I have been enlisted in the Red Army

...no actually. I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but I have my reasons.

Mother Russia Cabaret

This is a show I've been roped into at short notice. I'm being a backup singer for one of their numbers. The producers promised a dancing bear and there will, in fact, be a dancing bear. And a sexy Rasputin. I couldn't say no to taking part after I heard about that.

Tomorrow I'll also be in a flashmob for Street Corner Shakespeare. This will be the first outing of a group of rag-tag rebel scum bent on... well... bringing some theatre to Wellington's CBD rather arbitrarily. Actually saying where and when it'll take place would seem to defeat the purpose, but if you want to take part in angry mob scenes or comedies of manners over the next few months... drop me a line and I'll add you to the super not very secret facebook group.

I will get out to more gigs soon. My next planned outing is a reading of Seneca's The Trojan Women up at Vic. That's on the 4th of November at 6.30 pm. The Classics Programme has some quite interesting plans  related to ancient theatre and the staging thereof; but for now, come to the play reading if you like! Link below for non students who want to keep in the loop about all things Old Skool:
Classical Association

Next Post: things related to Classical/art music that are coming up. Also ruminations on the challenges of translating Lieder into lulzy yet presumably singable NZ English.

adventures in... poetry reading?

Okay so this is all but official. I manned up and wrote a comment on the event page for this thing, to the effect that I wanted to do a reading:

NZPS Poets' Corner yaaaay

The theme for the latest outing of Poets' Corner is... inspiration. Poets that have inspired you to make your own, perhaps less perfect but not less sincere poetry.
I think something selected from EGLS would suit this evening to a tee.
What the hey is EGLS? 
BEHOLD

Of course since the tumblr is about to hit the 200 translation mark (next Friday, if all goes to plan), I am a little spoiled for choice.

I said I wouldn't post my poems on here, naughty me, I'm definitely bending the rules. But I know you'll all enjoy watching me make a tit of myself onstage. William Shatner forgives me. Don't you man?

injury time

Over the weekend, my partner broke his right arm in a bicycle accident.
I got too preoccupied to make a real blog post, but honey, this is for you:

eh heh heh

big things worth forking out for in 2014??

I got two shiny brochures in the mail at the start of this month.

One's the Auckland Philharmonia's 2014 season programme, and one's the NZSO's 2014 season programme.
That's a whole lot of concerts and I got a bit inundated with choices. So, what leapt out as interesting/cool? What am I tempted to see? And why am I giving some stuff a miss?

NZSO first because Beethoven's bust (dipped in blue paint) is staring at me intimidatingly from the cover.
Rueben's first comment, on opening the programme, was "I want to go see the bald cat".

...what?

-aaaah Jesus! okay, that bald cat. What? Or rather, Why?

*looks*

-oh, the cat is wearing jewellery and the concert is called Opulence. Well, that sooort of makes sense? Dammit, they're playing the Rosenkavalier suite and I am sort of tempted. But nothing can induce me to go to a concert that's being advertised by cat Nosferatu. 

Also scared by the Pay Your Age promotion. Superimposed on a photo of what looks to be a sad Ukrainian bride is the following copy:
ARE YOU AGED BETWEEN 18 and 35?

THE CLOCK IS TICKING

...TIME TO GET BREEDING BEFORE YOUR OVARIES ARE SHOT. WE NEED MORE PRODIGIES

The programme helpfully provides the reader with mate selection material (ie. pictures of all the NZSO musicians) to speed up the breeding process. No? Okay maybe I'm the only one who looked for the hot ones.

Some concerts you know to skip just from the title. La Dolce Vita? Yep, that'd be the 'let's play all the Italian things' - PASS.
I was pleasantly delighted to find that Russian Fire did not equate to Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, but instead there's a nice mix of composers: Rach's Caprice Bohemien, pardon my lack of acute accent there, Schumann Piano Concerto in A (yum) and Shosti's 15th Symphony. Yeah. That looks like a good time.

Went to see one of the Hear & Far concerts this year and I like the concept - New Zealand, meet other country. Other country, meet New Zealand. 9 May in Welly and 10 May in Auckland, and the other country is Scotland this time but not in a lame way. Ooh and Jonathan Lemalu is singing things. 

Won't bother with Messiah but Haydn's Creation is a really cool thing if you, you know, want a giant choir and ooh look Jonathan's in that too! Also Madeleine Pierard who I like. Okay I'm going to see that one for sure. I may be biased given I'm a bit of a Baroque nut.

What else? Lots of Mahler, especially if you live in Welly or Auckland. And all of the Beethoven - no really. I think those are a matter of taste.

Tuscan Summer? - SERIOUSLY? TWO Italian concerts? Pass the Montepulciano. No, just give me the bottle.

National Youth Orchestra summer camp concert includes Hindson's Homage to Metallica - hehe. I think APO's got them licked for relevance to Yoof culture with its Remix the Orchestra project. Still. I LOL'd.

_____

-Right, onto the APO brochure!

Straightaway I am going to say that the programme art is streets ahead. APO has commissioned a bunch of artists AND credited them on the inside front cover, and the art has some kind of relevance to each concert. Yes. Below is the weirdest bit of brochure art I could find, and only disturbs me because can you imagine what a cross between a violin and bagpipes would sound like?

Props to the artist (Simon Shaw! yay for artist credits!) for making it drizzle in the background of this picture. Now that's verisimilitude.

Within a day of getting this programme I was conspiring to get tickets to Tristan und Isolde so, yeah, that's one I'm keen on, personally. It's a nice thing to stage (albeit not in a Gesamtkunstwerky way) a whole Wagner opera in concert in NZ. Yay Wagner Anniversary, for giving us an excuse to see all the Wagner. Or all the Wanger, in the event y'all went to see the Flying Dutchman this year.

So now I'm done being excited by Wagner, what else is here. Exotic Birds - if there are no burlesque dancers there'd better be some Messiaen. Oh, there is! Well, that's okay then.

There are some fun times with soloists: I am kind of tickled to see a Concerto for Bassoon (John Williams, played by Ingrid Hagan) and a party piece for the horn section in the aptly named Concert for Horns. Neither is amazing enough to make me leave my digs in Welly, but if you are north of the Bombays and want to get a better view of all those instruments usually concealed by the string section? Might be worth a squiz.

Shosti 12 in this programme! It's like you're trying to make me broke, guys.

Czechmate - no, don't succumb to the puns guys. Not going to this on principle because that pun is LAME.

St John Passion - I love Bach, but I'll go to the Creation instead.

A James Bond themed thing - didn't I see an internet article recently about someone who gets aroused by the James Bond theme? I guess this concert's for him, then. 

No Mate Selection Profile in this brochure, but there is a great shot of the Auckland Town Hall Organ looking imposing and purple (fahaha, organ) and the orchestra below. Apparently, it is more fun being in the second violins than the firsts. I coulda told you that! Second violins are where it's at, man. 

Merzbow and beginner's mind?

The noise artist Merzbow is coming to play Wellington.
Here's the facebook event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/680439515300877/?fref=ts

I'm in a funny situation here, and I'm sure I'm not the only person to experience this. I'm both keen to go to this gig and anxious about going to this gig.
See, it's not my thing. But I feel it should be a thing I don't just laugh politely about. There's something I'm not getting here and I want to get it.

I've got many thoughts about comfort zones, and the challenge of stepping out of them, that I'll address in future blog posts. I listen quite a bit to music that sounds like noise (in places), or music that's sample based, or music that sounds very unlike the sounds that I grew up with. 
... there's a bleed between the genres here. Within so-called 'classical' music, you get amazing noisefests: dissonance, demented rhythms, sound stacked on sound. Sometimes it really does just become noise in parts - and that's great. Then you get the 60s minimalists with their meditative tape loops and Drag-like scoring, or the epic noisy  pointillism of Stockhausen's electronic works. 

I like bands that do band things while playing with noise - Big Black is a good example. And I like noisy soundscapes - got a Sleep Chamber CD right by my computer for instance.

I'm still warming up to Merzbow. He's put out a lot of stuff. A LOT. So, hoping to listen through it and find a way into it.
Below is some sonic blistery gaussian stuff applied to some nice elusive melodic elements. Which makes more 'sense' to me, coming from where I'm coming from. An entry point maybe:

Anatomy of a gig

When I was a little science nerd, I went through a dissection phase.
-bear with me here!-
What you learn about looking inside critters (and people - I did a human anatomy class too, eventually) is that the inner workings of, say, a bunny or a pukeko are incredibly complex. And there is potential for stuff to go wrong. In fact, when we think of life's complexity, it's amazing things don't go wrong more often.

I'm going to talk real quick about an old gig of mine that went wrong, why it went wrong. 
At the same time I'm going to encourage people to make events. Does that sound counter-intuitive? I promise it isn't!

Even though there is always the possibility that the event you are planning will not work out, it is definitely worth the experience to try and make it happen. You'll learn heaps; and most of the time, Life Finds A Way.

So here is an image: old gig from June.

 

 

Urban Chamber was a bit of a random idea. I'd been planning one of my regular Electric Salon gigs; mostly affairs involving some variety acts and some alt music. The latest incarnation of the Salon was called Chamber of Horrors and featured sonic arts, improv freeform jazz, performance art and a radio play reading. I was clearly not just in the business of putting on your regular alt gigs any more.

So since I was taking a goth bar and throwing experimental art at it, I thought, let's take a venue (Meow) that has traditionally served the Wellington jazz and comedy scene, and throw chamber music at it. It wasn't a bad idea really. I got the NZSM events people on side, persuaded them to let me borrow a harpsichord, booked some interesting musicians. So far so cool.

But the unforeseen can happen, of course. I'd gambled more of my own money than usual in preparing for the gig (I was hiring a harpsichord and paying performers what I hoped were okay rates for 'classical' musicians). And June 20 was the night of the really big storm that hit Wellington, took out the train lines and parts of the shoreline, downed trees and coincidentally kept a whole lot of punters trapped in their homes.

We made the best of it. But I couldn't help feeling the whole thing reeked of desperation a la the scene in Little Voice where LV hasn't shown up and her producer is trying to Keep Calm and Carry On. Also I was soaked to the skin from helping transport that beautiful harpsichord.
But hey! the NZSO had to cancel their Auckland concert the next day; at least my show went on. You've got to look at the humour in these things.


For months afterwards I was really averse to putting on shows. It burned me a little. But as the weeks have gone by, I've realised that I met some very interesting people because I organised that gig.
Donald Nicolson, the funny and nimble harpsichord virtuoso. Stephen Gibbs from NZSM, who is lovely and gave me lots of support. Megan Ward, viola player and irreverent Bach fan. I also got some insight into what Anton Killin does when he's not playing goth music.
And I got to organise a Mad Max photoshoot (Gemma Crouch-Gatehouse did the pictures) involving musical instruments, dark alleyways and facepaint.

Nothing's ever really a loss if you work out in advance what you are prepared to risk, and are open to the things that emerge from an event.


My mate Freyja's putting on an alt gig on the 25th of this month. It's the first event she's organised. I don't want her to be intimidated by my story; I want her, and people like her, to be encouraged. You will learn heaps by doing these things.
-also I'll be playing the electirc violin for an audience for the first time at that gig. It will be a learning experience. Am I nervous? Sure. Is it gonna stop me? Nope.

good times with the NZSM

Hello! It's been a while.

Last night I went to a really marvellous event and I'm blogging about it.

But first, here's a picture:

That was the image on the programme and website for this concert. Not the most imaginative graphics but don't be fooled, I promise the music was awesome.

Every year the NZ School of Music does an orchestral performance and shows off its talent. I got invited along the day before, so it was a bit of a spontaneous outing. I tagged along with a posse of young lively musical people.

We turned up late-for-being-early and the Hill St. basilica was already quite full, so I set us up in the front row, next to the recording booms. We got a fantastic view of the orchestra - much heckling and encouragement of people's friends who were performing - and it was nice to see Kenneth's face while he was conducting (at one point he put the baton down and used his finger).

Made me remember why live concerts rock; it's easier to hear stuff on CD, but there's real suspense in watching a player, timp. baton in hand, nervously waiting for his cue, or the face of a violinist who's become absorbed in a delicate passage as she counts bars.

Jason Post's original composition noumena hinged on not fulfilling listener expectations, always reaching towards a satisfying conclusion and not.. quite... getting.. there.. which was a little bit cheeky but entirely intentional, and memorable, so I'll forgive him for teasing us.

 

 

This is Jason: photo courtesy of NZSM.
 

 

The Elgar soloist, Heather Lewis, was incredible. Her tender and sincere rendition suited the young orchestra and the comparatively young audience. The experience was worlds away from the last time I heard the concerto live -that was an NSZO cocnert and was a more chilly intellectual outing. This was just beautiful - theartfelt without getting too syrupy. There was a lot of bounce in the sunnier passages, too.

 

This is Heather: again, thanks, NZSM, for giving me downloadable picutres to thieve.

 

 

Shostakovitch's 9th is kind of a crazy party mix; it takes a bit of discipline to keep it all together, despite its concessions to a traditionalish symphonic structure. 
Tonight's performance nearly turned into a mess a few times, but the winds section really helped keep everything together. The big rush to the end was exhilarating. Shout-out to Peter Lamb who did a very nice bassoon solo.  It was great to sit near the basses for this work, they have heaps to do and were loving it. NZSM brought the lulz. You definitely got the sense of the satire in the symphony (it is basically a big "Screw You, Stalin!")

In conclusion: this is the perfect sort of concert to get someone used to the idea that 'classical' music can be fun, and gripping, and young, and sometimes funny.
Tickets weren't prohibitively expensive, there was a friendly crowd, you could go chat to the students and staff pretty easily. People need to get along to stuff like this, versus cramming themselves into that daggy corner at the MFC and wondering later on why they bother going to concerts.

So I'm gonna keep blogging about art music gigs that I go to - not just classical stuff and not just big gigs; anything that seems interesting or like people should know about. And if you want to catch a concert with me, let me know and I'll hook you up!