ESTHER, a one-act opera for families

Hi, it's been a while, and I'll have more to say soon about the festivals I've been performing at: Denver, Pordenone, and the coming shows at MoMA, MOMI and the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, but right now I'd like to invite readers to click on this link to my current Kickstarter project and pledge any amount, large or small, towards the production and DVD of my opera ESTHER, which will return to the stage next year in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the founding of Hadassah.

ESTHER Is a very kid-friendly opera, and tells in simple terms the well-known Bible story of a Jewish girl who risks her life to reveal her identity to the Persian king Ahashuerus to save her people. Watch a video introduction and hear excerpts here:

Now or Never premieres in San Francisco

After three days of rehearsals by the members of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, NOW OR NEVER received its first performance Friday night at the Herbst Theater in San Fran. Conductor Ben Simon led eight excellent wind and brass players for the 40-minute silent comedy with Harold Lloyd, and I got to sit back for a change and enjoy the film with the several hundred concertgoers who came out on a miserable night to hear sublime music by Stravinsky, a lovely, delicate, new piece by Berkeley composer Cindy Cox, and then my octet. It went marvelously, and I heard that the next two performances were even better, in Palo Alto and Berkeley. Tonight they finish the series in Vallejo. I hope to have a recording to post soon.

The Day Before Christmas (Sosin and Seaton)

Happy Holidays, everyone! In 1995 Duain Wolfe, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and the Colorado Symphony Chorus, commissioned an a cappella holiday piece from us that he has repeated in two subsequent editions of the CSO "Welcome Yule" concerts, including last year's "Best of" program. Here is a recording of the piece made this month by the Philharmonic Chorus of Madison WI under Patrick Gorman. Other performances are starting to take place around the country. Enjoy!

Contemporary music, easy on the ears

Contemporary music finds a welcome home in Mt. Kisco NY, where last Sunday Music from Copland House brought composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz to its capacious barn at the Westchester estate, Merestead for a sneak preview of his first opera, Séance on a Wet Afternoon. With the multiple Oscar winner speaking quietly and self-deprecatingly, series artistic director Michael Boriskin traced the path of Schwartz' career from Godspell and Pippin to his current smash hit Wicked, following which tenor Michael Marcotte joined Schwartz to sing through some of his fine songs, including “Day By Day,” “Corner of the Sky,” and “For Good.”

Based on a novel by Mark McShane and a 1964 British film, Séance is about a warped medium who seeks to further her career by kidnapping a child and then revealing information about her whereabouts in a a trance. In talking about the process of developing the opera, which premiered last year in Santa Barbara and will come to New York City Opera in April 2011, Schwartz noted the differences between writing opera and musicals. He said he had been attracted to this story for a long time but found it too subtle and moody for musical theater, and was delighted to have the chance to try his hand at opera. The libretto was completed first, and then he began the music, of which we heard about twenty minutes, including an aria, “One Little Lie,” sung by the sensational soprano Lauren Flanigan, for whom the work was written. (Hear it for yourself on YouTube.)

The overall impression was of high-intensity drama —“it's really dark, I'm happy to say,” Schwartz grinned—with typically finely crafted lyrics somewhat diffused by music rather too predictable in its harmonies and melodic contours, though always pleasant to listen to. But if Schwartz can get the millions of worldwide Wicked fans to venture into an opera house for the first time and maybe try some Mozart and Verdi after that, then he'll really have given the art form a big boost.

Up the road a piece in MIllerton, NY, Music of Kaija Saariaho, Leon Kirchner and Joan Tower and others made up the excellent inaugural program of Now! Concerts at the Millerton Library Annex last Saturday afternoon. As I listened, it struck me that we now have a century of music behind us that explored radically different sonorities from the hundreds of years preceding. From Stravinsky and Schoenberg to the thorny works of Pierre Boulez, the intricacies of Elliot Carter, the explosions of Ralph Shapey, the soundscapes of Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, our ears have been cultured to the point where the sounds themselves are becoming as familiar as the music of the preceding centuries. And today's young performers seem perfectly at home with repertoire that in earlier days would have been thought unplayable, as well as unlistenable.

So although the music was contemporary, much of it had a very familiar ring to it. Five excellent musicians carried off the program with great style and seeming ease. The Kalmia String Quartet's members are still students at Bard College, where they have worked with the renowned composer Joan Tower, and gave a keenly sensitive and dynamic performance of her Quartet No. 4 “Angels,” and the energetic first movement of the Samuel Barber Quartet No. 1, which contains the lyrical and ubiquitous Adagio.

The Kalmia four, three of whom are brothers, alternated with the superb cellist Sophie Shao, who offered solo works by Saariaho and Benjamin Britten, the former replete with tricky harmonics, and the latter more conventionally lyrical and characteristic of the composer's keen sense of rhythm, all exquisitely played. And the short Kirchner work, "For Cello Solo," the most rigorously academic of the afternoon's music, seemed as comfortable as Brahms in her hands. If the word spreads, Now! Concerts, which hopes to expand to four concerts next season, will need to find a bigger venue for the audience, some of whom drove over an hour for the event.

Alice Guy Schedule at Whitney

A busy month...after the fun performance of ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED at the Museum of Arts and Design, with audience participation in the SFX department, and NANOOK OF THE NORTH at MoMA, the museum tour continues with the opening of the Whitney's major retrospective of the work of Alice Guy Blaché.

Here are the programs I will be playing for, they are all of great interest to anyone studying early silent film, narrative film, period dance, and full of humor and whimsy.
I hope many people will drop by.

A5: Live Accompaniment (except for phonoscènes)
Sun, Nov. 8, 2009

Danse des saisons: L’Hiver, danse de la neige [Dance of the Seasons: Winter, Snow Dance], 1900 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

Au cabaret [At the Club], 1899 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

Chez le maréchal-ferrant [At the Blacksmith’s], 1899 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

Avenue de l’Opéra, 1900 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

La Bonne absinthe [The Good Absinthe], 1899 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

L’Aveugle fin de siècle [The Turn-of-the-century Blind Man], 1898 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

Chapellerie et charcuterie mécaniques [Mechanical Hat-and-Sausage-maker], 1900 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm, and Lobster Films, Paris

La Fée aux choux [The Cabbage Fairy], 1896?/1900 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

La Concierge [The Concierge], 1900 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

Chez le photographe [At the Photographer’s], 1900 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

BREAK

Madame a des envies [Madame Has Cravings], 1906 (Gaumont). Gaumont Pathé Archives, Paris

Mixed Pets, 1911 (Solax). Library of Congress, Washington, DC

BREAK

Alice Guy tourne une phonoscène [Alice Guy films a phonoscène], 1905 (Gaumont). Gaumont Pathé Archives, Paris [No accompaniment]

Questions indiscrètes [Indiscreet Questions], 1905 (Gaumont; phonoscène). Performed by Félix Mayol. Gaumont Pathé Archives, Paris [No accompaniment]

Le Vrai jiu-jitsu [The True Jujitsu], 1905 (Gaumont; phonoscène). Performed by Dranem. Gaumont Pathé Archives, Paris [No accompaniment]




C5: Live Accompaniment
Sun, Nov. 22, 2009

Baignade dans le torrent [Swimming in the Stream], 1897 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

Le Pêcheur dans le torrent [The Fisherman in the Stream], 1897 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

Ballet libella, 1897 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

Danse du papillon [Butterfly Dance], 1897 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

Danse serpentine [Serpentine Dance], 1897 (Gaumont). Performances by Mme Bob Walter. Lobster Films, Paris

Les Malabares [The Malabares], 1902 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

Chapellerie et charcuterie mécaniques [Mechanical Hat-and Sausage-maker], 1900 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm, and Lobster Films, Paris

Chirurgie fin de siècle [Turn-of-the-century Surgery], 1900 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

La Petite magicienne [The Little Magician], 1900 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

Intervention malencontreuse [Untimely Intervention], 1902 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

Chiens savants [Performing Dogs], 1902 (Gaumont). Featuring Miss Dundee and her trained dogs. Lobster Films, Paris

Faust et Méphistophélès [Faust and Mephistopheles], 1903 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

Une Histoire roulante [A Rolling Story], 1906 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

Ballon dirigeable--Lebaudy N3 [The Dirigible—Lebaudy No. 3], 1906 (Gaumont). Lobster Films, Paris

BREAK

The Ocean Waif, 1916 (International Film Service Inc.; Golden Eagle Features/International Film Service Inc.) Library of Congress, Washington, DC



D5: Live Accompaniment (except for phonoscènes)
Sun, Nov. 29, 2009

Alice Guy tourne une phonoscène [Alice Guy films a phonoscène], 1905 (Gaumont). Gaumont Pathé Archives, Paris [No accompaniment]

Lilas-Blanc [White Lilacs], 1905 (Gaumont; phonoscène). Performed by Félix Mayol. Gaumont Pathé Archives, Paris [No accompaniment]

Five O’Clock Tea, 1905 (Gaumont; phonoscène). Performances by Dranem. Gaumont Pathé Archives, Paris [No accompaniment]

Les Maçons [The Builders], 1905 (Gaumont). Performed by the O’Mers. La Cinémathèque royale de Belgique, Brussels

La Course à la saucisse [The Race after the Sausage], 1906 (Gaumont). La Cinémathèque royale de Belgique, Brussels

Le Matelas alcoolique or Le Matelas épileptique [The Alcoholic Mattress or The Epileptic Mattress], 1906 (Gaumont). Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Women Film Pioneers Project Collection

La Glu [The Glue], 1906 (Gaumont). Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Une Course d’obstacles [An Obstacle-course Race], 1906 (Gaumont). Archives du Film du CNC, Bois d'Arcy, France

BREAK

Two Little Rangers, 1912 (Solax). Filmmuseum, Amsterdam

Outwitted by Horse and Lariat, 1911 (Solax). Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin [Cowboystreiche]

Algie the Miner, 1912 (Solax). Directed by Edward Warren and Harry Shenck. Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Greater Love Hath No Man, 1911 (Solax). Library of Congress, Washington, DC



E5: Live Accompaniment
Sun, Dec. 6, 2009

Danse serpentine [Serpentine Dance], 1902 (Gaumont). Performed by Lina Esbrard. Gaumont Pathé Archives, Paris

Danse fleur-de-lotus [Lotus-Flower Dance], 1897 (Gaumont). Gaumont Pathé Archives, Paris

Falling Leaves, 1912 (Solax). Library of Congress, Washington, DC

BREAK

Au cabaret [At the Club], 1899 (Gaumont). Archival Film Collections of the Swedish Film Institute, Stockholm

The Girl in the Armchair, 1912 (Solax). Academy Film Archive--Center for Motion Picture Study, Los Angeles

A Fool and His Money, 1912 (Solax). Library of Congress, Washington, DC; AFI/David and Margo Navone Collection

Roads Lead Home, 1913 (Solax). Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Women Film Pioneers Project Collection

Sonoma Film Festival, Turner Classic Movies, and more

It's May, and I'm catching up on a whirlwind month of work. I went out to Sonoma California in early April for their annual film festival and played for ROBIN HOOD (1922) and THE PEACH GIRL (1931) with my new Roland RD-700GX. What a great festival! They honored Bruce Willis (didn't get to meet him) and showed a lot of new films by mostly young filmmakers. I particularly enjoyed 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, THE ANSWER MAN, PUNCHING THE CLOWN, BIG DICK, and THREE-FIFTY, and had fun talking with some of the filmmakers. For the Fairbanks film I programmed a variety of medieval sounds: trumpets, drums, recorders, lutes, as well as some more Hollywood-y strings for romance, and improvised on some themes I had prepared beforehand.

The DVD looked fine on a rear projection system, and the capacity audience of 200 gave the performance a standing ovation. The event was voted the #2 audience favorite, which was fantastic, particularly considering it was the first time a silent film had been shown there in the 12 years of the festival.

I also played for the lovely PEACH GIRL, which I had scored previously for Richie Meyer, and which has been shown on TCM. The festival staff is terrific and everyone hoped to do another silent program or two next year. I'm ready!

Having put the finishing touches on THE BIG STAKES, a 1921 Western, I sent it off to Dennis Doros at Milestone Films, and it was shown on TCM on May 5. Along with sounds from the Roland, I had the great pleasure of some help from Howard Levy, harmonica player extraordinaire, Susan Heerema, violin virtuoso, Joe Bouchard, mandolin and banjo whiz, and John Meyer, acoustic guitar genius. Howard and Susan sent in their tracks from Chicago and New Jersey, respectively, and I merged them with the work I and the others did in my home studio. You can hear some of the finished product on YouTube.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4h74gkOMPs

(I tried linking this but it's not working, so copy the whole link and paste...)

Late in April I met with Chris Farina, who directed a new documentary about John Hunter, a teacher of gifted children in Virginia. For 30 years John has been giving workshops to kids using the World Peace board game he developed, and the doc follows the progress of one 4th grade class from day 1 to game's end. Chris has chosen some pre-existing music for a few spots in the film, and I will be adding some additional tracks. The hour-long film is slated for showing on PBS in the fall.

I'm now in Fairfield, Iowa teaching a one-month music appreciation course at Maharishi University of Management. I have 16 students, diverse in age and ability, but all sharing a common love of many different kinds of musical expression, particularly singing, and our daily practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique.

The morning sessions consist of flute lessons taught by an Indian master, and piano lessons, with my guidance both in person and online through my course in Absolute Beginner Keyboard at workshoplive.com. Afternoons are spent singing a broad range of songs from Gregorian chant to Beatles, learning the blues, studying different styles of music, theory, songwriting, and how all this relates to our own consciousness. It's a thrill to be able to share all that I've learned with these lively beings, and the other faculty and administration I have met with are hoping that the music courses here will grow and expand in the coming year. Next week I'll lead a songwriting workshop with kids at the Maharishi School, 3rd to 6th grade, and use the songs they write for the performance of ROBIN HOOD the following week, in which I'll be joined by some of the students in my class on guitar, percussion, bass and keyboard. It's an exciting place to be and I hope to come back in the fall.

Catching up

Wow, I can't believe it's two months since I wrote. I have been coughing most of that time, having caught the throat thing. It's finally leaving, I think. When not otherwise hacking, I have been working on various things: a Shimizu film for Criterion, JAPANESE GIRLS AT THE HARBOR, which I finally finished in the wee hours of this morning and delivered through the magic of ftp, saving 5 hours in the car, untold gallons of gas, and enabling me to sleep off the mostly all-nighter.

Other film events of this time period included two performances of DOCKS OF NEW YORK, both with Joanna singing songs from the period such as "LUCKY DAY," which meshed nicely with many of the title cards and themes of the film. The first show was at the Walter Reade for the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and a week later we drove to Washington to perform for a capacity audience at the National Gallery.

In December I returned to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in NY, bringing my Roland keyboard for THIEF OF BAGDAD, which we decided to show at sound speed, the only alternative to 18fps they could provide. It was fine that way; some of the scenes work better a tad slower, but as Ben Model wrote about Robin Hood in a recent blog, it creates a different feeling of excitement to boost the tempo a bit. I will be playing for WHEN THE CLOUDS ROLL BY in Seattle next week and I have a feeling we will face the same situation there.

Last week I spent a delightful four days at Bailey Elementary School with Paul Reisler, the director of Kid Pan Alley, writing songs with about 200 2nd and 3rd graders, who performed their works for a packed house of their parents and classmates at the end of the week. Paul has posted some wonderful photos of this at kidpanalley.org/news.html.

Now that the Japanese girls are safely aboard ship (well, one of them, anyway), I am turning my attention to some live shows in NY: JEWISH LUCK on Sunday at the Walter Reade, a repeat from last year, but this time part of the Jewish Film Festival. Then the Seattle shows, one of which is a ragtime concert with Larry Karp talking about his two ragtime-themed novels.

February brings a wave of Oscar Micheaux films to Lincoln Center, and at the first of them, BODY AND SOUL, I'll be joined by the astounding bass Kevin Maynor, singing spirituals. Check out his recordings on Youtube and try to make the show, it should be a great event.

In March it's a Dreyer series at BAM, more about that soon. I have to go practice my ragtime, as well as the two shows I'm music directing up here in Connecticut: MUSIC MAN at the Salisbury School, and ALICE IN WONDERLAND, JR. for the terrific children's theater company in Falls Village.

But first, a long rest......