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Bravo! Modern
Marvel Attempting to explain contemporary dance with words is similar to writing about a painting — you can come close to conveying the essence of the art, but you will never completely capture it. Similar to contemporary classical music and much 20th century poetry, modern dance channels its raw emotion through its sometimes abrasive, sometimes dissonant, but always powerful medium.
If you ask any dance expert or even someone who knows just a bit about dance, they're likely to tell you that Martha Graham was responsible for permanently altering the art of modern dance. Graham, who choreographed more than 180 works in her lifetime, including the acclaimed Heretic, Lamentation and Rite of Spring, founded her own dance company in 1926 based on her own techniques. These techniques, established on the most elementary of human movements such as contraction and release, laid the groundwork for a new form of dancing that was not always traditionally beautiful in its direct approach, but nevertheless moved audiences with its emotional honesty. Especially important to artists of all mediums in the years between the World Wars, the rough, angular technique Graham employed was starkly sincere in its portrayal of grief, anguish and even joy. It was this trait, among others, that solidified Graham's brand of contemporary dance as a standard for modern expression. Today, 76 years after its founding, the Martha Graham Dance Company is still one of the most respected performance arts groups in the world. Even though it may be the oldest dance company in America, the group's performers are still wowing audiences with their edgy technique and classic performances of Graham's most celebrated work. Sunday, Jan. 22, the dance company will make its Eugene debut. The program consists of four pieces choreographed by Graham, including what many call her most famous piece, Appalachian Spring, which she choreographed to renowned American composer Aaron Copeland's musical piece of the same title. In a Hult Center press release, Michael Anderson, principal clarinet of the Eugene Symphony said, "It is going to be a double treat, because the music (Appalachian Spring) will be just exactly what Aaron Copeland wrote for the dancers (not the large orchestra version which came later) and secondly, because of the great tradition of the work and Martha Graham's company." Copeland had originally composed the score with Graham in mind, tentatively calling it "Ballet for Martha." It was Graham who chose the title Appalachian Spring; the music is indeed reminiscent of the American pioneering spirit. Part of the score is even built upon the well-known Shaker folk song "Simple Gifts." With her groundbreaking choreography and contemporary dance technique, Martha Graham joins the ranks of revolutionary 20th century artists like Picasso and T.S. Eliot. And although her art is difficult to explain in writing, perhaps we need to see for ourselves what Graham was trying to express in her dance; as she said, "The body says what words cannot." If this is true, then Martha Graham's art is one of the most eloquent yet.
Must
See Music Locally Grown The second half of the performing arts season includes a slew of big-time events featuring visiting composers and performers. But a community's artistic vitality depends on its homegrown creative talent, so let's also give props to the enterprising music students at the UO Music School, who have created ensembles dedicated to performing contemporary music — including music they've written themselves. The 100th Monkey ensemble started several years ago and laid the groundwork for the new Eugene Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, which last fall played important 20th century music by Schoenberg and Ligeti plus original works. Sospiro sings medieval and new music by students, not such a stretch when you consider the medieval inspired contemporary music of composers like Arvo Pärt and John Tavener. And the New Frontiers Chamber Symphony and Eugene Composers Collective, comprising mostly recent UO grads, now promise to keep these young creative voices in town; the ECC begins a new monthly series of concerts at DIVA in February.
Glass Works When Philip Glass and Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Lamont Young were conceiving so-called minimalist music in the 1960s, their radical simplicity and repetitive sonic processes felt like a fresh breeze to listeners whose ears were deadened by decades of the dissonance, density, and dodecacophony that dominated the academy and drove listeners from concert halls. But the music establishment, whose idea of "progress" was music that grew increasingly more complex and less tonal, resisted the minimalist revolution. Rebuffed by the traditional classical music venues, Glass and Reich, like rock and jazz musicians, put together their own ensembles (together and separately) to play their music, and found young audiences in downtown New York lofts, art galleries and dance concerts.
Glass's innovative operas and other stage works eventually drew much larger audiences, and lucrative commissions followed. He found a new outlet in scoring dozens of movie soundtracks, such as The Thin Blue Line, the mind-bending wordless trilogy that began with Koyaanisqatsi, and continuing through his strong recent scores for The Hours, The Truman Show and The Fog of War. Listeners who grew up listening to jazz, rhythmically vital rock or Indian music (a big influence on Glass, who studied with Ravi Shankar as well as Copland's teacher, Nadia Boulanger) seemed better able to appreciate Glass's static esthetic than those nurtured on classical music. You learned to listen for the gradual changes, not the repetitions — to hear the structure. Or you just grooved to the mood, especially if you were of the psychedelic persuasion. Now, nearing age 70, Glass cranks out three scores at a time, tours half the year, runs a record label, publishing company and recording studio — he's Glass, Inc. He's collaborated with artists as diverse as Allen Ginsberg, Aphex Twin, Robert Wilson, Yo Yo Ma, and Suzanne Vega. Yet although Glass has been doing basically the same thing for three decades, his music remains controversial: the old avant-garde considers his simple tonality regressive, while conservatives deplore his rejection of Romantic convention. For all his alternative credentials, Glass's career isn't really all that radical; like Haydn and Telemann, he found a form that works and stuck with it, leading to complaints that his music all sounds the same. Like Mozart and Stravinsky, he writes music to accompany theater and dance, and all his music benefits from his acute sense of drama. Chopin, Liszt and Debussy played their own new music in solo piano concerts, and at The Shedd on Feb. 15, alone with a piano, Philip Glass will be playing his own ruminative Etudes. It's required listening for anyone interested in music that goes back to the basics.
Mozartamania The quarter millennial anniversary of Mozart's birth can't spark an Amadeus revival: the play and film of that name and the 200th anniversary of his death in 1791 already did that. Mozart's music remains ubiquitous, even as scientists tell us that piping his music into the womb won't get your kid into Yale after all, and sophisticates like classical music gadfly Norman Lebrecht scoff at Salzburg's favorite son as an unoriginal hack. It's true that "the brat" (as humorist and composer Peter Schickele called him) cranked out a lot of undistinguished stuff — he had bills to pay and commissions to obey — but often the music's very familiarity, apparent simplicity and memorable melodicism obscures its pellucid brilliance. Innovative or not, I'll put his late piano concertos, quintets, string quartets dedicated to Haydn, the last few symphonies, several of his operas and a few more scattered masterworks up there with any music ever written. Eugene is lucky to have such committed advocates of this great music as the Oregon Mozart Players, and the week leading up to his Jan. 27 birthday features a multiplicity of Mozartean pleasures, including: • a free lunch hour concert in the Hult Center lobby; • the Northwest premiere of a new biographical film documentary; • a concert featuring two of Mozart's loveliest chamber music works, the Clarinet Quintet and Oboe Quartet, at the McDonald Theatre; • another free concert at the UO's Collier House, featuring yet another lucid chamber masterpiece, the Clarinet Trio, on period instruments; • an educational program called "Discovering Mozart" for high school and middle school students; • and finally, a chamber orchestra concert at the Hult Center's Silva Concert Hall, featuring two of Wolfgang's most popular vocal works (with the Eugene Concert Choir), his magnificent last symphony, a scene from his greatest opera (with students from the UO Opera Ensemble), and one of the most beautiful works for orchestra ever written, the Clarinet Concerto, featuring the celebrated soloist David Krakauer. It's a commendably diverse menu, and an ideal tribute concert for both the composer and one of our city's most valuable musical institutions, and certainly the don't-miss classical music event of the season.
Pop Goes the Culture Classical music often gets stereotyped as out of touch: music produced by nerds who spend all their time practicing their instruments and listening to long-dead composers, with the result that they're more in tune with, say, Elgar than Elvis, much less Death Cab for Cutie. Michael Daugherty isn't that guy. His compositions include a concerto called Spaghetti Western, based on the Sergio Leone cowboy films; the Metropolis symphony and "Bizarro," based on Superman comics; "Dead Elvis," featuring a bassoonist dressed as the King, and "Elvis Everywhere;" the chamber opera Jackie O; "Le Tombeau de Liberace," and many more. A few years ago at California's Cabrillo Festival, I saw Marin Alsop conduct his UFO, featuring percussionist Evelyn Glennie dressed as a space alien, darting though the orchestra as it produced all manner of strange sounds, including "Star Trek" quotes. But don't let the pop culture references fool you: Daugherty's music isn't mere kitsch or parody; he uses pop icons for inspiration and then makes compelling music using sophisticated techniques such as polyrhythms, big band jazz gestures, and Latin syncopations. The result is rhythmically charged sounds that appeal to listeners who appreciate jazz and rock as well as classical music. His use of humor and contemporary references is no more vulgar than Mozart or Haydn doing the same thing in their time. Listeners won't need program notes or a course in music theory to appreciate Daugherty's music when the Eugene Symphony plays five of his short pieces at the Hult Center on May 18.
Not
Just Another Pretty Face Ask former Eugenian Robert Cabell about his career as a playwright, videographer, columnist, producer, actor and documentarian and he won't stop talking. But he's not the egomaniacal New Yorker with a creative streak we see in movies. He answers questions about his success by redirecting the conversation to others he's worked with, pointing out how talented and successful they are.
On the phone in New York, he found time to talk during a hectic schedule that includes releasing a comic book and reworking a theater production. When the subject turned to Pretty Faces (Actors Cabaret of Eugene's successful play performed off-Broadway), for which he wrote the music and lyrics, Cabell broke into a monologue about his friends Jim Roberts and Joe Zingo, who run ACE. When asked about his video editing company, for which he has filmed and edited productions such as Exonerated, starring Mia Farrow, Richard Dreyfuss and Jeff Goldblum, the conversation turned to Tony award-winning producer Jane Bergere and the wonderful job she did on this year's Glengarry Glen Ross. Cabell's stories sound like they came from an artsy type's dream life – the sort of stuff most of us would include in Christmas cards. But to him, they're only part of the New York art world routine. When he first moved to the city so nice they named it twice (where "everything is compressed," he says), he was waiting in line at a deli, looked up, and saw Dustin Hoffman in front of him ordering a sandwich. Then there's that old chestnut about Liza Minnelli getting a bathroom door slammed in her face right in front of him. Or the one about Sinatra stopping by for a quick chat with Cabell and a lunch date. You like award shows? He's been to five MTV award shows, nine Tonys and has judged the Daytime Emmys for seven years. But you wouldn't know it by talking to him … unless you keep prodding him for stories. "He's really down to earth. I think it's his upbringing here [in Eugene]," says Joe Zingo, artistic director at ACE. "He wears sweat clothes. He's grubby most of the time. He's not assuming in any way. Most of the ones who really are good are like that. They're not pretentious at all." Grubby? Maybe. Successful? Definitely. Pretty Faces was a project "inspired by four women in Eugene, written by someone from Eugene, revived in Eugene and brought back to New York," says Cabell. A Pretty Faces CD recorded in Eugene recently went on sale. CD Baby (a popular online CD store) has already placed a second order and the CD was picked up by the famous Dress Circle music store in London. But Cabell quickly adds that people are talking about the quality of the sound, not his writing or music, and that it's amazing what the local studios did with his work. Typical. Since the Pretty Faces run, Cabell has written Z: The Masked Musical, which was a successful album before its world premiere at ACE. He's currently working on I, Sara, a one-woman show premiering at ACE's Annex Theater in February. He's also shopping a documentary he produced about comic book conventions, debuting his comic book The Hair-Raising Adventures of Jayms Blonde and making some changes to Z. Just don't expect him to tell you how successful he's been. Ties to Eugene Robert Cabell finds time to make pilgrimages back to his hometown of Eugene every year. His life has been in New York for nearly three decades, but there are some things the Big Apple can't compare with. "It's a breath of fresh air to come home to Oregon to be with people who aren't neurotic," he says. OK … OK. So we're down to earth. But he must miss that Zagat-reviewed food, right? "I ate at Soriah … and it was wonderful. It rivals anything I've had in New York," he says. The grandeur of theater in New York must have made the surrounding areas bastions of the dramatic arts, right? "You'd be amazed with the schools on the East Coast. Class plays are still in the cafeteria in Jersey. People do not have a clue to the quality of things that [ACE does]," Cabell says. There is one reason he keeps his ties in Eugene, and it has nothing to do with theater productions, our lack of neuroses or the skills of Eugene chefs. "I never lost my friends in Eugene," Cabell says.
Schedule of Events DANCE All That! Dance Company 688-1523
• www.allthatdancecompany.com Dance Theatre of Oregon 689-5189
• www.dtodance.org Elsinore Theatre, Salem 503-375-3574
• www.elsinoretheatre.com Eugene Ballet Company 485-3992
• www.eugeneballet.org •
Tickets: 682-5000 Hult Center Lane Community College Dance Department www.lanecc.edu
• Tickets: 463-5202 Musical Feet Newport Performing Arts Center UO Dance Department MUSIC Arts Umbrella Cherry Blossom Musical Artswww.cblossom.org Chamber Music Corvalliswww.violins.org Corvallis/OSU Symphony Orchestra Corvallis Repertory Singers Corvallis Youth Symphony Association DIVA Elsinore Theatre, Salem Eugene Concert Choir Eugene Opera Eugene Symphonic Band
www.eugenesymphonicband.com Eugene Symphony www.eugenesymphony.org Florence Events Center Heart of the Valley Children's Choir, Corvallis
www.hvcchoir.com Hult Center www.hultcenter.org Lane Community College www.lanecc.edu LaSells Stewart Center, Corvallis Linn-Benton Concert Band, Albany www.linnbentonconcertband.org Newport Performing Arts Center Oregon Mozart Players Oregon Music Teachers Association Sam Bond's Garage
Shedd Institute
UO Music
THEATER Actors Cabaret of Eugene Actors Cabaret Annex Actors Cabaret Youth Academy Albany Civic Theater Corvallis Community Theatre www.corvalliscommunitytheater.org Cottage Theatre, Cottage Grove Elsinore Theatre, Salem Hult Center www.hultcenter.org Lane Community College www.lanecc.edu Lord Leebrick Theatre www.lordleebrick.com Majestic Theatre, Corvallis Newport Performing Arts Center Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland www.osfashland.org OSU Theatre, Corvallis University Theatre Upstart Crow Studios Very Little Theatre Willamette Repertory Theatre
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