Call it good timing or a lucky alignment of circumstances. But given that very little is just pure luck anymore, I’ll suggest that composer/pianist Timo Andres and his team knew exactly what they were doing when they lined up the release of a new album on Nonesuch Records, the world premiere of his fifth piano concerto, Made of Tunes, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and his perform with five other pianists at Walt Disney Concert Hall of the 20 etudes by Philip Glass. All in one week.

On March 19th, Andres joins fellow pianists Anton Batagov, Lara Downes, Jenny Lin and Maki Namekawa to perform Glass’ Etudes 1-20. On March 22nd, Nonesuch Records releases The Blind Banister. That’s Andres’ recording of his third piano concerto. it also includes his Colorful History and Upstate Obscura. That same day the Los Angeles Philharmonic will give the world premiere of Made of Tunes which Andres composed for pianist Aaron Diehl. John Adams conducts all three performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

That gave me plenty to discuss with Andres when we spoke last week. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To watch the full interview with Timo Andres, please go to our YouTube channel.

Q: Made of Tunes was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and you composed it with Aaron Diehl in mind as the soloist. What are the qualities that Aaron Diehl possesses as a pianist that most influenced how and what you composed for him? 

That’s a great question. Whenever I write a piece for anyone, I’m trying to think of their specific qualities as a performer and how I can sort of highlight those and work with those and bring them out. In the case of Aaron, I’ve known him about a decade now. I’ve heard him play many, many times. His sound and his style was very much in my ear. And also his repertoire, because I think the music that he chooses to play and that he engages with has been as much a part of his voice as anything.

That really is kind of a broad history of American piano music going back to the earliest ragtime and the stuff that we would pinpoint as saying, this music sounds American for the first time as opposed to European. That whole tradition is very inspiring to me as well. I’ve always felt myself to be specifically an American composer.

On your website, you wrote that “Aaron’s part includes opportunities for improvisation, sections in which I pass him a tune or rhythm or harmony, and he responds with something I wouldn’t have thought of.” How much freedom does he have to improvise? Which I guess is in the tradition of cadenzas going back to Beethoven’s day.

What I’ve tried to do is a little bit trickier and a little bit, certainly rarer, in that I don’t actually have an improvised cadenza. The section that you would maybe call a cadenza is completely written out. And the improvised sections are actually playing with the orchestra. That, to me, was more interesting in a way, because it’s very much what one hears Aaron do when he’s playing with a singer or a trio or in an ensemble. It’s that responding to the other people. Not just responding to the musical cues, but responding to what else is going on in the room.

The orchestra part is totally written out. I had an idea that I would maybe be able to incorporate some improvised or aleatoric bits in the orchestra part, but it’s really just too risky in terms of portability.

The orchestra is remaining on course with the notated music. Then Aaron, I always pass him something, whether that’s a chord or a series of chords or a melodic motif or literally just verbal instructions. I’m always giving him something to go on and that is very much how improvisation typically works. It’s not this idea of total freedom. You’re using certain frameworks and then replacing the things on top of those frameworks with your own ideas. That’s the skill of a great jazz improviser and that’s what I wanted to give Aaron the opportunity to do. 

As you were composing the piece, were you allowing yourself to play with some improvisations you might come up with if you were the soloist? 

I’m not an improviser. I do improvise as part of my compositional process sometimes, but it’s not a huge part of it. I think that’s one of the things that fascinates me and that I’m slightly in awe of with Aaron and people who can who can really do that on such a high level.

Maybe one day down the road I will end up performing this piece myself. In that case, I’m not quite sure what I’ll do in those sections. I may give myself a little bit more of a written framework; leaving some flexibility for what may happen in performance. But I don’t have that kind of confidence to give myself that total freedom in front of other people.

Do you have the confidence to add sociopolitical statements in your work? The reason I ask is in the description of Made of Tunes on your website you talk about the second movement, American Nocturnal, having six variations of original theme. That was all taken from a mishmash of the notes used in “the hokey patriotic song America the Beautiful.” Is that something that allows you to hold a mirror up to who we are as a country, by taking those notes so closely associated with how we present ourselves patriotically?

It’s not something that I want to make explicit. I would say that the whole piece sounds very American to me. I think the way that the piece ends, perhaps, says more than I want to say in words about that. When you hear what happens in the end, you can draw your own conclusions. I think the final orchestral gesture basically feels apocalyptic.

I read an article an interview that you gave the L.A. Times in 2009 when the L.A. Philharmonic was giving the premiere of Nightjar. You mentioned that you were obsessed with John Adams. The title for Made of Tunes is derived from a lyric in a Charles Ives song (The Things Our Fathers Loved). Adams, who is conducting the premiere, wrote a piano concerto called Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes? Is there a wink and a nod to John Adams built into the title? 

Absolutely. Of course, John has a piece called My Father Knew Charles Ives and I know [him] as an admirer of Ives’ songs. John’s music was, and is, a huge influence on me. We’ve both developed and changed so much as composers even over the past 15 years. I think there is an aspect that we share in this sense of Americanness and this sense of a fluidity between all of these different kinds of music that make up the American identity. I think maintaining that fluidity is very important to both of us. I think you’ll hear a kind of rhythmic drive, especially in the first movement, that I very much think of as being something I learned from John’s music.

As we’ve been working on the piece together he actually told me yesterday that there’s something in it that reminded him of a song of his called I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky. Which is a little bit of what you might call a cult classic among John’s works. 

I that same story in the LA Times you said about the LA Phil’s commission of Nightjar, “If you would ask me what my absolute dream commission would be, I probably would have said something along those lines. I mean, it’s Los Angeles. They’re pretty much where it’s at in terms of good music.” How has your perspective evolved since that time and where you are today with this new commission from the LA Phil?

It really feels like part of the same journey in a way. That Green Umbrella commission was one of my first commissions period – from anyone. It happened when I was still in grad school which was a vote of confidence in a way.

With everything that’s happened in the past few years, it seems like orchestras might be having a little bit of a tougher time. In general I see a kind of retrenchment into a kind of artistic conservatism.

For someone like me who’s a composer and an enthusiast of anything that’s new, that can be a little bit discouraging. But I do see the commission of this new concerto as kind of bucking that trend.

It’s actually my first subscription series appearance with the Phil. And my first piece that I’ve written for the full orchestra. It’s still a dream ensemble. They’re the the most new music friendly of the major American orchestras by far, and I think the most comfortable with a lot of the more demanding things that new music in general, and my piece particularly, asks of them.

Nonesuch Records is releasing your new album, The Blind Bannister on the same day that this concerto is having its world premiere. That’s a concerto that had its world premiere in 2016. How has your relationship with that piece evolved? How did that influence how you chose to perform it?

The Blind Banister is my third piano concerto and Made of Tunes is my fifth. So it’s kind of a week of piano concertos here. The Blind Banister was also a piece that was written specifically for Jonathan Bis. I think that piece has much more to do with a kind of classical romantic lineage and how I place myself in that as a 21st century American. I just performed the piece last month; four times in Oregon.

It’s still, I think, a piece where I figured out certain things compositionally that I can mark as a tent pole in my catalog in a way. I think formally I tried some things in that piece that I had never tried before. It’s this continuous 20 minute stretch of music, which I think at the time was the longest continuous stretch of music that I had attempted to write. I think, in general, it succeeds at articulating that amount of time in a way that’s compelling and that leads the listener through a kind of journey. It has its particular demands and difficulties and sections that are tricky to put together and balance. But the rhetoric of the piece and the formal journey of it kind of explain themselves.

During your recent NPR Tiny Desk concert of Philip Glass’ Etudes you performed etudes six and five in that order. On March 19th you’re going to be performing at Walt Disney Concert Hall as one of five pianists doing Philip Glass’ Complete Etudes 1 – 20. You edited the published edition that recently came out. When you’re working on something from an editorial perspective are there new discoveries that you were able to make, new understandings, that are separate from what you understand as you’re playing a piece of music?

I’m someone who’s very grounded in notation. I think already that puts me in the minority of musicians in the world. Most music is not made via notation. Notation is not only how I deal with music most of the time, but it’s inescapably how I think about it. Like when I hear music, I’d see notation and vice versa. All the music that I interface with I understand something more of it by seeing the notation. Very often, especially when I’m playing new work, I will actually go and re-notate certain things. Not because it’s notated wrong. It’s just there’s certain opinions that I hold, esthetically or taste wise, or just from a practicality standpoint that are sort of the differential between how a composer might think of a piece, might conceive music and then the ways that a pianist might approach that music. 

With Philip, I think his notation always has a wonderful kind of clarity to it. So it wasn’t so much about clarifying anything in particular. You can read these pieces off his hand-notated manuscripts, pretty much with no problem. This was more about meeting somewhere in the middle between a totally liberalized, typesetting of those manuscripts and then reading from the manuscripts. I think there are aspects of both documents that are useful.

You posted on your website on January 4th of 2023, “Thanks to all the artists and record labels who asked me to write about their recordings. Doing so always teaches me new ways to listen and think about music.” If we fast forward 30 or 40 years and somebody is editing your work or asking to comment on them, what would you like them most to know about who you were at this particular time in your life as a person, a composer and an artist?

I’m not really someone who likes to self-mythologize. I don’t think autobiographically. It’s not really a question I’m prepared to answer. And I don’t think it’s my job to answer it. I think of myself as someone who works very hard. My life is really about all the different aspects of the work that I do. Whether it’s writing a piano concerto or playing the work of another composer, or writing about the work of other musicians, arranging the work of other musicians. All of these different ways that I can get my hands dirty with music, so to speak. I’m up for it and I don’t stop to really interrogate what my project is in a sense for or even who I am. Do any of us really know who we are?

I think when you start to think about that, you’re becoming your own publicist. In a way you’re marketing yourself. Which is a necessity in the modern world of constant pressure to be sharing content and sharing yourself online and simultaneously the complete destruction of any kind of critical apparatus in the mainstream press or any real critical discourse that goes on in the mainstream. In the field that I work in it’s tempting to try to pick up the pieces and try to do it yourself. I have a website. I have Instagram. I have Twitter. I do all these things. But I also don’t know if they truly say anything about who I am as an artist. I think I would rather leave it to the professionals to come to their own conclusions. 

Or let the music speak for itself.

It’s a little bit cliche to say, I guess, but yeah, listen to the music. If you’re curious, it’s all in there. I don’t think it says particularly anything autobiographical. I’m not that kind of composer. But, I think you can connect the dots if you really listen.

To watch the full interview with Timo Andres, please go here.

Main Photo: Composer/Pianist Timo Andres (Courtesy Colbert Artists Management)

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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)

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Reif, along with soprano Julia Bullock (the couple are together), have conceived of a one-hour version entitled El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered that will be performed on Wednesday by the America Modern Opera Company. This is his effort to make this nearly two-hour Nativity Oratorio from 1999 more accessible for a wide range of performing arts organizations and audiences alike. The performance will take place at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York.

Their revision was first performed in 2018 at The Cloisters in New York. As with that performance, Bullock will be joined by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and baritone Davóne Tines. Mezzo-soprano Rachael Wilson sings the role at this week’s performance that was previously sung by J’Nai Bridges.

Earlier this month I spoke with Reif about El Niño, how Bullock’s relationship with Adams made this project possible and about the miracle of birth. He and Bullock recently had their first child. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

The year that El Niño premiere, John Adams gave an interview specifically about this work in which he said, “I want the work to be flexible and not tied to any one way of presenting it.” What were the conversations that you and Julia had when you came up with this revised version of presenting El Niño? 

Julia and I love the piece so much. It’s one of the great pieces of our times and it has this immediacy and this intensity. We wanted to focus on that intimacy and immediacy of the work which is reflected both in the subject matter, but also how we have decided to perform it. It’s so hard to cut anything of John’s music and the poetry, but we tried to focus on the relationship – the bond between mother and child.

It basically started with us believing that this piece needs to be heard by more people and be performed by more people. The original, which is so impactful and wonderful, is a big, big piece. It has a six soloists, three of them countertenors, a big orchestra, a big chorus and children. Not every ensemble, not every orchestra, not every chamber orchestra has the resources to perform it. John gave us the blessing for it.

I can’t imagine too many composers being open to having their works altered by other people.

I don’t know if this is just speculation, but if it was anyone else other than Julia Bullock asking John Adams, since they have such a wonderful close relationship, I’m not sure he would have been quite as happy or forthcoming. Julia approached him for her Met Museum residency and he was supportive of it. That was one iteration of it, but we there were several parameters during this presentation.

We played it at The Cloisters so it had to be a certain amount of people only. Also the length was an hour. So there were several restrictions that we wanted to break out a bit now for this iteration. I did a lot of arranging of it for the first one, but I didn’t start from scratch at that point. There was someone else. Now that we’re performing at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on December 21st, that is my arrangement and Julia’s concept.

For people who saw it at the Cloisters in 2018 what’s going to be fundamentally different about what’s getting performed this year?

It’s not fundamentally different. We have a 10-piece chamber choir which is one of the major changes. Also the instrumentation is different than we played it at The Cloisters. I added both the clarinet and the horn back into it. I went closer to John’s music, especially in El Niño, but also in The Gospel According to the Other Mary. In these two oratorios much the heart of the sound are the keyboards: it is piano, it’s sampler synthesizer and also harp guitar. Those are the heart of it.

In that same interview that I referenced at the beginning of our conversation John Adams said, “The piece is my way of trying to understand what is meant by a miracle.” How do you understand what is meant by a miracle? 

That’s a big question and I’m hoping I can answer it somewhat. John is a father and grandfather and now our son was born six weeks ago. That miracle, I think maybe that’s stereotypical or cheesy, but it is a miracle witnessing birth. Of course we know what is going on in the body and how it’s all happening. Julia and I researched a lot. But there’s something special having this miracle of birth and being so close to it. Obviously I didn’t give birth myself, but I was there every step of the way and that is a very special feeling. So I can only imagine that John was thinking a lot about his own family.

What is so fascinating to me is the selection of poems and poets that John and Peter Sellars collected for El Niño. It’s not, as usually is the case with a lot of Western European music, the birth is not presented through the lens of white men. Rosario Castellanos, an incredible poet, is featured very prominently in both the original and El Niño in our arrangement. It’s very important to us as well. It’s an incredible honor and privilege to raise a child. And I think that miracle is being brought through and shines through the whole piece. 

Do you feel like the piece is going to resonate differently with both of you now as a result of having given birth to a son? 

I think so, yes. Even just in these last few weeks, when I read the poetry and studied the music, it hits differently. It always impacted both of us in a very deep way. There’s something inexplicable when you read the beginning that talks about how this other being takes some room in the woman and suddenly your body is not your own anymore. You’re nurturing another human being. This is the only time you’ve been alone. Now you will never be alone anymore. That’s something that you grasp when you have given birth or as the father, the partner being right there. I think that’s something I wouldn’t have thought about too closely before.

Does the success of this version of John Adams’s work make an argument for truncation of larger works in a society that demands shorter pieces because of shortened attention spans?

I think being able to experience this work – it is only an hour long. I think it’s not too much task for anyone. If it was a Wagner opera of four or five hours, I understand that’s a daunting thought. But I think to sit one hour and experience a work like this and being able to really delve into it and let everything else go is good.

I think our generation right now wants that, too. They want to be able to let go as well as being impacted deeply. They want an experience. This is some of the most ferocious, most incredible and intense music and lyrics. At the same time, some of the most delicate and wondrous. So I think that is something that would speak to anyone.

And I know from many conversations with my family who have seen this or experienced the full original version, who might not be necessarily the most adventurous contemporary listeners, but were deeply impacted and and taken by this piece. I think this is a piece that people will be drawn to. 

You serve as conductor and pianist on Julia’s album, Walking in the Dark. It should be noted that Memorial de Tlateloloco from El Niño is one of the pieces you recorded for the album. What were the conversations that you and Julia had that led to works that were selected? 

It’s her album, but obviously since I’m conducting and also playing piano and her partner in life, we exchanged a lot of ideas and thoughts. I think it started with her conversation with Bob Hurwitz from Nonesuch Records who told her, “Don’t worry about what sells. Don’t worry if you can tour the album. Think about the time you live in right now. Think of what speaks to you the most. What do you want to say? The album should be a work of art.”

That really spoke to her. That speaks to me. She has an incredible gift for curation and that comes through in everything she does. She went through many different versions of different ideas of the album; what it might be, what it possibly could be. She asked me for my input with it. She started with talking and working on [Samuel] Barber and John Adams. We were traveling together performing Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Since we just are performing Barber, I thought, why don’t you think about anchoring the album with two bigger orchestral pieces.

I’m going to go one more time back to that John Adams interview from 2000, because I found it really intriguing. He said, “Entering into this myth, making art about it and finding your own voice to express it, can’t help but put you in a very humble position.” At this point in your career, whether it’s El Niño or Walking in the Dark, how does your work put you in a humble place and what realizations do you have as a result of that?

The act of conducting, being in connection with each other and with the musicians on stage, is very humbling. I never saw myself as the dictator on the podium. Sometimes I just listen and see what is being offered and make music in real time. It is a very humbling experience. The main thing as a conductor is just to bring everyone together and make sure that everyone can perform on the best level possible. And if you’re not humble in that, I don’t think you get that response from people.

As a father of a young boy, it’s humbling in a different way where I feel my whole being is in service to this young being. Everything else is taking a little bit of a backseat. At the same time I know when I’m on stage I am onstage fully present. There’s also nothing like it.

I did one gig in Colorado a few weeks ago. A sister was able to be here and help out, which was wonderful. I missed Lucas and Julia tremendously, but I was also able to just be with the musicians and be completely present and connect with them. That is a very humbling and very wonderful experience.

To see the full interview with Christian Reif, please go here.

Main photo: Christian Reif (Photo ©Simon Pauly/Courtesy ChristianReif.eu)

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This year is going out with a bang for soprano Julia Bullock. She’s curated the Rock Your Soul Festival with the Los Angeles Philharmonic that starts in earnest on November 5th and runs through November 22nd. She has her first solo recording coming out from Nonesuch Records. It’s called Walking in the Dark. Finally she and pianist/conductor husband Christian Reif are expecting their first child any day now.

Rock Your Soul Festival was originally conceived by the LA Phil as a celebration of the work and friendship of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds. The title harkens back to a spiritual (Rock My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham) and a book by noted author and activist Bell Hooks (Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem).

Amongst the artists Bullock has assembled for the festival are soprano Michelle Bradley, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges, pianist Michelle Cann (look for our interview with her later this week), singer/composer Rhiannon Giddens, conductor Jeri Lynn Johnson, singer/songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello and mezzo-soprano Jasmine White.

Walking in the Dark finds Bullock performing works by John Adams, Samuel Barber, Oscar Brown Jr., Connie Converse and Sandy Denny. It’s a beautiful record that is set for release on December 9th. Reif plays piano on the recording and leads the Philharmonia Orchestra of London as well.

Bullock’s pregnancy precludes her from performing in Rock Your Soul Festival, but it did allow for other opportunities which she described in our conversation recently. What follows are excerpts from that conversation which have been edited for length and for clarity.

I want to start by asking you about something you told Zachary Wolff in the New York Times in 2019. It was advice your mother gave you: “Make sure that your work is making a difference for the betterment of the world.” You seem to have taken up that challenge and made it your mission. How do you think that has made your career different than others and, by extension, more fulfilling for you? 

Well, I don’t know if it’s made it so much different from other people’s. I think every artist has a call in one way or another to have a mission or have their their passion realized. I don’t have a casual relationship with music. In fact, my desire to sing and also share music is because I know the impact that it’s had on my life and also how it’s enriched my life and helps me feel more interconnected and engaged.

I guess I’m always looking for ways to deepen that exploration and enjoy it in the process. I find that most of the artists whose work I really love also have this sort of mission. They’re very much conscious of the world that was going on around them and trying to make sense of it or call out hypocrisies. I’m not sure if I feel it’s so different than what other artists are doing. I guess I’ve just given myself permission to expand that in as many directions as I can imagine.

I would assume that in doing that, when someone like Peter Sellars says “Her path is going to be our path,” that’s got to be both hugely flattering and also a bit of a mantle to take on on a certain level.

I truthfully don’t like to be positioned in any capacity. I appreciate that Peter feels that the way that I work, the reflections that I have, and just the fact that I’m really dedicated to my craft and my own development and learning, is something that he wants to celebrate. I guess I celebrate that, too. That would be part of why, in the performing arts in particular, I don’t take that pressure on because that’s just a projection of something. The work that I do is not trying to live into some projection of Julia. 

In the liner notes for Walking in the Dark you conclude your statements in the liner notes with “If our intentions are translated well enough and are clearly in focus, it may lead to some moments of illumination.” What has been the process of making your intentions perfectly clear with the Rock Your Soul Festival?

It was their idea, not the title or anything like that, but just the proposal to curate a program that was focusing on the relationship between Margaret Bonds and Florence Price. Other than their vocal music and really just their songs, I was not too familiar with a lot of their repertoire – the breadth of their repertoire. It was an opportunity for me to again delve into some research and take six, seven months to consider the work of composers that I had not had the time or had this opportunity to look at.

I was reading about their personal lives and also this relationship of mutual support. They had this teacher (Price)/ student (Bonds) relationship. When there were really troubling times for Florence Price in her personal life she went and lived with Margaret Bonds for a period of time. That really communicated this beautiful thing. It wasn’t just about their artistic output. It was also about nurturing and respecting each other as human beings and fully supporting each other that way. That was something I really wanted to celebrate and acknowledge besides just sharing their repertoire.

Every single artist that was invited into the festival there is this feeling of mutual support. Every single composer that I know, that I work with personally and also the composers that I either read their letters or biographies, they openly admit how influenced they are by the people who are around them. And they seek out guidance and advice. They are influenced by what’s going on socially, politically.

I think we can learn a lot from what Florence Price and Margaret Bonds did in terms of shared experiences as musicians and as human beings. Because it goes without saying that a lot of people care more about ideologies and less about each other as human beings right now. Perhaps the festival can find a way to bridge that divide.

It can be very closed and people can get very closed. Growing up listening to recordings, my family had vinyls or cassettes playing all the time. A lot of the time we listened to music together. Even if I was alone I was still playing music, not locked into an earphone or earbuds privately, it was something that was heard in the house – the shared space. I think music can foster some really beautiful acknowledgment of each other. It’s not just some theoretical exercise. It’s like actually putting it into practice. I think that’s probably what drove me and that’s what drives most musicians to make music. Because you’re wanting a shared experience and wanting to share your own experience as well. 

Once you became pregnant and knew that being here for the festival wasn’t going to be possible did that give you any opportunities to make changes or add other things that maybe couldn’t fit into the program because you were a part of it at one point and now you were not? 

I’m sad. I’m just not going to be there. Obviously I’m growing a human being. So that’s what it is. 

I was supposed to perform History’s Persistent Voice, which featured a lot of contemporary composers who are all Black women. That was an hour-and-a-half program. I decided to save this for another season and think about another program.

That was a great opportunity to perform one of Florence Price’ full symphonies. It was also an opportunity then for me to think about the composers who were associated with History’s Persistence Voice and look at some of their other pieces and see if there was a way to feature their work. 

I’m really excited Courtney Brian’s Sanctum is included. Her work is just super powerful and I’m so glad that that is going to have a premiere at the LA Phil. Valerie Coleman’s selections from her Phenomenal Women will be featured as well. It’s the first time that she will have anything performed at the Phil.

Your first album is going to be something that was to be considered carefully. Now that you’ve recorded it, and I know from earlier in this conversation you haven’t listened to it recently, but what would you like listeners to know about you from hearing the choices that you made for Walking in the Dark and the performances you give?

What do I want them to know about me? I really hope it is just an invitation. All of the music that’s on this is material I’ve lived with for honestly two decades and some of it I’ve performed for a decade. The chance to lay it down and be a part of a recording legacy of some of these pieces that have also been recorded by so many different artists was a rare and wonderful opportunity. It’s not one that I take for granted.

Walking in the Dark, I mean the title of it. I didn’t write this in the liner notes and I’ve only brought it up to a few people, but I want to make it very clear that darkness is not something that should have, in fact, any kind of negative association. I feel in some ways that darkness, or blackness even, has been conditioned in certain parts of societies or cultures to have negative connotations and somehow promotes the idea of a white supremacist ideology. That really is not something that I can tolerate.

I guess it’s been something I have grappled with – a collective question about identity or I have felt that I have had to question my identity for a very, very long time. I made a lot of peace with who I am and how I also am expanding in the various roles that I can take on and feel comfortable in.

James Agee, who probably needs no introduction to you since his poetry inspired Samuel Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915 (which Bullock performs on Walking in the Dark), is quoted as saying, “Some people get where they hope to in this world. Most of us don’t.” I feel like in watching your career over the last number of years that you’re actively working through your art and through your activism to get the world to where you hope it will be. As a soon-to-be mother, what is the world you’d like to see your child living in and how do you think your art can pave a path for that to be a reality? 

Well, I hope that this child will feel safe. That the child will not be limited in anything that they want to invest in and enjoy. That there will be not be a lot of assumptions made or anticipated projections of this child and what they feel they have to represent so that they can just live their lives. But there’s something in safety that feels really important right now.

Photos of Julia Bullock (By Allison Michael Orenstein/Courtesy Askonas Holt)

The post Soprano Julia Bullock Wants to Rock Your Soul appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

#1: The Return of Live Performances

There isn’t any one show that could top the fact that we were able to finally return to the glorious experience of live performance in theaters, concert halls, outdoor venues and more. As great as streaming programming, it could never replace the centuries old practice of communal celebration of life through plays, musicals, concerts and dance.

Yes there were new rules to get accustomed to. Some required masks, others didn’t. Proof of vaccination became required (and that’s a good thing in my book). The first time I returned to a theatre and found my seats was the best possible therapy for my soul. If you read Cultural Attaché I’m sure you feel the same way.

#2: Fire Shut Up In My Bones – Metropolitan Opera

While I wasn’t able to see Terence Blanchard‘s powerful and moving opera in person, I did take advantage of the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series to see a live transmission from New York. Blanchard and librettist Kasi Lemmons have taken the memoir by Charles M. Blow and created an opera that is going to be performed around the world.

So rich is the storytelling, so brilliantly was the production directed by James Robinson and Camille A. Brown (who also choreographed), so spectacular was the singing, Fire Shut Up In My Bones was easily the single most impressive performance of the year.

Hopefully the Met will add additional showings of Fire Shut Up In My Bones via their Live in HD series or make it available for streaming online.

The opera will be performed at Lyric Opera of Chicago beginning on March 24th of this year. For more details and to get tickets, please go here.

#3: Caroline, or Change – Roundabout Theatre Company at Studio 54

I’ve been a fan of this Jeanine Tesori/Tony Kushner musical since I saw the first production (twice) in New York at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in 2004. I loved the show so much I saw it a third time when it came to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles later the same year.

Color me pre-disposed to like this revival. What surprised me most was that even though this Michael Longhurst production was more lavishly produced than the original, it never lost one bit of its heart. Hugely contributing to the emotional wallop of this show was Sharon D. Clarke’s towering performance as Caroline. She’s definitely going to receive a Tony Award nomination and deserves to win for her remarkable work.

Caissie Levy, Kevin S. McAllister, Harper Miles and N’Kenge all made incredible impressions. Plus it’s always great to see Chip Zien on stage – I’ve been a fan of his since Into the Woods.

If you are in New York or going this week, you still have time to catch this amazing production before it’s last performance on January 9th. For tickets go here.

#4: Santa Fe Opera 2021 Season – Santa Fe Opera

I had never attended a production at Santa Fe Opera prior to this summer. I don’t intend to miss any seasons going forward. This is a truly magical place to see opera. This summer found a smaller line-up than in non-COVID years, but the four consecutive nights in early August were a great introduction to this wonderful tradition.

On tap this year were The Marriage of Figaro, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Benjamin Britten), the world premiere of The Lord of Cries (John Corigliano and Mark Adamo) and Eugene Onegin. My personal favorite was Britten’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s play.

Each night, however, had plenty of joys to be found: whether it was my second time seeing Anthony Roth Costanzo in a opera (the first being Ahknahten), revisiting the joys to be found in Tchaikovsky’s brooding opera, enjoying the staging of Mozart’s classic opera or experiencing the tailgating experience that is de rigueur before each performance.

I’m excited about this summer’s season as my favorite opera, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, is being performed at Santa Fe Opera for the first time.

#5: West Side Story

I was completely skeptical about what Steven Spielberg would do with one of my favorite musicals. That he had Tony Kushner working with him gave me some optimism. Try as I could to wrangle details from colleagues who were working on the film, I was completely unable to glean any information about what kind of updating and changes were being made.

When I saw the movie on opening weekend I was thrilled to discover that my concerns had all been for naught. Simply put, I think this is a vastly superior film than its Oscar-winning predecessor. I’ve always found this Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents musical emotional (let’s face it, it’s Romeo and Juliet), but seeing it so close on the heels of Sondheim’s passing probably intensified my emotional response.

Sondheim said how excited he was for audiences to see what had been done to West Side Story. I know he wasn’t a fan of the original film – feeling it was too close in presentation to the stage version – so I had my fingers crossed he was right. And he was. If you haven’t seen the film yet, do so. It’s the kind of film that must be seen on a big screen with terrific sound.

#6: Head Over Heels – Pasadena Playhouse

If you had asked me what the odds were that a jukebox musical using the songs of The Go-Go’s would be a show I would see at all, let alone twice, I would have given you huge odds against that happening. And I would have lost my shirt! What Sam Pinkleton and Jenny Koons did with this production was create the best party of the year.

Alaska 5000, Lea DeLaria, Yurel Echezarreta, Freddie, Tiffany Mann, George Salazar, Emily Skeggs and Shanice Williams put their hearts and souls into this story of family, acceptance and love. The all-female band rocked the house.

Both times I saw the show I opted for the on-stage/standing room seats and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. At the first performance Lea DeLaria made a comment during the show about my pants. For the second performance I had a better idea where to position myself to have an even better time than I did at the first performance.

This was a party I never wanted to end.

#7: desert in – Boston Lyric Opera

This streaming opera/mini-series is definitely not your parent’s opera. It is guided by its own rules as it tells the story of a unique group of strangers (or are they) who congregate at a seedy motel.

The music was composed by Michael Abels, Vijay Iyer, Nathalie Joachim, Nico Muhly, Emma O’Halloran, Ellen Reid, Wang Lu and Shelley Washington. The libretto was written by christopher oscar peña.

Appearing in desert in are mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard (for whom the project was written), soprano Talise Trevigne, Tony-nominated performer Justin Vivian Bond (Kiki & Herb Alive on Broadway), actors Carlis Shane Clark, Alexander Flores, Anthony Michael Lopez, Jon Orsini, Ricco Ross and Raviv Ullman with vocal performances by tenor Neal Ferreira, Tony Award-winner Jesus Garcia (La Bohème), baritone Edward Nelson, tenor Alan Pingarrón, soprano Brianna J. Robinson, mezzo-soprano Emma Sorenson and bass-baritone Davóne Tines.

The project was directed by James Darrah who also oversaw the Close Quarters season of films from Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; directed a production of Les Enfants Terribles for Long Beach Opera (that took place in a parking lot) and, underachiever that he is, also directed The Lord of Cries at Santa Fe Opera.

You can still stream desert in. Go here for details.

#8: Cécile McLorin Salvant – The Ford

Without a new album to promote jazz vocalist Salvant took to the stage at The Ford in Los Angeles for a concert with Sullivan Fortner that was nothing short of pure joy. She and Fortner have such a musical bond that she can make up the setlist on the spot and he’s ready to dive right in to dazzle the audience. As they did on this late September evening.

The only problem with seeing Salvant perform is you can never get enough. Truly. Rare is the performer who can so thoroughly enrapture an audience with their skill the way Salvant can.

That should come as no surprise for an artist who has won three consecutive Grammy Awards for her three most recent albums. Her newest album, Ghost Songs, is being released by Nonesuch Records in March. No doubt the next Grammy Awards season will find Salvant’s latest album on their list of nominees.

#9: Billy Porter: Unprotected

Porter’s memoir was released in the fall and it is one of the most inspirational and entertaining memoirs I’ve ever read. He’s a Tony Award (Kinky Boots), Emmy Award (Pose) and Grammy Award (also Kinky Boots) winning performer. He’s also been setting the fashion world on fire with his inventive and creative looks on runways from the Academy Awards to the Met Gala in New York. Let’s just say he knows how to make an entrance.

In Unprotected Porter details the many obstacles put in his way through challenges at home to being subjected to harsh criticism from his church to casting directors who thought he was too much. Though it all he remains steadfast in his individualism and his talent. It’s a lesson we can all use. As he says in his memoir, “My art is my calling, my purpose, dare I say my ministry.” I, for one, found a lot to learn from his ministry.

Gay men and women are not the only audience for Porter’s ministry. The life lessons he endured and his response to them is precisely the nourishment our souls need today. You can also clearly hear Porter’s voice in the book. So engaging and entertaining is his book I read it in one sitting. I found it impossible to put down. I think you will, too.

#10: Ledisi Sings Nina Simone – Hollywood Bowl

Anyone who is brave enough to tackle material made famous by the incomparable Simone either has a lot of guts or a lot of talent. Ledisi proved she had both in this memorable concert at the Hollywood Bowl in July (which she performed elsewhere as well.)

Ledisi wisely chose not to emulate her idol. Instead she made each song her own while still retaining a sense of what Simone’s original recordings offered. She released a seven-track record, Ledisi Sings Nina Simone, but added more songs to her concert. It was particularly interesting to her performance of Ne Me Quitte Pas and then hear it performed by Cynthia Erivo less than a week later at the same venue. Who sang it better? Let each who saw both shows answer that question.

Runners up: Vijay Iyer’s latest album Uneasy; Veronica Swift for her album This Bitter Earth; The Band’s Visit touring production at The Dolby Theatre in Hollywood; Jason Moran solo piano performance as part of LeRoy Downs’ Just Jazz series; Springsteen on Broadway; MasterVoices’ Myths and Hymns and Cynthia Erivo singing Don’t Rain on My Parade at the Hollywood Bowl.

Here’s hoping there’s even more to see and hear in 2022. What’s on your list? Leave your choices in the comments section below.

Happy New Year!

The post Top 10 of 2021 appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

The work, which was composed as part of a commission from Trinity Church Wall Street, speaks to environmental concerns. In fact, rather than have the Mass speak to God, Mother Earth is to whom the work is addressing. Mass for the Endangered had its world premiere in 2018.

Snider has been commissioned to compose and/or had her music performed by The New York Philharmonic, The San Francisco Symphony, Roomful of Teeth and many more. Amongst her best known compositions are Penelope and Unremembered. This year she was to have the world premiere of Forward Into Light, a new work about the suffragette movement, but the pandemic forced a postponement of that.

I’ve listened to Mass for the Endangered ten times. It is the perfect work for our troubling times. It was the timeliness of the recording’s release where I started my recent phone conversation with Snider. The comments below have been edited for length and clarity.

How do you feel about this record coming out while the earth is sending very serious messages about how endangered the planet and its occupants are right now?

It is crazy how it suddenly became much more intensely topical. I just hope the music creates a space where people can reflect on this reality that we’re in and take whatever is meaningful about it.

When I write a piece of music, I’m not writing for the activist purpose, per se. It’s partly this personal therapeutic need to write music, but also to express my own grief. I’ve always been somebody who cares a lot about nature and the environment. I spend a lot of time composing outside. This was a vehicle for me to write about the loss of control over the environment. I had no idea that Covid was going to happen when I was writing the music, but when it meant we had to postpone the concert and plans for releasing the album, it felt painfully poignant.

Every day the headlines make it clear there’s a lot going on to be concerned about.

The extreme weather, the hurricanes, have been going on for decades. The increase of wildfires has increased people’s attentions to these issues. With Covid, the fact that it jumped from animals to humans has really brought this point home. According to scientists these kinds of diseases are going to rise if we continue the way we are living. The human race has become this species that is actively harming the planet and it is just terrifying to absorb the full weight of it.

How did you and librettist Nathaniel Bellows go about creating this mass?

When I received the commission for the mass, I knew I wanted to write with him. I said, what do you want to write about? He said endangered animals and the environment. Needless to say I leapt at the idea and it felt like a no-brainer. Whenever I have a strong connection the music flows a lot faster. Everything came very quickly relatively speaking. It was the same head space as writing a eulogy – remembering all the things that are special, but also mourning what we’re losing.

Mother Earth takes the place of God in Mass for the Endangered. Why?

If you sub Mother Earth for God, you can make it your own and that’s what really appealed to me about this. I’m not a religious person. I’m far from Catholic and have never been baptized. I don’t believe in God, but I believe in something. I’m not quite sure what it is. That desire to celebrate something larger is very appealing to me in this world when I’m on computers all day and being bombarded with politics and commercialism and capitalism. To get away from that and think about issues in a more spiritual way is very appealing for those who don’t have unfettered access in our daily life.

Music and nature have been inextricably linked since the beginning of mankind. As we move forward into the coming decades, what role can music play in helping us find our way? And what role would you like your music to play in that journey?

It absolutely can help us find our way forward. I think we need music now more than ever – particularly these outdoor concerts that are happening. It is incredibly restorative hearing music live. Just engaging with music is therapeutic and we need it all the more now because we’re feeling so isolated and fearful about the future. I know for myself music has played a really large role in my sanity the past few months.

I think we need much more of getting back to the basics of sharing and storytelling and communal interactions. We’re so isolated, not just now because of Covid, but our obsessions with our phones and computers – and I’m speaking without a hint of judgement because I’m totally addicted to my phone and it’s awful. We’ve got this tiniest of attention spans and need to rush from one dopamine hit to another.

Then you hear a piece of music or see a piece of theatre outside. Getting away from our screens is so important right now and getting back to the art we’ve been making for thousands of years would be really restorative right now. Art has to help us move forward and figure out what we have in common. Art is a great way to find common human experience. We all need to figure out ways to make these things happen. It’s really hard living without it.

Photo of Sarah Kirkland Snider courtesy her website

The post “Mass for the Endangered” – Music for Our Times appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

In these recordings, and on the album (from Nonesuch Records), Mehldau performs selections from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and new compositions he wrote that were inspired by them. Each of the videos showcases one particular composition by Bach with one or more compositions by Mehldau.

It is jazz. It is classical. It is all of it together. And I found this to be quite emotionally satisfying in our trying times. It’s also the kind of music that allows you to let go and become almost meditative.

This performance took place on April 2, 2018 at the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez of the Philharmonie de Paris and some of them include improvisations done in performance unique to this particular concert.

Here are all five videos for you in order. Enjoy!

Part One: Brad Mehldau performs the C# Major Prelude from Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and his own Three Pieces After Bach: I. Rondo

Brad Mehldau performs the C Major Prelude from Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and an improvised response live in Part 2.

Brad Mehldau performs the G Minor Fugue from Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and his own Three Pieces After Bach: II. Ostinato

Brad Mehldau performs the D Minor Prelude from Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and his own Three Pieces After Bach: III. Toccata

Brad Mehldau performs the E-Flat Major Prelude from Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and his own improvised response live

What did you think of After Bach Live? Leave a comment and let us know!

Photo of Brad Mehldau by Michael Wilson/Courtesy of IMNWorld.com

The post Brad Mehldau’s After Bach Live appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Muhly has assembled a program that includes his collaboration with Thomas Bartlett on Peter Pears: Balinese Ceremonial Music. This album was released in 2018 by Nonesuch Records. It features nine songs the two wrote together and three transcriptions of traditional Gamelan music.

Philip Glass has long been an inspiration for Muhly. As part of this program he will offer his own interpretations of some of the composer’s lesser-known works. These will be performed with Nadia Sirota on the viola and Caroline Shaw on vocals and violin, Alex Sopp on flute, Lisa Kaplan on piano, Lisa Liu on violin, Patrick Belaga on cello and Wade Culbreath on percussion.

Rumors are circulating about some special guests who will be part of this concert. Since Muhly has worked with Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Benjamin Millepied and more, who could they be?

I’m hoping that one or more of his operas, Two Boys, Dark Sides or Marnie might be performed in Los Angeles sooner as opposed to later.  LA Opera? Beth Morrison Projects? REDCAT?

Until that happens, we’ll have Archives, Friends, Patterns which is our pick for Your Best Bet This Week in Culture.

For tickets go here.

Photo of Nico Muhly by Heidi Solander/Courtesy of Cap UCLA

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Since his cousin, David Newman, is conducting the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, let’s first get his thoughts on the concert. I had asked him about this when we spoke about his conducting Jaws earlier this season.

“It’s not the first time we’ve done this, it’s the second,” he said. “We did a concert in Vienna a couple of years ago. I have no idea what’s going on. I know that it will be songs from his albums – all of which I’m intimately familiar with. I’m so looking forward. I’m a huge fan of Randy’s from when I was 15-years-old. I’m honored and can’t wait to do that. That’s going to be fun. He’ll have his band there, a big orchestra. We’ll have a blast with that.”

Now my setlist.

Randy Newman (1968) From this introductory album I’ll have to take one of the songs he’s written that has been covered by a lot of artists, “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today.”

12 Songs (1970) No doubt he’ll be doing “Mama Told Me Not to Come,” but I’d love to hear “Uncle Bob’s Midnight Blues.”

Sail Away (1972) In our current political climate, there’s only one song that must be played and it is from this album:  “Political Science.”

Good Old Boys (1974) Easily one of his songs that gets misunderstood – because he writes in character for the people in his stories – is “Rednecks.” No, he’s not a racist, the character in the song is. (Talking of misunderstood, have you seen the video for “I Love L.A.?”)

Little Criminals (1977) Since he had a hit with “Short People,” (another misunderstood song), he’ll feel obligated to play that song. And however much I like the idea of his playing “You Can’t Fool the Fat Man” for the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I love his song “Baltimore” from this album and that would be my choice.

Born Again (1979) My choice here is “The Story of a Rock and Roll Band” (Which is a tribute to one of my favorite bands.) But you can probably count “It’s Money That I Love” to be played from Born Again.

Trouble in Paradise (1983) Do you really think he’ll not play “I Love L.A.” at this concert? You can bet on that one. However, I’d be happy if he played this entire album with my particular favorites being “Real Emotional Girl,” “Christmas in Cape Town” and “I’m Different.” But if push comes to shove, I think he should follow up “The Story of a Rock and Roll Band” with “My Life Is Good” from this album.

Land of Dreams (1988) Easily my favorite song here, and one of his many songs that can cut you to the quick with its pathos is “I Want You to Hurt Like I Do.” I’d love him to play that cheerful little ditty. My guess is he’ll play “Dixie Flyer.”

Faust (1994) He’s probably not including this concept album for an ill-fated musical (that was performed in La Jolla in 1995.) I saw the production and I love this album, but it is’t technically a “studio album.” My pick here is “Feels Like Home.” Bonnie Raitt sang this song so beautifully on the album, but Newman has performed it in concert and added it to one of his studio albums a few years later.

Bad Love (1999) I’ll go for “The Great Nations of Europe,” for two reasons. One, it is timely. Secondly, it utilizes an orchestra and will serve the concept of this show well.

Harps and Angels (2008) It’s amazing how many of his songs comment not just on what was going on at the time they were written and recorded, but still serve as commentary today. For that reason and also because this, too, can take advantage of the orchestra, I’ll choose “Laugh and Be Happy.” (This is the album where Newman released his version of “Feels Like Home.”)

Dark Matter  (2017) Newman should collude with current events and play “Putin.”

Now, given that we have the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra for this concert, it would be great to hear from some of his film scores, too.  While I’m sure Toy Story would be included if they are and perhaps The Natural, I’d love to hear some of his music from Avalon and Pleasantville. Those are two scores from little films that got away, but they showcase Newman at his best.

Speaking of Toy Story, you can probably count on hearing “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” even though it wasn’t part of his studio albums. The song is too beloved not to be somehow be included – perhaps as an encore.

Whatever Randy Newman chooses to do on Sunday night, I can’t wait to see what’s on his official setlist. What would you want to hear him perform?

Photos by Pamela Springsteen

The post My Randy Newman Setlist appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Denk, who has had perhaps every possible superlative used to describe his playing, had just arrived in the Palm Springs area for a concert that found him playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #5 when we spoke by phone.

Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives is one of only three samples that appear on your website. What is it about this particular piece that warrants not just that sample on your site, but the playing of the complete cycle in recital?

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated my website. I think I had a fond memory of that performance. I learned the piece for the Bard Festival where they do one composer each year. I had always loved the piece because I heard Prokofiev himself play it. It opened my eyes to something in his music that I hadn’t seen, but was there. His playing uses tremendous vibrato, a lot of pedal, color and imagination. Once I heard him, I knew how I wanted to go at that music. And you don’t hear them as a complete set that often and I think they deserve it.

One of your music teachers, György Sebők, talked to you about what you referred to as “the daily rite that is how learning really happens.” When you tour with a set repertoire, how much do you continue that daily rite of discovery?

I’d say there’s a lot of daily discovery. I’ve been working incredibly hard…you always find yourself going back to basics. The piano is very humbling in that sense. You can have ideas, but they have to be translated into the muscles and that process is not necessarily instantaneous. It requires training and patience and self-observation. Some of that discovery is boring athletic discovery – how to get fingers to do things – and the other discovery is what you think the piece is about.

How does that impact the way you present the music in a given concert?

Those ideas change and evolve and you get a different sense of repose and drive you want in various pieces; what they are doing and what they are after and what you are after? What do you want to communicate to the audience?  Each composer has a different language and questions and problems you have to deal with.

You have an obvious affection for Sebők as witnessed by the essay you wrote for The New Yorker. [Denk has a deal with Random House to do a book based on this essay.]

He was an amazing musician and teacher and I only wish everyone could have heard him talk and play certain things. It altered things in a really amazing way. It was constantly about opening different possibilities. It was very little about dogma. I wanted to write this portrait as a love letter to this whole experience. I felt lucky that I met him and was grateful when The New Yorker thought it was a good idea. 

A recent review of your performance in Orlando made particular mention of you closing your eyes while playing. I recently saw Richard Goode play Mozart’s 18^thPiano concerto and he seemed to be mouthing along with the music. Glenn Gould famously hummed along in his recordings. Why do pianists have these unique ways of playing their instrument?

I’ve struggled with this myself because I have movements in performance that don’t come up in rehearsal. Sometimes in the act of playing the piano you have so much musical feeling you want to give to the phrase, but it all has to be focused to this tiny motion of the finger. There’s this tremendous translation of this whole body’s worth of feeling to these few millimeters and sometimes there’s this reaction and these things you do. I understand they are distracting, but audiences should have some sympathy for the miseries of the pianist trying to corral all this into his work as the pianist. Each instrument has its frustration in that way.

In your essay, An Artist in Residence Eats Breakfast, you say that “I was an atheist until my phone began to understand me; now I have the disturbing sense that God may actually exist, that he has plans for me.” So much of classical music is written in response to or celebration of God, religion, Jesus etc…Do you think as an atheist you approach that material differently than you might if you weren’t?

I’ve thought about this a little bit, partly because my dad was a monk for 10 years before I was born. He had a complicated relationship with religion. By the time I was a teenager he was somewhat disgusted with the church. But there was something about the lore and the mystery of the Bible that he couldn’t resist totally either.

I notice in my apartment I have a couple strange works of art. One is a Russian going to heaven pulled down by demons. The other is a strange reworking of The Last Supper with an albino hamster. For me there is something about the power of the Bible and the role of religion in music that I certainly can’t or wouldn’t want to discount. Of course, music feels like my religion. The kind of ecstasy and time release and the commonality, when many people are brought together in appreciation of a beautiful thing. It’s very hard for me to untangle, but it’s still there though I’m not religious.

When you received the MacArthur Award you said it would give you an opportunity to commission new pieces. Have you done so and if so, by whom?

I did just commission a concerto from Hannah Lash, but none of the money has actually been spent yet. So it’s all just sitting there waiting for its purpose.  Before that I have the book deal and a slate of ongoing Nonesuch Records projects. I haven’t had a chance to embark on the MacArthur yet. So when the book is off my table, knock on wood, I’ll get to that.

 

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