Waites first recorded Price’s music in 1987. When she takes to the stage of CAP UCLA’s The Nimoy on January 16th, she will perform work by both women and will be offering the first-ever performances of newly discovered and edited music by Price. The concert is called Momentum: Time and Space.

Momentum indeed. Last September Waites released her fourth album, Reflections in Time which found her performing music by Bonds, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Jeremy Siskind.

Last week I spoke with Waites about her passion for this music, the current embrace of music – particularly Price’s, and about whether or not she considers herself a trailblazer. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Waites, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: You were one of the earliest proponents of the music of Florence Price, recording her work, I believe, in 1987. Did you imagine all that time ago that Florence Price would become one of the most performed composers in this decade? 

I really did not. You start out on a project, but you don’t really know how it’s all going to end. I did a cassette recording. A friend of mine, who did the first biography on Price, sent me a copy of the manuscript from the Library of Congress. She said, Althea, this would be a wonderful piece for you to learn. I didn’t know anything about the Price sonata or any of the other music. So I got the manuscript and started working on it. I was in Switzerland at the time and when I got back to the States, I made that a primary project. Then in 1993 I did the first commercial recording of the sonata along with some other short pieces that Price had composed.

Why do you think now is the time that Price has suddenly been embraced by major orchestras around the world and also soloists?

We’ve been talking a lot and experiencing a lot about diversity and inclusion. I’m old enough to remember growing up in the segregated South where music was being performed and it was a part of the cultural landscape. But certainly Black composers, performers were relegated to very limited kinds of opportunities. With the civil rights movement, all of the LGBTQ actions that are taking place now, there is interest in Florence Price’s music. 

In 2021, Classic FM had a list of the ten most important Black composers who changed the course of classical music history. There were only two women on the list: Florence Price and Margaret Bonds. What do you think their greatest contribution to classical music is?

They paved the way for traditional folk music that had been part of the Black experience to be included and to be recognized as a major component of that particular type [of music]. They were not away from doing European classical music or art music or the music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc. because they were classically trained. They incorporated all of that into their music. Price used the dances that came out of slavery and out of the music of the plantations in the South. Bonds did the same thing. Because of their classical experience, they also merged that particular form with everything else that they were doing. I think that that was their major contribution.

They paved the way for other women. They opened doors really for women at that time – even in my generation – to get out and play and perform and teach a lot of this music. Both Price and Bonds were teachers and fierce advocates for inclusion at a time when it was hardly popular.

You’re also a teacher. Do you think the act of performance is a lesson in teaching for anybody who gets to hear it? 

I totally agree. You can learn a lot, as I did just from listening to great artists and, of course, listening to it on the radio or television. A lot of my education, besides going to an academic institution, I went to concerts. My mother was a fierce advocate for having me experience all of that music.

We went to concerts in New Orleans, despite the fact that the large halls were not open to us. We heard the Met Opera every Saturday afternoon at 1:00. When I was old enough to read I would get the scores and follow along with whatever was going on. So teaching can happen in many ways, not just in a classroom. A lot of my education happened that way. 

You can’t find a lot of quotes by Margaret Bonds. But I did find one where she is quoted as having said, “Music has to be human and people have to like it. It has to move them spiritually and intellectually.” Do you agree with her and how does her music move you? 

I do agree. The whole idea is that people want to be moved by whatever it is that you do, whether you’re a pianist or if you play anything or if you’re a singer or whatever. If you cannot bring the emotional content to the experience that you have with your instrument, then I’ll say that you’ve fallen short of what your mission is. I think the primary mission is to move people emotionally so that when they walk out of the space, they say, wow, I heard something that really was special. I was really touched by that.

Does the music need to move you in order for you to play it?

Yes, I think so. I’m having that experience now with a couple of the things that I’m doing. There was a piece by Frederic Rzewski who was one of the primary exponents of social justice. He used a lot of those themes in his work. He wrote a piece called Down by the Riverside starting with [she sings] “I’m going to lay down my burden” and so on. Then in the middle of the piece it goes south. He takes a radical departure from the the tune that you’ve heard, which is very peaceful. All of a sudden you’re thrown into another world. That was the way he thought about it. At the end he brings all of that material back to the traditional tune. So, yeah, there must something in it, in any piece, that has to resonate with me. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Do you consider yourself a trailblazer? Somebody who has made it possible for younger generations who come up behind you to explore and make discoveries on their own of music, whether known or unknown?

I don’t want to pin any bouquets on myself. I mean, a lot of people have called me that. I say thank you. I appreciate that. What I believe is that whatever I have done in some small way, I’ll keep doing that. Whatever time I have left on the planet, I’m going to continue to support the younger generation. I don’t know if I would call myself a trailblazer. It’s nice to be thought of in that context, but, for me, it’s basically just doing the work. Doing some good work.

Quite some time ago there was a major discovery in Chicago in an apartment building that was being remodeled or a house that was being remodeled where they found a lot of Florence Price’s music, which helped further people’s awareness of Florence Price. Do you have optimism that maybe another miracle can occur and that we can find a lot more of this lost work somehow, somewhere?

I would think so, because people are really interested in it now. I do have to bring up at this juncture some work that a friend of mine, Michael Cooper [Professor of Music at Southwestern University], is now completing the first biography on Margaret Bonds. It was through him that I got these pieces that I’m going to premiere for The Nimoy concert.

Now he is a real trailblazer because Bonds lived in Los Angeles during the last 6 or 7 years of her life after Langston Hughes passed away. Michael has been doing research on where some of this music was. And I have a feeling that it’s going to happen with Price. He is also editing a lot of the music of Florence Price and he sends me things all the time about what he is working on. I owe him a great debt of gratitude because had it not been for him, I would not have known that these pieces exist.

What do you think the most important thing we as an audience can get from opening ourselves up to music? 

I think what has to happen with audiences is let’s get rid of the fear, if you will. Or the apprehension that you may have in your mind about, well, I’m not going to like this. You don’t know until you try and until you actually have the experience. Audiences have to really, I think, do more. And I think we should do more as artists to make that case to say, here is something new. It’s not going to attack you. I feel that’s part of my mission – to get people in the space. That’s where I am. A lot of the people that I work with are trying to get people out to listen.

How does the music you’ve recorded and the music you are now playing reflect where you are in your life today and the journey you’ve taken to get here?

I’m not getting any younger. I was telling my daughter that I’m never going to be 25 again, and that’s okay. I have to do a lot of things now that reflect where I am. I’ll be 85 at the end of this month. I’m grateful to be able to still go on. My body is changing and I have to do more now to stay in good shape. So I walk and I have a lot of exercises that I do. I don’t sit at the piano for ten hours! I practice, but I do get up and take my breaks and with tea and things like that. The exercises really help because if you’re not doing anything like that, then you really can’t present your best self to an audience.

I would also argue that music is a really great way of staying alive.

Oh goodness, yes. We need it now more than ever. The whole world is in a very agitated state. There’s a lot of horrible stuff that’s going on. Music is, I think, probably one of the most important tools. You can bring people together with that. It’s not that you have to say anything, but you can speak through your music. I think that that’s what Price and Bonds attempted to do.

That’s what you are able to do by performing the music.

I feel very, very grateful now to still be able to do this at this point in my life. Anybody else would be sitting in a rocking chair watching soap operas. But not me. 

To see the full interview with Althea Waites, please go here.

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And yes, they can finish each other’s sentences. As I experienced when I spoke with them last week. Charlap was in New York finishing the second of two consecutive weeks at the Village Vanguard. Bridgewater was at her home. They will be performing together in Los Angeles on Friday night to open the 2023-2024 CAP UCLA season at Royce Hall. If you love jazz piano and jazz vocals, you owe it to yourself to check out this concert.

Rather than follow a traditional format of questions and answers, for this interview I will allow Bridgewater & Charlap to do their own performance of themes and variations on the concept of musical partnerships. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Bridgewater & Charlap, please go to our YouTube channel.

The key to a good musical partnership is…

Bridgewater: …being open and listening to each other; keeping that line of communication going. It’s no different, I don’t think, than in a relationship without the music, but I think that’s the most important thing. Keeping your ears open and your mind open to receive. And in my case, all of this beautiful musical information from Bill Charlap. 

Charlap: Well, the same is happening to me. There’s all kinds of beautiful information coming to me from Dee Dee. It’s essentially listening first and foremost and chemistry and that we had right away. The chemistry continues to grow, but chemistry, just like any relationship, sometimes you just catch on fire right away and that’s how it is with us.

Bridgewater: It was the first step when we came together. When I approached Bill with this idea I just started calling out tunes and Bill started playing them and then we were putting keys on them. And before we knew it, we had amassed something like 50 songs easily.

Charlap: And there’s plenty more that I’m certain that could just happen. We may choose songs beforehand and say, let’s do these ones, but it could change at any moment. 

Bridgewater: We’ve kind of narrowed the song selections down to some songs that we really feel comfortable with. We’ve kind of worked out, without even saying it, kinds of arrangements in that there’s a beginning and ending and Bill puts some some special little tags on phrases and then I’ll pick those up. We have unspoken arrangements, don’t we, Bill? 

Charlap: I think so. But they can also change on a dime. Both could change on a dime. It’s not necessarily me setting a tempo or you setting a tempo. It could be both of us. Either one of us could take the reins at any point. In fact, that’s the beauty of it. It’s a true collaboration. It’s a true partnership. She accompanies me, too. Were accompanying each other in a sense.

Bridgewater: I don’t know of any vocal piano duo that can do what we do. 

Charlap: It’s great trust. That’s an important word. But beyond that, Dee Dee is such a great storyteller. That’s what [lyricist] Alan Bergman said the first time he heard her. He said she is the storyteller. So there is that. Then there’s Dee Dee Bridgewater the musician. Perfect time, perfect instincts. The ability to hear harmonically exactly what’s going on. The instincts. But it’s beyond telling the story. And it’s beyond the music. It’s all of those things.

Bridgewater: I just saw that that extraordinary documentary, Zero Gravity. So wonderful. Oh, my goodness. I’ve seen it twice. It’s so inspirational. 

Charlap: It’s a knockout. 

Bridgewater: Listening to Herbie [Hancock] talk about the duo that that he had with Wayne [Shorter] I was really struck. I said, Oh, okay, this is where we’re coming from. Except I remember Herbie saying that he felt like Wayne was the master and he was the student and that he just paid attention. I just I feel in a lot of ways that Bill is is such a master with his music and what he does that it would behoove me to pay attention and to listen because we feed off of each other. This is where the inspiration comes from.

Charlap: One can’t hold the other at bay. We jump into the deep end of the pool together at the same time. It’s not sometimes one washes and one dries, one leads and one follows. It changes all the time. It’s in balance. And it’s a dance. it’s also a palette. It’s like a canvas. It’s an emotional canvas, a story canvas. It has humor. It has depth, of course, with the lyrics and the storytelling. There are layers to all of the lyrics, so it’s not always exactly what every word is, too. It might be something else. All of that.

Bridgewater: Bill knows the lyrics. Bill knows all the lyrics. There have been moments where I go up on a word and he just quietly inserts the word that I’m searching for in that moment. I have never worked with a musician who knows every lyric and the stories behind how they came about. This is extraordinary.

Charlap: I’m playing 50% lyrics and 50% music there. They’re wedded to each other. They’re equal partners.

Bridgewater: Yes, but you are unique in that. What can be said about this duo and the beauty of it is because you just have these two sounds coming at you. We are able to dig deeper into the song, into its meaning; exploring the melody more than would be possible, even if it’s Bill’s magnificent trio. We broke that puppy down to just the two of us. That was really the moment. So I think we have this beautiful relationship now. It just tells its own story and it just amplified the uniqueness of it.

Charlap: I must tell when she first called me and said it would be great to do some stuff together. Of course I would love to do that, but I said, “Well, that would be wonderful if you want to do that with the trio.” And she said, “No, I want to do it as a duo.” And I thought, Wow, now that’s special. And that’s great risk. That was great courage. I’ll never forget that first gig.

Bridgewater: I felt naked and I said that to the audience. I said, I feel completely exposed. Nowhere to hide. I remember running around the piano. 

Charlap: It was that feeling of what’s this? This is working. I don’t feel naked. In fact, if I do, I feel very comfortable in it. It has made something that’s really uniquely of itself and a place that is a center that so many things can grow out of. It’s all about exactly being yourself in this music or in any art. So that’s where we’re going to shine the most. 

Bridgewater: Of course, we’re different and our backgrounds are different and all of that. I know that people were really surprised and still are surprised to hear that the two of us are working together and then to experience it and go come back and go, what is that? That was amazing. I think it is the fact that we are different and we are bringing our individual experiences into this duo is the thing that makes it so magical. And there has to be some sort of similarity between the two of us or it just wouldn’t work. I feel like Bill and I are both very adventurous musical spirits and we’re ready to go anywhere.

Charlap: That’s really nice. 

Bridgewater: Something else that that has happened with Bill and I as we’ve gotten more and more comfortable with each other is the the clowning and the having fun. The moments where it’s silly. I think for people to see that with the two of us they’re kind of like, wow, this is different. Like break out in our whistle, do our little whistle things and when I’ll come around behind the piano bench and have my hands on his shoulders and be doing stuff.

Charlap: Well, it’s supposed to be fun and we’re having lots of fun. Kids in the sandbox.

Bridgewater: Exactly. 

Charlap: Would you ever want to lose that finger paint?

Bridgewater: Go play. Yes. 

Charlap: Don’t be afraid to get messy.

Bridgewater: Exactly. Exactly.

And play they do. Beautifully.

To see the full interview with Bridgewater & Charlap (including a very passionate discussion of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life,” please go here.

Main Photo: Bill Charlap and Dee Dee Bridgewater (Photo by Todd Rosenberg/Courtesy CAP UCLA)

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THIS IS THE FOURTH OF OUR BEST OF 23 REVIEW OF INTERVIEWS: If you’ve been following Cultural Attaché for even a small amount of time, you know how much I love singer Cécile McLorin Salvant. We’re happy to say we finally have an interview with this three-time Grammy Award winner (who also happens to have a nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album for her most recent release, Ghost Song)!

Those three Grammy Awards came for three albums in a row: For One to Love, Dreams and Daggers and The Window. Might it be four-in-a-row? The New York Times called it “her most revealing and rewarding album yet.” I love the album and had the privilege of seeing Salvant in back-to-back performances at the Blue Note in New York City in September. Salvant is truly a once-in-a-generation artist.

She is currently on tour across the United States. Her next show is at Royce Hall on Thursday, January 26th as part of CAP UCLA’s season. She’ll be at the Mondavi Center in Davis on January 27th; Bing Concert Hall at Stanford on January 28th; the Stewart Theatre in Raleigh, NC on February 2nd and Knight Concert Hall in Miami on February 3rd (where her special guest is the Christian Sands Trio).

For her full itinerary, please go here.

Here is my interview with Salvant which was conducted via e-mail.

During the pandemic you were reading Marcel Proust, particularly In Search of Lost Time. In the fifth volume he writes, “The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is..” Do you agree with him and how does that perspective align itself with how you choose, hear and perform music?

I love that quote!!!! Beautiful. I absolutely agree with this.

The pandemic negated the opportunity for LA audiences to see and hear Ogresse. What does the future hold for that work and will you record it or turn it into a fully produced musical/show?

We’re making it into an animated feature length film. It’s already recorded but we’re animating it now with a team in Europe. [Salvant will be performing Ogresse on February 24th and 25th at the Walker Art Center in Milwaukee.]  

Five years ago you gave an interview to ArtsDesk.com where you said, “Visual art is the most important thing to me.” At that time you weren’t sure if that passion for visual arts influenced your music adding, “probably, but not in a way that I can tell.” Has your perspective on that changed since 2018? Do works like Ogresse and/or the art that Nonesuch released with Ghost Song provide examples of some blending of your passions?

Yes! My perspective often changes though! Lately I’ve been trying to approach making music with the same playfulness I feel when I draw.

I first became aware of you when Bryan Ferry closed for you at the Hollywood Bowl in August of 2017. It’s a night I won’t ever forget. I’ve since seen you at much smaller venues. What role does a given venue play in the concerts you give?

My favorite venues to play are clubs! I like to be really close to a small packed audience. I want it to feel like I’m spilling secrets. But it’s always exhilarating and a little bit scary to be in front of a vast crowd like at the Hollywood Bowl!

Sometimes Aaron Diehl is your pianist and other times it is Sullivan Fortner. What does each pianist bring to you and your music? Are there tangible differences for you that influence the way you make music and present it live with each of them?

There are a few others I’ve been playing with over the years. Everyone adds different elements and colors to the music, they bring their tastes, their approaches even their feel to it. It’s the same with every instrument in the band. I often unknowingly pick my repertoire based on who’s playing.

In the concerts I’ve attended there seems to be a semblance of spontaneity in the set lists. What role does fluidity play in each performance? How much does an audience play a role in what you choose to sing at a given concert?

That’s another that changes based on the band. If I’m playing duo with Sullivan there’s often no setlist and it really depends on the moment. The audience plays a bit of a role if they choose to! Some audiences feel quiet, or more reserved. They play less of a role. When they participate a bit more, are reactive, they play a much bigger role to where the set will go.

Music from Broadway musicals used to top the record charts. It’s been a long time since that happened. Yet your passion for musicals is undeniable. The first song on your first album, Cécile, comes from an obscure 1930 musical, Lew Leslie’s International Revue (Exactly Like You). You seem almost childlike in your appreciation for these songs. How and when did that passion for get ignited in you and what role will that material play as you move forward throughout your career?

I’m not sure it’s a childlike quality, it’s more that I love theater and acting. I love operas too, which to me aren’t much different from musicals. I love songs that flow from a character dealing with a specific context.

Like pianist Brad Mehldau and others, you had a background in classical music but switched to jazz (though I heard you sing Baroque music at the Blue Note in NY in September). How does your classical background inform your approach to jazz?

This is a tough question to answer because I try to get away from genres. Genres like jazz and classical are too broad in my opinion. Jazz is extremely fragmented, it encompasses so much different music. Even baroque and early music have such fragmented, different styles within them. There were differences in the music based on cities! Even tuning was based on location.

I think everything I’ve studied informs what I do in some way. In conservatory, I got to learn the aria Medea sings when she goes back and forth between wanting to kill her children for vengeance and wanting to protect them. I think learning that and other songs, learning a bit about baroque dance, studying tap dance for a month in high school, learning the basics of reading figured bass on a harpsichord, all this informs my desire to find a way to approach music in a more open way, with less boundaries.

Your mother has described you as an intellectual (The New Yorker 2017). You’ve talked a lot about your instincts. How and where do your instincts meet up with your intellect and vice-versa?

I don’t identify as an intellectual! I can be a nerd for the things that I love. And I study and research and learn about the history of those things. But following my instincts is very important to me. Sometimes too much research can get in the way of that.

In an interview with Ethan Iverson you bring up a point, this was in relation to Bessie Smith, where you said, “at first I guess it sounds very the same when you don’t know how to listen.” What is the audience responsibility in listening? How much does technology and the need for videos and photos get in the way of your ability to communicate with an audience and their ability to listen? Is the fine art of listening a dying art?

It’s changing the way we communicate. We have more access than ever to all kinds of music and yet our attention span is very low. But I think people are feeling a bit over-saturated so there might be a countercurrent to that soon. I also really admire the way this younger generation coming up can find whatever they connect with, regardless of era or popularity, online. Listening will have to change whether we like it or not! But it’s always been changing. It changed already when the first compositions were notated on paper, when people began having access to records, when music videos started to gain popularity, and so on.

Nonesuch Records alluded in an email last week to a new album coming out this spring. What can you tell me about this new recording?

It will be all in French! About a half woman half snake.

If you could talk to the teenager who had a mohawk, was listening to Dave Matthews Band and Soundgarden before moving to France, what would you say to her about the artist you’ve become and the artist you want to be as you move forward in your career?

I probably wouldn’t say anything about that if I could talk to the teenager I was!!

I’d probably just stare. But I’ll say to you that I feel really lucky for everything that I’ve been able to do, and I’m very excited to keep making my arts and crafts, which is how I like to think of what I do (otherwise you get too precious about it all).

Main Photo: Cécile McLorin Salvant at the Blue Note in New York (Photo by Craig L. Byrd)

The post Bo23: Cécile McLorin Salvant Talks Arts & Crafts appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Every performing arts venue likes to advertise what’s new and exciting for their season launch. For CAP UCLA, they truly had a lot to crow about. Their new performing arts space in Westwood, The Nimoy, opened in September. They are also starting the 2023-2024 with their new Executive and Artistic Director Edgar Miramontes. He replaces Kristy Edmunds who left in 2021 for Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. It was Edmunds who first came up with the idea of buying the former Crest Theater in 2018 and turning it into a performing arts venue.

Miramontes, who had previously served as deputy executive director and curator at REDCAT since 2019, inherits a lot of firsts and a lot of challenges. The performing arts haven’t fully recovered from the COVID crisis and audiences haven’t returned in anywhere near the same numbers as before the pandemic. Accessibility in the arts has become a big issue as has representation.

This gave us a lot to talk about when I spoke with Miramontes in mid-October. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: How much does your experience at REDCAT inform what you want to bring to CAP UCLA?

REDCAT was incredibly formative in terms of the kind of artistic, adventurous kind of programing that is the ethos of my own interests and supporting artists. It is, and has been. an artist-centered space. Seeing what artists are doing to say a story a different way using interdisciplinary approaches is something that I’m still interested quite a bit to think about.

CAP UCLA is a larger platform for the kinds of work, just given the size of the stage and the limitations and the types of spaces that CAP UCLA has. So to think about the kind of ethos for me to develop artists from just out of school and into kind of their professional careers, that continues to interest me. The more artists stay in Los Angeles, the better.

Is there more pressure to be successful at CAP UCLA than there was at REDCAT? Are the standards of what defines success different between the two venues?

It depends, really, how one defines success. There’s a lot of incredible support that the School of Arts and Architecture, which is where CAP UCLA sits under, for me and my ideas thinking about how a public institution has a responsibility to expand and serve different publics. Including, of course, the the L.A. area and beyond.

With The Nimoy in particular, I think it does offer additional support towards that vision. I’m quite excited to think about The Nimoy as a pilot for how a center for art and creation and for artists can be utilized to think broadly about the arts and culture that UCLA as a system can affect. 

The biggest challenge every arts institution faces right now is getting people back into the theater. One argument that I’ve made for quite some time is that accessibility is a key factor in that. It isn’t just getting beyond COVID. It’s making it accessible to people who can’t afford to pay hundreds of dollars for an evening of theater. What impresses me the most about The Nimoy is that a single person can go see a show and park at The Nimoy for $35.

That’s absolutely right. A lot of that was set up with the wonderful team that I get to work with now. Who comes and parks for $3 in Los Angeles? Tickets are $32, a little less than that.

Accessibility to me is also beyond just tickets. What does it look like to be accessible for others who may have been hearing-impaired? How does one actually think about accessibility as we move forward? As we re-enter these spaces?

I am dealing with the three spaces that we program at CAP UCLA. [Royce Hall, The Theatre at the Ace Hotel, The Nimoy] All historic theaters, all built within a certain time. Physical accessibility was really different. That’s a line of thinking which I’m approaching programing in general to think about what that might look like in terms of accessibility.

What’s the conversation that you and your team has to have with an artist or their representatives that says there’s this theater and it has this price point model and it’s smaller so you’ll probably can fill it? Or there’s this theater that has a broader price point that we can do, but you may not necessarily fill it. What is the power of persuasion that you employ to convince somebody that doing something on a smaller scale may actually be more interesting, more rewarding, if not necessarily more economically rewarding?

I’ve yet to move into those negotiations. I start programing now for the fall of ’24. It’s a lot of leading with the artist’s interests. I’m pursuing work that I think would be able to fit multiple spaces in different ways, but also developing an artist that can work in multiple spaces. 

I think artists can find ways to work in multiple ways. With The Nimoy what’s really interesting to me is to think about that you can experiment more. Some of the artists who are working on these larger scale [works] can test out an idea at The Nimoy that then moves potentially into Royce Hall. I think artists are always happy to think about ways of moving their art in a different direction or being pushed to a limitation where limitation becomes the opportunity to think about their work a different way.

You’re obviously establishing a new brand as part of CAP UCLA with The Nimoy. Does that mean that The Nimoy is front and center and takes priority over programing that might take place at the other venues?

Certainly I feel like this is the year of The Nimoy. I think a lot of artists are really curious to see what it can do. It’s a space that CAP UCLA has much more of control over. Royce and ACE are really great partnerships. We can think about The Nimoy as the space for much more development of new work. We can do a lot more with access to it, as ours, in a different way than these other two venues. 

We’re having this conversation on the heels of of really horrific events taking place in the Middle East. We’re also doing it on the cusp of an election cycle. What do you think from your personal perspective is the role of the arts in troubled times like these?

If anything, the arts and culture have the power to really to provide multiple perspectives on what is happening. I think it also has the ability to inspire action. I think artists have a history of participating and making work that is directly pointing to, or at least addressing, some of these issues that I think are quite important. I’m interested in thinking quite a bit about the kinds of voices that have not been necessarily at the center and to think about different perspectives that address some of these things.

More and more I find that the work needs to connect what it’s saying and who is saying it to how do you provide an additional platform for conversation to happen right after that. We need artists as leaders, as catalysts, to make work that is entertaining, but also you see something that you’ve never seen before that actually does shift something for you and for those who are experiencing it. On an intellectual level, on an emotional level, but also has a social impact perspective.

I spoke to Kristy Edmunds in January of 2021. She talked about how she felt like it had been her role to keep artists strong and inspired during the pandemic. I asked her what she did to keep herself strong and inspired. She said, “Artists are finding these places where somehow the glue in the cracks is a kind of kindness and compassion and a willingness to manifest some form of connection. That is ultimately what is going to be what the tail end of this is.”

We don’t know where we are now, but what do you see as the North Star for you in keeping yourself and artists strong and inspired as we move through whatever the next five years is going to throw at us?

I think that we need to think about ourselves as being interconnected to all things. I think that we need to think outside of our silos to be much more like artists: take risks, learn new ideas, research the things that you’re interested in, taking time to see that idea in multiple ways. It means that we need to find ways to redefine collaboration so that it’s, to some degree, less competitive. To think about an ethos of artists, producers, presenters, imagining a new way of working together. Also thinking about what are those values that we can set so that we can build something together. Artists have been doing that for a long time. It’s also leaning in for people who are producers or presenters to think with artistic practice and that means administratively.

I would love to see a festival for two weeks with a vibrancy that you see across the city. That we have multiple connections and in which artists are moving through a different way through these particular spaces. It’s international, it’s local, it’s national; all of these things. And it’s incredibly inclusive. That’s my aspiration of the North Star. But certainly that’s what keeps me going.

Main Photo: The Nimoy Theatre (Photo by Jason Williams/Courtesy CAP UCLA)

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Frank Farian was the mastermind behind 1970’s group Boney M and the disgraced Grammy Award-winning duo Milli Vanilli. Walt Disney was head of his namesake studio that turned Joel Chandler Harris’ Tales of Uncle Remus into the film Song of the South (1946). Only in the inventive mind of artist/writer/director Edgar Arceneaux would these disparate stories find their way into a story about a matriarch battling dementia and how it impacts her two sons.

That’s the premise of Boney Manilli, which has its world premiere on October 5th at REDCAT in Los Angeles as part of CAP UCLA‘s 2023-2024 season. Boney Manilli runs through October 7th.

Arceneaux may be best known for his drawings, sculpture and installations. This very personal show of his, inspired by his late mother’s own battle with dementia, has been in the works for six years. Boney Manilli has burrowed into his psyche and in the process he’s found a way to examine our present-day world while finding a personal catharsis.

I recently spoke with Arceneuax about the combination of these stories, his own experiences with his mother and what it took for him to get all the pieces in place for Boney Manilli to work. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Arceneaux, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Edgar Arceneaux, you told Caroline Goldstein for Artnet in 2020 that “The power of what art is, which is distinctive from other fields, is its unruliness, its nature to ask new questions.” Is that the guiding principle for you when you embark on any project? And if so, what was the principal question you wanted to ask with Boney Minilli? 

Because its nature is to be interpreted, it means that each person’s individual perspective is important. That it’s in that space of differences, in that space of debate, where power comes from. Which is different than, say, an advertisement or maybe even an illustration which is meant to be instrumentalized. But I think that art’s power comes amidst its unwillingness to be fully turned into one meaning or one message.

In the case of Boney, confusion is part of that unruliness, and it’s confusion on two different sides. On one side is a writer/director that I named after myself, Edgar, who is struggling to write a play about Milli Vanilli. Every time he thinks he has it, then it slips away. At the same time he’s trying to take care of his mother, who is slowly dying from dementia and is forgetting everything.

There’s a brother in the middle of the story whose name is Bro Bro, and he’s the younger brother. He’s also trying to tell a story. But this one is centered around the Song of the South, the story that Walt Disney Studios made into a film. He’s convinced, and everyone else in the family is convinced, that that movie was actually written by their grandfather and that Disney stole it from them. So all of them are trying to tell the story before the mother passes away.

How often do you find ideas or projects that you’re doing slipping away from you? If you’re going to name the character after yourself, how much of you is in this? 

Quite a bit. But there’s two different aspects of the character. There’s the one that’s struggling with the story and the frustration that comes along with that. But he’s struggling with the economic insecurity where he hopes that this thing is going to be able to get him out of the hole that he’s in. He’s living with his mother again.

Then there’s also the kind of madness that happens to people that can happen to you when you’re taking care of a loved one who’s going through either dementia or Alzheimer’s, because they go from being the person who’s there to nurture you to you becoming the person that nurtures them.

My mother and I had an amazing relationship up until the day that she passed. I did recognize in myself the capacity to become a really terrible person because of the emotional weight and responsibility. It just really tears and breaks everything apart when the mom is dealing with an illness.

In a podcast that UCLA Arts did with you a year ago when Boney Manilli was a work-in-progress, you talked about how these characters go through a baptism of fire. Have you been through a catharsis during the process of creating and bringing this show to life?

Most certainly. This is actually the fourth expression of this project over the last six years. This is the first one where I felt like I really could use the the aspects of how dementia impacts your mind as a kind of organizing principle for how to tell the story. When we did it as a work-in-progress presentation last March, it was impossible for me to really tell the story from that perspective because my mom had just passed away a year before. To go in three years after her passing, that can be a little more objective and a little more settled. The absolute reality, the undeniable reality, that she’s no longer physically here has given me a bit of creative distance to be able to really dig in to it in a way in which I just couldn’t do before.

I had this beautiful moment last night because I was with my dad. I had just taken him out to dinner and we were sitting on the bed. I finished a final edit of the script and I sent it to all the management team and the designers. I realized I was sitting on my mom’s side of the bed when I sent that final email off. It felt, in a subtle way, that there was something about it that was very poetic and I couldn’t have timed it that way.

Boney Manilli combines two problematic components of popular culture: Milli Vanilli and Song of the South, both of which have their own baggage that accompany them. What was the impetus for combining these two into one story?

I started to think about the relationship between these two stories: the one about the the potential death and then the way in which Joel Chandler Harris, the person who’s credited with these stories – actually just collected them from people who lived either on his plantation and of his grandfather or other Blacks who had these oral traditions – and then he created this character called Uncle Remus essentially in the same way that Rob and Fab existed as these fictional placeholders for a white author’s voice.

I recognized that these two stories are coming together, but I couldn’t leave those two things together without recognizing that there was a third element which was produced by juxtaposing these two things. Which is the way in which there is an industry of entertainment that values and monetizes this kind of trauma. The show is very critical of our desire to learn about the stories of people who’ve been taken advantage of.

And Frank Farian and Walt Disney both did that.

They did. But the lens of this show is very much focused on the appetite of the audience for these kinds of stories. So when you come and see it, you’ll see how we try to turn the camera from the stage to the audience. And it’s funny to me in some interesting ways.

CAP UCLA says, in laying out information about this show, “To paint the picture of identity and infamy within its true reality is Arceneaux’s artistry at its best.” We’re living in a time when identity is being discussed far more openly and with perhaps greater acceptance than it has in quite some time. But it’s going hand-in-hand with a culture via social media that allows us to manufacture our identity – which doesn’t necessarily have any basis in reality. What do you see as the present day reality of how we are looking at identity? 

The question of how we see ourselves, how we label ourselves, goes hand-in-hand with with lens-based technologies that force us to quantify where we begin and where another person ends. I think the more pluralistic understanding of race, class, identity is really good for us as a republic. I do think that is butting up against the edges of grand monopolies and grand pooling of resources, both politically and economically, which is fortifying itself against this this desire for more of a plateau as opposed to giant pyramids of power. These things are pushing against each other. These monopolies are ways of reinforcing heteronormative ideas about ourselves.

Many artists are most excited about doing something that scares them. Was doing something like this show something that scared you?

A reason why I’ve been working on this project for six years is because the first three iterations were not great. I was sweating. It’s the worst feeling in the world to have an audience watching something of yours and you know that it’s not right. You’re just cringing on the inside because putting on these shows is so expensive. You’ve raised this money from other people [and] you want to do the best that you can. Sometimes you’re just not there and you just have to keep working at it. You have to keep faith that you’re going to get there. But there’s no indication that for certain you will.

Then at a certain point I was just like, Oh, I see the story now. I never could find the ending. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t write it for five years. And then I did. 

After your mother’s funeral, you quoted her on social media. You said she said to you, “Just because my body ain’t here don’t mean I’m not still with you. I will always be two steps behind you, just right there when you need me.” How is your mother there with you through the creation and the rehearsals for Boney Manilli? 

Oh, man. Yeah. I mean, that example of sitting on the bed with her last night is one example. She was a person who had an unyielding faith in me and my siblings. Oftentimes I would hear her voice or I can feel, some inkling that I was doing right by her in the story. After she passed I could feel her energy all around me, in me and the natural environment around me. I would often just rely upon that belief to stay grounded and keep the faith that this was going to be a great show.

To see the full interview with Edgar Arceneaux, please go here.

Main Photo: Two cast members of Boney Manilli with Edgar Arceneaux (Photo by Richard Ffrench/Courtesy CAP UCLA)

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During a 70-minute performance Tao is at the piano playing music by Bach, Arnold Schoenberg, Art Tatum, George Gershwin and more while Teicher dances – most of it improvised. They will perform Counterpoint at The Nimoy Theatre, CAP UCLA’s newly opened theater in Westwood on Saturday, September 30th. They will also perform the show on October 6th at Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Both Teicher and Tao do a fair amount of improvisation as I learned when I spoke with Teicher earlier this week. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview with Teicher, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Tap dancer Dianne Walker said in a story that she wrote for Dance Magazine in 2022 that when Tina Pratt introduced her to jazz pianist Barry Harris she really “got the improvisational connection between musician and dancer.” What was the process by which you got the improvisational connection between dancer and musician?

When I went to the New York City Tap Festival for the first time I met a teacher whose name was David Rider. And David was, for lack of a better way to describe it, very much in the modern day tap dance scene. Being in the modern day tap dance scene usually involves being very connected to the history, to the lineage, to the roots of this dance. And by that I mean I came into the dance a little bit late to meet a lot of the folks who had passed away.

The teachers who were at these festivals had a direct connection to the jazz tap tradition. That’s to say, the Black elders and the white elders of this dance form. When I started working with [David], I became aware of the importance of improvisation historically. Then as I started to tap dance more amongst the present day type community, I became aware of just how important it was to be an improviser and a good one.

What role do you allow or want improvisation to be part of what you do generally and specifically what you do with Conrad?

For what I do with Conrad, it’s mostly improvisation. Mostly because I want to feel really present with Conrad. We’ve played now the same set a number of times, and we both do different things to provoke each other to play, to show that we hear each other, to show that we’re in conversation. What is the point of gathering in person? To me, improvisation answers one aspect of that, which is to say, if it’s happening live, then you have to see it live.

What are the discoveries in that process that you’ve made about Conrad?

This is not a show I would do with any other pianist other than Conrad. It’s not I’m a tap dancer looking to do a show with a pianist. It’s I am myself, a dancer, looking to do a show with my friends and collaborators and someone who I’ve forged a long-lasting connection with. That’s Conrad.

Conrad and I met for the first time when we were teenagers and collaborated together for the first time when we were 19. Over the years we have become friends. I’ve seen so many of his shows and he’s seen so many of mine. This is not something that we’ve kind of put together just to make a show. This is something that came out of a shared respect and admiration for each other that led to something where it says, well, maybe we should share this connection that we have.

Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is a huge component of Counterpoint. Can you break down in a basic manner how you came up with where each of you would take solos and particularly where the solo would become, in your case, the notes played with your feet?

I should say that while it’s improvised, every time we get to that particular section, Conrad does not play. That is something that is relatively set amongst this improvisation. My memory tells me that was Conrad’s idea and I just sort of humored him. I said, sure, I’ll try it. It was something that we always discussed doing together because it was such a fun piece and I had never danced it. Conrad had played Rhapsody quite a bit, but had never done it in a duo capacity

I think there are a lot of people who have very meaningful connections to Rhapsody. So it’s a relatively easy win. But also to both of us. I do feel like it goes through so many emotions, so many colors and textures and shapes. As I dance, I feel like in that 16-and-a-half minute experience I get to live such a full life. I get to do all these different things and explore my dancing in so many different ways. If it’s the thing that we are doing the most these days in terms of a piece, it continues to be a really fertile ground for our conversation.

You’ve been doing this show with Conrad for the past few years, do you want to expand it beyond what you’re doing now?

We just thought we were doing it once or twice. We had these three gigs back-to-back and we said if we don’t feel great about it after those three gigs, we’ll stop doing it. It turns out it was show two or something. We got to the dressing room and Conrad said that was really fun. The audience really took to it. So we said if people are willing to pay us to hang out and play music together that we enjoy, then who are we to argue?

The set has more or less stayed the same over the past couple of years. We don’t do this program every week. If we do six or eight engagements a year, that’s a lot. I’m happy to keep it as is for now. But we are performing it at the Gilmore in Kalamazoo, Michigan this year which has a piano festival. I believe they’ve commissioned a new piece for Counterpoint as part of that. So we will create one new piece for our duo this year, which is fun. We’ve discussed if maybe someday we really feel like a piece has seen the end of its time, then we’ll take it out. And if we’re excited about something new, then we’ll put it in. That is on the table.

There’s a composer named Jonny Greenwood whom I like very much. I like his work for film. I obviously like his work in the band Radiohead. When he was told that Radiohead is innovative and there are all these things that are great about Radiohead, he’s quoted as saying in response, “When people say you’re doing something radical in rock or dance music, I’m not sure how special that is. What we do is so old-fashioned. It’s like trying to do something innovative in tap dancing.” What would you say to someone who thinks that tap dancing is old-fashioned, whether it’s a rock star or somebody that you meet at a local store?

This is the nature of us, of our limited capacity to become familiar with the intricacies of things. Every community, every subculture, every genre of dance and music has a dense and rich and textured and complex history. It’s not uncommon for me to experience what I might be so bold as to call a sort of ignorance around the depth of tap dance.

Some of that is because tap dance has been historically marginalized because it came from Black culture and a lot of things that come from Black culture have been diminished in terms of understanding their complexity. But the truth is, I think everything is as beautiful or as rich as we make it. If someone thinks that something is simple, they’re just maybe not trying hard enough to see how beautiful something is.

To see the full interview with Caleb Teicher, please go here.

Main Photo: Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher in Counterpoint (Photo by Em Watson/Courtesy CAP UCLA)

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It also applies to the additional 14 transcriptions that he commissioned that have yet to be recorded but de Mare is playing now in concert. He’s appearing at Royce Hall at UCLA this Sunday. He also has performances upcoming in Encinitas, La Jolla, at Ravinia in Chicago and Woodstock.

I first spoke with de Mare when ECM Records released Liaisons in 2015. Of course, a lot has changed since then. Not only has de Mare’s project grown bigger, but performing the original works in concert got put on hold during the pandemic. Most importantly, Sondheim passed away.

The second round of commissions was timed for Sondheim’s 90th birthday. As he was with the first round of commissions, the composer was closely involved with de Mare in bringing these transcriptions to fruition.

“He was never demanding,” de Mare revealed. “It was always this is where we are. What do you think? And he would come back and say, ‘Oh no, this is great, keep going.’ Or he would offer his suggestions. And I think that helped me to get to know him and his work better because I got a little bit of a window into how he worked privately on his own shows when he was writing them.”

During the pandemic he remained in touch with Sondheim. de Mare also did something he doesn’t really like doing to keep Sondheim updated on the progress of the new transcriptions.

“I did record a few of them at home, which I just never liked [doing], basically to send to him because I wanted him to hear them. We went back and forth on some of the pieces. And then this past year, of course, I sent him more scores.”

For the first 36 transcriptions, Sondheim suggested composers he wanted contacted to gauge their interest. Amongst them was film composer Thomas Newman. For the 14 additional transcriptions he suggested less well-known composers.

“Sondheim made a special request that I ask Marc Schubring into for these for the new batch. He’s a German theater composer who Sondheim has been fond of for many years. And he chose Goodbye For Now, which is from Reds. Schubring plays the piano extremely well and he’s an amazing painter and illustrator and he made this really beautiful, full-bodied piano work out of that song.”

Not only was Sondheim taken with that transcription, Schubring built an homage to Sondheim when writing out the score.

“He did this very touching thing to the piece. He labeled the measure numbers starting at 1930 and up 2021 so it’s 91 measures long.” Sondheim was born in 1930 and passed away in 2021 at the age of 91.

As for the songs found in these new transcriptions, de Mare relied primarily on a list of songs that were not included in the first 36 compositions.

“What I was pleased with was that a lot of the composers chose songs that I originally wanted included, but weren’t chosen the first time around. So it was filling in a lot of gaps. There’s still some I wish were still part of it that aren’t. Even from the original collection, I had wanted someone to set the opening number of Company because I thought that would make a great piano piece. The opening of Pacific Overtures – The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea; Getting Married Today could make a really fast, virtuosic, wonderful piece. From Evening Primrose I wanted I Remember Sky and also With So Little to Be Sure Of from Anyone Can Whistle.” 

One composer who contributed to both sets is de Mare himself. For the first he tackled Sunday in the Park with George. For the second set he took on a song cut from Follies that actually anchors the overture to the show.

“The first or second Symphony Space concert back in 2012 or 2013 my partner Tom was in the green room and Sondheim was there and they got into a conversation. Tom just happened to mention to him, ‘You know, one of the songs I’ve always loved of yours is All Things Bright and Beautiful.’ And Sondheim said, ‘I’ve always loved that one, too. And I was really sorry that it had to be taken out of the show.’ So I looked at the vocal score, I looked at the prologue as well as the original song itself and created another piece.”

Regardless of who composed the transcriptions, de Mare feels they all had one thing in common: to celebrate Stephen Sondheim as a composer.

“That was the mission of the project from the beginning because I felt he was one of the great American composers of the 20th and 21st century. We discovered that nearly all of the composers said he either secretly influenced them or their admiration for him led to their excitement about being part of the project. I think these piano pieces really have done a great service to him for that. Listeners have also found a profound awareness now and a deeper awareness of him as a composer.”

No one, however, is as close to these works as de Mare. It’s a unique position he doesn’t take lightly.

“I’ve grown to know the music even more deeply. It’s a body of work that I hold very close to my own heart. Each piece is like a personal friend. People asked me years ago when this is over are you going to choose another project like this with another composer or pop composers only. It didn’t really dawn on me. There was a purpose with this and I feel very gratified and I feel very fortunate to have been able to do it.”

To see and hear the complete interview with Anthony de Mare, please go to our YouTube channel.

Main Photo: Anthony de Mare performing Liaisons: Reimagining Stephen Sondheim From the Piano at Symphony Space (Photo by Rahev Segev)

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What became immediately clear is that Crewes, who has been artistic director at The Wallis since 2015, is not leaving because of a falling out with the organization. Nor did another job offer come through as it did with Kristy Edmunds at CAP UCLA. Nor is it retirement as is the case with Michael Ritchie leaving Center Theatre Group.

“This exodus is not something that was me thinking it’s time to go,” Crewes told me earlier this week in a Zoom call. “But more to do with the fact that we had to respond to what was happening back in the UK with the family and decided that that was the thing we had to do. So it’s very bittersweet from my point of view to be leaving.”

Not that he’s going to just up and disappear. In fact, The Wallis has asked for his continued help into the middle of next year.

“They’ve asked me to stay on as an adviser for six months,” he revealed, “which I’m very happy to do. I’ll be working from the UK, although potentially visiting once or twice in the first six months and next year and helping in any way I can to transition to the next person.”

Whoever comes in to replace Crewes will have to consider the seismic shifts that are taking place in culture as it relates to representation – on stage and off, cancel culture and more. Something Crewes has been considering for quite some time.

“There had to be change within within the arts. There had to be change within the culture of the country as well. Those changes are never going to be easy and they will question and put into question everything that you do. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. You have to work out where you stand within that context and you have to make the changes you believe you need to make. I think some of those changes won’t come easily if there’s no pressure for us to make change.”

He pauses and then considers what his role as a white, middle-aged man might be in both the problem and the solution to these problems.

“I’m of an older generation, maybe, which needs to rethink how we’ve been doing things for a long time. I think that we’re in a place where serious conversations need to happen and change needs to take place. The reality is we’ve lived in a world where one voice has been strongest for a long, long time. That’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation with that one voice. I fully represent that world, you know, being who I am. So I have to I have to be prepared to step back and listen and change.”

When asked what else he plans to do once he he returns home, Crewes was keeping his cards close to his vest.

“I’m keeping my counsel on a little bit there because I actually want to give myself time to think that through. We live in the Yorkshire Dales. I’ll go on long walks with my wife and the dog and just have a moment to recalibrate. I think projects are what drives me, not necessarily running an organization or an institution or a company, although I do enjoy that as well.”

His role as an adviser will allow Crewes to continue work on a long-gestating new version of William Shakespeare’s King Lear with Joe Morton (Turn Me Loose) in the title role.

“We had, in fact, our last day of a reading of King Lear. We’re also looking at the conceptual design of this project, which was going to be presented at the Wallis in May. That’s a project that I’ve been working on with Joe Morton and John Gould Rubin for nearly three years now due to the pandemic. Focusing on that project and really exploring how we can tell that story and present it in a way in 2022 that maybe hasn’t made sense before really excites me.“

So far The Wallis has been able to navigate the pandemic well. They are also closing out this calendar year, and with it the Paul Crewes era, with the hugely successful return of Love Actually Live, allows him to leave with his head held high.

“I’m feeling quite positive at the moment that we have opened Love Actually. We’ve had three dance companies in the building since September. We’ve had four concerts and we’ve had a Film Independent program. So we’ve covered all the different genres that we want to work in. We’ve managed to pull it off and it’s been great to do it.

“Even in COVID we’ve managed to achieve a box office target that we’ve never done before. So in a sense I suppose I feel it’s rounding my role here at The Wallis. It feels the right time to go. I would have hated leaving before we were able to get back into the theater and do the work that we’ve been doing. What the future holds? I don’t know. I mean, it’s the first time in 36 years of working that I’m leaving a job without knowing what the next job is.”

Love Actually Live runs through December 31st at The Wallis.

King Lear is scheduled to run at The Wallis May 10th – June 5th.

All photos of Paul Crewes by Luke Fontana/Courtesy The Wallis

The post Paul Crewes Reflects on His Time At The Wallis appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

We spoke by phone last week as he was driving with Yuval Sharon. The two men had just spent time at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. We had a terrific conversation. Tragically the app I was using only recorded the first ten minutes of that call. Thankfully those first ten minutes were rich – as you will see.

Tines is a Juilliard graduate and a fierce advocate of works by new composers. He originated the lead role in the world premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones in 2019 at Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He’s also performed compositions by Kaija Saariaho, David Lang, Matthew Aucoin, John Adams and more.

His work to confront racism is best represented by The Black Clown, a music-theater piece he created with Michael Schachter that was adapted from Langston Hughes’ poem of the same name. Tines has also become a leading proponent of the work of composer Julius Eastman whose works have been gaining in prominence over the last decade. 

Eastman was a minimalist. He didn’t adhere to the style of contemporaries like Phillip Glass. Eastman’s music was aggressive. It was political. It was, at times, confrontational. And it was rarely written down. Much of what he did write down was sadly scattered to the winds as he battled homelessness and drug addiction. 

One of his most significant pieces is The Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc which is being presented in a film starring Tines that is part of this year’s The Tune in Festival from CAP UCLA. The film closes out the on-line festival on Sunday, November 7^th. 

There’s a prelude to The Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc which finds the soloist performing a series of repeated phrases over the course of 13 minutes.

Tines has performed the pieces several times, including a performance in 2017 at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles.

Early in our conversation I asked him how his relationship to the work has evolved since that time.

“When I was first doing it, it was more about the visceral aspects of surviving through those 13 minutes. Trying to give those short, important words, as much support and clarity as I could. To have the interpretation of the piece come from the actual doing of it. Meaning, he organically outlined things to break down over time or lower in register and stretch out in time. And now that I’ve had that visceral experience a number of times, it’s like I have a body or emotional memory of where those places are. 

“Doing the piece, it’s not exactly exhausting, but I definitely do feel the kind of tension that I think Eastman is trying to invite the performer into. So I can grow into the piece and in other ways. One way has been to focus very intently on what I think the raison d’etre of the piece is where he says, ‘When they question, you speak boldly.’ That sentence is, I think what the entire preceding eight and a half minutes is building toward.”

Tines went on to illuminate what Eastman was doing with The Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc.

“Eastman is inviting everyone into the role of Joan of Arc and then giving the same instruction that’s poured fourth through her own spiritual ancestry into our current time.  So realizing and sitting with, more deeply, what it might mean to try to inform people in the larger trajectory in history to speak boldy and to understand how my own personal values align with that. I see the piece as a conduit for delivering a message that resonates within myself, but was also set forth by an ancestor.”

In notes before the premiere of The Holy Presence… Eastman wrote, “Dear Joan: When meditating on your name, I am given strength and dedication. I shall emancipate myself from the materialistic dreams of my parents. I shall emancipate myself from the bind of the past and the present. I shall emancipate myself from myself.”

Tines agrees that those thoughts seem particularly timely as we try to extricate ourselves from the trauma of the last nearly two years.

“It seems like even listing a lot of things that are, perhaps, secondary to one’s existence and, I think, maybe people articulate their lives or find their identity through many things that he’s listed. But maybe he’s getting at the idea that it’s important to allow those things to fall away and see what actually remains there. One’s self from one’s self, I guess, is one of the most nuanced ones. Maybe releasing the picture of what one feels one is and trying to actually allow some reality or some sheer engagement with reality.

“Given the reality of the pandemic, as you say, I think we’ve all had at least some encouragement, if not space or impetus, through violent and intensive means to do that sort of work.”

There was so much more of our conversation that, like many of Eastman’s compositions, remains but a memory. But I began my interview with Tines by asking him about something else Eastman had said and it seems the most appropriate way to conclude this story.

Eastman said in a 1976 interview “What am I trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest. Black to the fullest. A musician to the fullest. A homosexual to the fullest.” How does performing his work allow Tines to do the same?

“It allows me to do the same because our identities are deeply aligned in that way. All of the aspects of identity that he outlined, I also embody. So by being able to realize his words, I’m able to be very closely in conversation or community or connection with his aspirations.

“I’m meaning there are a lot of times where, you know, reference for a work is somewhat removed from you and it’s your job to figure out how to embody that. With Eastman’s work, it’s really a beautiful opportunity for me to do something that kind of pulls a certain specific identity along or finds something that I’m more closely connected with.”

To hear a rare interview with Julius Eastman, we suggest you listen to this 1984 interview he did with David Garland.

CAP UCLA’s The Tune In Festival runs November 4th – November 7th. You can find the full schedule here.

Photo of Davóne Tines by Bowie Verschuuren/Courtesy CAP UCLA

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With yesterday’s good news that those who are vaccinated can go around without masks with the exception of a few specified areas, it seems like only a matter of time before live events will come roaring back.

The question now is whether or not all the streaming events of the past 15 months will become a relic of the era or a regular part of our cultural experience. Only time will tell.

For now, there are still plenty of great programs available for viewing. Topping our list is MCC Theater’s Miscast 2021 Gala. There are two other gala events, a new musical reading, a vintage classical music concert, new music, a play reading and more.

Here are the Best Bets: May 14th – May 17th.

*TOP PICK* – Miscast 2021 – MCC Theater – May 16th – May 20th

Yesterday we posted a full preview of this event, but here’s what makes this show so entertaining: Broadway stars perform songs separately or with others they would never be cast to sing. For instance, Robert Fairchild sings this song from the musical Sweet Charity in a clip from last year’s “quarantine” edition of Miscast.

This year’s line-up includes Annaleigh Ashford (Sunday in the Park with George), Melissa Barrera (In the Heights), Gavin Creel (Hello, Dolly!), Robin de Jesús (The Boys in the Band), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton), Leslie Grace (In the Heights), Cheyenne Jackson (Finian’s Rainbow), Jai’Len Josey (SpongeBob SquarePants), LaChanze (Summer: The Donna Summer Musical), Idina Menzel (Wicked), Kelli O’Hara (Kiss Me, Kate), Billy Porter (Kinky Boots), Kelly Marie Tran (Raya and the Last Dragon), Aaron Tveit (Moulin Rouge) and Patrick Wilson (The Full Monty).

This is a free event, though donations are encouraged.

PLAY READING: Watch on the Rhine – Broadway’s Best Shows – Now – May 17th

Lillian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine had its world premiere at the Martin Beck Theater on April 1, 1941. Her play tells the story of a German man, Mueller, married to an American woman, who is involved with anti-fascist causes in Europe. While visiting his wife’s relatives in Washington, D.C., another guest, also staying with the family, blackmails Mueller after discovering Mueller is planning to send money to aid underground operations in Germany.

For this reading as part of Spotlight on Plays, Ellen Burstyn, Alan Cox, Carla Gugino, Mary Beth Peil and Jeremy Shamos star in this reading directed by Sarna Lapine.

Tickets are $18 with the reading available for viewing through Monday at 6:00 PM ET/3:00 PM PT. Proceeds from the reading benefit The Actors Fund.

Trivia: Two years later a film version of Watch on the Rhine was released starring Bette Davis and Paul Lukas (reprising his role from Broadway). The film was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture. Lukas won for Best Actor.

DANCE: Stephen Petronio Company – The Joyce Theater – Now – May 26th

There are five works being showcased in this new film by the Stephen Petronio Company, the New York-based dance company that was founded in 1984.

Two of the five pieces being performed are set to songs made famous by Elvis Presley: Are You Lonesome Tonight and Love Me Tender.

There are two versions of Are You Lonesome Tonight being performed. Love Me Tender was originally performed in 1993 in a collaboration with artist Cindy Sherman.

New Prayer For Now (Part 1) has its debut in this film. Petronio was inspired by Balm in Gilead and Bridge Over Troubled Water when creating New Prayer…. Monstah Black (who is also a dancer and choreographer in addition to being a musician) composed the music and performs with the Young People’s Chorus of New York City.

The program wraps up with a new version of Group Primary Accumulation by Trisha Brown and Pandemic Portraits, a film by Dancing Camera.

Tickets are $25.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Berlin Philharmonic 1967 – Carnegie Hall – May 14 – May 21st

Herbert von Karajan leads the Berliner Philharmoniker in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Alexis Weissenberg.

This is amongst the most popular concerti in the world. But if Weissenberg’s name isn’t familiar to today’s audiences, this quote from his obituary by Maraglit Fox in the New York Times defines his reputation:

“Mr. Weissenberg possessed a technical prowess rivaled by few other pianists. The ice of his demeanor at the keyboard (he sat, leaned forward and got down to business, playing with scarcely a smile or grimace) was matched by the fire that came off the keys.” (Weissenberg passed away in 2012.)

There is no charge to watch this performance. This is the first of a new series Carnegie Hall Selects featuring performances by artists who played major roles in the 130-year history of the venue.

BROADWAY VOCALS: Jose Llana: Broadway Stories & Songs with Ted Sperling – May 14th – 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT

Broadway star Jose Llana is Ted Sperling‘s guest for Broadway Stories & Songs. Llana has been seen in The King and I, Rent, Street Corner Symphony, Flower Drum Song, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Wonderland on Broadway.

I first saw him in Flower Drum Song at the Mark Taper Forum. I also saw him in the incredible show Here Lies Love at the Public Theater.

He also performed Adam Guettel’s song cycle Saturn Returns (later renamed Myths and Hymns) which is where he and Sperling first worked together.

If you can’t see the show on Friday, there is an encore showing scheduled for May 15th at 2:00 PM ET/11:00 AM PT. Tickets for either showing are $25. You can watch the show a second time if you buy tickets for the Friday night showing.

JAZZ: Robert Glasper: Everything’s Beautiful – SFJAZZ – May 14th – 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT

This 2018 concert found innovative musician/composer Robert Glasper putting his own spin on works by Miles Davis for his album Everything’s Beautiful. Glasper’s music was featured in Don Cheadle’s film Miles Ahead from 2015.

If you don’t know Glasper or his work, he’s one of the most interesting artists working in jazz today. He’s also collaborated with Erykah Badu, Herbie Hancock, Kendrick Lamar, Ledisi and Jill Scott.

Joining Glasper in this performance are vocalist Bilal; Michael Severson on guitars; Burniss Travis on bass and Justin Tyson on drums.

If you can’t watch Friday night’s showing that is part of SFJAZZ’s Fridays at Five series, there is an encore showing on Saturday, May 15th at 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT. Tickets require either a one-month digital membership for $5 or a $50 annual digital membership.

MUSICAL: Breathe: A New Musical – May 14th – July 9th

Playwright Timothy Allen McDonald (Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka) and novelist Jodi Picoult (The Book of Two Ways) have teamed up for this new musical suite that features interlocking stories of five different couples navigating their way through the Covid pandemic and its impact on their lives.

The songs were written by Doug Besterman (The Big One-Oh!), Zina Goldrich (Ever After), Marcy Heisler (Hollywood Romance), Kate Leonard (Ratatouille: The TiKTok Musical), Douglas Lyons (Peter, Darling), Daniel J. Mertzlufft (Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical), Rebecca Murillo (Credence & Cecilia), Ethan Pakchar (Five Points), Rob Rokicki (The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical) and Sharon Vaughn (My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys).

Appearing in this online musical are Tony Award winners Kelli O’Hara and Brian Stokes Mitchell along with Denée Benton (Hamilton), Rubén J. Carbajal (Hamilton), Max Clayton (Moulin Rouge), Josh Davis (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), Colin Donnell (Anything Goes), Matt Doyle (the upcoming revival of Company), Patti Murin (Frozen), T. Oliver Reid (Hadestown), and Daniel Yearwood (Once on This Island).

Tickets are $25 to watch Breathe. If you want to join the official opening night on Friday, May 14th at 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT, those tickets are $40 and includes an post-premiere cast party and a download of the music from the show.

CONTEMPORARY SONG CYCLE: Dorothea – CAP UCLA – Debuts May 15th – 10:00 PM ET/7:00 PM PT

Ted Hearne, one of our most fascinating and interesting composes, has created a song cycle inspired by the poetry of Dorothea Lasky.

Lasky is an acclaimed poet who told the LA Review of Books, “I do believe it’s better not to be safe in your poems.” As a composer, Hearne also doesn’t play it safe.

They both are utterly compelling. This combination should double down on that and prove to be very exciting to watch.

Hearne was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his 2018 composition Sound From the Bench. Both Los Angeles Opera and San Francisco Opera performed his opera The Source about Chelsea Manning.

Hearne will be singing vocals in this performance. Joining him are Eliza Bagg on vocals and synths; Ashley Bathgate on cello; Nathan Koci on piano/keyboards; Diana Wade on viola; Ron Wiltrout on drums and Ayanna Woods on bass.   

There is no charge to watch Dorothea. Donations to CAP UCLA are encouraged.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Nadia Sirota, Gabriel Cabezas and Rob Moose – The Phillips Collections – Debuts May 16th – 4:00 PM ET/1:00 PM PT

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 6 in G Major, BWV 530 serves as the foundation for this performance by violist Nadia Sirota, cellist Gabriel Cabezas and violinist Rob Moose.

The concert will begin and end with a movement from the sonata with a third movement at the halfway point.

Interspersed amongst the concert are works by three of today’s most interesting contemporary composers: Marcos Batler, Missy Mazzoli and Nico Muhly.

Sirota is also the music producer for Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Close Quarters series.

There is no charge to watch this performance, however registration is required. The program will remain available for viewing through May 22nd.

PLAY READING: Sejanus, His Fall – Red Bull Theater – Debuts May 17th – 7:30 PM ET/4:30 PM PT

New York’s Red Bull Theater will present a new adaptation of Ben Johnson’s 17th-century play Sejanus, His Fall on Monday night. The adaptation is by Nathan Winkelstein, who also directs.

The play depicts a power struggle between Tiberius, the Emperor of Rome and Sejanus, his right-hand man. Sejanus covets being the emperor. Tiberius has no desire to make that a possibility. Factions line up behind each man and the power struggle begins with all of our own contemporary issues surrounding politics and power at play.

Participating in the reading are: Shirine Babb (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child), Grantham Coleman (The Great Society), Keith David (Seven Guitars), Manoel Felciano (To Kill a Mockingbird), Denis O’Hare (Assassins), Matthew Rauch (Junk), Liv Rooth (To Kill a Mockingbird), Laila Robins (Heartbreak House), Stephen Spinella (Angels in America), Emily Swallow (High Fidelity), Raphael Nash Thompson (The Red Letter Plays), Tamara Tunie (Radio Golf) and James Udom (The Rolling Stone).

Tickets are pay what you can with proceeds going to Red Bull Theater.

CONCERT/GALA: Stand Up, Stand Strong – Covenant House – May 17th – 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT

Sara Bareilles, Stephanie J. Block, Jon Bon Jovi, Zach Braff, Terron Brooks, Rachel Brosnahan, Stephen Colbert, Charlie Day, Darius De Haas, Ariana DeBose, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Morgan Freeman, Jon Hamm, Adrianna Hicks, James Monroe Iglehart, Capathia Jenkins, Jewel, Jeremy Jordan, Amanda Kloots, Ames McNamara, Laurie Metcalf, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Abby Mueller, Alex Newell, Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, Kelli O’Hara, Laura Osnes, Dolly Parton, Jo Ellen Pellman, Ben Platt, Jason Ralph, Ryan Reynolds, Chita Rivera, Robin Roberts, Aliza Russell, Keala Settle, Tony Shalhoub, Meryl Streep, Ana Villafañe, Dionne Warwick, Marlon Wayans, Frank Wildhorn, Vanessa Williams, Daniel Yearwood and more will join co-hosts Audra McDonald and John Dickerson for this annual fundraiser for Covenant House.

The organization provides shelter for homeless youth living on the streets. They have helped more than one million youth since their inception more than 40 years ago.

This gala fundraiser will offer music, stories and more. There is no charge to watch the show, however donations are encouraged. For a list of the many ways you can watch Stand Up, Stand Strong, please go here.

VOCALS/STORIES: Jim Caruso’s Pajama Cast Party – May 17th – 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT

Though Jim Caruso has multiple guests for this Monday’s 58th episode of Pajama Cast Party, I can sum up the reason to tune into this particular episode with two words: Marilyn Maye.

That’s the official list of Best Bets: May 14th – May 17th. Here are also a few reminders:

Lincoln Center Theater’s Tales from the Wings, which we previewed here, will remain available through Monday, May 17th. This is a must for theater fans.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic debuts Chamber Music: Piazzolla in their Filmed at the Ford series. You can find details here.

This weekend’s offering from the Metropolitan Opera include the documentary The Audition on Friday; Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia from the 2014-2015 season on Saturday and Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux from the 2015-2016 season on Sunday.

Sunday will also be the finals of the National Council Auditions at the Met at 3:00 PM ET/12:00 PM PT.

Monday begins Week 62 at the Met where the theme is Unhinged Mad Scenes. The first production being streamed is the 2006-2007 season production of Bellini’s I Puritani with Anna Netrebko.

There are just two weeks left to see Sutton Foster’s Bring Me to Light. You can find details in our preview here.

There you have a jam-packed list of Best Bets: May 14th – May 17th.

Enjoy your weekend and enjoy the shows!

Photo: Renée Elise Goldsberry (Photo by Justin Bettman/Courtesy MCC Theater)

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