My top pick is:

JAZZ: nublues – JOEL ROSS – Blue Note Records

I’ve been listening to vibraophonist Ross’s nublues for several weeks now. He’s spending time amongst the blues and ballads on this quietly powerful album. All but three of the tracks on this album were written by Ross.

The three covers (the first of which is the second track on the album – a ballsy choice I love) are Equinox by John Coltrane; Evidence by Thelonious Monk and the last track is another Coltrane composition: Central Park West.

Joining Ross on nublues are Jeremy Corren on piano; Jeremy Dutton on drums; Gabrielle Garo on flute; Kanoa Mendenhall on bass and Immanuel Wilkins on alto saxophone.

Standout tracks are mellowdee, bach (God the Father in Eternity) and the title track. But I love this album from start to finish. 

The other titles in New In Music This Week: February 9^th are:

CLASSICAL:  BEETHOVEN: THE COMPLETE SYMPHONIES – Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra – NSO Recordings

A three-year journey to release recordings of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies is realized with this digital release from the NSO in Washington, D.C. (There will be a box set coming out on February 23^rd which will include a Blu-Ray of the Ninth Symphony).

Joining Noseda and the NSO for the Ninth Symphony (which is the recording that completes this series) are bass-baritone Ryan McKinny; mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor; tenor Issachah Savage; soprano Camilla Tilling and the Washington Chorus. The recording of the 9^th Symphony is spellbinding.

Does the world need another cycle of Beethoven symphony recordings? My argument has always been that no two conductors or orchestras approach this music, no matter how often performed, the same way. 

I have appreciated all the recordings leading up to this release. Take a listen, perhaps you will, too!

JAZZ:  AZIMUTH – Azimuth – ECM Luminescence Series vinyl release only UPDATE: This release has been delayed until March 29th

This album was first released in 1977 and features pianist John Taylor, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and vocalist Norma Winstone. All three having had substantial careers before joining forces.

Taylor worked with Cleo Laine and saxophonists Alan Skidmore and John Surman before forming Azimuth. Wheeler worked with John Dankworth (perhaps leading to Taylor’s introduction to Laine since they were married), Maynard Ferguson. Winstone, who was named top singer in the 1971 Melody Maker Jazz Poll, was married to Taylor, though they later divorced.

Whatever their work before or after, this is a fascinating album of six originals (written by John Taylor alone, but mostly with Winstone.)

JAZZ:  THREE – Pat Bianchi – 21H Records

The Hammond B3 organ is easily one of my favorite instruments to listen to. In this new release from organist Bianchi he is joined by saxophonist Troy Roberts and drummer Colin Stranahan for a recording of six jazz standards.

The album opens with Cole Porter’s Love for Sale and ends with Irving Berlin’s Cheek to Cheek. The three middle tracks stand out for me:  When Sunny Gets Blue, Wayne Shorter’s Dance Cadaverous and Eddie Harris’s Cryin Blues. They also perform Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust.

Three is an album that feels very much today and also of another period at the same time. 

JAZZ:  TINY BIG BAND 2 – Nikos Chatzitsakos – self-released

In 2022, bassist/composer Chatzitsakos released Tiny Big Band. Sadly, I didn’t know anything about that album or him until he reached out and sent a link to the album’s sequel, Tiny Big Band 2.

I have a feeling about sequels…they are usually unnecessary. But this one worked so effectively that I went back and listened to Tiny Big Band.

This album opens with All or Nothing at All and includes music written by Donald Byrd, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and more. Plus, they make a convincing argument that The Windmills of Your Mind, written by Michel Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman is a truly great song. (The first to do this, in my opinion, since Dusty Springfield.)

The members of this Tiny Big Band include Art Baden on tenor sax; Samuel Bolduc on drums; Chatzitsakos on doubles bass; Joey Curreri on trumpet; Robert Mac-Vega Dowda on trumpet; Gabriel Nekrutman on baritone saxophone; Eleni Ermina Sofou on vocals; Armando Vergara on trombone; Alexandria De Walt on vocals and Wilfie Williams on piano. 

While Tiny Big Band 2 is what’s New In Music This Week: Febraury 9^th, both albums are worth your time.

JAZZ:  LIVE IN CHICAGO – Gustavo Cortiñas – Desafío Candente Records

One look at the cover for this live album from drummer/composer Cortiñas and you’ll have a good idea what you’re in for: a fusion of Mexico and Chicago. Mexico City to be precise.

Listening to the opening track, Overature, you know that you’re in for something unique. Cortiñas is joined by saxophonist/clarinetist Artie Black; trombonist Matthew Davis; pianist Joaquin Garcia; trumpeter Drew Hansen and bassist Kitt Lyles on this two-disc album.

On the press notes for Live in Chicago, Cortiñas says, “I believe that it is a rite of passage for any jazz artist to put out a live record.” This one, filled exclusively with original compositions, is the kind of live album that makes me want to hear this music in person.

JAZZ:  COMPASSION – Vijay Iyer with Linda May Han Oh and Tyshawn Sorey – ECM Records

This incredible album came out last week. Sadly, I forgot. But I’m not going to let New In Music This Week: February 9^th make the same mistake.

Iyer composed most of the tracks on this album. As one would expect, they are terrific as always. What most impressed me about Compassion, besides the obvious need for it in all our lives and the beautiful way Iyer expresses this through his writing, is that incredible freedom he, Oh and Sorey have with each recording.

The trio previously recorded Uneasy which was released in 2021. If the previous album reflected the turmoil of our present-day lives, this album serves as a beautiful call to action. Do yourself a favor and listen to both albums.

That’s my list of What’s New In Music This Week: February 9th.

May whichever team you are rooting for be victorious this weekend.

Enjoy your weekend.

Enjoy the music.

Main Photo: Part of the album art for nublues by Joel Ross

The post New In Music This Week: February 9th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

One of the most highly-acclaimed jazz albums of last year was The Glass Hours. 10 songs written and performed by bassist/composer Linda May Han Oh. Each song is imbued with the thinking Oh has been doing for a number of years about the world in which we live.

Some of her album’s compositions date back to 2018. It was a time when there was a different occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there was a different mentality in the country and it was before Oh became a mother. These are just a few of the things that were on her mind at the time and are just some of the issues that find their way into her very thoughtful compositions.

Oh is on tour with her band playing much of the music from The Glass Hours. I had the privilege of seeing her perform last night at The Townhouse in Venice, CA. The openness with which they played this music allowed for a sense of urgency that was palpable. Oh has four more shows in California before the end of the month. She will then join Vijay Iyer for four nights of shows at the Village Vanguard before continuing on her own tour on the East Coast. (You can find her itinerary here.)

Last week, before she started this tour, I spoke with Oh about the album, the ideas that inspired her album and her hopes for the future. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To watch the full interview with Oh (and dozens of other interviews with artists), please go to our YouTube channel.

The Glass Hours was released last year. That means it was probably recorded in 2022 and some of the compositions pre-date those sessions. How has your relationship to these compositions evolved since then?

Most of these pieces were composed, or at least the first incarnation of them, were composed around about 2018 or so. We first performed that music at the end of 2019 at the Jazz Gallery here in New York City. This was at a time where we were nearing the end of the Trump presidency. There was a bit of uncertainty of what was going to happen next politically and I was just questioning a lot of things, a lot of our values, a lot of the systems within which we live.

I was really thinking about what how we value time and what we choose to do with it. Initially some of the songs were formed as a result of questions that I was asking myself about what I was doing in my life and as an artist.

What were some of those questions you were asking yourself?

Just in terms of how we deal with warfare and violence between countries. Assessing my amount of privilege to that. I can work here with music in a space where many people before me have fought on my behalf for my freedoms. How we can regulate women’s bodies in one way in order to preserve life, but then not provide adequate regulations when it comes to gun control and protecting our kids in schools, and also within the health care system as well. All these things culminated in these songs. Although these conversations started in 2018, they evolved a lot throughout the years. The pandemic hit in 2020 and it was a difficult time for all of us. It shifted some of these positions for me personally. A lot of them evolved, went many different directions, and then I added some other songs. The imperative is about grit and resilience which I think we all had to think about during this time. 

Was the composing of these pieces an opportunity for you to try to come to answer answers for yourself or to pose the questions so that listeners can take in, and use, your music as a way of thinking about these things?

I would say the latter, because I think a lot of these issues are so complex that it is really hard to find a definitive answer to how to solve these problems. I use music for a lot of different things. I want to bring something beautiful into the world. I also wanted to use it to question things. I also wanted to use to use it in a way that can make an impact in some way, make a shift in someone’s consciousness when they hear it.

If I’m sort of confused or wondering about something, music is really helpful for me in order to just at least digest it. I’m not necessarily looking for answers, but this is my expression of how I’m feeling, what I’m questioning.

What you’re questioning on The Glass Hours are some of the basic ideas that we have been contemplating for decades. Do you think that we will ever get to a place where these questions don’t have to be asked? Can your music play a part in getting us to that point? 

I feel like these questions are always somewhat going to be asked. There’s just so much of history repeating. You might hear some of those themes in Antiquity and Jus Ad Bellum (two songs on The Glass Hours). I think a lot about morality and, now with a child, it’s actually how we teach morality and how certain themes and stories that we teach kids – whether it be through books or movies – sometimes they aren’t clear cut. I’m always questioning how I am to do better and how I can contribute.

What does live performance give you in terms of opening up your compositions or perhaps the way you hear and perform them? Not just the way you do, but also your colleagues who are on the stage with you?

Nothing beats live music, you know? The music that we create is always so different each night to night. We may maintain some of the same messages and some of the framework of these compositions. But ultimately, so much of what we do is improvised and special to that specific moment. I’m lucky to play with musicians who are very experienced in improvisation ready for anything to happen. 

It seems to me like a lot of the questions that you’re bringing up in your music could be solved by what you and your band mates have to do every night, which is just listen. Whether anybody gets the message behind the music or not, can’t the fundamentals of live performance of music actually serve as a foundation for solving a lot of our problems?

I work with a lot of students of varying ages and I always say that everybody should learn how to improvise, learn how to play in an ensemble because there’s so much to be said about problem solving, working together, empathy, listening, that really carries through into everyday life. Whether or not some of these students choose to pursue music as a career, you’ve got these skills that you can use anywhere.

How important do you think it is for people listening to understand the point of what you’re getting to with each individual composition or is it enough that they enjoy the music?

At the end of the day, everyone’s going to perceive this music in their own individual way. If I can invite the listener to be in the moment and embrace the here and now by listening, that’s my number one goal. Everyone’s coming from such a different place and headspace and people listen for very different reasons. I hope that people can see some of the emotion, the message behind the songs.

On January 9th, the Grammys website posted a story about alternative jazz and included The Glass Hours as an example of alternative jazz. What does that or any other label mean to you as it relates to either your music or how other music is categorized?

I don’t think too much about labels when it comes to actually making the music, but I do see how it’s necessary for writers, for people in the industry to categorize or to promote certain things; publicize what this music sounds like. It kind of is what it is. I know a lot of people have fought very hard to get this new category into the Grammys, which is amazing. I’m proud of a lot of people who are rallying for more space for improvised music that isn’t mainstream, that isn’t pop music. I’m all for giving more space and more recognition to some of these musicians.

The jazz world is famous for collaborations and I think that’s what makes it all one of the most interesting genres of music that there is. You’ve had the privilege of working with Vijay Iyer, Ethan Iverson, Billy Childs, Terri Lyne Carrington and Tyshawn Sorey. How have artists like that inspired you and informed who you are as a musician today?

If we just start with Tyshawn Corey. I mean, he is just a force of nature. As a bass player I just feel so lucky to be able to play with so many incredible drummers. Tyshawn is not only an incredible drummer, you can riff with him on Max Roach and all the masters. I can also show him some of my percussion scores, and I showed him my solo piano piece, and immediately he’s telling me all the scores to check out. I’m super inspired by some of these musicians that have dedicated their lives to this art form.

You have another collaboration with Vijay Iyer on his upcoming album, Compassion (due February 2nd), which finds you once again working with Tyshawn.

[Vijay is] just a classic example of somebody who’s extremely well-versed in many different worlds and super inspiring. Someone like Terri Lyne Carrington*. She’s just a visionary and not only one of my favorite drummers, but as a composer, producer, a band leader. I’ve seen her in many leadership contexts where she really cares.

There are a lot of people in these positions of power, positions of leadership that, may or may not, do it for their own egoistic purposes. Terri Lyne is just one of those people that really cares about the people that she is trying to work with and making things better and making things more equitable.

I interviewed Vijay in 2019 and I asked him about a quote that he gave to NPR in an interview two years prior where he said, “The reason we’re on this planet as individuals is to express and reflect the moment we’re in now.” I followed up by asking him are the moments getting easier. Knowing that you also believe you’re here to express and reflect the moment we’re in now, as a composer, a musician and mother, do you feel like we’re headed in the right direction?

I definitely feel some uncertainty and uneasiness. I’m constantly reminded of incredible people day to day. I try and make sure that I acknowledge them in my life in terms of people who who want to strive for better. It’s hard to say is it getting easier. The state of the world with things like climate change and those issues, which I feel we should be doing a lot more. There are still positive things happening in the world in terms of advancements in technology to solve certain problems. It’s important to acknowledge those things.

This particular time is a very tumultuous time. I try and keep us up to date with the news as I can, at the same time knowing that a lot of the news that we hear can be very heartbreaking. Positive news is always a really good thing and I think it is good to welcome that. Easier? I don’t know. I feel very privileged in my particular life to be doing what I’m doing. I just hope for better. I have faith that we can do better. 

To watch the full interview with Linda May Han Oh, please go here.

Terri Lyne Carrington will be performing at CAP UCLA’s Royce Hall on Saturday, January 27th. For tickets and more information, please go here.

All photos of Linda May Han Oh (©Robyn Twomey/Courtesy Fully Altered Media)

The post Linda May Han Oh Has Faith We Can Do Better appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

THIS IS THE SIXTH OF OUR BEST OF 23 REVIEW OF INTERVIEWS: “It’s kind of a remarkable thing to be able to have a real relationship with your heroes. It would be beyond my 11 or 12-year-old self. It would be beyond anything he really dreamed of. To know people like Herbie Hancock…they’re almost like mythical figures to us.” That’s how saxophonist and composer Kamasi Washington describes the opportunity to co-curate this weekend’s Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival with the legendary Hancock.

The two-day festival takes place Saturday and Sunday. The line-up Washington and Hancock have assembled features Bell Biv DeVoe, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Grammy winner Samara Joy, Aziza, Poncho Sanchez, Lionel Loueke and Gretchen Parlato, Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance Ensemble at UCLA and LACHSA Jazz on Saturday. Arsenio Hall is the emcee both days.

On Sunday the line-up includes Leon Bridges, Raphael Saadiq, Ledisi, Digable Planets, The Soul Rebels, Big Freedia, Andrew Gouché & Prayze Connection, Boukman Eksperyans, Butcher Brown, The Cardinal Divas of SC and LAUSD Beyond the Bell All District Jazz Band.  

Washington will perform both nights. On Saturday with his own band and on Sunday with West Coast Get Down. The members of West Coast Get Down are Washington, Miles Mosley, Tony Austin, Cameron Graves, Ryan Porter, Ronald Bruner, Brandon Coleman and Patrice Quinn.

In 2015 his album The Epic introduced the world in a very serious way to Washington’s other-worldly vision for jazz. He continued with 2018’s Heaven and Earth and the score to the documentary Becoming in 2020.

Washington and I spoke in March about this year’s jazz festival and more. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

I spoke to Herbie Hancock in 2019 when he was on tour in Denver with you. He was curating a show for the Los Angeles Philharmonic called The Next Generation in Jazz. I asked him what he was looking for and he said there so many things changing exponentially. What do you see as the biggest changes in the four years since he and I spoke?

The biggest change I see, which I think it’s a good change – but it can be a scary one as well, is that jazz seems to be, more so than it has in a number of years, kind of re-integrating into the larger musical conversation. For a long time jazz was kind of isolated. We had our own little jazz festivals. We had our own little clubs.

Jazz is now starting to infuse into non-jazz arenas. You see people like Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Thundercat, all these other people who are taking jazz and bringing it into other arenas. And I think that’s a beautiful thing. I think that’s good for the music. 

I saw a video that you did for [record store] Amoeba’s What’s in My Bag series seven years ago. You were talking about participating in Grammy Camp and how you were so impressed with the young musicians who were there. You said you have to “watch out because they’re coming up so fast.” I don’t think 15 years ago we would have thought that young musicians would take this kind of interest in this type of music. What do you think’s changed?

We live in a different world. They grew up in a different world than where I grew up. There’s some young musicians that are so amazing. I hear them and I’m just floored. There are things that we had that they don’t necessarily have as much anymore. And things that they have now that we didn’t ever dream about having. 

Jazz, in its purest form, is an open and freeing art form that those people who are searching for artistry in music, some of them are going to find it no matter what. I think future generations are going to see even more kids gravitating towards jazz and gravitating towards the kind of the freedom and expressiveness that it lends itself to. 

These kids are going to bring stuff to the music that I just didn’t have to bring. They have a new a new reality to add. If we want them to play the music, then we have to accept who they are. They’re going to bring who they are and what they’ve been through and what their thoughts and their experiences are. That’s going to be something different to the music than its ever been. And that’s the beauty of it.

Is the word jazz, as a descriptive term for a genre of music, even appropriate anymore? You performed with Metallica. Vijay Iyer had a quote unquote classical work at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Terence Blanchard has his second opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Do you think that labels or genres are becoming passe?

The definition of the word jazz, having any type of control over what the musicians play themselves, that’s always been kind of no good to me. The functionality of a genre, to me, is just an organizational tool. If you’re scrolling through the infinite world of iTunes and you want to try to find some music that is similar to Wayne Shorter, well that’s sort of where it comes in handy. But I think when you put too much weight on it and you make it something that should dictate what the musicians are playing – jazz is this and if you play jazz, you should play this – that’s where it’s inappropriate and always has been. 

You’ve released a few singles since Becoming in 2020. And [at the time of this interview] you’re about to embark on a fairly substantial U.S. tour before the Jazz Festival. Does that mean you’re working on some new music that that might finally be recorded?

I’m almost finished now. I got one song that I have to figure out exactly what I want to do with it. I want to put it on this record. Just one more song to record. Pretty soon there’ll be some music coming down the pipeline. If I can finish this one last song.

This is one of those songs that I know is beautiful, but I’m just having a hard time figuring out exactly what it should be. That’s a weird way of saying things, but it’s like having a beautiful flower that you know you want in the garden. You just can’t really figure out exactly where it should be planted, you know?

You told Marc Maron in 2016, “The trick is letting go. Bird and those other guys, they ran right to the edge of the cliff. With Trane you got to run and jump off and just be okay falling down this cliff and have the confidence that somehow I’m going to have to land on my feet.” How does that perspective of Coltrane’s work influence the decisions you make as an artist, as a musician, and even as a man?

Fearlessness is a very important ingredient to making music. It can be kind of scary because you’re revealing your heart. It’s like you’re cracking open your chest and opening your heart up. It’s scary, but the greatest music needs to be fearless. Ultimately you have to have faith in the music and that it will lead you to where it should be.

Listening to someone like John Coltrane and hearing how far he would go, it’s almost like a cliff diver who has a parachute but he just never opens the parachute. 

Every musician has a different way of getting to the music that they have in their hearts. I’ve always been a bit meticulous. It’s always been a struggle for me to push the button to go. Once we go it is super easy for me to let go and let the music be what it is. But for some reason in my own head, I feel a need to measure everything is good. Now let’s push this plane out and see how it flies.

Maybe that’s the composer equivalent of measure twice, cut once. 

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m measure, measure, measure. Ten times.

Ronald Bernard Jr., who is a member of West Coast Get Down, said that being in this band is a gig forever. He went on to say that, “I could be 90 and Kamasi will still call me.” What makes West Coast Get Down a forever gig for you?

Our friendship and our musical relationship started when we were three years old. We’ve all had great teachers and mentors. But we’re probably all most heavily influenced by each other, you know? Whenever one of us would get into something, we all get into it. Every time we find a gem it would circulate among us.

It was just our friends who grew up in our neighborhood and we all just happened to love music and it stuck to us for our whole lives. Our friendship is more on a life level. I always say life is bigger than music and music is a propeller to life. But life is the real thing. Our friendship is forever and music is going to be forever Our musical relationship will be forever.

Max Roach, who I believe has been a big influence on you, said, “Music mirrors where we should go, have gone and can go. Music is an abstraction.” Looking forward to your next album or into the future, what strikes you at this moment in time as the most important thing you’d like your music to mirror?

This next record that I’m doing, it came during a time of me having a lot of personal reflection. A very kind of swirling transitional period in my life. I recently became a father. Normally my thoughts and music are aimed at the infinite. This record is much more based in my reality. I’m a super spacey guy, so it still has that element in it. It’s just more grounded than I’ve ever made before. Really close personally for me.

When you’re speaking a bit more directly, I want to make sure that I am conveying the thoughts that I actually have. Having the courage to just be able to let it be what it is, you know, despite whatever anyone may think.

To see the full interview with Kamasi Washington, please go here.

All photos of Kamasi Washington at the Hollywood Bowl by Farah Sosa (Courtesy Los Angeles Philharmonic Association)

The post Bo23: Kamasi Washington Collaborates With His Hero appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Sands is a two-time Grammy nominee: Best Jazz Album for his work on Christian McBride’s Out Here in 2013 and for Best Instrumental Composition for Be Water II from his 2020 album Be Water. He’s been recording his own albums since 2002’s Footprints. Sands is considered one of the finest musicians of his generation.

We spoke with him about collaborating with Bridgewater and Elling; his view of music’s ability to bridge divides and what it takes to bring an audience with an artist. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

I want to ask you about something you posted on your Facebook account in August. It was a quote by Langston Hughes. “An artist must be free to choose what he does. Certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.” How does that thought process serve as a guiding principle for you? And if it does, how does that inspire the choices you make, both in the short term and the long term for you as a person and as a musician? 

Well, it really speaks into just the reflection of who you are as an individual and just being secure in your decisions and your creative process and being truly who you are. For myself it’s been a journey discovering that. For everyone, you know, but me as a creative it’s something where you believe one thing and then all of sudden, maybe something in your life or some event or something you’ve come across changes that or shifts that. So now you have to discover what does that mean.

How do I take in this information? How do I use this? Is this information usable? It’s that way with music, it’s that way with life, it’s that way with anything; relationships, with people, as a performer with people that you meet, audience members or band members. Life takes you on a different journey. So what I try to do is to just say, “Hey, okay, this is an obstacle and this is a challenge and let’s rise to the occasion and see if we can do it.” You know sometimes you’ll be surprised that you actually will rise even higher than you thought you would.

As part of the Monterey Jazz Festival on tour you get to work with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Kurt Elling, who I think we can safely say are standard bearers of heavily-rooted jazz traditions in what they do. What is the dialogue you hope to create with them between their traditions and the direction you would like to see music go? 

We’re all friends. I’ve known them for quite some time. I look up to them as mentors. I’ve looked up to them as leaders in this music – people that have paved the way for the generations after them to present and express themselves the way they do. With that being said, it’s an honor to be making music with them and to be the musical director for them. And it’s a lot of fun because they’re very vocal, they’re very animated, they’re very charismatic and they’re very involved. Which is wonderful because they will let me know things that they want to try.

The great thing about working with Dee Dee and Kurt is that they are so open to trying new things. If anything, more new things than what I feel maybe some audience members are comfortable with. Which is an amazing thing because me, being in a different generation, I can push and pull and challenge them in a way. They are more than happy to do so. So it’s actually a really fun environment to work in and to just collaborate with these two artists is really incredible.

What is an example of something that Dee Dee might want to do that would be outside the comfort zone of what people might expect her to do?

If I say to Dee Dee I’m thinking about doing this Jefferson Airplane thing, she’s like, absolutely cool, you know? Or if I say to Kurt I’m thinking about doing this Brian McKnight thing, you know, like I heard this and I want to kind of do an arrangement of it. He’s like, absolutely, let’s try that. Let’s check it out and see what we can do.

How do the six of you choose what’s going to be the right vibe for each evening’s show?

Being the musical director it is my job and my duty to try to figure this out. It is such a wonderful challenge to have. When you’re dealing with these amazing artists on stage who have these different ways of expression, really the music can go anywhere. So you will hear some standards. You will hear some original compositions. We’re representing the Monterey Jazz Festival, so we will be paying homage to the past and we will be reinventing or re-imagining some songs that may have been performed at the festivals. Music by Dave Brubeck, Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday. So we do have that. Then also we have our own stuff as well that we’re working out. So I am up to my neck in possibilities. Just in case the crowd shifts, I could say, let’s play this or let’s do this. Or let’s feature Lakecia and Yasushi on this. So there’s different ways to skin a cat, as they say.

You’ve studied with with Jason Moran and you also studied with Dr. Billy Taylor and Vijay Iyer. A trio of musicians who all have enormous similarities and equally enormous differences, both in terms of how they play and how they look at music. How do you feel your learning from them is exhibited through the work you now do as a musician?

With Dr. Billy Taylor’s business, you know, I’ve learned a lot from him on the business side of it. Just being an artist and being in meetings, being in the boardroom, curating different things. You know, the wonderful thing about Vijay, Jason and myself, we’re all products of Dr. Taylor. [He] was the one that came before us that really established the groundwork on what we do as pianists, as composers, as arrangers, as people that curate music and bring music into a place that may not have anything that exists there.

Studying with Jason Moran, pianistically it was still steeped in the tradition. It was just a different version of it. What he brings to it is visual art. And he brings very different, I won’t even say different, it’s just the other hand, you know. If you have the right hand, it’s just the left hand. That’s it. It’s a beautiful complement to that.

Vijay Iyer is also sort of in the middle of that. I’ve also had teachers like Dave Brubeck, like Geri Allen as well. They all have shaped how I interpret, how I present the music, how I talk about the music, how I feel about the music, the possibilities that you could have. The great thing about Jason Moran is Jason lets you know that the possibilities with music are something that’s malleable and have no limit. You can put it in any space. You can bring it anywhere. You can touch it if you want to. You can smell it. You can taste it. 

All these these geniuses have brought a certain way of presenting the music and also are just absolutely amazing. They’re all steeped in the history. When you think of Jason Moran, you think of Thelonious Monk. When you think of Geri Allen, you think of Herbie Hancock, you think of Bud Powell. When you think of Dr. Billy Taylor, you think of Art Tatum, you think of Earl Hines, you think of Erroll Garner. When you think of Count Basie, you think of Fats Waller. So there’s all these people that come through Duke Ellington and so now we get to me. So hopefully you think of all these people when you hear me. All of my influences, all the people that I love, all the people that I admire, all the people I respect as well.

What do you think of when you think of your music?

I just think of me. That’s the honest answer. I think of just what I’ve been through in my life and where I would like to go. So that’s my music. So any time you listen to me you’re hearing me.

You’ve talked on multiple occasions about Dr. Taylor telling you that one of your jobs is about bringing the audience along with you. What are the challenges that you and any other jazz musician faces in accomplishing that? What do you think is the best way to realize that advice he gave you?

I think it’s something that you have to have patience and awareness to do. Some some artists don’t care, right? Some artists like I play what I play and it is what it is. And you like it or you don’t, you know? I want to bring you into the fold. So this is how we do that. I think there’s different versions of it. With Dr. Taylor I would watch him, before playing a song, talk about what you were going to hear. He would literally break it down for you. Then you get some people that don’t say anything and just play – which is also an experience in itself as well. So it really depends on how you want to present the music. I do a little bit of both. Sometimes I feel like talking and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I’ll tell the audience I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to play. You’re just going to have to be open and listen to it and see what you think because I know you’re going to like it.

It’s been a couple of years since you’ve had a new album out. You posted on January 1st on your Instagram account that it was time to start new work. What can we look forward to after this tour?

There’s a lot of new music I’ve been writing. I’m working on a couple different projects. So be on the lookout for good things. I have a couple of albums that I’m trying to do this year – so you might get more than one which will be a lot of fun. It’s a lot of work, but I’m excited. I’m inspired. Now I live in Los Angeles, so there’s new experiences and new new feelings and new things to write about. So I’m looking forward to presenting my findings and my experiences and just having a ball creating.

I know one of your passions is photography. How does photography find its way into your music and perhaps how does your music might find its way into your photography? 

It’s a little bit of both. With photography what I love about it is the discovery of composition; looking for different different angles to look at something. It all depends on what you’re really looking for out of that subject. That’s the same thing with the music, whether it’s an original composition or a song that’s been done countless times. That’s the subject, but how do we make this unique? What are the angles that I need? What is the lighting that I need? What is the the shading?

When I say lighting and shading, I’m talking about harmony, I’m talking about rhythm. How do I approach this to make it my own? How much do I need? Why does this mean something to me? Trying to understand that.

I also cook as well. So it’s also doing that in the kitchen. Everything kind of goes hand in hand from cooking. What spices do I need? How do I season this? How do I sear this? How do I do this to create this thing? Then the end result is this great meal. The end result is this great song. The end result is this great photo.

In an interview you did in 2017 with Ralph A. Miriello you were talking about how you wanted “to represent America and where I am from.” Where do you see America as we start 2023? How does that influence how you want to express yourself?

As always, there’s a lot to do in America. But I believe that we have the capability to do all of it. If anything, music and art have taught us that we all have compassion and we are looking for the same things. We all are trying to reach for the same goals. We are all trying to come together as one. We do need to remember to do that. I do believe that there is potential and I do believe that there is a way of coming together to resolve some of the issues that we have.

There’s also some things that are very sensitive that we have to understand. These are different times. I believe that with communication, trust and love, that anything can be accomplished. That’s what I’m looking forward to for the rest of the year. And I believe that we will be able to reflect that in the art that we create.

In Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Mysticism of Sound & Music, a book I know you love, there is a line that you’ve highlighted on social media, “The more one studies the harmony of music, and then studies human nature – how people agree and how they disagree, how there is attraction and repulsion – the more one sees that it is all music.” What role can and should music play in getting us to a place where that line can serve as inspiration for finding our commonality in spite of divergent perspectives on the world we live in?

I believe music, it always does that. Music has never not been the bridge between things that went unsaid. Music has always been that instrument that when there are no words and there’s no way to express, we do it this way. We do it through music. We do it through art. We do it through film. We do it through painting, drawing. We do it through photography. We do it through different mediums. But with music I believe it’s one of the most important ways of expressing yourself because it really allows you to fully understand in a sound what is happening. You can resolve anything with music, you can resolve complications, but you have to be open to what that resolve is going to be. You can always do it within music. I believe music is the bridge between it all.

As long as whoever is hearing it is willing to actually listen.

Absolutely. Absolutely. 

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

Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour itinerary: January 19th: McCallum Theatre in Palm Springs; January 20th: Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles; January 21st: Fox Tuscon Theatre in Tucson; January 23rd: Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake City; January 25th: Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, CA; January 26th: Balboa Theatre in San Diego; January 27th: Gallo Center for the Arts in Modesto, CA; January 29th: Campbell Hall at UCSB in Santa Barbara. There’s a second leg of the tour beginning on April 6th in Hartford, CT and continuing through April 23rd in Detroit. For that itinerary, please go here.

Main Photo: Christian Sands (Photo by Anna Webber/Courtesy Music Works International)

The post Christian Sands Celebrates Jazz Old and New appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Childs gave the world premiere performance of of Darkness and Light. Whether the evening fully answered the goal of finding where these genres of music overlapped, it did confirm that Childs is someone who successfully lives in both worlds.

On Thursday, October 14th, Childs and his Jazz Chamber Ensemble, will be headlining an Angel City Jazz Concert at The Ford in Los Angeles. Joining them on the bill are vocalists Dianne Reeves and Moira Smiley, Lyris Quartet and there will be poetry recited by Alexander Gedeon, who was named earlier this year as the Minister of Culture for Long Beach Opera.

Childs has received five Grammy Awards from amongst his 16 nominations. His most recent album was 2020’s Acceptance. His work also appears on Inna Faliks’ new album Reimagine: Beethoven & Ravel. In short, he’s one of the most in-demand and prolific artists of our time.

Yesterday I spoke by phone with Childs about his music, what he wants to say with it and the important role audiences play in hearing the music. What follows are excerpts from that conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

Do you see any value in trying to define or categorize music?

I don’t. That is the ultimate answer. There is gonna be music that springs from various cultures that has its own cultural take on what defines the values of the music. The aim of music is to connect with the listener and to bring something healing to the listener. So in that regard music is universal. The language of the music is developed without words. So people listen to it and it affects them emotionally or psychologically or [how]ever. There are different ways that various cultures have dealt with music doing that and there are differences there. But I see the ultimate goal as the same.

You did an online interview with Grant Gershon and Jenny Wong of the Los Angeles Master Chorale in June of last year where you talked about the challenges you were facing in writing music. How that situation changed for you?

I just got a barrage of commissions, which is as a great problem to have, and they just pile up like this one on the other. So you get overwhelmed and you don’t know where to begin. I’m not the kind of composer that can multi-task, like composing this thing and then composing that other thing at the same time. I have to do one thing at a time.

In 2020, you’re looking at COVID which is completely destroying the very essence of why we do music. We can’t congregate. The way we do business is the way we meet, the way we get educated, the way we worship – it’s through congregation. And so when a disease is preventing me from doing that, it’s very psychologically traumatic. So there’s that.

And then Trump was still president, which was, I’ll just put it euphemistically, very uncomfortable for me. Then the general election results denial was stressful. With the fires going on, with the racial stuff, George Flloyd and all of that stuff made it really difficult to say, “Yeah, let me write my next great symphony.”

You’ve been performing recently around Los Angeles. What does it mean to you to be back on stage with live audiences?

It means everything. When I conceive of music I’m also thinking of what impact is it having on the listener. It’s a main motivation to compose music to have it effect people. To have people there in a live situation where they can just get the direct transference of the music to their ears – that’s important. That’s why you do music.

For Thursday night’s show you’ll once again be working with Dianne Reeves. What does your collaboration with her offer you that is unique to who she is and what she brings as an artist? 

I have been working with her since 1977, so we kind of know each other. We’re kind of cut from the same cloth. We’re close in age and we grew up listening to the same things and being influenced by the same things. Conceptually she really understands how I hear music. And I really get where she’s coming from, too.

I think the thing that both of us ultimately strive to do in all of our performances is to impart a dramatic experience to the listener. She does it through her voice and through her interpretation of lyrics and the visceral impact of how she’s singing. I try to do the same through composition through structure and melodic and harmonic motion. I utilize those things to try to elicit an response, you know? So that’s the ultimate goal. I also think that we like music that is ambitious and large and big and that deals with the big issues. It’s not really minimal but maximal music almost.

Is it important for you as a composer and a performer for audiences to understand what you’re saying with your music? 

Yeah, I do. Otherwise, what’s the point? I mean, not so much to understand, but be moved by it and have it have an impact. I think it’s important for us to to make that impression on the audience. It’s not as important to me for the audience to understand in a technical sense what we’re doing. But it’s very important for me for them to understand what we’re trying to say and to be open to it. We’re both trying to do that.

What will you be addressing in this concert?

There’s going to be a lot of stuff that’s dealing with things of a political nature, things of a racial nature and issues that I want to address that are on my mind.

With everything that’s going on in the world, it would seemingly be irresponsible not to address these issues.

I would think so. Well, you know, some people just want to entertain – which is fine. Some people view their art as maybe an escape for people to come to, to run away from the problems of the world. But I think there can be an element of both. I think music is ultimately to heal people and sometimes you need to confront what the problem is to be healed.

For healing to take place, listeners must be engaged. In 2011, you told All About Jazz that you make the distinction between active listening and passive listening. What are your thoughts about the art of listening and whether technology is leading us down a path where passive listening is the most we can hope for?

That’s a danger and that’s unfortunately what is happening. You have people who are satisfied with listening to something off of their playlist by just turning on their iPhone and listening to it through those crappy speakers, rather than someone who actually gets the vinyl and puts it on the turntable and listens to it through their hi-fi system or actually goes to a concert and listens to the whole thing and has an experience. That’s kind of what’s going on.

Then you have like pop producers who are compressing the music so that it just slams you in the face. And it’s like the same. You know there’s like about a hundred songs that are written off of the same harmonic progression in different permutations. It all sounds the same. The vocal licks sound all the same. It’s almost as though there is this concerted effort to limit people’s limit the range of expression that people can tolerate and listen to, you know?

But I fight that. My answer to that is to keep writing music that I think is important. I think people are humans underneath all of this. I think there’s an element of people when they hear the truth, they respond to it regardless of what they’ve been exposed to.

For tickets to Thursday night’s concert at The Ford, please go here.

All photos of Billy Childs by Raj Naik/Courtesy Unlimited Myles

The post Billy Childs Writes Music That Heals appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Our top pick this week is actually a twofer. Jazz vocalist Jazzmeia Horn, who has taken the world by storm since her 2017 debut album A Social Call, is featured in two concerts you’ll want to watch this weekend.

With several operas, a very wide range of dance, play readings and more, it will seem at first glance like a pretty intense selection of programs. However, nothing is what it seems this week. Read about each of these programs and you’ll find they almost all represent a new way of telling both familiar and new stories.

Here are the Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st.

*TOP PICK* JAZZ: Jazzmeia Horn – SFJAZZ – June 18th – 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT and Cal Performances on demand through July 21st

This week’s Fridays at Five offering from SFJAZZ is a 2019 performance from the 37th San Francisco Jazz Festival in support of her second album, Love and Liberation.

She rose to prominence after winning the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition.

In a 2017 review of a performance Horn gave at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in New York, Giovanni Russonello wrote in the New York Times after calling her one of the most talked-about jazz singers to emerge since Cécile McLorin Salvant and Gregory Porter:

“…she’s possessed of some distinctive tools, all of which were on display: a pinched, sassy tone in the highest register; a fondness for unguarded duets with her bassist (at Dizzy’s, it was Noah Jackson); an array of rough, pealing nonverbal sounds that add drama to codas and interludes, hinting at meanings in the music that go beyond what fits on the page.”

Should you be unable to catch the streaming of this concert on Friday, there is an encore showing on Saturday at 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT. Tickets are $5 which includes a one-month digital membership to SFJAZZ.

If you want to explore more of what Horn can do (and perhaps see and hear how she evolved her performances and her set list almost two years later), you can check out a concert filmed at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge in February of this year for Cal Performances.

That concert is available for on-demand streaming with prices ranging from $5 for Cal students and $15 per non-student viewers up to $68 for those who have the ability to pay.

Horn is a force to be reckoned with. These two concerts allow you to chart her growth as, we hope, a new album will soon be on the horizon.

OPERA: Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex – LA Opera – Now – July 18th

Igor Stravinsky composed this opera/oratorio in 1927. Based on the tragedy by Sophocles, it is a work for orchestra, speaker, soloists, and male chorus. If you believe you know well the story of Oedipus, I think you’ll be surprised at all the ultimately timely material to be found in this story.

For this filmed performance of Oedipus Rex, Los Angeles Opera has assembled a terrific ensemble.

Singing the title role is tenor Russell Thomas. The role of his mother, Jocasta, is sung by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Creon and the Messenger are sung by John Relyea. Tiresias is sung by Morris Robinson. The role of the Shepherd is sung by Robert Stahley. Serving as narrator is Stephen Fry (via video).

James Conlon conducts the LA Opera orchestra.

I attended a rehearsal of this production two weeks ago (prior to a live performance in Los Angeles – LA Opera’s first live performance back in their home at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion). Collaborating with them is Manual Cinema. They are the Chicago-based company that did a truly memorable production of A Christmas Carol that was streamed last December (and was also a Best Bet).

At 50 minutes, this is a terrific way to get some opera into your weekend. And it’s free; though donations to LA Opera are encouraged.

If you want to see more of what Thomas and Bridges have to offer, let us remind you of LA Opera’s Signature Recital Series which has recitals by each of them available for streaming through the end of the month. Check out our preview here.

PLAY READING: Dear Elizabeth – Spotlight on Plays from Broadway’s Best Shows – Now – June 21st

You don’t need to know who poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell were. You don’t need to know that they became very good friends, mostly through the hundreds of letters they wrote to each other. Nor that they had an affair. You don’t even need to know that this play, which had its New York premiere in 2015, is written by award-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl.

All you really need to know about this reading is that it stars Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep. The two famously appeared together in Sophie’s Choice. This was the film that earned Streep her second Academy Award. They also appeared as exes in Jonathan Demme’s Rikki and the Flash in 2015.

Not to be outdone, Kline won an Academy Award for his performance in A Fish Called Wanda.

They appeared on stage in the 2001 production of The Seagull and the 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Delacorte Theater as part of The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park series.

This seems like a pretty easy choice to make for your weekend plans. Why not see these incredibly talented actors together again? This is the final play in the Spotlight on Plays series. They are clearly going out on a high note.

Kate Whoriskey directs.

Tickets are $19 and allow for streaming through Monday, June 21st at 6:00 PM ET/3:00 PM PT. Proceeds benefit The Actors Fund and The Acting Company.

OPERA/MINI-SERIES: desert in – Boston Lyric Opera – Now available

As befits a project from the mind of James Darrah, desert in does not fit easily into any one category. It is a mini-series. It is an opera. It contains nudity. There’s strong sexual content and adult language. It also comes from the minds of playwright christopher oscar peña and Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Ellen Reid.

In other words, it’s like nothing you’ve seen before.

The stories of multiple characters swirl around a lodge in the desert and its swimming pool. A combination of trysts, betrayals and shamanic ceremonies result in the lodge’s owners Cass and Sunny and new guests Ion and Rufus caught up in its mysterious ways.

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.

Joining Reid in composing music for desert in are Michael Abels, Vijay Iyer, Nathalie Joachim, Nico Muhly, Emma O’Halloran, Wang Lu and Shelley Washington. Each one a truly fascinating composer.

Six of the eight episodes have been released and are available for viewing on operabox.tv. The final two episodes will be released in the next couple of weeks.

You have several options for viewing with varying price points. You can subscribe to operabox.tv, purchase on-demand streaming of the entire series or for individual episodes. Details can be found here.

CLASSICAL MEETS HIP-HOP: Common with the Los Angeles Philharmonic – Debuts June 18th

We’ve previewed the second season of the LA Philharmonic’s Sound/Stage series, but can attest from personal experience that seeing Common on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl with the orchestra is an event like few others. Frankly, it’s almost one of a kind, except that they created this 17-minute film available for free streaming that didn’t come from that concert.

Common is one of the most important and exciting performers in hip-hop. Gustavo Dudamel leads one of the most adventurous orchestras in this country. This pairing is going to please those who can’t imagine hip-hop with classical music institutions and those who can’t imagine a symphony orchestra with hip-hop.

Other episodes in this series are available for streaming and can be found at the link above.

OPERA: This Little Light of Mine – Kentucky Opera in collaboration with the Santa Fe Opera – June 19th – 6:00 PM ET/3:00 PM PT

Here’s a great opportunity to see a work truly in development. The Santa Fe Opera commissioned this opera inspired by the story of Fannie Lou Hamer. She was a voting rights activist whose relentless efforts lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Chandler Carter is the composer of This Little Light of Mine. The libretto is by Diana Solomon-Glover.

The two had previously collaborated on No Easy Walk to Freedom about Nelson Mandela. Solomon-Glover portrayed Winnie Mandela in that work.

On Saturday they will be streaming a workshop of This Little Light of Mine that was filmed on Monday at Kentucky Opera. This opera had been scheduled for a workshop last fall, but was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Nicole Joy Mitchell sings the role of Fannie Lou Hamer. Aundi Marie Moore sings the role of Dorothy Jean Hamer and Heather Hill sings the roles of June Johnson and an Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Worker. The workshop is directed by Beth Greenberg.

There is no charge to watch This Little Light of Mine. It will be available on Kentucky Opera’s YouTube channel.

ONE-ACT PLAYS: Unmasked: A Theatrical Celebration of Black Women’s Liberation – The Wallis – Debuts June 19th

The Wallis collaborated with Black Rebirth Collective on Unmasked, one-act plays by four Black female playwrights that was filmed in the Lovelace Studio Theatre at The Wallis.

Those writers are: Ngozi Anyanwu, Jocelyn Bioh, Dominique Morisseau and Stacy Osei-Kuffour.

Anyanwu is best known for Good Grief, an award-winning play that was first performed at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2016. Her play is called G.O.A.T. which finds three close friends who try to determine who is the greatest of all time (hence the title) through a sacred ritual.

Bioh, best known for School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, has written White-N-Luscious. While appearing on a talk show a Nigerian pop star and an Afro-British scholar face issues of self-representation and beauty standards.

Morisseau, who was Tony nominated for writing the book for Ain’t Too Proud and also wrote The Detroit Project trilogy of plays, contributes Jezelle the Gazelle. As the title perhaps alludes to, the title character is a young female runner who is easily the fastest on her block. But does she have the skill set to navigate what life has in store for her and still remain on top?

Osei-Kuffour’s work is called Madness. While handling an issue at work on a phone call, the protagonist is offered a new way to address the situation by a new colleague whom she doesn’t know. Osei-Kuffour’s ANIMALS was recorded by the Williamstown Theater Festival and can be heard on Audible.

The ensemble cast – Kelly M. Jenrett, Masha Mthembu, Candace Thomas and Jonah Wharton – are accompanied by violinist Katherine Washington. Unmasked was co-drected by Kimberly Hébert of Black Rebirth Collective and The Wallis’ Camille Jenkins.

Tickets are $19 for all four plays. If you only want to watch one of the plays, you can purchase a single ticket for $5. Please go here for details on ticket sales. Unmasked will be available for streaming on demand through July 2nd.

BROADWAY VOCALS: Jenn Colella – SETH Concert Series – June 20th – 3:00 PM ET/12:00 PM PT

I’ve never been lucky enough to see Broadway star and Tony-nominated actor Jenn Colella in any of the shows in which she’s appeared (Come From Away, If/Then, Chaplin, High Fidelity and Urban Cowboy). But that last show did lead to a chance to see her early in her career and I realized how special she was immediately.

Colella was a guest at a concert by composer Jason Robert Brown in North Hollywood. (He music directed Urban Cowboy). When she sang a couple songs with him it was like the best possible hurricane just blew into and through the theater.

I can only imagine what Colella will do this weekend as Seth Rudetsky’s guest in his concert series.

If you’re unable to see the live stream on Sunday as scheduled, there will be a re-stream of the show at 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM the same day. Tickets for either showing are $25.

DANCE: Broadway Bares: Twerk from Home – Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS – June 20th – 9:00 PM ET/6:00 PM PT

Just as Broadway is on the cusp of coming back comes an annual tradition that is one of the toughest tickets in town. And because Broadway isn’t back yet…we all get a front row seat.

Broadway Bares is an annual dance/performance fundraiser, usually performed on a Broadway stage.

For the uninitiated, it is one where clothes become less necessary as each performance goes on. This year’s show is called Twerk from Home and it will debut on Sunday night.

Two-time Tony Award winning choreograph Jerry Mitchell (Kinky Boots, the 2005 revival of La Cage Aux Folles), is the creator of Broadway Bares and once again he directs this year’s show. Joining this year as co-directors are Laya Barak and Nick Kenkel.

Over 170 dancers are participating in Twerk from Home. Joining them will be Harvey Fierstein, J. Harrison Ghee, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Robyn Hurder, Peppermint and Jelani Remy who make special appearances. This year’s Broadway Bares culminates in a finale extravaganza that was filmed outdoors in Times Square.

There is no charge to watch Twerk from Home, but donations are encouraged. This is one of their biggest fundraisers of the year. Last year’s virtual edition raised $596,504 for Broadway Cares. You can watch the show on BC/EFA’s YouTube Channel.

MODERN DANCE: Future Dance Festival – 92Y – June 21st – July 4th

From a pool of 185 applicants, seven panelists selected 21 choreographer finalists to be part of the 92nd Street Y’s first Future Dance Festival. The goal of the festival is to pair emerging choreographers and creators with working directors.

Beginning on Monday, those 21 finalists will have their work showcased in three different programs that will all be available for free streaming.

Program 1 features work by Annie Rigney, Max Levy, Madison Elliott, Leonardo Sandoval, Burr Johnson, Nicole von Are and Brian Josiah Martinez.

Program 2 features works by Barkha Patel, Adrienne Lipson, Jessie Lee Thorne, William Ervin, Vera Kvarcakova & Jeremy Galdeano, Brian Golden and Caroline Payne.

Program 3 features works by Taylor Graham, Baye & Asa, Patrick Coker, Charly and Eriel Santagado, Jamal Callender, Beatrice Panero and Nicholas Ranauro.

The panelists, who come from Ballet Hispánico, Dance Magazine, Martha Graham Dance Company and other organizations, will introduce each work.

Registration is required.

Here ends the Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st. But just a couple reminders:

The Metropolitan Opera celebrates Father’s Day with Verdi’s Rigoletto from the 1981-1982 season Friday; his Don Carlo from the 2010-2011 season on Saturday and his Luisa Miller from the 1978-1979 season Sunday. If you’re not a father, consider this the end of Verdi Week.

Next week the Met will be celebrating Pride Week. Monday that program gets launched with the 2017-2018 season production of Thomas Adés’ The Exterminating Angel. We’ll have the full line-up for you on Monday. We strongly recommend this opera.

Your last chance to watch A Tribute to John Williams from the Boston Pops Orchestra is Saturday. Film music fans, what are you waiting for?

On Monday South Coast Rep starts streaming the final production of their Pacific Playwrights Festival. It’s a concert performance of Harold & Lillian. You can find details here.

You’re now fully loaded with options to enjoy the performing arts this weekend. That’s all for this week’s Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st.

Enjoy your weekend!

Photo: Jazzmeia Horn (Photo by Emmanuel Afolabi/Courtesy imnworld.com)

The post Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

She just made her directorial debut with Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s Close Quarters series episode #12 (Beyond the Horizon – available for streaming here).

This Saturday she will join fellow opera singers Ailyn Pérez and Nadine Sierra in a streaming concert live from the Royal Opera of Versailles in France as part of the Metropolitan Opera’s Met Stars Live in Concert series. All three performed together in the 2017-2018 Met Opera production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

In June she stars in Desert In which was created for her by director James Darrah, composer Ellen Reid and writer Christopher Oscar Peña and includes compositions by Reid, Vijay Iyer, Nico Muhly and more.

Leonard is known for singing the title role in Muhly’s Marnie; Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites and Miranda in Thomas Adés’ The Tempest at the Met. She has performed in opera houses around the world since launching her career in 2007.

What better time to talk to Leonard about her new projects and the state of the arts in a post-pandemic world. What follows are excerpts from last week’s Zoom interview that have been edited for length and clarity.

I know you’re a big Ella Fitzgerald fan. Something she said sounds to me like a description of your career: “A lot of singers think all they have to do is exercise their tonsils to get ahead. They refuse to look for new ideas and new outlets, so they fall by the wayside. I’m going to try to find out the new ideas before others do.”

I am a huge fan. I couldn’t love that more. From the very beginning my hope was always to bring an experience to the audience. To spend a period of time experiencing something they may have never experienced. That’s all I’ve wanted.

I think anybody involved in the opera business knows how far behind we are in general. Even on days when I think I’ve come up with a new idea, it might be new to the opera world, but it’s not new to the world in general.

Is directing part of your path to realizing that goal? What prompted you to take on this project with LA Chamber Orchestra?

Mainly because it was James Darrah who asked me. There are a few people in this business who say you should take this risk and I’ll follow them. You meet people along the way who see things the way you do and understand what you want to do and see your vision. James is one of them. I’ll follow him blindly into fire. I was terrified and I said yes.

Isn’t that where the most rewarding experiences come from, jumping in head first into the unknown?

With this piece it’s sort of funny. I said once a week to James, “I don’t feel like I’m a director. I don’t feel like I’m directing anything.” And he said, “Welcome to the world of being a director.” I just remember we had a first initial meeting and this is what I’d love to see happen with music and storytelling.

I was very affected by Fantasia when I was a child. Most people, when you talk about classical music, they talk about Bugs Bunny or a car commercial or something tied to a visual. We’re super visual people. The better the visuals and music tell the story in tandem, the more successful we can be. That was my idea for this project.

Jessie Montgomery, who curated your episode, told me she was very excited to see what an opera singer would do with music that at its most fundamental level is based in improvisation. How did your training in the rigors of opera mesh with creating a visual style for these compositions?

For me the idea of improvisation in that sense is not terrifying. If you said go sing with a jazz band and improvise I could, but it wouldn’t be particularly good. Improvisation comes from knowing your craft so well that you can forget it. I had a dance teacher who said you have to practice until you forget it so that your brain doesn’t have to tell your body what to do. When I know a piece I don’t have to tell myself what to do.

Streaming works like Close Quarters and the upcoming Desert In are redefining how classical music and opera is presented to the world. What role do you see works like this playing in the future?

I think and I hope that most of the companies that have put so much time and resources and their learning curve into this little box will hold onto it moving forward because they see how valuable this is. To come up to speed is great – we should be here already. The next step is to keep moving forward and keeping find out the best way to bring what we do to a wider audience and inspire them to want new content.

In addition to catching up with the power of technology, is there any one thing that you think the classical music/opera world has learned and perhaps the world at large during this pandemic?

Contrary to popular notions that artists had a year off, most artists were hustling like crazy just to pay grocery bills. That was one major thing that everybody has been dealing with the entire time. I started teaching as soon as I could very soon after the pandemic started because I knew we were going nowhere fast.

I cancelled all my subscriptions except Netflix. I knew we’d need it.

This should be a huge awakening to people who look at movies and art about how valuable that art and those artists are because this is what got you through the pandemic. Imagine if none of this existed and you had 10 VHS tapes for the whole year and a half of the pandemic. You’d be nuts.

As soon as the pandemic started the first people out of a job were artists. That’s not to say, “Oh woe is us.” I still lead a very privileged life as many of us do. But when it comes to a business and trying to see the business grow and be more sustainable for those involved, it means things have to change.

It’s not going to be easy. Broadway is coming back. Classical music is coming back. It’s back, but everybody working in that building is not doing better. They might be performing, but they’re still struggling and maybe even more than they were before the pandemic. There’s so much to do.

What kind of change do you think will be necessary? And what changes do you want to make moving forward in your career?

It’s not about complaining, it’s about having a conversation 100 times with as many people as you can find. We’re all in that boat right now trying to figure out how to make this sustainable for those people in it. I don’t know how to fix it, but I do think about it a lot. All these things are really interesting moving forward in the arts.

For me it’s about working on projects that scare me like LA Chamber Orchestra or doing a crazy opera film like Desert In. I’d love to do movies and bring my talents into another medium. By doing so bringing people from that medium to say, “Oh, she does opera, let’s go see an opera.” Or “Who is this person? Let’s see Marriage of Figaro. Oh, she can be a boy, too, that’s interesting.”

We must remember how integral and how important what we do is because it brings a lot of peace, joy and cathartic moments. I have lots of hope.

Photo: Isabel Leonard in Desert In (Photo by Michael Elias Thomas/Courtesy Boston Lyric Opera)

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Our top pick, previewed yesterday, is a reading of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart on Saturday. We also have some great jazz music for you (both traditional vocals and a very contemporary performance), a London production of Chekhov that earned rave reviews, a tribute to two of Broadway’s best songwriters, chamber music and a contortionist. After all, it’s Mother’s Day weekend. Don’t all mothers just love contortionists?

Here are the Top 10 Best Bets: May 7th – May 10th

*TOP PICK* PLAY READING: The Normal Heart – ONE Archives Foundation – May 8th – 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT

We previewed this event yesterday as out Top Pick, but here are the pertinent details:

Director Paris Barclay has assembled Sterling K. Brown, Laverne Cox, Jeremy Pope, Vincent Rodriguez III, Guillermo Díaz, Jake Borelli, Ryan O’Connell, Daniel Newman, Jay Hayden and Danielle Savre for a virtual reading of Larry Kramer’s play.

The reading will be introduced by Martin Sheen.

There will be just this one live performance of The Normal Heart. It will not be available for viewing afterwards. There will be a Q&A with the cast and Barclay following the reading. Tickets begin at $10 for students, $20 for general admission.

PLAY READING: Rachel – Roundabout Theatre Company’s Refocus Project – Now – May 7th

Angelina Weld Grimké’s 1916 play Rachel, is the second play in the Refocus Project from Roundabout Theatre Company. Their project puts emphasis on plays by Black playwrights from the 20th century that didn’t get enough attention or faded into footnotes of history in an effort to bring greater awareness to these works.

Rachel tells the story of a Black woman who, upon learning some long-ago buried secrets about her family, has to rethink being a Black parent and bringing children into the world.

Miranda Haymon directs Sekai Abení, Alexander Bello, E. Faye Butler, Stephanie Everett, Paige Gilbert, Brandon Gill, Toney Goins, Abigail Jean-Baptiste and Zani Jones Mbayise.

The reading is free, but registration is required.

JAZZ: Joel Ross & Immanuel Wilkins – Village Vanguard – May 7th – May 9th

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more compelling pairing of jazz musicians than vibraphonist Joel Ross and alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins.

The two have been collaborating for quite some time. Wilkins is a member of Ross’ Good Vibes quintet.

Nate Chinen, in a report for NPR, described a 2018 concert in which Ross performed with drummer Makaya McCraven this way. “Ross took one solo that provoked the sort of raucous hollers you’d sooner expect in a basketball arena. Again, this was a vibraphone solo.“

Wilkins album, Omega, was declared the Best Jazz Album of 2020 by Giovanni Russonello of the New York Times.

I spoke to Wilkins last year about the album and his music. You can read that interview here. And if you’re a fan, Jason Moran, who produced the album, told me that this music was “just the tip of the iceberg.”

Tickets for this concert are $10.

PLAY: Uncle Vanya – PBS Great Performances – May 7th check local listings

Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya is performed by a cast headed by Richard Armitrage and Toby Jones. Conor McPherson adapted the play for this production which played at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London and was directed by Ian Rickson.

Arifa Akbar, writing in her five-star review for The Guardian, said of the production:

“Ian Rickson’s exquisite production is full of energy despite the play’s prevailing ennui. It does not radically reinvent or revolutionise Chekov’s 19th-century story. It returns us to the great, mournful spirit of Chekhov’s tale about unrequited love, ageing and disappointment in middle-age, while giving it a sleeker, modern beat.

“McPherson’s script has a stripped, vivid simplicity which quickens the pace of the drama, and despite its contemporary language – Vanya swears and uses such terms as “wanging on” – it does not grate or take away from the melancholic poetry.”

CHAMBER MUSIC: Beyond the Horizon – LA Chamber Orchestra – Premieres May 7th – 9:30 PM ET/6:30 PM PT

This is the 12th episode in LACO’s Close Quarters series and definitely one of its most intriguing. Jessie Montgomery, the composer who curated the previous episode, curates this episode as well. She is joined by her fellow alums from Juilliard, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard (who directs) and music producer Nadia Sirota.

The program features Alvin Singleton’s Be Natural (a pun any music major will understand); Mazz Swift’s The End of All That Is Holy, The Beginning of All That is Good and Montgomery’s Break Away.

The performance portion of Beyond the Horizon is conducted by Christopher Rountree of Wild Up! Visual artist Yee Eun Nam contributes to the film as does art director James Darrah.

There is no charge to watch Beyond the Horizon.

CHAMBER MUSIC: MusiKaravan: A Classical Road Trip with Delerium Musicum – The Wallis Sorting Room Sessions – May 7th – May 9th

Music by Johannes Brahms, Charlie Chaplin, Frederic Chopin, Vittorio Monti, Sergei Prokofiev, Giacomo Puccini and Dmitri Shostakovich will be performed by Delerium Musicum founding violinists Étienne Gara and YuEun Kim. They will be joined for two pieces by bassist Ryan Baird.

The full ensemble of musicians that make up Delerium Musicum will join for one of these pieces? Which one will it be? There is only one way to find out.

This concert is part of The Sorting Room Sessions at The Wallis.

Tickets are $20 and will allow for streaming for 48 hours

MOTHER’S DAY OFFERINGS: MOMentum Place and A Catalina Tribute to Mothers – May 8th

Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum is celebrating Mother’s Day with MOMentum Place, a show featuring aerial artists, circus performers, dancers and musicians. The line-up includes circus artist Elena Brocade; contortionist and acrobat Georgia Bryan, aerialist and stilt dancer Jena Carpenter of Dream World Cirque, ventriloquist Karl Herlinger, hand balancer Tyler Jacobson, stilt walker and acrobat Aaron Lyon, aerialist Kate Minwegen, cyr wheeler Sarah Moser and Cirque du Soleil alum Eric Newton, plus Dance Dimensions Kids and Focus Fish Kids. The show was curated by aerlist/dancer Lexi Pearl. Tickets are $35.

Catalina Jazz Club is holding A Catalina Tribute to Mothers at 9:00 PM ET/6:00 PM PT. Headlining the concert are singers Jack Jones, Freda Payne and Tierney Sutton. Vocalist Barbara Morrison is a special guest. Also performing are  Kristina Aglinz, Suren Arustamyan, Lynne Fiddmont, Andy Langham, Annie Reiner, Dayren Santamaria, Tyrone Mr. Superfantastic and more. Dave Damiani is the host. The show is free, however donations to help keep the doors open at Catalina Jazz Club are welcomed and encouraged.

JAZZ: Love in Exile – The Phillips Collection – May 9th – 4:00 PM ET/1:00 PM PT

There is no set program for this performance by pianist/composer Vijay Iyer, vocalist Arooj Aftab and bassist Shazad Ismaily. The website says Love in Exile performs as one continuous hour-long set.

Having long been a fan of Iyer, spending an hour wherever he and his fellow musicians wants to go sounds like pure heaven to me.

Iyer’s most recent album, Uneasy, was released in April on ECM Records and finds him performing with double bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. It’s a great album. You should definitely check it out.

There is no charge to watch this concert, but registration is required. Once Love in Exile debuts, you’ll have 7 days to watch the performance as often as you’d like.

DANCE: Past, Present, Future – ALL ARTS – May 9th – May 11th

ALL ARTS, part of New York’s PBS stations, is holding an three-night on-line dance festival beginning on Sunday.

If We Were a Love Song is first up at 8:00 PM ET on Sunday. Nina Simone’s music accompanies this work conceived by choreographer Kyle Abraham who is collaborating with filmmaker Dehanza Rogers.

Dancers (Slightly Out of Shape) airs on Monday at 8:00 PM ET. This is part documentary/part dance featuring choreographer Pam Tanowitz as she and her company resume rehearsals last year during the Covid crisis. It leads to excerpts from Every Moment Alters which is set to the music of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw.

One + One Make Three closes out the festival on Tuesday at 8:00 PM ET. This film showcases the work of Kinetic Light, an ensemble featuring disabled performers. This is also part documentary/part dance made by director Katherine Helen Fisher.

All three films will be accompanied by ASL and Open Captions for the hearing impaired.

BROADWAY: Broadway Close Up: Kander and Ebb – Kaufman Music Center – May 10th – 7:00 PM ET/4:00 PM PT

You know the work of John Kander and Fred Ebb: Cabaret, Chicago, Flora the Red Menace, Kiss of the Spider Woman, New York New York, The Scottsboro Boys and Woman of the Year.

Their work will be explored, discussed and performed with host Sean Hartley.

He’s joined by Tony Award-winner Karen Ziemba (Contact) who appeared in two musicals by the duo: Curtains and Steel Pier. The latter was written specifically for her.

Any fan of Kander and Ebb will want to purchase a ticket for this show. Tickets are $15

Those are our Top Ten Best Bets: May 7th – May 10th (even if we cheated a little bit by having two options listed together). But there are a few reminders:

The Metropolitan Opera has their own view of mothers with their theme of Happy Mother’s Day featuring Berg’s Wozzeck on Friday; Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on Saturday and Handel’s Agrippina on Sunday.

Puccini returns for the start of National Council Auditions Alumni Week with a 1981-1982 season production of La Bohème. We’ll have all the details for you on Monday.

LA Opera’s Signature Recital Series continues with the addition of a recital by the brilliant soprano Christine Goerke.

One rumor to pass along to you: word has it Alan Cumming will be Jim Caruso’s guest on Monday’s Pajama Cast Party.

That completes all our selections of Best Bets: May 7th – May 10th. I hope all of you who are mothers have a terrific weekend. For those of you celebrating with your moms, I hope we’ve given you plenty of options to consider.

Have a great weekend! Enjoy the culture!

Photo: Larry Kramer (Photo by David Shankbone/Courtesy David Shankbone)

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What KCRW host LeRoy Downs is talking about is jazz. Though his show is called Just Jazz – as is a series of live concerts and interviews he produces in Los Angeles – you soon realize while talking with Downs that it is more than just jazz. For him it’s a way of life. A way of looking forward far more than looking back. It’s a personal journey that he takes each and every day of his life that gets compressed into his two hours on Sunday nights.

“I don’t feel like I’m doing a service if I’m playing you music you already know,” he said earlier this week during a Zoom call. “I do feel like I’m doing a service if I’m adding to the palette of your sound. I want to play things that aren’t popular and maybe you can get another jewel. I’m a seeker. I want more and I love that I’m in the position of seeking music out and playing it and putting it out there. If I learn it and love it, the world will soak it up, too.”

If you take a quick look at his most recent playlist you won’t find Miles Davis. Instead you’ll find Ambrose Akinmusire, Stefon Harris, Zim Ngqawana, Christian Sands* and more. Which means Just Jazz is unlike nearly every other show you can find on the radio. That’s precisely the way Downs likes it.

“I actually don’t know too many either,” he says. “Mark Maxwell on KPFK has a show called Rise. He’s one that’s always been putting it out there for decades. My family would probably prefer me playing smooth jazz on the radio and making a couple hundred grand. I can’t do that. There are bigger things out there and I’m so in sync with that.”

Downs spent several years at KKJZ hosting a five-hour show before joining KCRW. He didn’t have the same freedom there as he now enjoys. But with that freedom comes the challenge of getting a bigger audience and his theory about why that can be so difficult.

“I think people become professionals at what they know. They have to have Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Miles Davis. But if I try to hip them up with Vijay Iyer or Gerald Clayton, they go back to what they know. They shut it off. I think the only people who get a chance to enjoy this music are creative people; people who know jazz and the people who don’t know jazz, but are open to it. That is the key. When someone says ‘I don’t know who Archie Schepp is, but I’m willing to check it out,’ those are my favorite people.”

Given the broad range of music Downs embraces and the popular recordings he chooses to avoid, how does he describe jazz in 2021?

“Jazz is this very internal, cerebral, rhythmic, mystical, eclectic, avant-garde, traditional sound that comes out of society. It comes out of the things we experience in our lives. We put those experiences together. We express those things. It’s a collection and a fabric of everyone’s life. We all have our own stories. These musicians are brilliant at telling them.”

As is Downs who did a show called For All The Georges after the George Floyd murder. Something he wishes he didn’t have to do.

“It’s such a shame. It’s 2021 and we still have to deal with this. There are so many things against us. But like a flower that grows out of concrete, you can’t stop the music. It’s going to affect you. I used one of Abbey Lincoln’s tunes where she was screaming. Most people will find that threatening. Good! But if you stick with it you might find it’s an expression of pain which we are still dealing with today. If you didn’t turn away you heard this beautiful sound coming out at the end.”

He thinks that society’s penchant for making quick judgements and moving on isn’t good for anyone and certainly not for the music.

“If a painter starts painting and uses colors you don’t like, you can’t turn away. You have to let the painter finish what they are doing.”

Downs starts his radio shows with the first and second songs selected in advance, but the rest is created as he goes along. That sounds a little chaotic, but isn’t jazz about improvisation?

“I want jazz to be a part of everybody’s life. Everything that comes from me is honest and natural and true. I’m a seeker. I want to follow that journey, too. I don’t want to know the path, I need to find it. Anyone who wants to come along on that journey, I think they’ll be very rewarded. When you listen to one of my shows I better have taken you in at least ten directions – even in two hours.”

*Downs is presenting an online concert this Friday, April 30th, for International Jazz Day. Performing will be the Christian Sands Trio (including Jonathan Pinson on drums and Ben Williams on bass). They will be joined by special guest Theo Croker. The concert takes place at 9:00 PM EDT/6:00 PM PDT. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased here.

Photo: LeRoy Downs (Photo by Jay Masueda/Courtesy Downs and KCRW)

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On tap (no pun intended) is a wonderful tap performance from New York’s Joyce Theater by Ayodele Casel; a musical where popular princesses from animated films imagine a different definition of “Happily Ever After;” the return of Tony Award-winner Lena Hall with some new “Obsessions;” a live performance from The Royal Opera House of work by Brecht and Weill; a concert performance of one of Verdi’s least-performed operas and the first of a two-part live performance of a play adapted from Milton’s Paradise Lost.

My top pick this weekend comes from San Francisco Opera. Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher inspired an unfinished opera by Claude Debussy and a newer work by Gordon Getty. Both operas are being streamed this weekend and their rarity easily makes this the most interesting option for the weekend.

I’ll begin with my top pick for the week and the balance of my Best Bets: April 9th – April 12th are listed in the order in which they are available.

Here are my Best Bets: April 9th – April 12th:

*TOP PICK* OPERA: House of Usher – San Francisco Opera – April 10th – April 11th

Conducted by Lawrence Foster; starring Brian Mullian, Jason Bridges, Antony Reed, Jamielyn Duggan, Jacqueline Piccolino, Edward Nelson and Joel Sorensen. This David Poutney production is from the 2014-2015 season.

You know Cultural Attaché covers operas on a very regular basis. So it’s exciting to let you know about two one-act operas that are rarely performed and have not, to my knowledge, been streamed before this offering from San Francisco Opera.

Composers Claude Debussy and Gordon Getty each wrote operas inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Poe tells the story of Roderick Usher through the eyes of his friend and reveals what may or may not have happened to Usher’s sister Madeline.

Debussy’s work, La chute de la maison Usher, is an unfinished opera that he worked on from 1908-1917. The opera was completed and orchestrated, based on the composer’s draft, by Robert Orledge in 2004. The premiere of the completed opera was in 2014 paired with Getty’s version at the Welsh National Opera. It is this production that came to San Francisco Opera with different casting.

Philip Glass also composed a work inspired by The Fall of the House of Usher. A film, directed by James Darrah, is available for streaming from Boston Lyric Opera for $10. These two one-act operas, our top pick for the weekend, are available for free but only through Sunday, April 11th.

BALLET: Concerto – Royal Ballet – Now – April 25th

This work by legendary choreographer Kenneth MacMillan was one of two pieces that premiered at the first performance after he was named Director of Berlin’s Deutsche Opera Ballet in 1966. For Concerto he used Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concert No. 2 in F as his inspiration.

This new post came after his wildly successful years at Sadler’s Wells Theatre Ballet where he created nine new ballets.

This Royal Ballet performance is from 2019 and features soloists James Hay, Mayara Magri and Anna Rose O’Sullivan. They are joined by principals Ryoichi Hirano and Yasmine Naghdi.

Sarah Crompton, writing in The Guardian, said of this production: “…a plotless piece of sharp geometric angles and airy leaps, danced to Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 2. Set by Jürgen Rose against a perfect pale lemon backdrop, with the dancers in orange, russet and yellow, it has a breezy sophistication, with a delicate cross work of steps for soloists and a large corps de ballet. It seems simple but is devilishly complicated.”

The performance is available now for streaming. The price is £3 which equals $3.47.

PLAY READING: Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous – Broadway’s Best Shows – Now – April 12th

Sisters Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad star in the reading of Pearl Cleage’s 2019 play Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous which is being read as part of the Spotlight on Plays series from Broadway’s Best Shows.

After their production of scenes from August Wilson’s Fences ignited a major controversy actress Anna Campbell and director Betty Samson fled to Amsterdam for what they thought would be short-term assignment. 25 years later they are invited back to the United States where their version, nicknamed Naked Wilson, is going to open a women’s theater festival. But the festival wants to work with a much younger actress than Campbell. You don’t think that’s going to go over well, do you?

Also participating in the reading are Heather Alicia Simms and Alicia Stith. Camille A. Brown directs.

Tickets are $15 with proceeds going to the Actors Fund. The show will remain available through Monday, April 12th.

DANCE: Chasing Magic – The Joyce Theater Foundation – Now – April 21st

Fans of tap dance will definitely want to check out Chasing Magic by Ayodele Casel streaming now from The Joyce Theater in New York. I saw the film and it’s simply amazing.

For this world premiere, Casel has collaborated with director Torya Beard, dancer/choreographer Ronald K. Brown, singer/songwriter Crystal Monee Hall, composer/musician Arturo O’Farrill, percussionist Sent Stoney and composer Annastasia Victory.

Viewers can expect both traditional tap and also a contemporary style of tap – both of which will put a smile on your face, just as it does the dancers performing.

Tickets are $25/household.

BALLET: Carmen – State Street Ballet – Now – April 14th

Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen serves as the inspiration for this work by William Soleau (Co-Artistic Director of State Street Ballet). The work had its premiere in 2014 and this is a film from a performance at The Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara from that year.

For those unfamiliar with the opera, here is the synopsis:

Set in Seville, Spain, Carmen is a gypsy who has caught everyone’s eye. A soldier, Don José, plays coy and gives her no attention. Her flirtation causes troubles for both when Don José’s girlfriend, Micaëla arrives. Tensions escalate between the two women and after a knight fight, José must arrest Carmen. When she seduces him it sets off a series of events that will not end well for the gypsy woman.

Leila Drake dances the title role. Ryan Camou dances the role of Don José. Randy Herrera dances the role of the Toreador Escamillo and Cecily Stewart MacDougall dances the role of Micaëla.

There is no charge to watch the performance which will remain available through midnight on April 14th.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Simone Porter and Hsin-I Huang – Soka Performing Arts Center – Now – June 30th

As part of their Signature Encore Series, the Soka Performing Arts Center is making this 2019 concert by violinist Simone Porter and pianist Hsin-I Huang available through June 30th.

Their performance features works by Mozart (Sonata No. 24 in F Major, K. 376); Leoš Janáček (Violin Sonata, JW VII/7); Esa-Pekka Salonen (Lachen Verlent); Ernest Bloch (“Ningun” from Baal Shem); Maurice Ravel (Tzigane) and Sergei Prokofiev (3 pieces from Romeo & Juliet, Op. 64).

This concert is free to watch on both the Soka website and also their YouTube channel.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: The Heart of the Matter – St. Louis Symphony Orchestra – Now – May 8th

Three of the four pieces being performed in this concert by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra are very well known to classical music fans.

Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Andante cantabile and Giacomo Puccini’s I crisantemi (The Chrysanthemums). The last work was written originally for string quartet, but is rarely heard in that version.

Less known is the first piece on the program: Within Her Arms by composer Anna Clyne.

This work has been compared to Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings for the depth of its emotion. It’s a composition that inspired violinist Jennifer Koh to tell the New York Times, “Sometimes things reach you and it’s colorful or intricate or structured in an interesting way or the orchestration is wonderful. But the extraordinary thing about Anna’s music is that it is incredibly moving. And I hadn’t had that reaction for a long time.”

Stéphane Denève leads the SLSO in this performance. Tickets are $15.

MUSICAL: Disenchanted – Stream.Theatre – April 9th – April 11th

Cinderella, The Little mermaid, Pocahontas, The Princess Who Kissed the Frog and Snow White are just some of the princesses who are changing the definition of happily ever after in this musical with book, lyrics and music by Dennis T. Giacino.

Disnenchanted opened off-Broadway in 2014 and was the recipient of numerous nominations including Best New Musical. The production that is streaming this weekend is from England.

The cast or women playing the princesses are Courtney Bowman, Natalie Chua, Allie Daniel, Shanay Holmes, Sophie Isaacs, Aisha Jawando, Grace Mouat, Millie O’Connell, Jenny O’Leary, and Jodie Steele. Tom Jackson Greaves directs.

There are only three performances. The show will be streamed at 2:30 PM EDT/11:30 AM PDT on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are £18 (including service charges) which equals almost $25.

OPERA/DANCE: The Seven Deadly Sins and Mahagonny Songspiel – Royal Opera House – April 9th – 2:30 PM EDT/11:30 AM PDT

The Royal Opera House offers its first live broadcast of the year with this double bill of works by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.

The Seven Deadly Sins is called a ballet chanté. That means it is a sung ballet. The work had its world premiere in Paris in 1933. As you might imagine from the title, each of the seven deadly sins (envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth and wrath) is explored through the story of two sisters: Anna I and Anna II. The first Anna (Stephanie Wake-Edwards) is a singer and the second a dancer (Jonadette Carpio).

Also in the company are Tenors Filipe Manu and Egor Zhuravskii; baritone Dominic Sedgwick, and bass Blaise Malaba who are joined by dancer Thomasin Gülgeç.    

This is satire at its best and it was also the last significant collaboration between Brecht and Weill.

Mahagonny Sonspiel premiered in 1927 in Baden-Baden, Germany. A perfect companion piece to The Seven Deadly Sins, Brecht and Weill were offering their opinion on the pursuit of pleasure. Amongst the songs in this work is The Alabama Song which many will know from the version recorded by Jim Morrison and The Doors.

For this performance, mezzo-soprano Kseniia Nkolaieva will sing the role of Bessie.

Choreographer Julia Cheng has kept the streaming experience in mind while creating this production.

Tickets are $11.53. The performance will be available for streaming through May 9th.

COCKTAILS AND CONVERSATION: Virtual Halston – Cast Party Network on YouTube – April 9th – 5:00 PM EDT/2:00 PM PDT

I adore Julia Halston and her Friday soirees have been a staple of my winding down and getting ready for the weekend. So I’m sad that this weekend, her 40th episode, will be her last for the time being.

However, I’m thrilled that she’s going on a hiatus to work on a new theater project.

For this episode Halston will welcome producers Ruby Locknar and Jim Caruso for a look back on those 40 episodes that have featured everyone from Charles Busch to Jane Monheit to Michael Urie and so many more.

The show is free to watch but donations to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation are encouraged.

BROADWAY VOCALS: Lena Hall: Obsessed – April 9th – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

When Tony Award winner Lena Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) launched her Obsessed series of EPs in 2018, she offered her versions of both well-known songs and deep-tracks of such artists as Beck, David Bowie, Nirvana, Pink, Radiohead, Jack White and more.

Given her voice, it was probably a surprise she didn’t also record the music of Heart – the duo best known for songs like Baracuda, Crazy on You and Magic Man.

But she’s going to be singing their songs in a live concert on Friday night. This video, from a Broadway Sessions performance at the Laurie Beechman Theatre gives you a taste of what she can do with this music (it does contain some profanity):

Does this foreshadow a second Obsessed series? This is a one-time only concert. There will be no streaming if you can’t see it as it happens. And you should. Lena Hall rocks!

Tickets are $20 and $50. The higher-priced VIP tickets allows for interaction with Hall during the concert.

JAZZ: Claudia Villela: The Music of Jobim – SFJAZZ – April 9th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

There are certain artists who can use just one name and you know immediately who it is. Brazilian composer Jobim is one of them. (For the record his full name is Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim).

Amongst his best-known songs are Corcovado, Desafinado and The Girl from Ipanema.

Singer Claudia Villela will pay tribute to Jobim in this concert from 2019. She is joined by special guest guitarist Chico Pinheiro. Her band includes Celso Alberti on drums and percussion; Gary Brown on bass; Gary Meek on saxophone and flute and Jasnam Daya Singh on piano and keys.

There will be an encore presentation Saturday, April 10th at 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT.

This concert is available to digital members of SFJAZZ. Membership is $5 for one month of programs or $60 for one year.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Beethoven Serioso – Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra – Debuts April 9th – 9:30 PM EDT/6:30 PM PDT

As they did with their most recent episode of Close Quarters, the camera moves in and amongst the musicians in this performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 95 nicknamed Serioso. The orchestration is by Gustav Mahler. Margaret Batjer leads LACO in this performance.

Given the significance the camera plays in this film, I want to give attention to cinematographer Michael Thomas whose deft work breathes new life into ensemble performance. Visual artist Ken Honjo also contributed to this episode.

If you haven’t checked out this terrific series, all previous videos are available for streaming. There’s no charge to watch Beethoven Serioso or any of the other videos.

DANCE: Awakening – Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company – April 10th – 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT

For over 30 years, New Jersey’s Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company has been at the forefront of creating works that express through contemporary dance that long history of the Chinese American cultural tradition.

This program will find the company offering two world premieres (Luminescence and Shadow Force) along with two works from 2019 (Truth Bound and Introspection). The works are united in their exploration of ideas we have all probably faced during the pandemic: identity, information, optimism, outside forces that complicate our lives, truth and more.

Tickets are $10 to watch the performance. If you are a member of the South Orange Performing Arts Center, you can watch for free.

THEATER: From Number to Name – East West Players – April 10th – April 11th

Wednesday afternoon I published an interview with the provocative performance artist Kristina Wong who is helming From Number to Name.

Through a series of interviews and over the course of six-and-a-half weeks, Wong and her collaborators have put together this dramatic show that explores the impact of incarceration on the Asian/Pacific Islander community in America. It is a story filled with shame, regret and finds those who are released from prison rarely having a familial support system to reintegrate into society.

There are two performances of From Number to Name. The first is on Saturday at 10:00 PM EDT/7:00 PM PDT. The second is on Sunday at 5:00 PM EDT/2:00 PM PDT.

Tickets begin at $5 and go up in price based on your ability to include a donation to East West Players.

CHORAL: Amore della Vita, Love of Life – The Verdi Chorus – April 11th – 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT

For those clamoring for all things Italian, this weekend’s virtual concert by The Fox Singers from the Verdi Chorus will delight. They will be performing a program of Italian art songs.

Amongst the composers are Ruggero Leoncavallo (best known for his one-act opera Pagliacci), Pietro Mascagni (best known for Cavalleria rusticana), Gioachino Rossini (best known for the theme song to The Lone Ranger*) and Paolo Tosti (best known for his over 50 art songs).

Featured performers in this concert are sopranos Tiffany Ho, Megan Lindsey McDonald and Sarah Salazar; mezzo-soprano Ariana Stultz; and tenors Elias Berezin and Joseph Gárate. Anne Marie Ketchum leads the ensemble with Laraine Ann Madden accompanying.

If this concert (and perhaps Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy) makes you hungry, The Verdi Chorus is publishing The Verdi Chorus Pandemic Cookbook. How many of the recipes are Italian, I couldn’t tell you. But if they can cook like they sing…. The book is available for pre-order here.

CABARET: Ali Stroker – Seth Concert Series – April 11th – 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT

Ali Stroker won a Tony Award for her performance as Ado Annie in the 2019 revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Oklahoma! She became the first performer in a wheelchair to win a Tony Award. (She was paralyzed in an automobile accident when she was two years old.)

This wasn’t her first Broadway performance. She appeared in the 2015 revival of Spring Awakening. This was the Deaf West Theatre production that was first performed at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.

She is Seth Rudetsky‘s guest for this weekend’s concert and conversation.

I saw Stroker in both shows and she is simply amazing. This will be well worth watching.

In addition to the live concert on Sunday afternoon there will be an encore showing Sunday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT. Tickets for either showing are $25.

OPERA: Atilla Highlights in Concert – Lyric Opera of Chicago – April 11th – 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT

Giuseppe Verdi’s Atilla had its world premiere in Venice in 1846. The opera tells the story of Atilla the Hun (how many other Atillas do you know?) and his ill-fated relationship with Odabella, a prisoner whose father died at the hands of Atilla. Foresto and Ezio, having their own reasons for wanting revenge on Atilla, defer to Odabella who will stop at nothing to see Atilla die.

Atilla is not amongst Verdi’s most popular nor the most commonly-performed. In fact, the Metropolitan Opera only staged Atilla for the first time in 2010. The Lyric Opera of Chicago staged their first production ten years earlier.

On Sunday they will premiere a concert of excerpts from Atilla that will feature bass-baritone Christian Van Horn singing the role of Attila, soprano Tamara Wilson singing Odabella, tenor Matthew Polenzani singing Foresto, and baritone Quinn Kelsey singing Ezio. Pianist William C. Billingham and Jerad Mosbey accompany the singers.

Enrique Mazzola leads the concert which will be available on the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s YouTube channel and Facebook page.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: A Tour of Iran – New West Symphony – April 11th – 6:00 PM EDT/3:00 PM PDT

Michael Christie leads the New West Symphony in a performance of work exploring the influence of Iranian poetry and music on the West. Joining the performance are mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and two Iranian instrumentalists: Pejman Hadadi (tombak and dad) and Masoud Rezaei (setar).

The program features a mix of classical works by Mozart (The Magic Flute Overture), Rameau (Suite from Zoroastre), Handel (“Ombra mai fu” from Xerxes) and Gounod(selections from Faust) with works by Iranian composers Khayam (Seven Valleys of Love for Strings), Ranjbaran (Enchanted Garden: Joy) and excerpts from Rezaei’s album Nothingness.

Tickets to stream the concert are $25 per household and will include a post-performance reception with Christie and the guest artists.

CLASSICAL MUSIC/CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC: Jennifer Koh Solo Recital – Shriver Hall Concert Series – April 11th – 5:30 PM EDT/2:30 PM PDT

Violinist Jennifer Koh appears in this very intriguing concert which finds her playing two compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach and peppering the concert with twelve new compositions that she commissioned in 2020 for her Alone Together project.

Bach’s Partita No. 3 and the Sonata No. 3 are sharing space with works by Kati Agócs, Katherine Beach, Hanna Benn, Patrick Castillo, Vijay Iyer, Angelica Negrón, Andrew Norman, Ellen Reid, Darian Donovan Thomas with electronics by Layale Chaker, Ian Chang, George Lewis and Cassie Wieland.

Tickets are $15. The recital will remain available through April 18th.

PLAY: Smokefall – Goodman Theatre – April 12th – April 25th

Critics found themselves searching for superlatives when Noah Haidle’s Smokefall opened in 2013. From the writing to the performances and the production, the acclaim was universal.

In Haidle’s play, Violet is pregnant with twins and anticipating a major shift in her life. What she doesn’t know is that her husband is getting ready to leave her.

Adding to her worries is that her daughter has chosen not to speak and her father is suffering from senility. Just what an expectant mother wants in her life as she’s about to give birth to twins.

Starring in Smokefall are Catherine Combs, Anne Fogarty, Katherine Keberlein, Guy Massey, Mike Nussbaum, Eric Slater. (In case you are wondering, two of the actors play Fetus One and Fetus Two). Directing is Anne Kaufmann.

There’s no charge to stream Smokefall, but you do need to reserve your streaming opportunity.

PLAY READING: Paradise Lost – Red Bull Theater – April 12th – 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT

John Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic poem about temptation and the fall of man seen through the eyes of Adam & Eve and Satan, was probably something you read in college.

It has proven to be catnip for playwrights who want to find a way of putting this extraordinary work on stage.

Enter Michael Barakiva who offered up a 13-hour adaptation in 2013 with Upstart Creatures.

New York’s Red Bull Theater is offering a live reading of the play with the first part on Monday. (I’m betting that the play has been edited since its first presentation eight years ago). The second part will be performed live on Monday, April 26th.

Starring as Satan is Jason Butler Harner. Said Arrika Ekulona is God. The cast includes Stephen Bel Davies, Sheldon Best, Gisela Chípe, Robert Cuccioli, Carol Halstead, Gregory Linington, Daniel José Molina, Sam Morales, Howard Overshown and Cherie Corinne Rice. Barakiva directs.

Tickets are pay what you can. After the initial live performance, the livestream will remain available until 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST the Friday immediately following the live performance.

CABARET AND CONVERSATION: Jim Caruso’s Pajama Cast Party – April 12th – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

Joining Jim Caruso for this Monday’s Pajama Cast Party are up-and-coming musical theater performer D’Marreon Alexander, Jackie Burns (Wicked), singer Jacob Daniel Cummings and country singers Chase McDaniel and Emily West.

The show is free to watch and if you can’t make it Monday night, the show (and Virtual Halston for that matter) will remain available for streaming on the Cast Party Network on YouTube.

That’s my official list of Best Bets: April 9th – April 12th. But you know I always have a few reminders:

The Metropolitan Opera continues its From Page to Stage series with their 2013-2014 season production of Shostakovich’s The Nose on Friday; their 2007-2008 season production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette on Saturday and their 2017-2018 season production of Verdi’s Luisa Miller on Sunday.

Monday the Metropolitan Opera begins a series of operas based on fairy tales called Once Upon a Time. They start with the 2017-2018 of Massenet’s Cendrillon. I’ll have the full line-up for you on Monday.

This is your last weekend to watch Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike free on Broadway on Demand. The Lincoln Center Theater production stars Billy Magnussen, Kristine Nielsen, David Hyde Pierce and Sigourney Weaver. If you need a good laugh this weekend, this play will offer you many of them. (Use code VANYAFREE on the BOD website)

Also be sure to check with previous Best Bets to find other options that might still be available. As you can see from this week’s list, there are always shows you can watch well after this weekend is over.

That’s officially a wrap on this week’s Best Bets: April 9th – April 12th. Enjoy your weekend!

Photo: An image from House of Usher (Photo by Cory Weaver/Courtesy San Francisco Opera)

*You don’t think I’m serious do you?

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