Author Archives: maestrobarrykolman

Showing Off the Accordion’s Hip Side

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Richard Perry/The New York Times

Les Poissons Voyageurs, a Montreal group, is one of the acts in the Accordions Around the World festival this summer in Bryant Park.

By LARRY ROHTER/New York Yimes
Published: June 26, 2013

The accordion just can’t get no respect

Guitar players have Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix as avatars; accordionists are stuck, at least in the public mind, with Lawrence Welk and Frankie Yankovic. Pianists have the works of Bach, Chopin and Scriabin to challenge them; accordion players are saddled with requests for “Lady of Spain” and the monotonous oompah oompah of the polka.

But the free Accordions Around the World festival at Bryant Park this summer is offering accordionists an opportunity to change the stodgy image of their instrument, which was invented in Europe in the 19th century. Every Thursday through Aug. 29, from 5 p.m. onward, accordion players are stationed around the park, where they perform a varied repertory meant to show off their instrument’s versatility and range.

In keeping with its name, the festival’s emphasis is on folk and international genres like zydeco, vallenato, tango, klezmer, musette, qawwali, forró, bachata and the music of the Balkans. But last week’s edition, with 20 accordionists involved, also found Matt Dallow playing the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black,” Phillip Racz covering Frank Zappa’s “Peaches en Regalia” and Art Linowitz, who performs as Art Now, serving up Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry.”

Precious Chinese Instrument Damaged in Airline Mishap

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Sunday, June 23, 2013 – 01:00 PM

By Brian Wise/WQXR Blog

 

Wu Man's pipa, damaged on a US Airways Flight Wu Man’s pipa, damaged on a US Airways Flight (Wu Man)

A precious Chinese instrument worth $50,000 was damaged on a US Airways flight on Friday, and its owner, the noted musician Wu Man, blames a flight attendant for dropping it.

Wu was traveling with her prized pipa (a four-stringed Chinese lute), and boarding a flight from Philadelphia to New Haven, where she was to give a world premiere with the Kronos Quartet. Wu said she had tried to stow the delicate instrument in an overhead compartment but it would not fit. She asked if she could strap the instrument into the empty seat next to her, but was denied.

A flight attendant then offered to stow the pipa in a coat closet in the front of the plane. As the attendant was opening the closet, she dropped the instrument, causing the neck to snap in two. Hearing the loud noise, Wu ran to the front of the cabin. “I opened it and checked it and it’s broken,” Wu said in a phone interview Sunday. “I said, ‘you broke my instrument.’ She had no apology, no expression on her face. She still tried to say that it couldn’t fit in the closet.”

Horrified, Wu got off the flight with her broken instrument, and was later booked a bigger aircraft to Hartford, which had more overhead room. The pipa, which was not insured, will need to be sent to a specialist in China for an attempted repair. Wu is also consulting with a lawyer.

A spokesman for US Airways said in a message Sunday that the company’s customer relations department is trying to reach Wu for more information. The company also posted a message on Twitter:

The International Festival of Arts & Ideas, where Wu performed on Saturday night, arranged for a substitute pipa for her concert. Still, the musician says she didn’t have access to her very best instrument for the premiere of a new work she co-wrote with Philip Glass.

Wu, who was born in China and now lives in San Diego, is considered the leading interpreter of the pipa in the West. She has been widely embraced in Western classical music circles and was named the 2012 “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America. She has performed with numerous orchestras and composers such as Tan Dun, Lou Harrison and Terry Riley have composed works for her.

Earlier this year a $20,000 cello bow belonging to Alban Gerhardt, was snapped in two in an incident involving the Transportation Security Administration.

Right: Wu Man with her pipa (Kuandl Studio)

 

As an orchestra conductor, I like to carry my batons in my carry-on. I was stopped once by T.S.A. and had to give a mini-lesson on what does an orchestra conductor do and why he carries these long pointy sticks. Also had a T.S.A. workers looking at my $4000 clarinet piece by piece as my heart stopped beating. All of us the music community hope that Wu’s very special instrument is repaired when she returns home. Few outside the music world can understand the relationship a musician has with his or her instrument; it is part of you both physically and spiritually.

The Spirits of Brazil, Weaving Through Jazz Sounds

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Stacey Kent and Jim Tomlinson at Birdland

Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Stacey Kent performing at Birdland.

By STEPHEN HOLDEN

With her bright, alluring sliver of a voice — a darting musical tongue of flame — Stacey Kent has few of the traits commonly associated with jazz singing. Yet with her lightly swinging delivery, curt phrasing and attraction to Brazilian bossa nova, she is a jazz singer in the iconoclastic mode of the much-missed Blossom Dearie, whom some critics wrongly dismissed as more cabaret than jazz.

Instead of Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, the spirits who guide Ms. Kent belong to the Brazilians, Antônio Carlos Jobim, and João and Astrud Gilberto. Dreaminess trumps realism. Ms. Kent and her husband, the saxophonist Jim Tomlinson, suggest a latter-day answer to Ms. Gilberto and Stan Getz, whose early recordings remain the foundation of what they do. And on Tuesday evening at Birdland, where Ms. Kent and Mr. Tomlinson arrived for their annual New York City appearance, the opening set was sprinkled with Jobim songs, animated as much by Mr. Tomlinson’s intensely smoky solos as by Ms. Kent’s girlish chirp.

But there is more. In recent years the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who writes fanciful, mildly surreal lyrics to Mr. Tomlinson’s music, has given Ms. Kent a quasi-literary identity. The portrait evoked by their collaborations is that of a reflective free spirit and latter-day romantic cautiously following her exploratory instincts. Although Ms. Kent has an introspective side, you could never describe her sensibility as tragic or even deeply sad. She projects an innate buoyancy.

Ms. Kent’s other defining characteristic is her pan-European musical outlook. She grew up in New Jersey, but she and her husband are based in England and have built up large followings in France and Germany. In her 2010 album, “Raconte-Moi,” Ms. Kent sings in fluent French.

It all made for a heady mixture in a show that was a kind of retrospective, the high points being the Sammy Cahn-Benny Carter standard “Only Trust Your Heart,” and a Tomlinson-Ishiguro collaboration, “The Changing Lights,” a song that defines Ms. Kent and Mr. Tomlinson as sophisticated, cosmopolitan jazz impressionists.

Music’s beauty is in the ear of the beholder – not in the sex appeal of the musician

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The selling point for classical music performers should be their talent, not their looks or youthfulness

Classical music performers such as Alison Balsom are under pressure to stand out through their looks rather than their playing

Classical music performers such as Alison Balsom are under pressure to stand out through their looks rather than their playing Photo: Rex Features
 
 By Tasmin Little

8:07PM BST 11 Jun 2013

The fabulous Dame Jenni Murray of Woman’s Hour has been lamenting the fact that female classical musicians are under pressure to look glamorous and to “go along with the idea that sex sells”. In my experience, there is, sadly, much truth in what she says. During my 25-year career in the profession, I have noticed an increasing emphasis on appearance, as the “twin-set and pearls” style of evening wear has been replaced by designer couture gowns, and youth and beauty are perceived as almost equal to talent.

If music is about communication and expression, why does the appearance of a performer matter at all? The answer is that it used not to. When you look at old record covers, some of the photographs of female artists are distinctly unflattering by today’s standards. And yet it made no difference to their popularity at the time, as the most important consideration was their interpretation.

Nowadays, things are very different. So why has the classical music industry begun to feel the need to compensate for something, as though the product is no longer good enough or special enough in itself?

One reason why the emphasis gradually changed is the repeated criticism levelled at the classical music industry that it is “fusty” and that performers are “out of touch”. The implication is that classical musicians are playing old music by dead composers who have little relevance to today’s society, that we ourselves are rooted firmly in the past, and that this is reflected in the outdated way that we dress. So, in an effort to get more “with it”, traditional gowns have been replaced by modish outfits and hair gel.

Another reason for the pressure to make the packaging sexy is that performers are competing in an ever more crowded market. The industry is more international than ever, and the internet has allowed great choice and freedom in the way that the consumer buys and enjoys music. So a performer feels more of a need to stand out from the crowd, to find his or her “unique selling point”.

But music is not a cosmetic. The emphasis should be on the aural, not the visual, and, if we place it on the latter, we are in danger of losing the essence of what music really is.

Dame Jenni is right to imply that there is more pressure on women than men. But the pressure is increasing on them, also. Smouldering expressions in publicity shots, machismo and even gyrations on stage are becoming more common.

Only one aspect of the profession has remained firmly immune to the lure of promoting a youthful image, and that is the role of conductor. Actually, the older you are as a conductor, the more you are perceived to have attained great musicianship and gravitas. Your work is thought to be more “meaningful”. Thus far, this has been a very male-dominated area of the profession, with very few young or female maestri. However, things are changing, and time will tell whether future female conductors will feel the need to market themselves as glamorous.

The show-business pressure on performers is something that clearly worries Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, too: the soprano spoke recently of the dangers of singers imagining that there was an ­ X Factor route to overnight success.

Similarly, learning a musical instrument to a high standard takes years: there are no shortcuts. I began the violin at the age of seven, and it wasn’t until I was in my late teens that I was good enough to perform in public. It also takes time to learn the art of expression in performance. To bring meaning to music, you have to have lived with that music, know it inside out, even to have lived enough life yourself, otherwise it is as unsatisfying as turning over the exciting front cover of a new book only to find there is no content.

The fact is that there is no universal marketing package for music, nor a magic formula to achieve success. Each piece and performance is unique — neither can be summed up by a vision in a dress or a smouldering hunk on the cover of a disc. To try to do so diminishes us all.

The “unique selling point” of a true musician, skinny or fat, tall or short, glamorous or less so, is the ability to connect, to inspire and to move an individual beyond the realms of their ordinary life.

I have a very optimistic view of the future of classical music. I believe there will always be a discerning audience who wish to hear quality music. And if a gifted performer happens to look wonderful too, there is nothing wrong with that. My only fear is that if glossy packaging is increasingly emphasised over content, there is a real danger that some extraordinary talents who do not conform to this image will fall by the wayside.

Tasmin Little OBE is a solo concert violinist

The Band’s Visit (ביקור התזמורת – Bikur Ha-Tizmoret)

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The film, The Band’s Visit (2007), can be interpreted and discussed on many different levels. Perhaps it is a political statement by the Israeli director and writer, Eran Kloirin. The halting dialogue and the often awkward silences can be a metaphor for the lack of meaningful dialog between Israel and her Arab neighbors. The desert outpost, in the middle of nowhere, which the Band finds itself, might signify Israel’s isolation. The Band’s neatly identical vivid blue uniforms seem so out of place against the desert sand. The Band is bewildered and so are we.

But for me, the movie was meaningful on a more personal level, regardless of politics. Three main contrasting characters were explored in this 87 minute film. Tewfig Zakaria is the strict, conservative commander of the Alexandria Ceremonial Orchestra. The scene in the airport when the Band poses for a photo and quite innocently a maintenance man unaware wheels in a trash can and broom, we know that Tewfig’s strict and unyielding command will be challenged. He portrayed someone so uncomfortable by the adverse situation of being lost and confused. I found myself completing his sentences that he was so painfully trying to complete. Tewfig was carrying so much guilt, so much sadness. You saw it the tight close-ups of his face. Haled, the irresponsible, flirting, defiant, handsome young man who got the wrong directions at the airport almost finds himself drummed out of the Band if he doesn’t begin to show discipline and restraint. This threat has little effect on him. Dina, the brash and extremely bored café owner who offers food and shelter to the eight members of the orchestra. Like Tewfig, she also has some regrets but unlike Tewfig, she lives for the present and not in the past. As we see, Tewfig and Dina find companionship and Tewfig talks about his private life, perhaps the first time since the suicide of his son. With all three characters sitting around the table during one of the final scene, and despite their tentative, sometimes tender exchanges, the three remain essentially alone, in isolation, as their faces project.

What are the constants that tie these characters and their situation together so that film is not just a bunch understated or unrelated scenes. Love, family, food, and music are the glue. The se idea of being in the wrong place at the wrong time hits home for me. I am an orchestra conductor and during my early career years, I found myself in many awkward and even dangerous situations. I saw myself as the ninth musician when the Band is dumped at the airport with their luggage and instruments.

I conducted in Russia on many occasions and though most of my host was kind and helpful, others were not se benevolent. I guest conducted in a small town somewhere in the middle of Russia. I don’t remember the name of the town; all I can remember is extreme cold, sheets of snow, and an airport with 3 working lights. My concert was over and I was dumped off at the airport with a goodbye and good luck. Like the Band from Alexandria, I was bewildered, alone, and very worried. No information flight boards, no traveler’s aid, no heat..just me and my luggage. In the middle of the desert as far as I was concerned. I will never see America again…I will die here in Russia. Things could be worse, I thought, but I wasn’t sure how worse it could get. I just sat there staring at all the people in the airport. All of them knew which plane to take and which door to go through..they all knew except for me. Oh by the way, it did get worse…now I had to go to the bathroom.

One of my well travelled colleagues once told me, always carry photos of your children..actually they don’t even have to be your children. Just a bunch of photos of kids. He said, trust me, this will save your life. I sat for about an hour, listening to the constant babble of languages I have never heard before. Then, by the grace of G-d, I heard a language I recognized, German. A group German tourists were waiting for a plane to Moscow, the same plane I was waiting for. I listened intently, while kind of sliding down the bench to where they were. I whipped out my album of my children; it might have been photos of someone else’s children, I don’t remember. In an instance, a dozen Germans were oooing and ahhing at these photos. By some miracle, I was actually conversing in pig-Latin German. Through over-exaggerated gestures as if I was a finalist in a charades competition, I explained my problem. I became a member of their group. I found out that my new found friends were waiting for their plane to Moscow since yesterday. Their plane was 26 hours late.

Suddenly they got up and began walking to the door and out to the tarmac. I followed them outside in the snow, carrying my luggage and hoping so hard that this was indeed my plane. I looked around me and there were hundreds of people running to this one lonely plane. 26 hours is a long time to wait even by Russian standards. It was like a scene out of Godzilla; people grabbing their belongings and just running, screaming, yelling…all frightened. At least that’s how I felt. But this technically wasn’t my plane. This was yesterday’s plane!

Eventually, I found myself on the plane that wasn’t mine. The plane was packed. There was no seat assignments..you just go and sit anywhere. I found a place and sat. I felt relieved that I was on my way home. But then, I broke into a cold sweat. I was supposed to be met by a host in Moscow to drive me to the international terminal…a thirty mile drive. Would they still be waiting for me or would I live my remaining years as a Muscovite? And again, I felt a real sense of isolation. My German friends were no where in sight. Was this even the right plane? Could I end up in Siberia? Panic…lots of it.

The face of young child popped into view. I glanced at him and made a funny face. His young parents were sitting by my side. There was only one thing I could do to save my life….photos of my children…or whoever’s children I had in my wallet. It worked once..why not again? Fast forward to my landing in Moscow…my new family took me home, fed me, and drove me the international airport. Ah family….and pictures of children.

There has been many times I found myself in the wrong place. In 1973, I received a fellowship to study clarinet in Berlin, West Germany. It was a difficult time. The CIA and Nixon were involved with the coup of Chile’s Allende and there was intense anti-American sentiment in Berlin. The Yom Kippur War had started. I remember going to a local synagogue for services to be greeted by a line of heavily armed German police guarding the doors. During the service, a local resident whispered to me, “What is a nice boy like you doing in Berlin?” I really didn’t have an answer.

During a week’s engagement in somewhere in Argentina, I wanted to go to Sabbath services at the local synagogue. I arrived at the temple. There were large concrete barricades blocking the entrance. There was a bomb threat some days before. The guard at the door discouraged me from coming in but I persisted. He took my passport and a few minutes later I was allowed in the temple. I participated in the services, even was given the opportunity to go up to the dais or bema. About 30 later, the guard tapped me on the shoulder and escorted me out the door. The wrong place at the wrong time.

But there are other stories that have happier moments. After a tough rehearsal in a small town in Poland, I whispered to myself in English, “Boy, I wished I had a beer.” The next day a case of beer was waiting for me on the podium..an anonymous gift.

While conducting in Sverdlovsk deep and isolated in the Ural mountains, I made friends with the percussion section. Yes…you guessed it..I showed them those photos again. The timpanist was having a birthday party and I was to be the honored guest after the concert. I was deeply honored and humbled. After the concert, still in my tuxedo, I was whisked away to a tiny flat. The entire family was waiting for me… so much food on the table..but nobody had a bite until my arrival. Many children surrounding me..trying to touch me. I was not use to such royal treatment. Why were the children trying to touch me? I was the first American these kids have ever seen. I heard an Elvis Presley record in the background. They wanted me to feel comfortable and the Elvis record was the only thing “American” they had. For that night, I was part of their family. This was a rare moment…it can be a lonely existence visiting unusual and far away countries…like being alone in a small desert town not knowing the language. Family, love, food, and music..the constants that are there if you want to find it.

Several years ago, I took about 50 students on a musical tour to Egypt. Our last concert was outside in a new and beautiful park in Cairo. There were hundreds of people listening to our concert. Moms, dads, and so many children. Some were dressed in western style clothes while others were wearing more traditional attire. It was the best concert of the trip. Children came up to my students talking to them, looking at the large tuba and trying to play the large drums. It was the first time these people have heard western Wind Ensemble music. We were all speaking that international language called music.

I have never once felt like a stranger while visiting my beautiful family in Brazil. Language was never a barrier. Food, music, dancing, poking fun, and the love you get from a close and caring family combined was the common language.

Even in the most desolate places on earth, as long as there is another person around, there is a common language. It is up to you to find it and step out of the desert.

 

220px-The_Band's_Visit

An Extraordinary Friend, A Great Loss For Our Family

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Black_labrador

Dear Sasha,

You came into my life when my life was in shambles. Before I adopted you, you were abandoned, unwanted. Even at the SPCA, none of the children even noticed you. But when the assistant handed me the leash with you bouncing on the other end, sniffing and wagging your tail, I knew we would be pals. You weren’t “cute” enough to be adopted; too old, too scraggly, too smelly. But I knew there was something special about you. After I cleaned you up, you were a beautiful Lab,  full of pep and always ready for that endless game of retrieve the ball. Rain or shine or snow; anything round was yours to retrieve.

I can’t list all what you did for me, Grace, and the children.. For the times you guarded us from other dogs. For the time you fought heroically when attacked by that dog at the kennel. You were always a people dog

Sasha, you brought serenity to our lives. You were probably the only American dog who visited Brazil. You were a great travelling companion. Those at the Miami Airport fawned over you but you especially charmed four very special children. Your warmth, your love, brought six people together; you welcomed all of them to their new home in the United States. And from that moment on, we were seven inseparables.

You had a cunning sense of humor; you would behave and remain in your “area” when I was home but had the run of the house (and the furniture) when I wasn’t. You were a charmer.

You gave unconditionally and only asked in return a pat on the head, a nice belly rub, and of course, a nine hour game of fetch.

You and all of us knew you were getting sick. As much we hoped and prayed and fed you by hand, we knew you were tired of fighting the disease. It was so hard for all of us to see lose so much weight, to see you in so much pain. But as always, you never complained. We just knew it was time.

You will always have a special place in our hearts; we will always love you. You are in a better place now, free of pain, running to fetch that yellow tennis ball. Now G-d will be your protector as you were our protector for almost a decade. Sasha, you brought so much love and joy to my life and to the lives of my family. Rest Sasha rest. Good girl.