers" showcasing new musical ideas from some of the many adventurous singing Canadian women -- performers like Lori Cullen and Christine Fellows. Other features include "Canadian Jazz Giants." where Tim will play the likes of P.J. Perry, Oscar Peterson, Tommy Banks, Oliver Jones, and well, enough for now -- you can tune in Saturday and Sunday to hear for yourself.
This weekend Canadian Afrobeat band Mr. Something Something are putting on what they say is "Canada's first bicycle-powered concert." (If your band has already been pedaled through to the encore, take it up with Mr. S. Something.)
This is how it works: At the concert (part of the annual Small World Festival) the band provides "green generating stations," you hook up your bike -- then all you have to do is pedal to make sure the music doesn't stop. Actually this might be a good way of assessing a band's favour with the crowd...or not. I'm confident the highly danceable Mr. Something Something will not have the slightest problem keeping the music pumping though.
As with most aspects of life these days, the trend towards "greening" music is a hot one. Or no, I guess a cool one when bike powered. South of the border a folk musician named Peter Mulvey is in the middle of his second annual "No Gas Tour," -- he's biking from stop to stop on his 10-day seven show tour.(He "expects his stunt to save around .15 metric tons of CO2," according to one story, Mulvey Runs On No Gas.)
And music going out to the 300+ judges for this year's Juno awards will not receive the customary CDs -- on Monday they announced they're distributing all the nominated music digitally. (Juno Awards Go Green...)
As regular Radio 2 Blog readers know, as well as being a modest Leonard Cohen appreciation society, (see last post), there's also a fondness for the odd baseball reference on the blog from time to time.
Here's one. A few years back the Jays used "Baseball North" as their slogan. And the idea that baseball could be a fine Canadian game, (albeit with few Canadian players), played on fine Canadian soil turface, seemed to really strike a chord with the fans, they whooped it up whenever the slogan was flashed around the ballpark.
But when it comes to the music game, or more accurately, the art of making music, there is no concern re: the numbers of Canadian players. Quite the opposite, it's something of an embarrassment of riches. Remember when some years back the NYTimes famously wrote about the Montreal scene, as though it was almost a novelty that excellent music should come from north of the border? Well, now when you read international music press, it's much more of a given.
A reflection of the excellence of some genres of Canadian music can be seen/heard via the upcoming Polaris Prize. As a member of the "grand jury (an honour, a responsibility) I've been having an engrossing listening experience going through the short list (excellent musicians like Kathleen Edwards, Caribou, Shad, Plants And Animals -- see the Polaris site for the full list). And at times listening to Rado 2 has been a a kind of mirror to that experience -- hearing some of these Polaris nominated bands (and many others who were on the long list) popping up on airwaves.
It's a pleasure hearing some of this music getting national airplay. But with nose to computer screen I can't say that I've been doing any actual tabulating as to what percentage of music being played on R2 overall is Canadian. However, some of my colleagues have -- and one of them passed along a little info the other day that will give you a sense of the extent to which Radio 2 is celebrating Canadian music.
• In the new R2's first week of operation (Sept 2-8), there were 675 tracks from Canadian artists, musicians and composers, that’s 60% Canadian music. Compared to the first week of March 2007, before the network started making changes, that’s a 58% increase in the number of Canadian tracks played.
• Rich Terfry’s Radio 2 Drive (3 p.m.-6 p.m.) devoted 73% of his show to Canadian singer-songwriters in the first week. (And speaking of Mr. Terfy's programme -- the "Drive Lives" continue tomorrow with an appearance on the show by Matt Mays -- more on that tomorrow on the blog.)
Since we're on the subject of Canadian music -- the folks at the weekend edition of Tonic (6 p.m.) have really taken the maple leaf by the stem (what else could it be, the back bacon by the bun? any ideas welcome) -- this upcoming weekend they are playing 100% Canadian music. Why? Because, as host Tim Tam told me, there's so much Canadian talent to play --- so why not devote the entire Tonic weekend to "outstanding Canadian talent and nothin' but."
Say what you like about the blogosphere (go ahead, say it), but one thing you can say without meeting much opposition, I should think, is that it is simultaneously extraordinarily dull and extraordinarily amusing. Much of the dullness vs. amusing lies in individual taste.
In the former category, pour moi, there are epics about the knitting of car seat blankets and extolling the cuteness of cats lolling on keyboards, waiting to have their tummies scratched. Why, some blogs even trumpet dullness as a virtue, for instance The Dullest Blog In The World.
My favourite post is called Thinking About Putting On Some Music: "I was in a room carrying out some routine activities. I began to consider playing some music on the stereo system. I looked at some compact discs for a while, but didn't put one on."
Of course when it comes to music blogs there are plenty of humdrum ho-hums, but also plenty that are not. Again to underscore -- a very subjective matter, of course. But here are a few recent finds that struck me as leaning to the amusing side of the equation:
Thanks to Ask Alice: Classical Music Agony Aunt, I was introduced recently to The Cello Challenge. I picked up my virtual bow, and massacred Camille Saint-Saëns The Swan as it has never been massacred before. Yes, I learned something vague about bow speed, but was it worth it? I doubt Saint-Saëns would think so.
Naturally others have tried the game already, and given some thought to the whole notion of online music games, and their value to the people who create them - in this instance the Berlin Philharmonic. For example, Drew McManus at his blog, Adaptistration.
"As a standalone game, Cello Challenge is cute," says Drew. "But I don’t know if it is worth the amount of resources it cost to produce the game and all the bandwidth a flash heavy site like that ultimately consumes."
If you've ever played in a band, sung in a choir, or maybe just hung out with other human beings, you will know that while generosity and kindness abound, it is also our nature to be competitive, ambitious, and, perhaps more than anything else...to complain. We like what we like, we don't what we don't. This can cause conflict.
That's why "Agony Aunts" were born, and why people never seem to tire of seeking advice -- even though frequently the advice is not heeded. (Aside: At the physiotherapist the other day I noticed a cartoon where a physiotherapist says to the patient: "Here are a series of vital exercises that you can take home and ignore." Heh.)
Anyway, back to advice giving. On In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT) Katherine introduces "Ask Alice... Classical Music's Agony Aunt."
Alice answers questions from the mundane: "Does it matter if you get into a famous conservatory?" to the less so -- questions about backstabbing flutists and husbands who criticize one's interpretation of Beethoven. (Note to husbands: Have you learned nothing in the time you've been married?)
Here's a new twist in the ongoing saga of bands trying to find clever ways of releasing their music that will ultimately benefit them: let your fans have the music, but only if they'll play it themselves.
Prince may have had his newspaper CD scheme, Radiohead did their name-your-own-price download, but Oasis' Liam Gallagher (who previously said their new recording would be given away "over my dead body") and the boys have come up with an inventive scheme:
Free sheet music for three unreleased songs. Now that's inspired. The songs are from their forthcoming recording Dig Out Your Soul, so it's not like people will have heard them before. For fans that should be nip to cat -- get the music, learn the songs, then hear what the band does with them.
The project has backing from a seemingly unlikely source, Arts Council England; the goal is to promote learning to read music. Apparently more than 21 % of Brits play an instrument, and guitar sales are excellent (while recorded music sales continue to drop). And, icing on the cake -- sales of sheet music are also increasing. Put it all together, and what do you have? More people making music.
Every day on the R2 blog you can expect info on the day's programming, (Today On Radio 2), a focus on programming or performers (Daily Feature), and music news, views, and what you could call musical oddities. (Music News & Views). Let's file this one under oddities.
You may know the joke behind "more cowbell." If not, you must look here. It's important to laugh at least once a day; this will provide that opportunity.
Re-watching it led to some of the usual trawling online (seems more like trawling than surfing to me, no great cresting waves in my computer) I came across this website, MoreCowbell.dj, where cowbell accompaniment can be added to mp3s. You upload a song, then add some cowbell. Go ahead, try it, I dare you.
This, naturally, led to musing about the cowbell, such a humble instrument. Or is it? At Rad Monkey Electric Cowbells (for those who "dream about the tone, practice [cowbell] relentlessly,") you can get amplified cowbells. A joke? I think not. There you can also learn more about vintage cowbells, treasured bells with names like "Chicken Nugget," and "Copper 'Flask.'"
Then there's The Cowbell Project, an archive of "some of the top cowbell songs ever." What a resource. I'd totally forgotten about the cowbell in ABBA's Dancing Queen, and who knew The Beatles leaned so heavily on the bell? I have to go back and listen more carefully.
Why the cowbell? As the folks behind The Cowbell Project say:
We're entering into uni-nicknamed music awards time, tonight being Britian's big Mercury prize (already underway, for live blogging go here), and upcoming at the end of September, Canada's Polaris. (Full disclosure -- I'm on the Polaris Grand Jury, which is an honour but also requires me to disclose, as well as put Grand Jury in Caps.)
But last night it was the CCMA'sCanadian Country Music Awards, and the big winner was Manitoba's Doc Walker (pictured here with Derek Ruttan and Randy Bachman at the gala last night). Going into the awards Doc Walker's six nominations were second only to Vancouver's Jessie Farrell with 7 (she took home female artist of the year, rising star award and was named top new female talent at an industry gala).
"I believe everything can be communicated through music."
-Youssou N'Dour
Over the weekend I had the great privilege of seeing Youssou N'Dour playing live, for free, in downtown Toronto. Putting aside the woes of standing on concrete for ninety minutes with too many too-tall people, it was amazing -- N'Dour's voice was spectacular. Spike Lee introduced him, Canada's Divine Brown sang the Neneh Cherry part of Seven Seconds Away, it was all pretty thrilling.
N'Dour's performance was in connection with a documentary about him called I Bring What I Love, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on the weekend -- that's where the above quote comes from. Although the movie is largely focused on the controversy surrounding his Grammy winning recording, Egypt, it also features lots of wonderful concert footage. (To see the trailer, click here.)
It being film fest time, music in the movies is at the forefront of some minds (see also They Shoot...They Score.) This morning, in the Toronto Star, there's an interview with trumpeter Terrence Blanchard, about his work scoring the latest Spike Lee movie (speaking of Spike Lee), Miracle At St. Anna. Miracle At St. Anna tells the story of African-American soldiers who fought in Italy during the second world war. And Blanchard, who's written 40-some movie scores had this to say about his work on the new film:
Last week a man sometimes called "The Dean Of Canadian Film Composers," Eldon Rathburn, (pictured here) passed away at the age of 92. His place in Canadian music history is fascinating - he also played piano in early incarnations of Don Messer's band! But it was his work writing music for many NFB films that he is probably best known for. In fact he's also the subject of an NFB doc himself, cleverly titled They Shoot...He Scores. His music is an integral part of hundreds of films.
"It is the nature of cinema itself that it needs music," said Bernard Herrmann in this documentary about that giant film composer -- who scored Citizen Kane and Taxi Driver.
And it still is true. It would make an interesting experiment to watch movies stripped of their music score. In the case of some I suspect they would be like punctured balloons, sans music. The impact of a score cannot be underscored enough, heh.
And it being the era of Lists, no surprise there is no shortage of "top film score" lists, for example the American Film Institute's 100 Years of Film Scores. (You have to log on to see the whole list of 250 nominated scores, but the winner was John Williams' score for Star Wars, and the top ten are at the end of this post. Yes, a Herrmann score is in there -- for Psycho).
Or the Time's Best Soundtracks list. The Adventures of Robin Hood by Erich Wolfgang Korngold is in the #1 spot, and this shames me, since I don't know that I've ever seen it. ("This is Korngold at his best—excitable, cheeky, yet always romantically caring," says the contributing critic. "Cheeky!" Well alright then, I'll put it on hold.)
It's always interesting to see how classical music is used in popular culture -- for example to inject a certain gravitas to a scene in an otherwise non-gravitas movie, or maybe to imply something about class or social standing. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but music? Well, as we used to say when we were kids, it does that an "infinity number of times."
On In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT) Katherine will be talking about a couple of recent instances where classical music has intersected with the fashion industry -- first at Chanel's haute couture show in Paris this summer, where Karl Lagerfeld had tiny organ pipes embroidered onto his new gowns (presumably without embedded audio). This was inspired by an experience he had attending an organ recital -- and at the fashion show the choice of music was inspired by same.
Then, on the fragrance side of the fashion world, Guerlain has based its newest perfume on one of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. It's called "Brume d'automne" -- fall mist.
This second example is from the "expected" category. Perfume, atomizers, mist, fall launch...OK, no big surprises there. But the first example is a twist -- organs and haute couture? Interesting.
Fashion within classical music is a whole other story -- maybe Katherine should tackle that in weeks to come. If she does, she could do worse than taking a look at a blog post called Classical Music Spring Fashion Show, a wee photo essay on contemporary classical music fashions.
But for some analysis about how conductors and soloists dress and why -- take a look at Jessica Duchen's recent piece in The Independent, called Style Notes: Classical Conductors Get A Makeover. As to the why end of things, Duchen is direct:
"...classical musicians are as aware as anyone of society's obsession with image. Attractive sponsorship opportunities sometimes materialise from designer brands keen for the classy endorsement of musical stars: Rolex has enlisted the likes of the handsome young conductor Gustavo Dudamel for its adverts, for example. Besides, the arrival of the 21st century has left many asking themselves why they are still dressing for the 19th."
p.s. Yehudi Menuhin had the right fashion approach, circa 1945, didn't he. You can even hear the slogan... Lounge-wear, by Menuhin.
According to one report, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said, "The Gershwin Prize was created to honor an artist whose creative output transcends distinctions between musical styles and idioms, bringing diverse listeners together, and fostering mutual understanding and appreciation." He also said that "Stevie Wonder's music epitomizes this ideal."
So in this case a good song is at least in part about fostering cultural understanding -- fairly specific, really. (And funnily enough not something the Gershwins were so big on -- unless you think espousing having rhythm is one way of fostering cultural understanding.)
But the awarding of this prize made me -- and perhaps will make you -- start thinking anew about what makes a good popular song. Particularly in light of the new programming on CBC R2 -- with a show like Radio 2 Drive, which is really about songs and songwriters. What makes a good song? How do you decide? Why is it that what is "dreck" to one person is gold to another?
Now to the topic du jour -- here's the broad hint:
It has a ritual to it. Gently shake it out of the jacket, holding by edge and label only. Tenderly clean. Carefully lower the arm. Hope your hand does not shake. Lean back, and listen. Welcome to the 21st century.
Last night traveling through my city there was a low level buzz: "Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson." Everyone was talking about the news. Michael Jackson dying at 50 has an impact like...well, that's still to be revealed. But today the shock waves and analysis sure seem in the Elvis/Lennon category of response. 
Some pretty major musical anniversaries happening this weekend. You're probably thinking the Haydn 200th, and sure, that's big. But how about this: In Tune turns one today! That's why the Radio 2 Blog brought in a cake AND a panda.
Jazz drummers with opera singers; classical violinists with DJ's, folk singers accompanied by trombone -- apparently anything is possible at the 
Everyone has their little procrastinatory pleasures, whether it's watching Law & Order repeats (apparently broadcast 24 hours a day) or 
A song written by 
Thanks to Peter Cook for minding the blog while I was under the weather -- and if you missed his very nice 
The Week In The (Music) Blogosphere turns to two recent losses -- the great Cuban bassist, 
So who stayed up and watched 
Sounds like it could be the name of a soap opera, or at least some epic about a multi-generational family. But "The Raga Saga" is a "webisode" that follows the development of a new composition for sitar and orchestra, written by 
We all sing. And some of us regret it. Such as those who are victims of "karaoke rage." (As reported by Slate: 
Let's start with favourites. Favourite Blue Note Recording: 
A few years ago researchers in Taiwan studied the sleeping patters of 60 elderly people who were having trouble sleeping. They had a choice of listening to music or not, before going to sleep. (Music that was all around 60-80 bpm, so on the slow side, of various styles.) The people who chose to listen to music reported a 35% improvement in their sleep. (For more details see this 
Recently Rolling Stone mag published a 
"How long how long, rivers of tears are crying...Time to bring about change for children...set yourself free, you can heal your heart and soul, help bring about change for children..."
While many south of the border hold their breath hoping that President- elect Obama will somehow reverse the economic tide of woe, others are banking on him to do something about the arts. Others as in 
Of course it was only a matter of time. What with the 21st mania for contests (and musicians like 
If your response to the idea that animals react to music is "in a pig's ear," think again. A new book called 
Breaking News! The winner of this year's The X Factor is "reportedly" going to record Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah to release as the show's annual Christmas single. (Maybe this post should have begun: "Breaking Rumours!") 
Oh no, it can't be that time already! While looking for something to do with David Byrne I came across the first indication of end-of-year listmania that always seizes the media. I thought at least they'd have the decency to wait to be seized until a little closer to the end of the year, but no. 
Remixes are as common as, well, remixes in popular music. Safe to say less so with classical music. But 
On the weekend a Radio 2 listener/blog reader wrote in about 
Yes, Dear Reader, it is that time again. The second time it has been that time. Because last week a new weekly post was inaugurated on The Radio 2 Blog, called This Week In The (Music) Blogosphere, a blog's eye view of some of the stories covered in the past week.
Korea's 
It's not easy to approach Remembrance Day in any way, including musically. For many people there are so many emotions connected to the day, personal histories, and the realities of war.
This evening Canada Live (8 p.m.) has the blues, with live sets from "Ottawa Blues Night," recorded at the 
Something tells me not too many Americans will need 
"Interprète masculin de l’année" somehow sounds so much more suave than "male singer of the year," but either way the honour came to Gregory Charles last night at the 
There are few things that thrill the way finding hidden musical treasure does. Particularly when it is from the beginning of the very history of recordings, as is the case with the discovery of some cylinder recordings that represent the "largest cache of classical music from the dawn of the recorded age known to exist: hundreds of cylinders incised on an Edison phonograph from the 1890s by a music-loving businessman, Julius H. Block."
Norman Lebrecht thinks 
"Chihuahua Themed Embroidery." "Life In Plastic, It's Fantastic." "You Say Professional Like It's A Bad Thing."
Ideas about what composition is and how and where it should happen evolve and change -- witness CBC/Radio Canada's new competition, 
Sometimes music stories emerge thematically. Young women pop singers have "issues" with addictive substances. Oboe players are obsessed with reeds. This past week, a trickle of stories connected to kids and music. For example:
Five composers, somewhere in the middle of the Canadian Rockies. Each one is burning the midnight oil, furiously writing music for one appointed ensemble. Who will be the first to snap their pencil and pack their bags? Sent home, their manuscript paper trailing behind them?
"Music for humanity" sounds like it could be a slogan in some Utopian campaign. And it seems to be a concept that's been gaining momentum -- the idea that music can be used to increase understanding between diverse groups of people. Whether or not this is actually true is probably impossible to quantify. But certainly it's something people have been gravitating towards. 
Someone once told me that in a job interview the employer makes their decision -- hire or not -- within something like the first 90 seconds. I don't know if that's actually true, but first impressions do seem to be given a lot of weight in our culture -- musically as much as anywhere else. But not always in the way we expect.
Well, 
Are you a "thrill seeker?" Then you must gravitate towards music videos. A "self-medicator?" Then you probably have a few Smiths recordings in your collection, or maybe Portishead. And naturally you're neurotic to boot. Are you an introvert? Then you must like music with the symmetry of, say, Bach fugues.
Today on In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT) Katherine brings listeners up to date on what's making classical music news, and one of those stories is that the 
The 
"Is rap poised to initiate a pan-African renaissance? Is music journalism just an industry mouthpiece? Is genre determined by social, not sonic, factors?"
There was a time when the TV theme song ruled. Probably at around the same time as the TV show when watched in real time ruled. 
Well, before you know before what, the guy with the scythe. 
Over on 
Every day there are news stories about music -- and a good place to turn to for your classical music news is In Tune (Saturday 5:00 p.m., 5:30 NT). But there are also music stories that are less newsworthy, and more about ideas. They tend to require more reading, more reflection and more, well, time. Which means that sometimes, in the daily dailyness of life, they get pushed to the back burner. You know the scenario, so much to read, so little time. 
This weekend Canadian Afrobeat band 
As regular Radio 2 Blog readers know, as well as being a modest Leonard Cohen appreciation society, (see last post), there's also a fondness for the odd baseball reference on the blog from time to time. 
Say what you like about the blogosphere (go ahead, say it), but one thing you can say without meeting much opposition, I should think, is that it is simultaneously extraordinarily dull and extraordinarily amusing. Much of the dullness vs. amusing lies in individual taste. 
Thanks to 
If you've ever played in a band, sung in a choir, or maybe just hung out with other human beings, you will know that while generosity and kindness abound, it is also our nature to be competitive, ambitious, and, perhaps more than anything else...to complain. We like what we like, we don't what we don't. This can cause conflict.
Here's a new twist in the ongoing saga of bands trying to find clever ways of releasing their music that will ultimately benefit them: let your fans have the music, but only if they'll play it themselves. 
Every day on the R2 blog you can expect info on the day's programming, (
We're entering into uni-nicknamed music awards time, tonight being Britian's big 
"I believe everything can be communicated through music."
It's always interesting to see how classical music is used in popular culture -- for example to inject a certain gravitas to a scene in an otherwise non-gravitas movie, or maybe to imply something about class or social standing. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but music? Well, as we used to say when we were kids, it does that an "infinity number of times."
Yesterday 
If you're a newcomer to the CBC Radio 2 Blog, here's the scoop on what it's all about, in its September 2008 incarnation. 
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