#(delightful opera — very tuneful score)

[shimyereh]

Cover of a piano score to Rimsky-Korsakov's opera May Night [Майская ночь], with some very ornate typography.

[source]

[justforbooks]

Sir Andrew Davis

One of Britain’s greatest conductors widely admired for leading the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Proms

One of the most beloved and highly esteemed conductors of his generation, Sir Andrew Davis, who has died aged 80 of leukaemia, was a familiar presence on the podium, not least through his countless appearances at the BBC Proms in his capacity as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (1989-2000).

After Adrian Boult, his was the second longest tenure of the post in the history of the orchestra. During the same period he was also music director of Glyndebourne Opera (1988–2000), conducting works by Mozart, Janáček and Richard Strauss, among many others.

The sheer range of his repertoire was in fact one of the defining features of Davis’s career. Not only was he acclaimed as an empathetic interpreter of British music from Elgar and Vaughan Williams to Holst and Bliss, but he also had the ability to assimilate contemporary scores such as Michael Tippett’s The Mask of Time, Harrison Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus, Nicholas Sackman’s Hawthorn or David Sawer’s Byrnan Wood, all of which were either introduced at the Proms or recorded. The Birtwistle was named record of the year at the Gramophone awards in 1987.

But as he showed season after season in the BBC post, Davis could bring both vitality and a discerning sense of idiom to almost any music. One recalls, almost at random, a 2015 concert featuring a sensuous account of Delius’s In a Summer Garden, followed by a lithe and muscular suite from Ravel’s erotic Daphnis et Chloé, the ecstatic choral shouts and shuddering climaxes leaving little to the imagination. The concert also included music by Carl Nielsen and a new work, Epithalamion, by Hugh Wood.

One of many highlights of his Proms appearances was his commanding premiere in 1998 of Elgar’s Third Symphony in the “elaboration” by Anthony Payne (effectively a performing version made from the composer’s sketches).

Another was his speech from the podium in 1992, delivered as a patter song to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I am the very model of a modern major-general”, complete with witty rhymes and repartee with the delighted audience. The trick was repeated on the final night of the 2000 festival, his last as the orchestra’s chief conductor. On his arrival at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the more truculent members of the ensemble had to be won over, but they were, by his genial humour and charm, as well as his purely musical talents.

He was also popular with soloists, not necessarily offering a radically new perspective of his own, but listening carefully to them to provide an ideal accompaniment. The pianist Stephen Hough said he had “the sharpest ear and the clearest stick”. Both on and off the podium Davis exuded bonhomie and affability. His concern as a conductor was always to create the conditions that enabled musicians to give of their best.

Born in Ashridge, Hertfordshire, he was the son of Robert Davis, a compositor, and his wife, Joyce (nee Badminton). Andrew began to learn the piano at the age of five and attended Watford grammar school. In 1959 he started organ studies with Peter Hurford and subsequently won an organ scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge, where he played under David Willcocks. He then studied conducting at the Accademia di S Cecilia, Rome, under Franco Ferrara, and in London with George Hurst. From 1966 to 1970 he was pianist, harpsichordist and organist with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

In 1970 he made his debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and in the same year was appointed assistant conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He then became principal guest conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (1974–77) and music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1975–88), whose stature he boosted with major tours of North America, Europe and Asia. In 1982, he helped establish the orchestra’s new home at Roy Thomson Hall, and advised on the construction of its organ.

Then came the posts at the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Glyndebourne. His debut at the latter had been in Strauss’s Capriccio (1973) and he was to become a noted exponent of the composer’s operas.

In 1989 he married the soprano Gianna Rolandi, whom he had met when she sang Zerbinetta under his baton first at the Metropolitan, New York, in 1984 and again at Glyndebourne in 1988.

On his retirement from the BBC in 2000 he moved to the US with Rolandi and their son, Edward, to take up the appointment of music director, until 2021, of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he conducted nearly 700 opera performances including Wagner’s Ring cycle (2004–05). A second cycle was planned for the 2019–20 season, but was never completed on account of the Covid pandemic. He additionally conducted orchestral concerts at the Lyric and free concerts at Millennium Park.

From 2012 to 2019, he also held the post of chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, becoming conductor laureate, while continuing to live in the US.

In addition to his conducting, he made an orchestration of Handel’s Messiah, performing it with the Toronto orchestra, and of Berg’s Piano Sonata, op 1, and Passacaglia (Berg was a composer who inspired him, he once said, throughout his life). His own compositions included La Serenissima: Inventions on a Theme by Claudio Monteverdi (1980), Chansons Innocentes for children’s chorus and orchestra (1984) and Alice (2003) – settings of Lewis Carroll for mezzo-soprano, tenor and children’s chorus. At his death he was working on orchestrating some of JS Bach’s organ music.

During the pandemic lockdown he drew on his knowledge of the classics, gained as a student, to undertake an original translation of Virgil’s Aeneid. Though modest about his poetic abilities, he did comment that the experience was comparable to that of making music: “The manipulation of sonorities and rhythms and the search for ways of bringing to life the vividness of Virgil’s imagery and at times his great emotional power struck me as remarkably similar to the search that I have been engaged in all my life on the podium.”

His numerous recordings reflect the vast range of his repertoire, British and contemporary music looming large alongside Stravinsky, Strauss, Berlioz, Ives, Sibelius, Weill and the complete Dvořák symphonies. A 16-CD retrospective collection celebrating British composers on Teldec’s The British Line series was released by Warner Classics.

In 1991, he received the Royal Philharmonic Society/Charles Heidsieck music award. He was appointed CBE in 1992 and knighted in 1999.

Rolandi died in 2021. Davis is survived by Edward, a composer, singer and conductor.

🔔 Andrew Frank Davis, conductor, born 2 February 1944; died 20 April 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[llammairoo-blog]

Well known Nights Out for London Theater - Try West End Shows

One London theater fascination that never neglects to draw gigantic groups is the West End that is home to some long-running melodic and other West End Shows. Tickets to this Theatreland can be very popular particularly during top seasons. The following are only a portion of the well known musicals that you can see at London's West End.

Who doesn't have the foggiest idea or if nothing else known about Les Miserables that depends on the exemplary novel of a similar title by French creator Victor Hugo? Les Miserables is really the longest running show ever in London's West End. This is one of the immense group drawers. A few people have seen Les Miserables twice or even multiple times and still wouldn't see any problems with watching it again for a couple more. That is essentially how well known the melodic is. It appears that theater goers can't get enough of the themes of affection and recovery that is magnificently depicted by the play. Also, with delightful tunes, for example, "Would you be able to Hear the People Sing" and "I Dreamed a Dreamed," it was truly bound to turn into a hit.

Another exemplary is the Phantom of the Opera that opened just a year after Les Miserables, making it the second longest-running melodic at London's West End. It is presumably the most very much adored of all Andrew Lloyd Weber creation. In light of Gaston LeRoux's epic, the story's themes of affection and fixation is unbelievably spoken to by the blending of drama and rock. "The Point of No Return" and "Disguise" are only two of the most life-changing tunes from this melodic.

On the off chance that you are searching for an increasingly contemporary melodic, then We Will Rock You will be exactly as you would prefer. Running for a long time as of now, the show is set 300 years into the future and portrays the life of a youthful non-conventionalist named Gallileo and his fight against the corporate Killer Queen. In the event that you are a fan of the British musical crew Queen, then you will be pleased to realize that this show includes a portion of their most noteworthy hits, for example, "We Are the Champions" and obviously "We Will Rock You."

Another advanced great is Mama Mia that is well known among Abba fans, yet to everybody who can value a decent light and amusing story. It is about a youthful, fatherless lady of the hour named Sophie who recently found that her mother dated three men at the hour of her origination. For her wedding, she chooses to welcome each of the three of her potential fathers, transforming the story into a progression of one diverting situation after another. Also, with Abba hits in the score, for example, "Moving Queen" and "Mom Mia," this show is essentially powerful.

With all the great theater showing in London's West End Shows, it isn't difficult to envision why it is very difficult to get West End tickets. Online Theater Tickets outlets are certainly a gift to theater sweethearts. Through these locales, you can arrange your tickets ahead of time. No compelling reason to join the long ques at London's West End.

[alainas-adventures]

NOW ALL OF CHINA KNOWS YOU’RE HERE. (Perfect.)

Homer and going to Beijing was a bit of a fluke. I mean, not that we hadn’t always wanted to see the Great Wall – but we had originally planned to go for four days in April. Then I got a random 3-day weekend. I wanted to spend it in Tokyo for the Sakura festival, but tickets were insanely expensive (we’re talking $1000 USD for flights alone). So we thought we’d check off another item on the bucket list and push our Beijing trip up to the last weekend of March. Here’s what happened in those 48 hours.

Thursday, March 29

We set our alarms for 4:00 AM. It wasn’t a pretty start, but it was the only way to maximize our day. We landed in a sea of gray that looked like fog, but we knew better. For reference, healthy air quality index (AQI) is considered to be a score of 50 or below. Typically, most of the US is in the 20-40 range. When we landed in Beijing, the AQI was 157. (We later found out that this is traditionally the worst time of year for the air quality in Beijing – do your research before booking tickets!) Of course we came prepared with masks, but we both immediately felt the effects of the pollution – it was like going from 100% healthy to day 4 of a cold, within a matter of hours. My throat was burning, phlegm appeared out of nowhere, and I had developed a cough. It was no joke. All we could do was make the best of it and enjoy ourselves despite the smog.

What I was probably most excited about on this trip was the food. Having been fortunate enough to grow up in my friend Annie’s house, enjoying her mom’s unrivaled Beijing cuisine, I had a sense of what to expect (although let’s be real, nothing beat’s Mama Wang’s scallion pancake). First up was a dry noodle dish with minced meat and fresh cucumber. Homer opted for a slightly spicier entree.

We then took a bus to Tiananmen Square. The craziest thing about this place is that the Chinese government tells its citizens to this day that nothing ever happened here. WeChat, the most widely used messaging app in China, will censor any messages you send on this subject. So it was a little spooky standing there as an American, thinking about “nothing.”

#pollution #maskcouture #help

Just beyond Tiananmen Square is the Forbidden City, or the old Imperial Palace grounds. The area is massive and the buildings are ornately decorated. It was super cool to step backwards in time. I couldn’t help but imagine that scene in Mulan where she’s running along the roof of the palace.

The palace closed at 4:30, so we had to figure out how to spend our evening. We decided to double back to Wanfujing, a popular shopping district that we had passed earlier on the bus. (I may have fallen asleep on the bus back.)

In this area is a mall called APM, built by a Hong Kong company. As such, we felt very at home inside. There were plenty of international stores, and even a Dunkin’ Donuts! (We managed to resist. Plenty of time for that in the US.) What we couldn’t resist, however, were the pay-as-you-go karaoke booths. It seems we have to do this every time we’re in China. Hong Kong, get on this level!

One quick note: We were lucky to be able to experience Beijing as locals almost solely because Homer’s mom has a WeChat account and a mainland credit card. You may not understand why this is significant. WeChat, the app I mentioned before, isn’t just for texting. It’s also how you pay for basically anything in China. Like Hong Kong’s Octopus card, but even more of a necessity. We used WeChat to rent public bikes, pay for cabs, reserve a karaoke booth, and buy ourselves drinks at a bar. It’s like Apple Pay, except it’s EVERYWHERE. So before you go, do some planning – WeChat doesn’t accept foreign credit cards, so you may not be able to do everything as easily as a local would.

GUESS WHAT CHINA HAS THAT HONG KONG DOESN’T (yet)?! VICTORIA’S SECRET!!! Guess where I hadn’t shopped since I visited home a year ago?! I was a tad excited. Homer had to hold me back from buying the entire (three-story) shop. 

Wanfujing reminded us of Shanghai’s Nanjing Road – minus the trams mowing down pedestrians.

And of course, what would a trip to Beijing be without the original Peking duck? We visited the most celebrated restaurant in the city to try it for ourselves. It did NOT disappoint. One of the ways to enjoy this famous dish is to dip a bit of duck into a bowl of sugar. I am not exaggerating when I say that the result tasted like an elephant ear (American carnival food). The rest of the duck was polished off by dipping it in hoisin sauce and wrapping it in tortillas with cucumber and onion.

After filling ourselves to the brim, we took an after-dinner walk down a snack street where there were some more adventurous options (live scorpions on a stick, ready to be fried and eaten). This was one of the only times I actually felt crowded in Beijing. The city was (to my preconceived notion) surprisingly wide and roomy.

I spotted some of these stock character Chinese opera masks and flashed back to my childhood – somewhere in my room at home, I still have one of these masks from one of Annie’s trips!

To close the night out, we checked out Beijing’s night life. I suppose you could compare this to the scene in Wan Chai after dark – laid back, live music, a slightly older crowd. Every bar had a singer slaying the karaoke game, and some of the ones we saw had serious star quality! But best of all was the senior salsa club that we saw practicing in a park. They were having the best time!

Friday, March 30

This was our day to see The Great Wall of China – one of the Wonders of the World! Getting there was half the battle. We first rented bikes and pedaled to the nearest train station, stopping to have breakfast at a Starbucks (wherein they were playing Christmas music for some reason, but I kinda liked it). Then we commuted out to the countryside and waited for the railway train to arrive. When it finally came, we hunkered down for a 90-minute ride into the mountains. I was surprised to find every surface blooming with sakura flowers! Remember how I wanted to see them in Tokyo? I was delighted to be able to kill two birds with one stone on this trip to Beijing.

Before beginning our ascent up the Wall, we stopped at a local eatery for some bao (steamed buns filled with meat and vegetables).

We chose to climb Badaling, the most popular section of the wall. The climb wasn’t particularly tough, but we also didn’t go very far. Just far enough to reach the toboggans. However, if you want to slide down, I would recommend that you climb Mutianyu instead, because that is the section of the wall with the toboggans that you can steer yourself. The ones we found in Badaling were more like a run-down carnival ride. BUT HOW ‘BOUT THAT VIEW?!

Pretty amazing to think that this landmark is over 13,000 miles long! I can’t even comprehend it.

We were pretty tired after a long day of traveling and climbing, but not too tired to enjoy some delicious dry noodles in peanut sauce! I ate this whole bowl.

This restaurant is called Morning and I highly recommend it.

The last thing we did on our trip was check out Knight, a somewhat hidden bar in what looks like an apartment complex, where the bartenders are also magicians. We sat at a table shaped like a club, gazed at the signatures of celebrities on the wall, and were entertained. One of the magicians did a trick on me where he made an X appear on my hand without even touching me! My favorite part, though, might have been Homer’s reaction to all this. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone more impressed with anything.

HOW DID THIS GET HERE HE DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH ME

Saturday, March 31

We jetted off pretty early and experienced Beijing traffic firsthand. Luckily, we made it to our gate just as the aircraft was boarding! We got back to HK safely, but unfortunately, I found out that what happens in Beijing doesn’t always stay in Beijing. Despite wearing a mask at all times (except to eat, sleep, and take a picture), the pollution found a home in my lungs and throat. I completely lost my voice for a week. As you can imagine, it was a tough week at work and I was very thankful for the support of my trackmates and colleagues. But despite all the challenges it presented, I really did enjoy Beijing. It is a busy, metropolitan, culturally diverse, expansive city, and it’s home to some amazing sights. (And some even more amazing food.)

Stay tuned for Homer’s and my final trip in Asia for 2018 – we’re headed back to somewhere we’ve been before. Can you guess where it is?

[wbg1991]

‘Isolation Odyssey’ – how an orchestra went digital during lockdown

Leeds-based Opera North perform Richard Strauss’ ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ while adhering to social distancing rules.

The crashing symbols, rumbling drums, and blasting brass on Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra are inherently epic, forever associated with Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Leeds-based orchestra, Opera North, were due to play the piece to packed concert halls but when the Covid-19 lockdown put an end to that – or at least a pause – they had to adapt.

The result – ‘2020: An Isolation Odyssey’ – is both visceral and amusing. It is a video performance by a socially distanced orchestra playing in their living rooms and bedrooms.

In just two weeks after its initial release, the performance amassed over 30,000 views on YouTube and moved some listeners to tears.

“I think Stanley Kubrick is bang on using the piece for exploring interplanetary worlds and space,” says Dan Bull, the company cellist. “We’re now experiencing the opposite, exploring a very shut-in environment. That has quite a resonance, in a strange way.”

Players didn’t get to say bye to colleagues as their tour was cut short on 17 March, when Opera North cancelled or postponed all live activity till the end of June. Though composer Tobias Ringborg continues to perform in Sweden, where lockdown measures are less severe, most of the company have been furloughed.

“We won’t work until September and that’s the good scenario,” says Lourenço Macedo Sampaio, the viola player. Even then he expects performances to be live streams or to reduced capacity audiences.

Social distancing does not come easily to musicians who need to sit and perform with each other. Like so many of us, the orchestra began to feel restless. Bull and Sampaio pitched Ringborg the idea of a video performance and received his contribution on 20 March.

“We got his footage and that provided us with enough information on how Tobias wanted things to sound and the choice of tempos; then we started constructing the score,” says Sampaio.

Three quarters of the orchestra immediately said they would participate and Bull and Sampaio were delighted to hear many of them had professional recording equipment at home.

Nonetheless, police sirens, boiling kettles and a dog’s barking are just about drowned out in the final mix by Bull. Sampaio managed the logistics while Alex Ramseyer-Bache, from Opera North’s marketing department, crafted the visuals.

Sampaio explains, “The organ had to be done first because you have to tune to an organ. Then we asked the trombones to tune, very carefully saying what the pitch of the organ was and we wanted everyone to tune to the same note.”

The performers were asked to dress in concert dress from the waist up, but were given free reign otherwise. A percussionist’s children wincing as he crashes his symbols, a bassoonist in a wolf mask and a variety of domestic backdrops give the video its distinct personality.

The audio was mixed in little over a week, with the video uploaded to YouTube on 9 April – an impressive feat given the complexity of the piece, Ringborg says.

Also Sprach Zarathustra doesn’t have a clear beat or metric for performers to stick to, so they had to hone in on the initial recordings from Ringborg, the organist and then the brass section. The ebb and flow gives the performance a “sense of nuance”, Bull says, with Sampaio saying it allowed them to add “artistic touches.”

Recording at home was also highly pressured for players used to playing in ensembles.

“It’s quite nerve wracking placing a microphone close to your instrument and recording in isolation,” says Bull. “It’s not a very comfortable experience as you don’t have much to respond to.”

Players were exposed, contributing recordings as solo players rather than in sections, leaving them “naked on the spot”, according to Sampaio. Ringborg, who as the first contributor had no one to conduct apart from a pianist and an imagined orchestra, said it was a “weird experience” but says the result more than made up for this.

“To play to a computer screen or microphone was weird and it wasn’t fulfilling for anyone, but the fulfilling thing is the final result,” he said.

The response so far suggests he is correct, with YouTube commenters repeatedly saying “bravo”, calling it “inspiring” and “wonderful” and often commenting on the anguish of the cymbal player’s children. Ringborg said he has heard from old classmates he hadn’t spoken to in 30 years about it while Sampaio says the most common response he’s had was people saying they had cried.

“As artists, if we can get one person to say that, it means everything,” he says.

Bull says the piece allowed people to connect musically, something which the curtailment of live performance has to a great extent halted. He says the video recording gave people new insights into the orchestra, allowing them to see the performers’ personalities. His auntie’s neighbour even said she preferred the video to a live concert performance.

“The personal stories in the video, like Mark’s children being there, Adam’s mask, you see a bit of our humour,” he says. “In that sense, digital has an advantage because the message is delivered more personally to the audience.”

Sampaio believes the industry could learn from this, arguing opera companies don’t do as much as they could digitally. He uses the example of the Metropolitan Opera – one of the world’s largest orchestras –  which only has 366,000 followers on Instagram, which is small compared to leading performers in other genres. Digital performances like these “break down barriers” he says, offering “different windows to the audience to see us.”

Sampario and Bull are brainstorming new projects for lockdown, but they will only produce another piece if it can recreate the authenticity of the Strauss performance. Nonetheless, orchestras like Opera North will long to return to packed-out concert halls, playing together as a group in the same room.

Sampaio hopes people’s demand for live performance will build up during the lockdown, creating a renewed surge of interest, but there will be challenges, as people will need to be able to afford tickets during what is likely to be a deep economic recession. Ringborg says companies like Opera North will need support from the government.

For now, the Opera North orchestra can be content with having explored the possibilities of digital and broken down barriers with their audience, all within the confines of their homes.

This article was originally published on PA Training in May 2020.

[wherespacepooh]

Behind the Scenes of the Grand Ice Shows according to Sound Designer Keiichi Yano (Part 2)

Part 1 is here.

In Part 2, Yano-san brings from behind the scenes in ice shows (1) the making of Machida’s prologue in Don Quixote, (2) Hanyu’s surprise collaboration with Fukuma-san on Ballade No.1, and (3) (again surprise...and last minute) collaboration with guitarist Takeo Konno on Parisienne Walkway on the final day of FaOI in Niigata. Together with Part 1, this could alternatively be named “the 20 times Hanyu-senshu was a bother (read: lovable brat) with his crazy ideas.” Yuzu really seeks out and believes in the breathing and ever-changing aspect of live performance, doesn’t he?

He also talks about (4) what the job entails and who would be a good fit (Daddy Mura makes an appearance!) and leaves us with (5) a heartfelt message regarding his thoughts on program choice and the treatment of music.

Translated by gladi. Feel free to repost text in entirety with source. Images belong to Getty Images (#1), Fantasy on Ice (#2, #3, #4, #5), and Keiichi Yano (#6).

Original source: https://victorysportsnews.com/articles/4508/original (July 08, 2017)

Behind the Scenes of the Grand Ice Shows according to Sound Designer Keiichi Yano (Part 2)

Various ice shows are held at ice rinks around the country during the off season before the full-scale FS season takes off. In addition to splendid performances delighting audiences, new programs for the following season are also revealed. To Yano-san, both as sound expert and as music editor, it is actually a busy time of the year. In this second round, he talks about episodes from such ice shows and his thoughts toward figure skating.

Text by Yamane Ito

Ice show and professional commitment

The pleasure of ice shows, after all, is to fully enjoy the performances of active (competing) skaters up close, and to reunite with each and every one of the very unique OBOG's who’d turned pro. With numbers that are somewhat different from competitive programs, there are also guests who perform live [in collaboration]. To Yano-san, it is a pleasant, if buzzing, time of the year.

A few months ago, Yano-san located the sounds of an orchestra tuning from his colossal files. After adding a couple of edits, he delivered it to his client. That is something [orchestras and ensembles] do before classical concerts, operas, and so forth. With the oboe as reference, instrumentalists play the “A” (la in sol-fa) in unison.

"Don Quixote," debuted at an ice show, started with exactly that tuning sound. At the rink doubling as stage, scarlet curtains were stretched across one side, with the spotlight illuminating the center impressively. As a distinctive air of tension settled, the curtains drew open to the left and right with a swoosh––finally––to the entrance of Tatsuki Machida. In a fashion that would never happen in competition, that was the prologue done in [Machida’s] way as a pro skater.

A surprise borne by a live performance

One of the real thrills of an ice show is its live music. From classical to pop, rock and jazz, artists from various genres collaborate with skaters on the ice. What is different from a normal concert is that cheers, screams, and claps would arise from the audience at spots that seem “improbable” to these artists. As we’ve learned previously [in part 1], Yano-san and the like in the acoustics side too, will adjust the volume to go with the jumps and spins.

In general, the classical music world is conservative, and the performers rarely tamper with the original scores. Although that is why it is so named “classical music,” enthusiastic fans of figure skating exist even amidst such a field. Kotaro Fukuma, for example. As a pianist of the international levels, he'd studied at the National Paris Conservatoire and the Berlin University of Art, winning the Cleveland International Piano Competition at the age of 20.

“Fukuma-san is so fond of figure skating, and in fact, even said he was interested in the work that I do. Seemed that he wants to introduce various pieces of music to the skaters."

Stories of classical instrumentalists taken aback by figure skating music are often heard. Conversely, many figure skating fans are shocked by the length of the actual pieces at concerts that assemble music used in the programs. For example, Hanyu-senshu’s “Ballade No. 1” that was just under three minutes [in program], is an ample 9 minutes-long.

“Fukuma-san synchronizes the skaters’ performance and the music in his head, creating a perfect fit."

It was from last year, but they staged a performance where Fukuma-san played the piano live to the “image” of Hanyu-senshu. The piece he played was Chopin’s Ballade No.1 in G Minor, but instead of the score, a monitor was placed in front of the piano. Fukuma-san, with Hanyu-senshu’s movements on screen as measure, gave a perfect performance of the program edit of “Ballade No. 1.” Moreover, all the while he kept to the tempo of Krystian Zimerman (source of the program edit), Fukuma incorporated his own distinctive nuance and emotions as well.

Actually, this wasn’t the first time that Fukuma-san performed “Ballade No. 1” at the rink. In the past, something happened on the ice during the show and they needed time to resurface the ice. To stall time, he played the piece. It was a nice touch, thanks to Fukuma-san’s wit. Hanyu-senshu learned of the episode, and at his request, they collaborated on a live performance of “Ballade No. 1” during the encore of the final day. That was how, in the end, [Fukuma-san] played the piece twice. 

“Hanyu-kun. That was quite a crazy, incredible thing he said! Although, since we are all professionals, we can do it if we want to. Well, we were really getting into the mood of things."

A guitarist’s pride

“Did you see the Niigata performance the other day? It’s Hanyu-kun again, but he asked me, ‘Yano-san, do you have the source for Pari-San?’”

Yano-san, eyes crinkled, already immune to Hanyu-senshu’s outrageous ideas and suggestions, said. “Parisienne Walkway” was the masterpiece of rock guitarist Gary Moore. Lovingly referred to as “Pari-San” by skating fans, it was a popular program that [Hanyu] also performed at the Sochi Olympics.

“There is a live guitarist this time, right? The guitarist in Anri-san’s band.”

For some reason, he understood what Hanyu-senshu was thinking. And after talking of many things, as expected, he “want[ed] to bring out the live guitar.” He said he wanted to collaborate on “Pari-San” on the very last day of the ice show. Just for that, it’s necessary to consult with the musician’s side. We also had to talk to the agency. Above all, it would be awful if it isn’t all conveyed through the show organizer.

“'If everyone is okay with it, I’ll also help.’ The organizer passed on my message to Hanyu-kun. Thereupon, I also heard news that guitarist Takeo Konno said he’d be ‘honored.’ But he wanted time to practice. Hurriedly, we began to rehearse the day before. With Hanyu-kun as well."

By rehearsal the next day (day of performance), we had yet to settle on the details including how to start.

“That morning, the thought suddenly came to me when I woke up. Given the precious opportunity to feature a live guitarist, instead of doing it like a bonus, we should show off the performer properly.”

He immediately went and talked to production. The scenario would be like this. Once Hanyu-senshu retires from the stage to mop himself or something, a phrase from Pari-San abruptly wells up, as guitar solo. Cheers from the audience. He plays the melody once through as if to rouse the crowds. At the peak, Hanyu appears. Going on, and transitioning into the sound source of “Hoochie Coochie Man” in the second half. Guitar strums on as is, matched to the sound source.

The surprise was a great success. Even leaving on “Ballade No.1”’s costume felt somewhat fresh. "Hoochie Coochie Man” is a piece often done in jam sessions, so as a guitarist, Konno-san would probably be able to play it right away. So that was the arrangement, Yano-san smiled as he recounted.

“But he most likely practiced all night long, didn’t he? He was in completely different spirits compared to during rehearsal the day before!”

In search for a successor

I asked Yano-san about his own plans hereafter. It might come as a surprise, but he’s looking for a successor. He doesn’t know how long he can continue to do this work, but the competitive sport of figure skating will continue.

“People who have an interest in such work. Young people who like music. If someone would raise their hands to this, I think I would pass on the baton with pleasure.”

Pros in the field of audio engineering can undertake that part just fine. But the problem is in editing music for programs. Operationally speaking, it’s not hard as long as you don’t mind editing with a computer, or you are not bad at it. But, it’s impossible to keep up without a certain level of understanding about figure skating, love and inquisitive spirit toward music, and commitment. Taste is a requirement too.

“Out of nowhere, someone will say something like ‘choreography will start the day after tomorrow!’ Phone calls just before you are about to get on a plane for a business trip too."

On such occasions, time spent waiting at the airport or in-flight becomes a temporary workshop. At work on the plane ride from Narita (t/n: the airport) to Fukuoka, he has had to send data from his hotel after he lands too. He takes his PC along no matter where he goes.

“Because emails will suddenly arrive. During SEIMEI, [email came] when I was at Yatsugatake on a day off. From Machida-kun, it was when I traveled to Hateruma Island from Ishigaki Island (t/n: according to Google Maps, we’re talking about a two-hour trip).”

At such extent, this is vocational work that cannot be taken up unless you truly like it. Moreover, you must be methodical. Since you deal with a large quantity of data at once, it becomes a problem if you are careless or halfhearted about it.

“I was thinking it would be nice if someone amongst the skaters would come up and inherit my craft. Although I say this as a joke, Mura Takahito-kun. He is interested in acoustics, and often comes and hangs out at the booth. So I told him, ‘Come succeed me!’"

Message from Keiichi Yano

“Although we are happy that, unlike in the past, many skating fans now come to watch live competitions and ice shows, if possible, it would be great if [you] could see the show from beginning to the very end. Leaving your seats and not returning until the time comes for your target skater to perform, and so forth. From our perspective, it really is a pity. This isn’t a complaint or a remonstration, but nonetheless I want the show to be seen in its entirety. It’s good to see the skaters’ personality shine through the music too, and in such a way, watch from one skater to the other and judge and compare.”

Yano-san has many thoughts he’d like to convey, borne out of a long time spent supporting the world of figure skating. Not only towards the audience, but to skaters hereon and their coaches, everyone in the field. We publish his message here.

“In recent years, there are more and more skaters who are committed and particular about music, but on many occasions, when deciding what to skate to, I think many skaters use the so-called ‘pieces they are given’––from coaches, parents, choreographers, and so forth. Because they spend at least a year skating to that music, I still hope they would be particular about program choice, with the thought of ‘[wanting] to express this piece' in mind.

I think the essentials to figure skating are (1) skating boots (2) musical program and (3) costume. I hope they could seek out and absorb from many sources, and turning those into their own thing when approaching their own performances. Much of the music preexists, and even to the extent of not being influenced by the intention of the composer, I hope they could create ‘their own particular story.’

But, please still [respect | take care in the treatment of] the original music. Although it doesn’t matter to add a few sound effects because of the choreography, I hope people can do their best to avoid arrangements where you can somehow no longer tell what the original music was. I speak from the point of view that, still, we should cherish the thoughts of the composer at the time of composition. Finally, I hope that we can cherish our beginnings––what we thought, our original purpose, when we first started to like figure skating.”

Interviewee: Keiichi Yano Sound Designer/ Music Editor-Programmer. Born in Fukuoka Prefecture in 1957. Started working as Audio Technician since 1975. In charge of audio at YAMAHA Tokyo branch in 1978. Currently works freelance as Figure Skating Sound and Audio Producer.

Writer: Yamane Ito Creative Director turned Copywriter/ Football Researcher. Published various sports-related books, mostly specializing in football, and one about figure skating––『フィギュアスケート・プログラムに秘められた物語』

[advancedstudioproductionkwc]

This is an intermediate stage of the “background” to the piece I presented today in class. This is what I listened to (with a single ear effectively) whilst improvising the tentative and somewhat random sounding piano parts I added to this “background”. I’ve decided that each of the pieces I present this semester in this course will be modelled on the rather beautiful proportions of the prelude from Wagner’s opera “Tristan und Isolde” and be of that length as well.

I intend to make a full high-fidelity 4-channel recording of the failing, interrupted and “broken” file of the piece as heard after midnight outside the Coles at the end of Elizabeth Street (which is a different orchestral performance and recording to the one I have used here). I will compose a broken, fully notated and yet fragmented and tentative piece for piano to be accompanied by the fully spatialised recording of the way this “broken prelude” sounds in real space. I may then apply some of these same filtering, stretching and resonating techniques to the “realistic” recording so that gradually it acquires some of that same “oceanic” quality.

The placing of such a piece outside Coles in what I would describe as a pretty degraded and sometimes highly dangerous part of the city fascinates me. I’m not surprised (nor dismayed) to have heard Italian opera arias, Dvorak “New World Symphony” and other “warhorses” (interesting term that isn’t it?) used as sonic warfare against the drunks and "Blue Lotus” addicts that horizontally line the streets in this part of “the most livable city in the world”. I have walked many times past this supermarket and one night I noticed that this piece, the prelude to the opera I have seen the most times on stage, which I quote constantly and which is a clear point of origin for one important strand of early modernism (”expressionism”) was being played but the file was corrupted, gappy, coming in and out in a kind of microcosmic relation to the ebbs and flows of the original piece. That is, the rapid ebbing and flowing of the real sound was almost like a horrible parody of the vast ebbs and flows written into the score but which take place over long stretches of time. Even though the climaxes of each Act are positively volcanic in live performance a great deal of the music is delicate and quiet for very long stretches of time (another innovation of Wagner’s). Very little music before this piece has such a strong connection to water, the oceanic, the immersive. The 1st Act is set on a ship, the 2nd features a fountain (beautifully evoked in the music) and the 3rd act is set in a castle overlooking a calm and empty sea as a dying Tristan awaits the boat carrying his adulterous lover Isolde to him (there’s a beautiful essay by Susan Sontag about water in this opera). The words of the final “aria” where Isolde sings of the bliss of sinking into unconsciousness, singing of the breathing of the universe are an incredibly vivid image of the crashing of waves over a drowning person and re-appear repeatedly in pieces like “La Mer” by Debussy and the soundtracks of many Hollywood films dealing with the sea.

So outside Coles, after a terrible night of dealing with men wanting illicit sex, drunks wanting a place to rest, addicts begging for change, in a workplace full of all the dangers of the contemporary world I hear the achingly beautiful music of this prelude and instantly a whole world of associations opens up. My mind filled in the “gaps” of the broken file but somehow incorrectly. My piece is all about those gaps in the real that give rise to desire, by definition insatiable.

This opera is not just the world’s most pretentious “love triangle”, it is about the conflict between the world of the “day” (law, culture, property, the ego etc) and the “night” (symbolising the unconscious, the flow of desire, the impossible union of people in a community of two we call romantic love). In the story of the opera the Irish princess Isolde is carried across the sea to be married to a King by a knight Tristan (his name literally means sadness) who is the King’s nephew but they fall in love, a love which is consummated only in death and singing.

It is breathtakingly beautiful in a rare great performance. The chord in the third bar of the prelude has kept musicologists busy for more than a century and has been quoted by countless subsequent composers in a variety of ways: other than the beautiful quotation of it in Berg’s “Lyric Suite” (itself a coded love letter to his mistress) I find particularly interesting the change from Debussy’s entirely sincere usage of it to set the word “triste” in his early opera “Pelleas and Melisande” to the entirely sarcastic use of it in the “Golliwog’s Cakewalk” in the “Children’s Suite” for piano near the end of his life after his turn against Wagner in favour of a kind of French nationalism (need I point out the corrosive presence of a performative irony in the racial colouring of such a title?). It also celebrates (much like the incestuous relationship of Siegmund and Sieglinde in the Ring cycle) a revolt of desire against the merely “socially correct”.

This is a piece that attempts to avoid resolution by every means possible. It is ostensibly in A minor but look how many accidentals there are, how many times dissonances are held in suspension. The dissonant chord in the 3rd bar is really only resolved properly in the very last bars of the whole opera, some 3 hours later. Accordingly (pun intended) I had the comb filters constantly slide towards that resolution the harmonies seemingly desperately desire only to slide back again and again to the 3rd bar. At one point as well I engineered the tackiest possible resolution of the dissonance in the piano parts, poisoned by the difference in tuning between the “cultural” (and hence entirely “normalised”) tuning of 12 tone equal temperament and the second piano part which is tuned in accordance with the “natural” overtones of A (which sounds “out of tune”).

So this piece is in effect a kind of distorted memory of the original, a fantasy on its themes of intoxication and social control and an attempt to make the piece strange again now that it is safely ensconced in the “canon”.

I’m also considering making some new comb filters in Audiomulch tuned to the sometimes shockingly ugly sounds of the “Tristan chord” (B F D# G#) in other overtone tunings and making a piece out of those.

PS: this opera is also HILARIOUSLY vulgarised by Franz Waxman in the dreadful Joan Crawford film “Humoresque” from 1946. Waxman moves quickly from bits of the prelude, to the long love scene that takes up most of the second act, to the final act. He arranged these bits almost without regard to their actual harmonic and musical implications for violin and piano solos with full orchestra. It’s such a terrible piece of work that without fail makes me laugh because I recognise the harmonies enough to expect a particular consequence of a phrase then the music will jump at random to some other harmony when Wagner could probably spend 20 minutes getting from one to the other. When I first discovered this opera as a teenager (because I read that my then hero Schoenberg’s piece “Transfigured Night” was criticised as sounding like someone had smeared the score of Tristan while still wet and amusing you can hear my piece linked here as attempting exactly that) my mother who loved soppy Hollywood movies immediately recognised the music but hated the singing. Of course Wagner and this piece in particular is the source of more than 100 years of musical tropes illustrating “passion” or “pain” in music. It is of course incredibly beautiful in an overwhelming way and often reduces me to tears. Wagner is the Steven Spielberg of music but with the “machinery” as carefully hidden as the joins in phrases. He is also a masterclass in long range harmonic thinking and listening (I highly recommend diving deep into Wagner at an early age as it ameliorates your tendency to boredom and tunes your ears to resonate to harmonic moves stretched over the span of an hour or more). Of course, what makes this malignantly seductive music fascist to the core isn’t its occasional forays into a “military” soundworld but rather its dedication to aesthetic illusion above all, its beauty and its desire to flood the listener with sensation that you cannot take a critical distance from. Wagner is, as Adorno pointed out, fascist to the core not because of his terrible words about Jews but because of its commitment to art as a kind of magical spell that dissolves the individual and their borders. I also think that Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe was entirely correct to think of National Socialism as National Aestheticism: only in German does “ugly” also mean “hateful”. It amuses me therefore that Wagner’s music ended up in a ridiculous Hollywood melodrama, mutilated and stitched back together like Frankenstein’s creation by a Jewish emigre composer in Hollywood. To use one of Hitler’s favorite operas (Hitler is of course the locus classicus of the toxic opera queen) after the “victory over fascism” for a Joan Crawford movie about the redemptive power of art is camp as fuck (precisely because it is done with an entirely straight face). The fact that I have seen with my very own eyes people swoon with delight over this shoddy piece of work makes it even funnier: possibly the worst idea of Western civilisation is the neo-Platonist identification of the beautiful with the true and the good. One of the reasons for my intense interest in the fate of “culture” during the Third Reich is the manner in which the highest ideals of western civilisation are finally revealed there (by the very “people” that invented some of them) as a cheap veneer over barbarism: Adorno was correct to say that after Auschwitz both culture and its urgently necessary critique (ie. his own life’s work) are garbage.

There’s an awfully vulgar video of the Waxman “Tristan Fantasia” on Youtube that illustrates almost everything terrible about “Western classical music” and how it now functions as an ideological apparatus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOrRAvmUV2c

[newyorktheater]

My eighth annual Broadway (and small theater) gift guide below includes links and information on shopping for theater tickets, theater subscriptions, cast recordings, play scripts, librettos and new and cherished books about the theater and theater on screen! I also suggest some souvenirs and knick-knacks intended as tangible reminders of an evanescent experience.

THEATER TICKETS

Gift cards:  Telecharge gift cards , TKTS gift certificates and Today Tix gift cards allow the theatergoers on your holiday list to pick their own show to go to (or several shows – depending on how much money you put on the card.)

Some suggest it’s better to give a gift card from Visa or Mastercard,because the theater-specific gift cards charge fees for each show.

If you know what specific show your theater lover would love, or are willing to guess — AND you know what date(s) they can attend — you can buy tickets for them yourself directly from the show’s website or from the box office, or from the secondary ticket seller whose links I provide below.

A sample of popular Broadway shows.

  THE BOOK OF MORMON

The Eugene O’Neill Theater Opened: March 24, 2011 Twitter feed: @BookofMormonBWY This musical by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (book), the creators of South Park, and Robert Lopez, one of the composer-lyricists for “Avenue Q” (music and lyrics) is about both the founder of the Church of Latter-Day Saints and modern disciples. It is outrageous, irreverent in one way, but also deeply reverent to (even while parodying) the best traditions of the Broadway musical.

My review

Buy Book of Mormon tickets

DEAR EVAN HANSEN

Music Box Theater Opened: December 4, 2016 Twitter feed: @DearEvanHansen

Winner of six 2017 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, this original story by songwriting team Pasek and Paul (“A Christmas Story,” Oscar winners for the lyrics on “La-La Land”) and playwright Steven Levenson is about an anxious outcast high school student who, through a well-meaning lie, is thought to have been best friends with a classmate who commits suicide. The lie gets way out of control. Its intelligent commentary on several pressing current issues, its tuneful and moving songs and its compelling performances made this a cult favorite, but the cult now could hardly be wider.   The original Evan Hansen, Ben Platt, has departed.

My review

Buy Dear Evan Hansen tickets

HADESTOWN

Walter Kerr Opened: April 17, 2019 Twitter: @hadestown

Winner of eight Tony Awards this year, including best musical, this story that  intertwines the myth of  Orpheus and Eurydice with that of King Hades and his wife Persephone, offers a delightful score, which mixes sweet and sexy folk, rocking jazz, and exquisite blues. The role of Hermes as narrator is performed to perfection by the great André De Shields, who commands the stage from the get-go

My review

Tickets to Hadestown

HAMILTON

The Richard Rodgers Opened: August 6, 2015 Twitter feed: @HamiltonMusical

When Hamilton opened Off-Broadway in 2016, I called it groundbreaking and breathtaking – and I was trying not to gush…Analyzing the importance of ‘Hamilton’ misses the main takeaway from the musical: It’s thrilling to watch. It seems always in motion, thanks to a creative team including director Thomas Kail, and especially choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, who keeps the sexy ensemble very busy. They help enhance what are some terrific performances. (All the original principals have left, but the replacement cast are worthy heirs.)

Hamilton on Broadway 2019

Buy Hamilton tickets

THE LION KING

Minskoff Theater (200 West 45th Street) Opened: November 13, 1997 Twitter: @TheLionKing Based on the 1994 Disney animated film about the coming-of-age of a young lion in the African jungle, this musical offers African-inflected music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice and the visual magic of Julie Taymor. Taymor is the director, a composer and lyricist for some of the songs. But above all, she is the designer of the costumes, masks, and puppets — and it is these visuals that make this show a good first theatrical experience.

Buy The Lion King tickets

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Majestic Theater (247 West 44th Street) Opened: January 26, 1988 Twitter: @TheOperaGhosts The Phantom of the Opera, based on a 1911 French novel by Gaston Leroux, is about a disfigured genius named Erik who lives in the catacombs of the Paris Opera House and falls in love with Christine, an aspiring singer whom he helps…until an old flame of Christine’s named Raoul steps back into the picture. However, the story in the musical, written and composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber — with more than its share of 1980′s heavy power ballads — is starting to take second place to the story of the musical, which is the longest-running Broadway musical of all time.

Buy Phantom of the Opera tickets

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Shubert Theater (225 West 44th Street) Opened: December 18, 2018 Twitter: @mockingbirdbway

Aaron Sorkin’s play turns Harper Lee’s beloved novel into a detective story, a courtroom drama, political commentary…and satisfying theater

My review

Buy tickets to To Kill A Mockingbird

WICKED

Gershwin Theater (222 West 51st Street) Opened: October 30, 2003 Twitter: @WICKED_Musical The musical tells the story of “The Wizard of Oz” from the witches’ perspective, more specifically from the Wicked Witch of the West, who was not, as a child, wicked at all, but just green-tinted, taunted, and misunderstood. There is so much to like about this musical, the clever twists on the familiar tale, the spectacular set, and music that is a lot more appealing in context (such as the song “Defying Gravity”) that I will forgive the contortions necessary to tack on a happy ending.

Tickets to Wicked

Broadway Shows Not Yet Opened

Don’t forget the shows this season that have not yet opened, although let’s hope that your theater lover is adventurous enough to avoid blaming you for any disappointment. I can’t recommend shows I haven’t seen, but here are links for tickets already on sale that have been generating some buzz.

Jagged Little Pill

Six

Company

The Lehman Trilogy

For details on these and other Broadway shows this season, check out the

Broadway Season Guide 2019-2020

What about Off-Broadway?

There are many terrific shows Off-Broadway, although their generally shorter runs can be problematic when looking for a gift.

Buy Off Broadway tickets

Off-Broadway Preview Guide Fall 2019

The best thing about tickets is that this is a gift that gives pleasure twice – at the time you give it, and then when the theater lover actually goes to the show, which can be many months in the future. Back to top

THEATER SUBSCRIPTIONS/MEMBERSHIPS

Many theaters – the non-profit ones — offer subscriptions or memberships, which can be a wonderful gift that lasts an entire season…or a terrible burden for the increasing number of theatergoers who are commitment-phobic. (I’ve written a whole article about the waning popularity of theater subscriptions.)

Still, this can be the perfect gift for the right recipient if you pick the right theater, some of whom offer more flexible alternatives to subscriptions, such as flex passes and memberships.

Here are a sampling, listed alphabetically. I’ve had a membership/subscription to each one of these at one time or another.  One of the problems you will see when you click on the links is that the subscriptions to some of these theaters this season are already sold out. (You might be able to purchase memberships for next season.)

The Brooklyn Academy of Music, which makes it easy to buy a gift membership.

Classic Stage Company

Lincoln Center Theater

MCC Theater

New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater

Playwrights Horizons

Roundabout Theater Company

Vineyard Theater

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THEATER ON SCREEN

There are an increasing number of companies that offer online screening of what could be called theater-on demand.

BroadwayHD. ($8.99 a month or $99.99 a year) offer dozens of shows that were recorded live, such as the Broadway productions of  “She Loves Me” and “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill,” but also a good number of shows Off-Broadway, and the offerings from the American Film Theater from the 1970s, such as “The Maids” starring Glenda Jackson and Susannah York and “Rhinoceros” with Zero Mostel.

Other theater-on demand online services include Cennarium ($9.97 a month; $95.64 a year), which focuses on offerings outside the United States, and Shakespeare’s Globe (Available worldwide, 3.99 to 5.99 pounds to rent, 5.99 to 11.99 pounds to buy).

One has to hunt for “theater” on film on Kanopy, which mostly has art films and documentaries

Great Performances from PBS streams theater mostly for free, although some require a membership in the local PBS station. (Such a membership would be a great gift!)

Throughout the year, the National Theatre Live broadcasts its productions in movie theaters throughout the United States.

For those who would prefer something more old-fashioned, both the National Theatre and  the Royal Shakespeare Company sells DVDs of its productions, although you have to pay in pounds.

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THEATER BOOKS, PLAYS, SCRIPTS

There are some wonderful evergreen, expensive gift ideas. My favorites:

August Wilson’s complete 10-play Century Cycle, which includes such gems as “The Piano Lesson,” “Fences,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” – one play for each decade of the twentieth century, which together offer a compelling look at African-American life through the eye and ear of one of the nation’s greatest dramatists.

Buy August Wilson Century Cycle

Stephen Sondheim’s two-volume collection of his lyrics, Finishing The Hat and Look, I Made A Hat, a collection of lyrics , anecdotes, fascinating scholarly notes, and strong opinions from the composer and/or lyricist of such seminal musical theater as “West Side Story,” “Gypsy,” “Company,” “Sweeney Todd,” “A Little Night Music,” “Assassins.”

Buy Hat Box: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim

There are three recent lavish coffee table books that offer behind-the-scenes looks at favorite musicals, and include the entire script, annotated.

Hamilton: The Revolution  is a book for fans, with page after page of full-color photographs from the production, and lots of personal anecdotes. But if it’s a souvenir book, it’s one that—like the musical and its creators—is unusually ambitious. It includes the complete lyrics, annotated by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, alternating with chapters that explain the evolution of the musical but also the historical and political significance of Alexander Hamilton.

Buy Hamilton: The Revolution

The other two: Dear Evan Hansen: Through the Window and The Great Comet: The Journey of a New Musical to Broadway

The three-volume set of Arthur Miller’s plays — 42 in all — from the Library of America/ Buy The Collected Plays of Arthur Miller (Library of America)

Buy American Musicals: The Complete Books and Lyrics of 16 Broadway Classics, 1927-1969 (Library of America)

This readable book focuses on the structure of successful musicals, going chronologically step by step from the overture to the finale. It is written by Jack Viertel, who recently announced his retirement after years as an executive at Jujamcyn Theaters (owners of five Broadway houses) and the artistic director of New York City Center Encores! series that attempts to gain new reputations for old musicals, He knows his musicals, and his book is invaluable in its summaries and discussions of specific shows we might not know (or not remember well) but should. And he includes a final chapter with his recommendations for the best recordings of the 37 musicals he has analyzed, and for 20 more musicals “that can’t be ignored even though they are not quoted in the book.”

Buy The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built

The downside of many of these books is not their size or their price — it’s that anybody who would die to get one of these as gifts may well already own it.

Other books, recently published, of interest (Click on links to learn more about them or to purchase them):

Coffee Table Books

Continuing the tradition of such lavish behind the scenes looks at Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen:

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: The Journey: Behind the Scenes of the Award-Winning Stage Production

Come From Away: Welcome to the Rock: An Inside Look at the Hit Musical

Memoirs and biographies:

Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years

which is a follow-up to

Home: A Memoir of My Early Years

Still Here: The Madcap, Nervy, Singular Life of Elaine Stritch

Elaine Stritch: The End of Pretend

Too Much Is Not Enough: A Memoir of Fumbling Toward Adulthood

They Made Us Happy

Getting Off: Lee Breuer on Performance

It’s Always Loud in the Balcony

Life isn’t everything: Mike Nichols, as remembered by 150 of his closest friends.

A Novel About Theater in the 1940s City of Girls: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert (“Eat.Pray.Love”)

Picture Books For Kids

A is for Audra: Broadway’s Leading Ladies from A to Z

Feed Your Mind: A Story of August Wilson

  Check out more in the books section of this site. An place for scripts is Samuel French, the “definitive” publisher of plays and musicals in English – mostly in relatively inexpensive “acting editions.” Also now available are “e-plays” and cast recordings. You can visit at 45 West 25th Street, but it’s not a place to hang out. Their redesigned website has some cool features: Click on “Now Playing” and you will get to a map showing the location of current local productions of the plays it has published.

Applause Theatre and Cinema Books closed their bookstore on the Upper West Side, alas, but remains a publisher of quality theatrical books, which you can order online.

The online bookstore of Theatre Communications Group offers some wonderful plays it publishes. (Check out the TCG Gift Guide  — which is three years old — they don’t seem to do it annually anymore — but still useful.)

You also might want to consider one (or a bunch) of the 50 Best Plays of the Last 100 Years

Bookstores in Theaters: Some of my favorite theaters also have books for sale, mostly scripts of the plays they have produced. This includes Playwrights Horizons

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CAST RECORDINGS

The five albums above  have been nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album —

Ain’t Too Proud: The Life And Times Of The Temptations [Explicit] (Original Broadway Cast Recording),

Hadestown (Original Broadway Cast Recording),

The Music of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – In Four Contemporary Suites,

Moulin Rouge! The Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)

and Oklahoma! 2019 Broadway Cast Recording

— although one of them (Harry Potter) is not a musical.

Broadway Records sells gift cards, and a special treat — a limited number of CDs signed by the casts or individual perfomers. Also on offer is the 2019 Tony Award Season compilation album, which presents one song each from 13 musicals that opened in the 2018-2019 season, including “Oklahoma!” and “Wait for Me” from Hadestown,    plus a medley performed by the late Marin Mazzie.

PS Classics —  Fun Home, Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar and Grill starring Audra McDonald, On The Town, On The Twentieth Century with Kristin Chenoweth,  and a huge catalogue of Sondheim shows.

Ghostlight/Sh-k-Boom — New cast album CDs  include “Beetlejuice” and “Tina.” They  also have The Band’s Visit, A Bronx Tale, Falsettos and War Paint. Their bestseller is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights. Their releases run the gamut, Aladdin, Beautiful: The Carol King Musical, Bridges of Madison County, Daddy Long Legs, First Daughter Suite, Fortress of Solitude, Something Rotten, The Last Five Years (available as original cast album, 2013 Off-Broadway cast album, and movie soundtrack)

Masterworks Broadway, a division of Sony Classics, offers Kinky Boots, The King and I with Yul Brynner, the 1949 recording of Kiss Me Kate, and the original 1992 recording of Kander and Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, and lots of albums that don’t begin with the letter K, including the A-list album An American in Paris, and The Essential Sondheim, featuring songs from 16 of his musicals, and one movie score.

Buy The Essential Stephen Sondheim

For an extravagant gift, they sell Broadway in a Box – The Essential Broadway Musicals Collection — 25 (!) CDs of original cast recordings, from Annie to West Side Story.

Buy Broadway in a Box – The Essential Broadway Musicals Collection

Atlantic Records, not normally in the original cast album business, is the company that put out the best-selling ‘Hamilton” album.

Buy Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording)(Explicit)(2CD)

Also available from Atlantic

The Hamilton Mixtape [Explicit]

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BROADWAY BAUBLES

— posters, calendars, t-shirts and knick-knacks (magnets, mugs, keychains, umbrellas etc)

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The Lion King beach towel

Olaf plush doll from Frozen

Dear Evan Hansen t-shirt

Hamilton t-shirt

A t-shirt, “Bad Idea,” a song from Waitress

cufflinks from the Royal Shakespeare Company

Wicked Emerald City umbrella

Phantom of the Opera mug

Each Broadway show offers a range of merchandise that you can buy at the theater itself and in gift shops in the theater district, and online at each show’s website, as well as on a variety of other sites, for example at the Playbill.com store. Playbill covers are plastered over all sorts of items — posters, mugs, magnets, Christmas tree ornaments, calendar.

There is an $80 pair of Playbill pajamas for men,and a Playbill Broadway Cover – 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle, which I’d only consider giving to an enemy.

The more artistically inclined might want to hire Stephen Winterhalter, proprietor of The Art of Broadway etsy store  to turn their Playbill(s) into a frame collage.

A good place to purchase theater knick-knacks is Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, which has an online store using the logos and/or  program covers from the best-known Broadway shows for everything from umbrellas and clocks  to iPhone covers and shower curtains.  They offer “Broadway Legend” tree ornaments, this year featuring Angela Lansbury. They also sell gift certificates Proceeds from their products help the needy.

Theater-related calendars strike me as a good gift — they last all year. Examples include the 2020 On Broadway Wall Calendar,

Hamilton 2020 Wall Calendar and Royal Shakespeare Company – The Tragedies Wall Calendar 2020

There’s also the Shakespearean Insults 2020 Day-to-Day Calendar but beware — if you give this as a gift, it might be used against you.

Those who don’t want to feel forced to discard their theater images at the end of next year can opt instead for theater posters, past, present and future. Many are available at Triton Gallery (which has an online store and a brick and mortar one in the theater district), but be aware that many are reproductions (and identified as such) yet can still be as pricey as a ticket to a Broadway show.

Still, it’s worth browsing in either store, as it is in the several gift shops in the theater district and the many theater websites. I’m personally partial to Cafe Press, whose Broadway pages are bursting with individual entrepreneurial spirit, if not consistent wit or sense of design. But where else could I find a “Vintage Hamlet Laptop skin” and 76 Hamlet-themed shower curtains?

Holiday Gifts for Theater Lovers 2019 My eighth annual Broadway (and small theater) gift guide below includes links and information on shopping for…

[travelworldnetwork]

Copenhagen, Denmark on the Nyhavn Canal. Photo: Shutterstock

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So there you are, strolling leisurely beside Copenhagen's picturesque harbour, admiring the beautifully renovated warehouses and shiny contemporary architecture, when all of a sudden a voice in immaculate English, with a slight Scandi twang, says, "Excuse me, this lane is for bicycles."

I look down and see I'm standing on a path that, very clearly, has a bike symbol marked on it. I apologise and shuffle back to the lane designated for pedestrians, a little embarrassed but confident I'm not the only tourist to make this mistake in Copenhagen, one of the planet's most pedal-friendly cities.

It's said that 400 kilometres of cycle paths snake through the Danish capital, and that around 50 per cent of residents regularly bike to work, school or university (and the pub). There are ample paths and promenades for walkers, too, but as they're often adjacent to the cycle lanes, it's easy to drift, especially when you're distracted by something, as you often are in Copenhagen, which Lonely Planet has decreed the world's top city to visit in 2019.

The Playhouse in Copenhagen. Photo: Jens Markus Lindhe

This one-time Viking fishing village became the capital of Denmark in the 15th century and its majestic regal sites and palaces are among its leading attractions, along with the Tivoli Gardens, an eclectic theme park at the heart of the city, and the Little Mermaid, a bronze statue immortalising one of the fairytale characters of Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. Perched on a rock, close to Copenhagen's cruise port, it's a fair trek from the city centre and almost everyone who comes wonders what the fuss is about when they see its modest size.

Far more visually striking are the modern landmarks that fringe the shores closer to town and that are helping to revitalise derelict naval and industrial zones.

The newest example is Blox built on the site of a former brewery near the Danish parliament and HC Andersen Boulevard (a road, incidentally, that isn't as idyllic as it sounds – it's central Copenhagen's busiest thoroughfare, its six lanes slicing through the city's core).

Unveiled in May, this jumble of glassy cubes of varying shapes and sizes seemingly stacked atop one another, has been labelled a "micro-city within a city" and contains housing, offices, work spaces, a gym and enticing draws for culture vultures and foodies.

You'll find Blox Eats, which is co-owned by Claus Meyer, co-founder of Noma which has been rated world's best restaurant several times and has become a legend of "new Nordic" cuisine. It recently moved to a new location near Christiania, a hippie-ish commune in Copenhagen's east, and tables there are still notoriously tricky to come by but Blox Eats has a no-reservations policy.

It's a very different affair, though. Instead of elaborate 17-course tasting menus à la Noma, it keeps things relatively simple with salads, baked goodies and smorrebrod (Danish open-faced sandwiches), plus tantalising soups, such as a Thai-style offering with pollock (a North Atlantic fish), mussels, noodles, herbs, coconut and crispy crudites). Menus change weekly and at least 30 per cent of ingredients are organic.

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Blox Eats' first-floor food hall is open for lunch on weekdays, while its ground-floor, espresso-scented cafe-eatery welcomes customers daily until 10pm (weekend brunch is one enticing option).

Blox is also home to the Danish Architecture Centre and its DAC Cafe, which has three rooftop terraces with splendid views of Copenhagen. The Centre's galleries and gift shop showcase the Danish flair for design, which infuses everything from landmark buildings to the furniture inside. A recent exhibition explored the genius of Jorn Utzon, the Copenhagen-born mastermind of the Sydney Opera House.

It's somewhat ironic, I ponder as I exit the building, that Blox was crafted by OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), a practice founded by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.

Danish fingerprints are, however, all over the design of other contemporary gems flanking the harbour, including the Black Diamond, a pebble's throw from Blox. Clad in polished black granite, it was completed in 1999, as a shiny extension to the red-brick Royal Danish Library. Skywalks connect the two sections, which couldn't be more different in style and vibe. While the original part feels a bit Hogwarts, with wood panelled reading areas, antique bookshelves and hushed voices, the Black Diamond is flooded with natural light thanks to its tall atrium. There's a vibrant cafe buzzing with Copenhageners of all ages, plus a concert hall and exhibition spaces.

Dubbed a "theatre machine", the Royal Danish Playhouse is another key cultural venue in a gleaming boxy shell. Renowned for its ballet and drama productions – ever fancied watching Shakespeare in Danish? – it's around the corner from Nyhavn, a cobbled quayside tourist magnet lined with yachts and pastel-hued 17th and 18th century townhouses.

Looming diagonally across the harbour is the most controversial of the city's 21st century icons. Costing about US$500 million, the Copenhagen Opera House was designed in so-called "neo-futuristic" fashion by the late Danish architect Henning Larsen, who trained with Utzon. It was panned by critics when it opened in 2004. Some dismissed it as a spaceship or the grille of a vintage Pontiac car.

Larsen himself reportedly reckoned it looked like a toaster and regarded it as a "failed compromise" (he had creative differences with the project's backer, Danish shipping magnate, Maersk McKinney Moller). I can't help but like it, especially its enormous cantilevered "lid". As with many of Copenhagen's prominent new buildings, it's ultra-mesmerising after dark, illuminated with colour that reflects off the water.

The opera house is linked to Nyhavn by water bus and also via Inderhavnsbroen, one of the dual cyclist-pedestrian bridges that swerve over the harbour. Guided tours reveal the building's stunning ensemble of limestone, oak, glass, bronze, maple, gold leaf and Sicilian marble. On a tour of the building, visitors are led round the backstage areas and into the vast main auditorium which can seat an audience of around 1500, who come for everything from Puccini to Kylie (she performed here in November).

From the building's lobby, there's a wonderful panorama of Copenhagen's spire-dotted skyline. Glance across the harbour and you'll see the royal district of Frederiksstaden, home to Amalienborg, residence of Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark, and Frederik's Church, a neoclassical jewel with an incredible green copper dome.The Marble Church, as it's alternatively known, was a project involving two high-profile 18th century architects: a Dane, Nicolai Eigtved, and a Frenchman, Nicolas-Henri Jardin.

For dinner, I go Gallic-Nordic at Zeleste, a charming restaurant serving Danish food with a French twist on Store Strandstraede, an affluent street between Nyhavn and Frederiksstaden. Occupying a quaint 17th century building, with rustic furniture, fireplaces and "Copenhagen's cosiest courtyard", Zeleste scores highly on the hygge scale.

Hygge, pronounced hoo-gah, is a Danish phrase for conjuring a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with loved ones. With a glass of Loire Valley sauvignon blanc for company, and jazzy trumpet tunes floating through the air, I have chilli chickpea salad with mustard vinaigrette, codfish with kale and mussel foam and a "deconstructed" cheesecake, its crushed base sprinkled with edible flowers onto creamy white chocolate.

Like so many things in Copenhagen, it simply has to be photographed, and, thankfully, it's utterly, lip-lickingly delicious as well.

FIVE MORE THINGS TO SEE AND DO IN COPENHAGEN

TORVEHALLERNE

This trendy covered market near Norreport Station attracts a diverse crowd, with more than 60 stands selling oodles of fresh produce and cosmopolitan cuisine from Italy, Japan, Spain and Scandinavia.

FURNITURE STORES

Sofas and armchairs, mirrors and lampshades, Copenhagen's furniture stores stock gorgeously-crafted products from Denmark and the world. Paustian House, a large harbourside showroom designed by Jorn Utzon in collaboration with his sons, Jan and Kim, is a joy to browse.

BAGSVAERD CHURCH

Completed in 1973, the same year the Sydney Opera House was opened, Jorn Utzon's modernist Lutheran house of worship has a dreamy white interior and is worth the 12-kilometre trip to the city's northern suburbs.

NORDIC NOIR

Take a Nordic noir-themed walking tour and discover the atmospheric filming locations of The Killing and The Bridge, the hit television series shot in Copenhagen.

FREDERIKSBERG GARDENS

This delightful urban park is a peaceful expanse of lakes, lawns and woodlands, also home to a royal palace, Chinese pavilion and Copenhagen Zoo.

TRIP NOTES

Steve McKenna was a guest of Collette.

MORE

traveller.com.au/denmarkvisitcopenhagen.com

visitcopenhagen.com

STAY

Admiral Hotel is housed in a converted 18th century granary by the harbour. Rooms from 850DKK. See admiralhotel.dk/en

from traveller.com.au

[artmutt]

Rembrandt Chamber Musicians

Every so often, those long long hours spent studying music history pay off, and on September 13th (Arnold Schoenberg’s birthday) I correctly informed the quizmasters at WFMT that the subtitle of Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 33 #2 is “The Joke.” My reward for winning this game of Trivial Pursuit was a pair of tickets to the Rembrandt Chamber Musicians’ first fall concert. So on a rainy Sunday afternoon we drove up to Evanston to hear the group perform.

The concert was free, so it didn’t really have to be all that good, but actually I delighted to discover just how good these musicians really are. The group was really started by Robert Morgan, former oboist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and his wife Sandra, a flutist who remains the Artistic Director of the group. The other core members include violinist John Macfarlane, who plays in the CSO, violist Carol Cook, and cellist Calum Cook, both members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra. This core group is them implemented with a large number of guest artists, drawn mostly from either the CSO or Lyric. The level of musicianship is therefore quite high. There was not a missed note, shaky rhythm, or questionable intonation to be heard. That in itself is pleasure enough on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

The program began with Malcolm Arnold’s Oboe Quartet (1957), a pleasant enough little piece, without a great deal of depth (to my ear at least). I was constantly reminded that Arnold was best known for writing over 100 film scores (most memorably that whistled marching tune in “Bridge on the River Kwai”). While he also composed concert music, this piece could easily have accompanied a short documentary on the BBC.

This was followed by a fine performance of the 5th Brandenburg Concerto of J.S. Bach. This work is a slightly strange one, somewhere between a concerto gross and a solo concerto. The first movement features a remarkably long solo cadenza for harpsichord, momentarily brushing aside the flute and violin soloists who have otherwise been sharing the spotlight. Really, though, it’s the trio that are the featured players here, and in this performance that was emphasized by having the flute and violin in front of the harpsichord, and the rest of the players behind it. It worked well in terms of balance, and the performers displayed a good sense of Baroque performance practice, with most of the players standing rather than sitting in chairs, and the strings minimizing vibrato except as a specific “ornament” to sustained notes. Mark Shuldiner, the very skillful (and attractive) harpsichordist, made the most out of his extended solo in the first movement, inserting ornaments and rubato to emphasize the virtuoso nature of the music.

After intermission, pianist Kuang-Hao Huang joined the group in Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet Op. 57 (1940). The program notes tried to claim a deep content for this work, but honestly, it isn’t the composer’s most profound composition. Its opus number places it between the 6th and 7th Symphonies, and in the middle of a string of film scores the composer wrote in the late 30s, and going into the beginning of the war. So he was actually writing a lot of trivial music, and the 7th Symphony contains some of his most banal and bombastic writing. (One of the themes of the 7th Symphony was mocked by Bartok in his Concerto for Orchestra.)

Well, never mind. As recently noted, Shostakovich could bring it when he chose to (see my notes on the 13th symphony recently performed by the CSO). And if the Piano Quintet isn’t his greatest work, it is still skillful and enjoyable music, especially the slightly daffy central Scherzo, a tune that I recall being used as the theme music for PBS’s Dance in America series years ago. The Rembrandt players and guests played this music for all it was worth. This piece needs a genuinely heartfelt performance if it is going to work, and it certainly received that here. A cool, rainy fall afternoon suddenly felt warmer after hearing these performances.

[mmckenziepr]

Guggenheim Entertainment’s “The MeshugaNutcracker!” Screened Nationwide on Dec. 19

Guggenheim Entertainment’s “The MeshugaNutcracker!” Screened Nationwide on Dec. 19 Fathom Events Presents the Critically Acclaimed Chanukah Hit for One Night Only

SAN JOSE – September, 2017 – Perfectly timed to coincide with the end of Chanukah 2017, Fathom Events in conjunction with Guggenheim Entertainment presents “The MeshugaNutcracker! A Chanukah Musical” in theaters nationwide for one night only, Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2017 at 7 p.m.

In this original musical featuring a Klezmer-ized orchestration of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, villagers in the fictional town of Chelm share the story of Chanukah from Judah Maccabee's victorious saga to medieval fables and accounts of perseverance during the Holocaust as well as the celebration of the first Chanukah in the new state of Israel. Through eight stories and a 20-song score of unforgettable music, the eight-person cast tells of the triumphs of Chanukah heroes throughout history using poignant moments sure to bring a tear to the eye (“Little Matchstick” and “Even Here”) right alongside broad, comedic scenes, songs and dances: where “The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” and “Chinese Tea” once stood majestic but wordless in the score, now “Golden Latkes” and “The Dance of the Dreidels” give audiences a new way to sing along for the holidays. With special guest star Broadway veteran and six-time Emmy Award-winning comedy and songwriter Bruce Vilanch, “The MeshugaNutcracker!” combines a Chanukah history lesson with the wit and hilarity Guggenheim Entertainment’s creative team of Shannon Guggenheim, Scott Evan Guggenheim and Stephen Guggenheim are known for using.

With dancing dreidels, singing sufganiot (jelly donuts) and audience participation, the silly sensibilities and folklore of Chelm’s townspeople project joy and a genuine sense of wonder, creating the perfect family-friendly recipe for a simply suburb holiday gathering that will delight and entertain Jews and non-Jews alike.

Theatre lovers will revel in the production’s creativity while music lovers, who’ve had Tchaikovsky’s timeless tunes embedded in their consciousness will delight in hearing voices married to the score for the first time in the fun-filled, full-length musical theatre experience that celebrates the Miracle of Oil and the heroes who made it happen.

“The MeshugaNutcracker!” Fathom Event features Stephen Guggenheim and Susan Gundunas as Gronam and Esther Schmegegi, the Mayor and First Lady of Chelm; Shannon Guggenheim and Jeremy Kreamer as the village children, Treitel Schlamazel and Velvel Schnook; Benjamin Pither as Rabbi Motke Schmerel; Lynda DiVito as Rivka Schmuel, the Dairywoman; Jackson Davis as Yacob Schlemiel, the Farmer; and Krista Wigle as Yetta Schmendrick, the bakeshop owner.  This absolutely joyful musical event is produced and directed by Scott Evan Guggenheim, with music adapted, lyrics, and choreography by Shannon Guggenheim; musical direction and arrangements by Stephen Guggenheim and Thomas Tomasello; costume and set designs by Julie Engelbrecht; lighting by Derek Duarte; sound design by Steven Cahill; and film editing by Kyle Burke.

Tickets for “The MeshugaNutcracker!” can be purchased at www.FathomEvents.com or participating theater box offices. For a complete list of locations visit the Fathom Events website (theaters and participants are subject to change). For more information on the production please visit www.themeshuganutcrakcer.com.

About Fathom Events

Fathom Events is recognized as the leading domestic distributor of event cinema with participating affiliate theaters in all 100 of the top Designated Market Areas®, and ranks as one of the largest overall distributors of content to movie theaters. Owned by AMC Entertainment Inc. (NYSE: AMC), Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CNK) and Regal Entertainment Group (NYSE: RGC) (known collectively as AC JV, LLC), Fathom Events offers a variety of one-of-a-kind entertainment events such as live, high-definition performances of the Metropolitan Opera, dance and theatre productions like the Bolshoi Ballet and National Theatre Live, sporting events like Copa America Centenario, concerts with artists like Michael Bublé, Rush and Mötley Crüe, the yearlong TCM Big Screen Classics film series and inspirational events such as To Joey With Love and Kirk Cameron’s Revive US. Fathom Events takes audiences behind the scenes and offers unique extras including audience Q&As, backstage footage and interviews with cast and crew, creating the ultimate VIP experience. Fathom Events’ live digital broadcast network (“DBN”) is the largest cinema broadcast network in North America, bringing live and pre-recorded events to 896 locations and 1,383 screens in 181 DMAs. For more information, visit www.fathomevents.com.

About Guggenheim Entertainment

Guggenheim Entertainment, Inc. is a theatrical production company based in California’s San Francisco Bay Area celebrating 30 years of producing musical theatre, events, and serving the needs of clients throughout the West Coast. The team at the helm of Guggenheim Entertainment is composed of directors, producers, writers, performers, and designers who write, create, and produce full length and one-act musicals; design and teach classes, seminars and workshops for teachers and students of all ages; create custom event design and support for fundraisers, campaign kick-offs, awards dinners and dedications; and originate family and educational programming and arts and entertainment events. Owners Scott Guggenheim, Shannon Guggenheim, and Stephen Guggenheim have produced events and marketing concepts for companies like the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, Pier 39, Gilroy Gardens, Simon Property Group, General Growth Properties, Macerich, Westfield, Madison Marquette, and nearly every shopping center in California. Since 1986, the Guggenheims have been at the forefront of Theatre In Education, having won an Antoinette Perry Award (giver of the coveted Tony Award) for Excellence in Theatre in Education, and multiple awards from the American Public Health Association for Excellence and Innovation in programming and partnerships. A winner of The Diller Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, the producers have been using theater arts to teach Judaica for over two decades. Guggenheim Entertainment has made “The MeshugaNutcracker!” available to non-profit organization as a fundraiser helping raise over $250,000 for West Coast non-profit organizations.

In 2009, Guggenheim Entertainment opened the fan-adored, critically acclaimed and award-winning ‘60s inspired performing arts center, The Retro Dome, which specialized in producing professional live musical theater and the best in interactive movie entertainment. The world premier of Guggenheim Entertainment’s “Thanks For Playing...The Game Show Show!,” debuted at The Retro Dome which launched thanks in no small part to their very successful crowdsourcing campaign that raised over $50,000. When the dome was demolished as part of redevelopment, Guggenheim Entertainment began looking for a new home and after an exhaustive search, the team will open 3Below Theaters & Lounge in Downtown San Jose on New Year’s Eve 2017. The modern-minimalistic theater will reprise Guggenheim Entertainment programming including live theater, interactive movie experiences, The Scene summer musical theatre conservatory for aspiring young actors entering 3rd-11th grades, intimate operas, film festivals and offer a new, exciting entertainment option in the South Bay. Visit 3belowtheaters.com for more information.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Jessica Nelson / Katherine Schwappach       Fathom Events                         720-262-2753 / 720-262-2713 jnelson@fathomevents.com / kschwappach@fathomevents.com                      

Scott Guggenheim / Shannon Guggenheim Guggenheim Entertainment 408-621-1817 / 408-621-2429 scott@guggyent.com / shannon@guggyent.com

Melissa McKenzie 3Below Public Relations 714-614-1190/408-827-1190 melissa@3belowtheaters.com

Interviews with the creators or performers available upon request.

The Original Cast Recording of "The MeshugaNutcracker!" is now available for purchase at www.themeshuganutcracker.com

A copy of the CD will be made available to reviewers upon request.

###

[nazih-fares]

If Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry or the Just Dance franchise are key names that come to mind when we talk about Ubisoft in recent years, the independent developer and publisher has also built up a small reputation for taking risks, especially with new franchises in the turn-based strategy genre such as the amazingly beautiful Child of Light, South Park: The Stick of Truth (and upcoming sequel), and of course their headlight franchise Heroes of Might and Magic. So now comes a brand new entry in their turn-based strategy catalogue, a fun collaboration between Ubisoft and Nintendo, and a first time the mustachioed plumber and friends are in a Western game non-developed by the Japanese giant: Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.

The story of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is pretty simple. Down in her basement, a young girl and her AI assistant Beep-O are trying to optimize her latest invention known as the SupaMerge helmet, an advanced goggle device that can fuse two objects together in hope to solve the world’s energy crisis. Sadly, that helmet will fall in the hands of time-travelling Rabbids, who will then SupaMerge everything in the basement, including Mario figurines and posters, thus hitting the Mushroom Kingdom with a mysterious vortex. The result is a strange Mushroom Kingdom merged with Rabbids, and let by Beep-O, Mario and friends, as well as cosplaying Mario-themed Rabbids will have to put back in order.

The core of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle gameplay is a turn-based tactical strategy game. The story lets you travel to 4 different worlds, each split into 10 sections (including a mid-boss and end boss), which has riddles and exploration sequences to find all sorts of collectibles, coins and weapons. After each exploration part, you’ll eventually find battle areas, which are resolved in turn-based combat with three of your picked characters, and have to sequence your actions correctly and make a right tactical decisions. It will be up to you to decide on either dashing on your enemies and hammer him down, or on the contrary, stay at a distance by taking advantage of the map’s element which act a defensive barricade. Even within the first hours of the game, you’ll notice that while the core actions in the combat are simple, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is a very complex and demanding title. If the first missions are relatively easy to finish, the latter levels starting in World 2 (Sherbert Desert) are extremely technical, and you will probably have to replay them numerous times to eventually continue on, or more if you want a perfect score (which is done by finishing the battle with a certain amount of turns and no character KOd).

If the possible combat actions in the first part of the game are rather simple, such as moving around, hiding behind a low wall, firing with a blaster, tackling an enemy within range or jumping on an ally to gain a movement boost, it eventually becomes a combo fiesta of defensive and offensive maneuver, that will help your team finish a battle. Eventually, Mario and friends will get abilities that buff allies with damage boosts, super effect resistance (debuffs), but also attract surrounding enemies with the Rabbid Mario’s Magnet Dance to combo eventually with a Melee Hammer attack, or on the contrary push away enemies that are getting too close with Rabbid Yoshi’s Scaredy Rabbid technique. The entire palette of techniques per characters are subject to cooldown ranging from 1 to 3 rounds, which will force you to really pre-plan ahead of time.

Similarly, the choice of weapons becomes more important as one advances in the game, especially because of the larger amount of special enemies, which can be very deadly if you don’t pay attention, such as Smasher Rabbids that rush down to counterattack your teammates when hit with weapons. Eventually, the more advanced blasters and other weapons that can be bought between fights will have extra stats such as higher damage on specific Rabbid types, but also higher chance to inflict debuffs including Ink Damage (blinding characters and depriving them of weapon attacks), burn damage, freeze and so on. The weapons are numerous and varied, rounding an impressive total of over 250 different ones, as well as the secondary weapon which are melee hammers, explosive trap, rocket launchers, and remote bombs.

Like any proper tactical RPG, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has a plethora of skills to unlock for each of the 8 playable characters in the game, via a skill tree, which optimize combos, synergies between other characters, passive skills but also more direct permanent boosts to health. Those are activated whenever you want in the skill tree, with the ability to optimize characters with weapons, combos, synergies and even talent trees, with dozens of micro skills. Topped with all the weapons you get, and different combinations of teams of 3, customization and strategies are infinite.

  Each Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle’s turns are done via a sequence of three actions for each of your characters: movement, main or secondary weapon attack and finally activation of special techniques. It is up to you to order your sequences of actions and your positioning, which will affect a lot of things considering all the different automated skills that can help you out. If the first battles in world 1 (Ancient Garden) pit our heroes in a sort of long tutorial, the challenge becomes definitely tougher as we get to second, third and fourth world of the game. While the first world has minimalist challenges usually design with up to two zones of combat, with couple of warp pipe to move faster on the battlefield, the latter worlds have more complex terrain, spread out like mini-islands which will require moving smartly thanks to the same pipes or team jumps (a sort of boosted jump powered by another character). On top of the complexity of these maps, the later worlds have “environmental” hazards which can do some serious damage to both yourself and your enemies, such as the Pyro Clast showers (meter showers) in world 4.

In terms of artistic direction and technical performance, I got to say that Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is one good-looking game. Colors are crisp and vibrant, and whether you play the game on handheld or dock mode, there’s not a single stutter or frame drop. The title remains faithful to the enchanting universe of Nintendo and Mario’s universe, paired with the goofiness of the Rabbids and their chaotic elements. Each of the 4 worlds and the main hub (Peach’s castle) are a bliss to look at, and there’s so many fun little easter eggs scattered around the vista, which are complemented by an amazing soundtrack. Composed by Grant Kirkhope, better known for his work on a lot of Rare games such as Viva Pinata which got him nominated for a BAFTA in 2007, his tunes are quirky and fun, but can turn into epic melodies such as the boss fights and including an original opera song in World 3, which I will let you discover as it was a delight.

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As mentioned before, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has exploration phases between battles, and once you finish a world by beating its end boss, you’ll be able to revisit it to discover hidden puzzles or mini-games that you might have missed on the way. That includes riddles that will require you to come back with new Beep-O skills such as the ability to push crates to open new passages, and reach to crates that can usually have collectibles such as game artwork, soundtracks and 3D dioramas of key characters in the game. On top of that, there’s mini-games known as Bug Zone which require you to collect purple coins and remind us of the old generation of Nintendo titles, plus secret hidden chapters to unlock.

To make the game more user-friendly, Ubisoft has even decided to add a turn-based cooperative mode which unlock gradually more maps and challenges as you finish new worlds in the main story mode. While the intention are good, the duration of the battles are too long and sometimes become laborious. You will have to organize yourself with your ally, alternating your turns, which does not add much in terms of gameplay, accept new maps.

At launch, you’ll be able to gain access to 16 different battle maps played with either two joy-cons, or any supported Nintendo Switch controllers, where each player now controls a pair of character (4 in total). The challenges are mainly of the same type as the single player battles including escort, kill X amount of enemies or reach a certain zone in the map. It is a shame that there’s no online coop mode , as I would’ve love to play with my friends abroad, but with the fact that the Nintendo Switch is such a easy going handheld console, I shouldn’t nag much.

Aside from this simple defect, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is probably one of the best turn-based tactical RPG games I’ve played in a long time. There’s so much effort and love put in this title, giving us a unique experience full of memorable heroes and great gameplay.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was reviewed using a Nintendo Switch downloadable code of the game provided by Ubisoft Middle East. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is the kind of exclusive the Nintendo Switch deserves. Gorgeous, simple to learn, yet difficult to master, this collaboration between Ubisoft and Nintendo is a work of art that nobody should miss on the Nintendo's latest console. If Assassin's Creed, Far Cry or the Just Dance franchise are key names that come to mind when we talk about Ubisoft in recent years, the independent developer and publisher has also built up a small reputation for taking risks, especially with new franchises in the turn-based strategy genre such as the amazingly beautiful Child of Light, South Park: The Stick of Truth (and upcoming sequel), and of course their headlight franchise Heroes of Might and Magic.

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Paul Ramírez Jonas Asks What Constitutes a Public

A facilitator (center) makes a graphite rubbing of a pledge offered by a member of the public as part of Paul Ramírez Jonas’s “Public Trust,” (2016–ongoing). (all photos by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin for Hyperallergic)

HOUSTON — William was among the first visitors on a recent Saturday afternoon to step up to “Public Trust” (2016–ongoing), Paul Ramírez Jonas’s participatory installation at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) that invites anyone to make a personal promise by publicly declaring and recording it. “Public Trust” is part of Atlas, Plural, Monumental, the artist’s much-deserved 25-year survey organized by CAMH curator Dean Daderko.

A facilitator posts a pledge made by a Contemporary Arts Museum Houston visitor, part of Paul Ramírez Jonas’s “Public Trust,” (2016–ongoing).

William sat down and pledged “to fail until it happened.” He added his signature and his inked thumbprint to the contract, a graphite rubbing made over a raised letter board. Then, with a ding of a desk bell, William finalized his promise, declaring “cross my heart and hope to die,” and watched as another facilitator put his pledge up in black plastic letters on an enormous marquee.

“Public Trust” debuted in Boston in 2016 and was staged at three different public squares. Throughout his practice Ramírez Jonas has thoughtfully questioned the boundaries between artwork and viewer. And he’s challenged conventional definitions of public art by openly asking what constitutes “a public” and what brings people together.

It was delightful to see “Public Trust” as busy as it was in a museum setting. Visitors took part eagerly. The CAMH facilitators — local artists chosen by Ramírez Jonas ­— were engaged and thoughtful. “Public Trust” invites participants to consider the impact of their words — but only on Saturday afternoons at CAMH. The rest of the time, not staffed with facilitators, “Public Trust” is inactive.

Graphite rubbing of a pledge made by participants in Paul Ramírez Jonas’s “Public Trust,” (2016-ongoing). Each participant keeps a copy and a second copy is displayed in the museum.

Much of Ramírez Jonas’s work is site-specific and engages the public in a variety of ways. And thus, much of what’s in the exhibit is essentially records (photographs, video, explanatory text) about artwork that already took place. That makes a fair part of the experience of Atlas, Plural, Monumental akin to surveying an archive and imaginatively connecting a few objects with residual information. Which isn’t at all an unpleasant activity. But it does provoke a question: With today’s proliferation of performance, social practice, time-based and participatory public art, how best to present such artwork after the fact and in the confines of a traditional museum setting?

Daderko gives it noble curatorial effort. Atlas, Plural, Monumental is thorough in its chronological presentation of Ramírez Jonas’s oeuvre, offering a robust picture of the artist’s diverse practice.

Paul Ramírez Jonas, “The Commons” (2011), cork, pushpins, steel, wood, and hardware (image courtesy the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler)

Daderko put Ramírez Jonas’s large cork sculpture, “The Commons” (2011), modeled after Rome’s landmark “Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius,” center stage in the CAMH’s rambling and awkwardly shaped main gallery. Ramírez Jonas erases the emperor from his version of “Equestrian Statue,” democratizing the immutable monument. Instead, the riderless cork horse tops a base that functions as a public bulletin board. At CAMH, visitors have covered it with diverse messages: drawings, Polaroid selfies, business cards, notes, and ticket stubs from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston across the street (the CAMH has always had free admission). There’s a poster for a free yoga class and a program from a funeral service, too. “The Commons” may not be that rigorous or complex a piece, but it is very engaging.

Kites from Paul Ramírez Jonas’s “Heavier than Air” (1993-94) series

At the beginning of his practice Ramírez Jonas plumbed history, choosing scientific accomplishments (experiments in flight, the first moon landing) and understanding those historic events as “scores,” riffing on them like a jazz musician. That riff is affectionate in “Heavier than Air” (1993–94), a series for which Ramírez Jonas faithfully replicated kite prototypes designed during the optimistic era of the early 1900s when myriad inventors competed to make a flying machine. Ramírez Jonas fitted his kites with an alarm clock rejiggered to depress the shutter of a single-use disposable camera. Just like the Wright Brothers, the artist launched his kites at the beach. But when the timer went off, the camera captured blurry pictures of Ramírez Jonas below. At CAMH, those blurry photos hang near the kites, proof that the designs of the early inventors still function.

Paul Ramírez Jonas, “His Truth Is Marching On” (1993), wood, glass bottles, corks, water, mallet, rope, and hardware (The Dikeou Collection, Denver)

Another charismatic early piece is “His Truth is Marching On” (1993), a hanging chandelier of water-filled, clear wine bottles. Amid the bottles hangs a mallet that visitors can use to tap the bottles in a counter-clockwise direction, causing the successive musical notes to play “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which is also the melody of the 19th–century abolitionist song “John Brown’s Body” and the early labor union anthem “Solidarity Forever.” The tune of each song is the same. Ramírez Jonas prods us to recall that history.

Detail of Paul Ramírez Jonas, “Assembly: Ghazi Stadium” (2013), silk screen and collage on paper (image courtesy the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler)

Some of Ramírez Jonas’s most affecting works in the exhibit are also some of the most discrete. The “Assembly” (2013) drawing series features hand-printed and colored silk-screen tickets that enumerate the capacity of meeting places: the United States Supreme Court Chamber, an Atlantic City boxing venue, La Scala opera house. Ramírez Jonas lays out the tickets to represent the seats of each venue, mapping the taxonomy of places for public assembly. The massive “Assembly: Ghazi Stadium” (2013), for instance, uses different colored tickets to represent the 25,000 bodies that can be seated in the Kabul, Afghanistan stadium. Ghazi Stadium is a venue for soccer games and other sports. But during Taliban rule in the 1990s, the stadium was the site of public executions.

Paul Ramírez Jonas, “Assembly: Ghazi Stadium” (2013), silk screen and collage on paper (image courtesy the artist and Galeria Nara Roesler)

With “Assembly: Ghazi Stadium,” Ramírez Jonas suggests there are different means of public participation. Beyond the fundamental human need for connection — fostered through the artist’s participatory pieces — there’s an imperative to participate in the public forum. How else can people claim that forum a democratic space?

Paul Ramírez Jonas: Atlas, Plural, Monumental continues at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) (5216 Montrose Boulevard, Houston, Texas) through August 6. 

The post Paul Ramírez Jonas Asks What Constitutes a Public appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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Coming Soon: Guggenheim Entertainment’s “The MeshugaNutcracker!” in Theaters Nationwide Dec. 19 at 7 p.m.

Coming Soon: Guggenheim Entertainment’s “The MeshugaNutcracker!” in Theaters Nationwide Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. Fathom Events Presents Chanukah classic for One Night Only

SAN JOSE – September, 2017 – The wondrous, witty, and completely silly sensibilities of the townspeople of Chelm, a fictional town of fools, are brought to life in “The MeshugaNutcracker!,” a two-act musical theatre delight written and produced by Guggenheim Entertainment. Now, for the first time ever, presented by Fathom Events, the critically acclaimed full-length musical will be shown on screens nationwide Tuesday, Dec. 19 at 7 p.m.

Eight villagers tell eight tales of the trials, tribulations and triumphs faced by the Jewish people throughout history, from the time of the Maccabees through modern day all underscored by a Klezmer-ized version of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. The complex and beautiful harmonies amid dancing dreidels and singing sufganiot (jelly donuts!) bring audiences to their feet each winter. Viewers won’t want to miss seeing special guest star, Broadway veteran and six-time Emmy Award-winning comedy and songwriter Bruce Vilanch, perform in this special, one night only event.

Theatre lovers will revel in the production’s creativity while music lovers, who’ve had Tchaikovsky’s timeless tunes embedded in their consciousness will delight in hearing voices married to the score for the first time in a fun-filled musical theatre experience that celebrates the Miracle of Oil and the heroes that made it happen.

Written by the creative team of Scott Guggenheim, Shannon Guggenheim, and Stephen Guggenheim, “The MeshugaNutcracker!” played to packed houses - delighting Jews and Gentiles alike - when it premiered in December 2003 and every year since. The stories of Judah Maccabee's triumphant saga, medieval fables, the birth of the State of Israel,  and Jewish perseverance during the Holocaust have left audiences emerging with a sense of wonder and joy while performances were met with the highest of praise during the musical’s national tour.

“The MeshugaNutcracker!” features Stephen Guggenheim and Susan Gundunas as Gronam and Esther Schmegegi, the Mayor and First Lady of Chelm; Shannon Guggenheim and Jeremy Kreamer as Treitel Schlamazel and Velvel Schnook; Benjamin Pither as Rabbi Motke Schmerel; Lynda DiVito as Rivka Schmuel, the Dairywoman; Jackson Davis as Yacob Schlemiel, the Farmer; and Krista Wigle as Yetta Schmendrick, the bakeshop owner.  This absolutely joyful musical event is produced and directed by Scott Evan Guggenheim, with music adapted, lyrics, and choreography by Shannon Guggenheim; musical direction and arrangements by Stephen Guggenheim and Thomas Tomasello; costume and set designs by Julie Engelbrecht; lighting by Derek Duarte; sound design by Steven Cahill; and film editing by Kyle Burke.

Tickets for “The MeshugaNutcracker!” can be purchased at www.FathomEvents.com or participating theater box offices. For a complete list of locations visit the Fathom Events website (theaters and participants are subject to change). For more information on the production please visit www.themeshuganutcrakcer.com.

About Fathom Events

Fathom Events is recognized as the leading domestic distributor of event cinema with participating affiliate theaters in all 100 of the top Designated Market Areas®, and ranks as one of the largest overall distributors of content to movie theaters. Owned by AMC Entertainment Inc. (NYSE: AMC), Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CNK) and Regal Entertainment Group (NYSE: RGC) (known collectively as AC JV, LLC), Fathom Events offers a variety of one-of-a-kind entertainment events such as live, high-definition performances of the Metropolitan Opera, dance and theatre productions like the Bolshoi Ballet and National Theatre Live, sporting events like Copa America Centenario, concerts with artists like Michael Bublé, Rush and Mötley Crüe, the yearlong TCM Big Screen Classics film series and inspirational events such as To Joey With Love and Kirk Cameron’s Revive US. Fathom Events takes audiences behind the scenes and offers unique extras including audience Q&As, backstage footage and interviews with cast and crew, creating the ultimate VIP experience. Fathom Events’ live digital broadcast network (“DBN”) is the largest cinema broadcast network in North America, bringing live and pre-recorded events to 896 locations and 1,383 screens in 181 DMAs. For more information, visit www.fathomevents.com.

About Guggenheim Entertainment

Guggenheim Entertainment, Inc. is a theatrical production company based in California’s San Francisco Bay Area celebrating 30 years of producing musical theatre, events, and serving the needs of clients throughout the West Coast. The team at the helm of Guggenheim Entertainment is composed of directors, producers, writers, performers, and designers who write, create, and produce full length and one-act musicals; design and teach classes, seminars and workshops for teachers and students of all ages; create custom event design and support for fundraisers, campaign kick-offs, awards dinners and dedications; and originate family and educational programming and arts and entertainment events. Owners Scott Guggenheim, Shannon Guggenheim, and Stephen Guggenheim have produced events and marketing concepts for companies like the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, Pier 39, Gilroy Gardens, Simon Property Group, General Growth Properties, Macerich, Westfield, Madison Marquette, and nearly every shopping center in California. Since 1986, the Guggenheims have been at the forefront of Theatre In Education, having won an Antoinette Perry Award (giver of the coveted Tony Award) for Excellence in Theatre in Education, and multiple awards from the American Public Health Association for Excellence and Innovation in programming and partnerships. A winner of The Diller Award for Excellence in Jewish Education, the producers have been using theater arts to teach Judaica for over two decades. Guggenheim Entertainment has made “The MeshugaNutcracker!” available to non-profit organization as a fundraiser helping raise over $250,000 for West Coast non-profit organizations.

In 2009, Guggenheim Entertainment opened the fan-adored, critically acclaimed and award-winning ‘60s inspired performing arts center, The Retro Dome, which specialized in producing professional live musical theater and the best in interactive movie entertainment. The world premier of Guggenheim Entertainment’s “Thanks For Playing...The Game Show Show!,” debuted at The Retro Dome which launched thanks in no small part to their very successful crowdsourcing campaign that raised over $50,000. When the dome was demolished as part of redevelopment, Guggenheim Entertainment began looking for a new home and after an exhaustive search, the team will open 3Below Theaters & Lounge in Downtown San Jose on New Year’s Eve 2017. The modern-minimalistic theater will reprise Guggenheim Entertainment programming including live theater, interactive movie experiences, The Scene summer musical theatre conservatory for aspiring young actors entering 3rd-11th grades, intimate operas, film festivals and offer a new, exciting entertainment option in the South Bay. Visit 3belowtheaters.com for more information.

MEDIA CONTACTS: Jessica Nelson / Katherine Schwappach       Fathom Events                         720-262-2753 / 720-262-2713 jnelson@fathomevents.com / kschwappach@fathomevents.com                      

Scott Guggenheim / Shannon Guggenheim Guggenheim Entertainment 408-621-1817 / 408-621-2429 scott@guggyent.com / shannon@guggyent.com

Melissa McKenzie 3Below Public Relations 714-614-1190 / 408-827-1190 melissa@3belowtheaters.com

Interviews with the creators or performers available upon request.

The Original Cast Recording of "The MeshugaNutcracker!" is now available for purchase at www.themeshuganutcracker.com

A copy of the CD will be made available to reviewers upon request.

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