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smb3 · 2 months

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We saw the Sonic Symphony today! It was great! It made me think a lot about the brand/franchise of Sonic and I just wanted to type it out somewhere.

To start off with, I knew the symphony was going to be part symphony and part rock concert--just not to what degree. I'm also keenly aware of how Sonic is such franchise that has a divided fanbase--most people are biggest fans of the games that came out in their formative years and think that's what Sonic "should be."

All that prefacing, only for more prefacing. I'd seen the Zelda Symphony years ago and had a great time. I know a lot of Sonic games and have played from Genesis up to Switch, so I like to think I'm at least semi-well-versed in the series.

The first half was great. Sonic 1 Medley, Sonic 2 Medley, Sonic Mania, Chao Medley, Sonic/Tails SA theme song medley, Rooftop Run, Colors and more. Hearing these great songs taken especially from some of the most archaic musical interpretations to being performed by an entire symphony was fantastic. They were arranged beautifully too, mixing songs together in a new format. I sat at the intermission going "wow, this is really great. I already have really enjoyed this".

After the intermission they start with the "rock show" portion. This was fun! Everyone stood up and we were encouraged to sing and cheer (more, the conductor encouraged us to cheer before too). The symphony was playing still but now there was a guitar, bass, drum set and keyboard all in front of them and definitely playing louder than them.

They played the hits. From SA1, Heroes, the Black Knight, Forces, Frontiers, etc., the encore being Sonic Adventure 2. Obviously this was higher energy and since every song had lyrics, the audience could participate more than just clapping/screaming when they saw a character they like show up on the projector.

I was really enjoying it--you got the fun of a gaming symphony show and then you also got a rock concert version of it too. It just somehow felt like the show was heavily weighted in the favor of this latter portion than it was the former. I actually pulled up the program: There were 14 "rock" songs compared to the nine "symphonic" songs.

It didn't help that the rock instruments and vocals drowned out most of the sound of the rest of the symphony--not to mention they were literally standing in front of them so you couldn't even see them. On top of this, rather than being "arranged", these were just all the full versions of the songs from those games. "I Am All Of Me", "Knight of the Wind", "What I'm Made Of", etc. Again, nothing wrong with that, it's just that the two "halves" of the show felt at-odds with one another.

As it went on and it got past songs that I knew (Frontiers, which I still haven't gotten around to), it just struck me that all of this was so indicative of Sonic as a whole. Everyone has their idea of what Sonic "is" or "should be" and cramming the two biggest opposing representations into one show just made the whole thing feel a little strange. The intermission definitely was indicative of the period between Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure--once you got back from the intermission, things were just totally different. Not bad, just very, very different.

I do wish the marketing reflected this a bit more too. All the promo material I'd found was JUST "symphonic". I think going in with more adjusted expectations would have been nice.

---

OTHER OBSERVATION: I'm usually not around this many... "Sonic fans" so I don't really have much of a pulse on what's "popular" outside of osmosis via tumblr/twitter/reddit but there were many times I was surprised to hear lots of cheers for. During the intermission I heard someone complimenting someone else's Mephiles plush and then when Mephiles DID show up on screen, people erupted.

I assume some of this is just due to fans being excited for things that get less attention than others but I think it's also a sign of how things are now. A lot of people just watch playthroughs of games now, rather than playing them themselves. Even less popular (or "good") games get a lot more attention because they focus more on giving characters cool moments or have appeal due to their story. Sonic games seem to typically allow for story or gameplay--rarely both.

#sonic symphony

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peculiarmindset · 2 years

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The Sonic Boom Fart - The people who believe in this fart claim it is even bigger than the Biggest Fart In The World Fart. The Sonic Boom Fart is supposed to shake the house and rattle the windows.

*Hi! This ended up being a sequel of my Thanksgiving Drabble (The Biggest Fart in the World Fart). I was going through my fart list for something to post for Christmas Day and when I saw this one, I knew it would be perfect. Here’s my Christmas Day gift to you all! Happy Holidays everyone!!!~ ⭐️❄️ ☃️🎄 🕎 🥂🎇🎁🛍🎉

“Ughhh….Urrp- Oh! Excuse me.” Draco blushed as he covered his mouth, looking as his husband sat heavily on the sofa cushion beside him.

The couple had just arrived home, after spending a good part of their day celebrating Christmas Eve at Malfoy Manor and then at the Burrow with the Weasley’s.

Narcissa and Molly had both doted on the boys and fed them till they were practically rolling out of their chairs to floo home.

“URRRPPPP!” Harry only belched in response, sighing as he patted his full stomach. “Excuse me too. Merlin, can our mother’s cook- well, I know your house elves did most of the work, but your mom can make a mean apple crumble.”

“Mother knows it’s my favorite.” Draco said proudly. “But our house elves didn’t stand a chance against Molly’s homemade dishes. I mean, that roast was just falling apart, and those deep fried brussel sprouts…oh my, I never knew they could be like that.” Draco was almost drooling as he recalled the little cabbages of pure goodness.

Harry chuckled as he nodded along, feeling another burp wanting to come out. “Hold on…Urrppp… excuse me. But yeah, you really attacked those deep fried brussels sprouts earlier- I think you ate the entire dish yourself.” He teased.

Draco harrumphed as he sniffed. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of indulgence during the holidays.” He insisted.

Harry gave him a warm look as he gently reached over to pat Draco’s equally bloated belly- which was nearly straining against the tight dress shirt and slacks that his husband wore. “I completely agree, babe. I myself can’t count the number of yorkshire puddings I ate today neither.”

Draco playfully swatted Harry’s hand away, but there was a smile playing on his lips. “But you did remember to bring home the leftovers right?” He gave Harry a serious look.

Harry grinned as he nodded. “Of course- I even brought a whole apple crumble that your mom gave us- apparently she made two- since she knew how much you love it.”

Draco’s eyes shined brightly as he looked excited. “Really? Mother did? Oh, I need to see it.” Harry watched as Draco began to get up from their sofa.

“Is it in the kitchen? I-urrk!” Suddenly, Draco stopped in the middle of getting up, his body bent over as his eyes opened wide in shock.

All of a sudden, an earth-shattering sound bursted out from his rear end, as if a bomb had reached zero and gone off.

PPPPPRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP…..

Draco’s face tightened as he rushed to try to squeeze his arsecheeks together with both hands, but that did nothing to deter the mammoth fart that was roaring loud and proud out of him.

“HARRY DON’T LOOK!” Draco moaned in vain as his body involuntarily pushed his derrière out further to unleash the monster that was now coming forth from the depths of his bowels.

Harry was frozen, unable to even move as he watched, heard and smelled the symphony of gas tooting with command out of his husband’s usually modest bum.

The raspberry sound was as if his lover’s bum was teasing everything around it, shouting out with pride of exactly what it was capable of and displaying it all before Harry himself.

The sheer force of gas being expelled was so powerful that not even the strongest wizard of all time could even lay a wand on it.

Harry could swear that the power from it was literally shaking the walls of their house, rattling the windows.

And was that a crack on their door? Harry wouldn’t doubt that Draco’s fart was the cause of it.

And the smell! Oh Merlin’s balls the SMELL!

In fact, not even Merlin’s balls could even dream of accomplishing the heightened sense of what Harry’s nose reached at that moment. The stench of sulfur was so pungent that it almost made Harry gag if he was still in the sane mind to do so.

The fart continued to wail its song for well over a minute.

When the sonic boom went towards its end, it finally finished with a very wet ‘blorping’ sound that managed to send shivers down both Draco and Harry’s spine.

When everything was silent around them, neither man moved, still reeling from what just occurred.

Harry watched as Draco slowly started to feel up his rear end, and Harry understood since he himself would no-doubtedly check since it would be nothing short of a Christmas miracle if nothing but gas had come out along with that monster as well.

After Draco was satisfied that nothing more than gas had come out, he turned his head and noticed Harry’s eyes glued on Draco’s bottom, making the blond blush hotly as he dropped his hands and dropped right back on the sofa.

“I told you to not look!” Draco whined, looking completely humiliated by what his husband had just witnessed come out of him.

Harry shook his head, still hearing the faint echo of that last fart. “Draco that was…”

“We are not talking about it-” Draco interrupted.

“-BOOM! Sweet Morgana, love- that was AMAZING!” Harry told him excitedly.

“-and of course we’re talking about it.” Draco groaned as he dropped his head in resignation.

Harry ignored the bemoaning blond as he continued his excited chatter. “But Draco! Your fart just now was even bigger than the one during Thanksgiving- I didn’t even know that could even be possible!”

“Don’t even mention last Thanksgiving.” Draco grumbled, recalling his previous shameful display of air emission the month before.

“It was so loud- literally like a sonic boom. I think my ears are still ringing from the aftereffects of it. My word, it was like your arse was playing its own grand symphony!”

“Don’t compare it to an orchestra!”

“And the smell!” Harry continued on, just ignoring Draco’s embarrassed retorts. “Bloody hell, it smells like the sewers down at the Chamber of Secrets are in here.” He reveled.

“Cover your nose!” Draco complained, trying to shove one of the sofa pillows at the other’s face to prevent him from smelling his fart further. “Oh hell, where’s my wand?”

Harry pushed the pillow aside, grinning at his husband. “But Draco…your bum…that fart…!” He couldn’t even find enough words to express what he was feeling at the moment.

Draco stopped looking for his wand and just sat back down. “Stupid brussel sprouts.” Draco grumbled under his breath.

Harry watched as Draco tried to cover his bum again, trying to hide away from Harry’s gleaming eyes. “It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?” He pointed out, yelping when Draco stopped what he was doing to slap his arm.

Draco groaned again as he tried to now hide his face in his hands. “I have never felt this humiliated in my life.”

“Don’t be! You should be proud that you released a fart that one could only dream of doing! It’s almost my privilege to witness a fart of that magnitude. It deserves its own award!” Harry insisted.

Draco let out a long, suffering sigh, pulling his hands away from his face and gave his husband a hard look. “Why are you so excited by what just came out of my arse- do you have a fart fetish or something?” He demanded.

Harry paused as he suddenly looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure? Oh! Trying doing it again so we can see!” He urged excitedly.

“No!” Draco yelled, aghast at the mere suggestion.

Harry actually had the audacity to look disappointed. “Aww…well, that’s alright. A fart like that was pretty much once in a lifetime, probably.” He conceded in understanding.

Harry gave Draco an indulging expression, smiling further when his spouse gave him a flat look in return.

Taking a deep breath (and wincing since there was still a stink floating in the air) Draco shook his head. “I am never going to eat too much during the holidays ever again.” He vowed.

Harry only smiled. “So does that mean you don’t want a piece of Narcissa’s apple crumble that’s still waiting in the kitchen?” He teased.

Draco froze as he remembered about the crumble.

Just as he opened his mouth to refuse, a loud growl suddenly came from his stomach, forcing Draco’s mouth to snap shut as his cheeks glowed a bright red.

Harry chuckled as he leaned forward to kiss one of those rosy cheeks, and patted his flustered husband’s shoulder.

“Thought so. Two large helpings of apple crumble with extra whip cream coming right up!”

#Farting #Fart Drabble #HP #Draco #Harry

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detectivesplotslies · 5 years

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An Anthropologist and a Pianist walk into a School

Oumota Week 2019 - Day 2: Talent Swap / Monster AU

Description: The Ultimate Anthropologist, Kaito Momota, wants to make quick work of getting to know everything about his classmates, but a certain Pianist seems to be making that troublesome. Word Count: 1719

Read on AO3 here

“So, you’re a pianist? That’s quite a profession to get into, lots of glory and greatness in being a musician! Who would you say inspired you?”

Kaito barely wastes a moment after introducing himself and jumps straight into questions. He’s already had a long discussion with Kaede about her inventions and Rantaro about his organization, and Kokichi happens to be hovering when he finishes.

“You cut right to it, huh. Well of course the greats, Beethoven, Wagner, a bit of Handel gives you a good handle on it.”

“So you’re into classical stylings? Are they hard to learn? What about your teacher?” Kaito talks a mile a minute, quickly committing the names to memory. Sure music isn’t his expertise, but he knows the big names. Symphonies that inspired others, and ones inspired by others.

“Oh my teacher’s a real gem, but he’s so strict, there was one time I got one note wrong in Beethoven’s 10th Symphony, and he made me play the entire thing backwards from that note and THEN start over. My poor fingers!”

“Oh cool, you must be really skilled then! Sure must have been a pain, that’s crazy punishment for a mistake! Did it even sound good?” Kaito looks up, his face genuinely excited.

Kokichi pauses before grinning and continuing.

“...well of COURSE it still sounded good, I am the Ultimate Pianist after all.”

“With training like that, can you compose? Do you improvise? Or after that rigorous training are you forever bound to the classics? Would it feel wrong to play something modern, or do you like the jazz era too?”

“Wow Momota-chan, how dare you speak of jazz in my presence. I do not play that filth, only the best for my hands!”

“Ah… okay, well, then what made you keep at it? You’re inspired by the classics and your teacher was harsh, but there’s not much for those outside of concerts. Are those what you play for?”

“Silly Momota-chan, of course it’s about the audience. The audience is always who matters when you play music, because only they can hear what you really want to say with it! You really ask a lot of questions, ya know? Are you sure you’re an anthropologist and not Ultimate Journalist? Ultimate TV Show Host? Ultimate Cop? Hmmm?”

“Hey I know a thing or two about audiences, but I’m still an anthropologist, don’t you forget it! Been on lecturing tours at universities all over to show what I’ve put together. I bet those aren’t too different from touring concerts.”

Kokichi laughs and continues to poke. The interview devolves into defenses, Kaito’s illustrious experience and credentials taking the spotlight and questions forgotten. Soon enough they part and he’s off to interview another classmate. An anthropologist’s work is never done as long as there are people to learn from!

But that was hardly the end of what he heard from Ouma that day. You’d think a musician would be more considerate about the volume of their voice.

---

During lunch the elegant cosplayer approaches the pianist, poise exquisite. He seems to consider the boy’s clothes before posing a question.

“So, do you wear the classic tails and tie when you perform, Ouma-kun?”

“Oh yes all the classics. The tie, tails, knuckles, sonic-”

“I’m sorry the-”

“Gotta go fast, Shinguji-kun! You know that one right? Ever worn a mascot costume? Huh?”

After a moment of awkward silence to Ouma’s exclamations Korekiyo excused himself. Kaito, also in the dining hall figured that… could be a way he could show interest in the cosplaying talent. Maybe. But from his interview he knew mascots and simple designs were the farthest from what the cosplayer’s actual interest was.

---

During an argument about her tastes, it isn’t long before the artist tries to push back on the other art talent in the room, and prove herself more cultured.

“Well, I bet you don’t have any more recent musical influences hmm? All long dead men, who’s music is gathering dust. A real artist has to live in the now,” Tenko huffs.

“Oh but I love to stay current! Why just last month I attended a very inspiring concert.”

“Oh really? Tenko would like to know who!”

“Have you, my dear, heard the musical stylings of the Wiggles?”

The jazz hands are met with a nose thrust in the air as Tenko turns heel to leave. Kokichi calls something about artist temperaments after her, to which her heels in her exit from the courtyard clack a bit louder and angrier, like little daggers stabbing the pavement.

Possibly artistic differences? Competitive sort of field? Kaito isn’t sure he’s got a good enough grasp of Tenko’s stance on it all yet to judge.

---

This time the sound of a strange song with no tempo played obnoxiously that caught his attention, and the anthropologist stops in the doorway to look into a classroom.

“Why do you keep playing that thing? I thought you were a piano man, or something.”

To the astronaut who was pointing at the kazoo in his mouth, Kokichi holds it out with some flare.

“The kazoo, which we in the music industry like to call the tongue piano, is a very technical instrument to get right, but if you listen closely you can hear the nuances of a master, c’mon lean in.”

A sharp sound, a spray of spit and a string of profanities later, Miu storms out muttering about getting that key wiggling twink back while Kokichi laughs himself breathless. Kaito stumbles out of her way, his face pinched into a frown as he glances back at the classroom.

Perhaps this called for a follow-up interview.

---

Kaito returns from the library, fists clenched, looking around. Eventually he spots Kokichi, snapping his suspenders and chatting away at the magician, Shuichi, backed into the corner with something between fear and confusion on his face. His top hat is precariously close to tipping off his face while he pushes against the wall.

“Hey Ouma, I wanted to ask you some more questions!”

The pianist turns, tilting his head to the side, face blank for a moment before a cheshire grin spreads across it.

“Momota-chan! Of course, of course. Want to hear more from the master, couldn’t resist, I get it. Well I have plenty of time! Saihara-chan here won’t tell me the ritual he cast to get so powerful because I’m not a wizard like him! Maybe your interrogation will work!”

Kaito hesitates a moment. Wizard? Isn’t Shuichi a magician? “Ah, no I just have questions for you, not Saihara.”

That’s all it takes for Shuichi to take his chance to dart behind Kokichi and leave the room in a run. Neither of them have ever seen the kid move that fast. They are left alone.

“Right, so I just wanted to check a few things with you. You said Beethoven, Wagner, and Handel were your inspiration?”

“Why Momota-chan, were your ears taking a vacation? Yep! Those are my favourite piano composers! And I won’t repeat it again, so you better listen!”

“And when you messed up in Beethoven’s 10th Symphony your teacher made you play it backwards?”

Kokchi flutters his fingers in front of him dramatically. “Back and then front again, like a puppet!”

“And you despise jazz?”

Kokichi gags. “Won’t touch the stuff!”

Then without missing a beat, Kaito grins and asks a new question.

“So your entire interview with me was bullshit, huh?”

Kokichi scoffs and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “My, my, Momota-chan, what nerve you have to tell a musician he doesn’t know his own taste! Next I’ll be telling you about anthropology journals or whatever boring things you are inspired by!”

Kaito sighs and pulls a book out of his bag and flips it open, citing pages as he talks. “Wagner was a terrible pianist, and while he did write some pieces for the piano, apparently they pale in comparison to most other composers of his time. Beethoven only wrote 9 symphonies, so whether you can play one backwards or not you should have corrected the number when I repeated 10th back at you. And you say you dislike jazz but that’s the beat and style you’ve been playing on your kazoo all day.” He claps the book shut with a satisfied smirk on his face.

There’s silence between them for an uncomfortable moment, until Kokichi puts his arms back lazily behind his head and smiles.

“Wow, Momota-chan’s such a nerd.”

Kaito’s smirk drops and indignance rushes onto it, red and unready for its turn.

“Wh- No I’m not! How is finding out a liar nerdy? You’ve been messing with people all day I had to fact check, I-”

“Ohhh, not a nerd, my mistake, a stalker! Wow, I haven’t had one of those since that one time at one of my concerts when this guy grabbed me by my tails and-”

“Ouma, I don’t want to hear another story, I want to hear about you!” Kaito may have shouted it a touch louder than planned, as Kokichi’s tale about his tails abruptly cuts off.

“Why?”

“What? What do you mean ‘why’?”

“Momota-chan can ask questions, but he can’t answer them? Why don’t you want to hear a story. Stories are much more fun! Stories about hedgehogs, teachers, fun kid shows, wizards, and strange instruments. Why wouldn’t that be what anyone wants to hear? It only matters if you like what you hear, afterall.”

“I don’t care if it’s what I would like if it’s not about you. What’s the point in getting to know someone that way?”

“I don’t know, maybe you should tell me, you’re the one studying humans, and they tell some pretty stories when there’s nothing very pretty at all.”

Kokichi smirks and starts to walk out of the room. He’s almost out when Kaito says something to himself, quietly, but Kokichi’s trained ears hear it clearly.

“So you weren’t lying about that then.”

Kokichi turns, raising a brow. “What do you think was true, then, oh Ultimate Questioner?”

“That it’s all about the audience. You change your tune based on who’s listening, and if what you want them to hear? Then I wonder what your audience when you actually play is like.”

Kokichi frowns for a moment and continues walking out, no reply ready.

[end note]

Hope you guys enjoyed a taste of the dumb talent swap I’ve been nursing in headcanons for ages hahah <3 As a bonus, about their designs, some fun details. Kokichi tucks his hair behind his ears so he can better catch what people are saying quietly, and Kaito ended up wrecking his eyes and needing glasses from trying to read things in dark places on expeditions after dark or before the crew would set up. For @oumota-events week!

#oumota #oumotaweek #oumotaweek2019 #talentswap #fic #ndrv3 #au #my content #my writing #my talentswap #I made these nerds EVEN NERDIER #SOMEHOW #my oumotaweek #talent swap

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sinceileftyoublog · 5 years

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Lonnie Holley Interview: Big Ears Festival

Lonnie Holley & The Messthetics @ The Mill & Mine, Big Ears Festival 2019

BY JORDAN MAINZER

His artistic history is well documented, but it bears repeating every time: Lonnie Holley began making art out of tragedy, when he carved headstones for the children of his sister, too poor to afford them. That creative process lead to his interest in sculpture with found art, and museums’ subsequent interest in him, leading to exhibitions and retrospectives. In the meantime, he had been experimenting with music for years with a Casio keyboard he found, not releasing anything until 2012′s Just Before Music, followed by 2013′s Keeping a Record of It (and a Big Ears Festival appearance). But last year’s astounding MITH felt like a culmination of his career: improvised synths, soulful vocals, and a newfound urgency inspired by the social ills surrounding the election and its aftermath.

At this year’s Big Ears Festival, Holley started his collaborative set with The Messthetics at The Mill & Mine with his back to the crowd, eventually sitting down to provide his signature mix of warbling keys, whistling, and warmth, shedding a tear when he came “back up to consciousness” to say hi to the crowd. It was a remarkably humanistic set backed by the fascinating tumult of The Messthetics. Best, it was unique, a one-time-only performance, a complete devotion to both momentary emotion and the environment in which it took place.

At Big Ears, Holley also performed a set with Nelson Patton at St. Johns Episcopal Cathedral and led a “walking tour of Knoxville” starting at the Emporium Center. This week, he answered some questions over email reflecting back on his experience at the festival.

Since I Left You: What sort of preparation, whether mental or physical, did you do for your collaborative set with The Messthetics?

Lonnie Holley: I don't really do anything different before any show. My life prepared and continues to prepare me to perform and share my mental ideas. I try to pay attention to what's happening in the world, and I'm always aware of what's happening where I am. My art and my music are about real life, the past and the future, and how we as humans effect those things. When I'm playing with guys like Brendan [Canty], Joe [Lally], and Anthony [Pirog] (The Messthetics), I try to listen to their output and give them some of me back, until we have a good idea what we sound like together. After that, we don't really need to prepare. Our lives and our work prepare us. Then we just have to go out there and do it. I say, "We brain it, we bring it, and I sing it. It's only about the truth." After we were done playing, Matt Arnett (my friend and manager and collaborator on so many things) said excitedly, "Well, maybe we should do that again." Joe said, "Sure. But let's make a record."

I think one thing people may not understand is that we create the songs and music as we go. But I try to have an idea. I make a set list of ideas I want to sing about. I share that list with my bandmates and try to give them an idea about how it should sound. I don't read music, so my instructions are like "earthy," or "spacey," or "I want to feel like I'm marching," or whatever. It's more about feel than musical notes. I want them to react to what I'm doing, and I'm always reacting to what they are doing. At Big Ears, I had this idea to start the set facing away from the crowd. I wanted to stand there for 100 seconds, turning my back on the audience. I wrote down, "100 Seconds. What If I the Great Spirit Turned My Back on America?" That was the first song. I had some ideas about what that meant, but I didn't know for sure until we started playing.

SILY: Describe the mental space you occupy when you perform.

LH: I try to leave the stage mentally when I'm performing. Matt used to always ask me after a show, "How did you think it went?" After too many times of saying, "I don't know, I wasn't there," he has stopped asking. I usually have to ask other people what they thought, because in order to really go where I want to go, I can't be paying attention to what's happening in the building. I pay close attention to what my bandmates are doing. I ear it. But in order to find the things to sing about, I have to go up into my head and look for the pictures and the sounds I want to share. I've tried to describe how my brain works when I'm on stage. I have carousels spinning around that have pictures and memories on them. And they spin, and I search them for the images and the words to build a song. Sometimes I have to create words if the right ones don't exist. I take a mental flight. Like I did when sneaking off the slave ship.

SILY: Unlike your one-off performance with The Messthetics, you've played with Nelson Patton before. What's unique about each show with them, and what's different?

LH: Man, I love playing with Marlon (Patton) and Dave (Nelson). Those guys are like my sons. And my brothers. We've played enough together now that I think we are all really comfortable on stage together. They were putting out their record, which was just instrumental, and asked me if I'd sing vocals on one of the songs. I listened to their music and said, "Yes." When we went in the studio, I couldn't stop finding things that inspired me about their music. So, instead of singing on one song, I sang on four. Then we decided to play a show together, at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, and it was so much fun. I was going to do some recording and asked if they wanted to come into the studio with me. Then we did it again. And again. They played on half of my record MITH. We toured Europe together. We toured the US with Animal Collective last summer. No show is ever the same with them. None of us are afraid to push the other in one direction or another. They know when I want to break out and get wild and when I want to slow down and sing about something as important as the poisoned water in Flint, Michigan. And when I might go from hopeful to angry in a song, they go there with me and bring the swirl of sound that helps my words have more power.

MITH album art

But they are also fun. We have a good time, on stage and off. The last show of our tour in Europe, we were playing Sonic City Festival, which was curated by Courtney Barnett. I was going to sing a song about cell phones and technology and how we've allowed Cold Titty Mama, I call her the CTM (Computer Technology Management), to dominate our lives. The song was going to be called "Everybody That's Big Enough Is on Their Cellphone." I noticed that there was this festival that people had come to but they were all walking around on their phones. That's what it's like everywhere. We sampled the ringing cellphone as the way to start the song. We didn't tell Marlon that Matt was actually going to call my cellphone from the sound booth and I was going to answer and start the song by talking on my phone. When Marlon saw me answer my phone he was, at first, like, "Man, you can't be answering your phone during a show," only to realize that we hadn't told him we were going to do that and it was actually part of the song. He's already having to react to what he thinks is going to happen, and here we were throwing him a surprise. It was really funny, and we had a good laugh, but he adapted and we went right on into a very serious song. Even though what we are singing about is serious, deadly serious, we know that sometimes you have to laugh, even if it’s at yourself. We know that everything needs humor.

SILY: You participated in walking tour of Knoxville. What was that like? Is walking around without a specific destination your preferred way of exploring cities?

LH: That was so much fun. I hope people didn't join us hoping to get a walking history of Knoxville. I don't think we made it more than a few hundred yards. I took them down to the railroad tracks and we found materials. We talked mostly about material and the things we discard and what that does to our Mother Ship. And we sang songs about it. My friends Christopher Paul Stelling and Evie Andrus came with us and brought an old beat up guitar and a fiddle. Then we made instruments and sounds from the things we found on the railroad tracks and sang about the environment. I liked not having a plan. How can we plan for something when we don't know what is around the corner that might inspire us? When we were heading over to the meeting spot, Matt and I noticed an old embankment on the edge of town and realized that years ago we'd been on that embankment. We found a lot of foundation stones and other materials that had remained from some old buildings. I collected those and took them home and made art out of them. That was at least five years ago. We noticed that the hill itself was now gone, making way for a new development of some kind. We noticed something that didn't exist anymore, anywhere except in our memory. The industrial parts of Knoxville aren't that different from the industrial parts of Birmingham. I felt very much at home in Knoxville and would love to spend more time exploring there. I really like the way Big Ears and Knoxville support each other.

Grown humans will always be students to me. No matter who we are, there is always the possibility of learning more. On that day, I was supposed to be the teacher and the guide, but I was just as much a student as everyone else. And we had young people and people older than me walking with us, getting down on their knees and not being afraid to get down and get dirty.

Poster for Holley’s film I Snuck Off The Slave Ship

SILY: What's next for you?

LH: When I get around this corner, I can tell you.

But I do have some shows coming up that I'm really excited about. I am doing a collaboration in a few weeks with my friend Dave Eggar at the Dallas Museum of Art, in conjunction with the Dallas Symphony and SMU. I'm also finishing a residency at UNC Chapel Hill that was cut short in the fall by a hurricane, and some workshops with kids in rural, eastern North Carolina. I'm really looking forward to that. Then I leave for Europe with my band and then FORM Festival in Arizona. I'll do some art-making there, too. In late May, I go to Australia for the first time, and we are playing VividLIVE at the Sydney Opera House and some other shows. I'm going to Mississippi to do a project with the Walter Anderson Museum and then go back to North Adams, Massachusetts for Solid Sound Festival. I have an exhibit at MASS MoCA (they host Solid Sound) that closes this summer, so I'll be glad to see those works again before they come down. I've got a few screenings of my film, I Snuck Off the Slave Ship, which premiered at Sundance, coming up, including the first showing in Atlanta at the Atlanta Film Festival. Everyone who worked on the film and who was in it will get a chance to see it on the big screen. That's pretty exciting to be able to share it with the folks where I live. I have some other shows that haven't been announced yet, too. It's a really busy time, but so much is happening in the world and I feel like being busy is the only thing we, as artists, can do to make a difference. What we need here in America is art, not just words without power. And we need to learn how to tear down walls. And maybe it's time to go make a record with The Messthetics.

Thumbs Up for Mother Universe!

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nofomoartworld · 7 years

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Hyperallergic: An Artist’s Hunt for Singing Sand from Deserts Around the Globe

Rendering of Lotte Geeven’s Sand Machine (all images courtesy the artist)

It’s a sonic phenomenon that occurs in only certain pockets of desert around the world. The sound of sand grains shuffling down hot slopes that can recall the angry buzz of bees or the deep, groaning thrums of a didgeridoo group. Scientists refer to these shifting dunes as “singing” or “booming” sands, which for centuries mystified explorers from Charles Darwin to Marco Polo. We know now that these strange sounds are caused by the vibrations of grains avalanching, at relatively slow speeds, down dunes, and that the grain size and speed influence the notes of these curious hums of nature.

You can hear it yourself if you are fortunate enough to visit these remote locations that include the Resonant Sand Gorge in Inner Mongolia; Reg-I-Ruwan near Kabul, Afghanistan; and the Dumont Dunes in the Mojave Desert. Artist Lotte Geeven is hoping to make these sandy symphonies more accessible, however, through a machine that replicates the singing. To do so, she’s trying to collect samples of singing sand from around the world, which is no easy feat.

Rendering of Lotte Geeven’s Sand Machine

Her Sand Machines, designed in partnership with two scientists, are circular drums, one meter in diameter, that each feature rotating blades that will whirl grains around to produce sound, amplified by microphones. Geeven hopes to eventually build 12 machines to represent 12 different kinds of singing sand, which she intends place in a circle to form an immersive installation. The Amsterdam-based artist already has plans to show the piece in an exhibition next spring in a fortress near her city as well as at cultural center De Electriciteitsfabriek in The Hague.

The Sand Machine grew out of a recent residency during which Geeven was researching the relationship between nature and man with regards to the Sand Engine, a manmade peninsula off South Holland built to manage a depleting coast. With sand on her mind, thinking about what the grains sound like came naturally, as she’s long been interested in the personification of the landscape, particularly through its mysterious noises. Her previous work includes investigating the sounds of one of the deepest holes in the world, as Hyperallergic’s Allison Meier explained.

“I wanted to bring the sounds from the desert to people so they could experience this extraordinary phenomenon live.” Geeven told Hyperallergic. “I have always been fascinated with how a natural sound is able to transport us to an atmospheric mental space disconnected from logic or reason.”

A remote location of acoustic sand in the desert of Mongolia at N 34° 35′ 50.9″, E 101° 38′ 1.3″

Najibullah Sedeqe‎ collecting sand from the Moving Sands in Afghanistan

All she needs now is the sand. Geeven has launched an open call for submissions on her website; interested parties who email her will receive further instructions and a box with a pre-paid shipping label. Of course, you have to live near one of these singing dunes or at least have the means to access it. Geeven has a list of some locations on her website, along with recordings of the sand she has sourced from the internet. In return for your efforts, she will provide a small fee and also name a machine in your honor.

Geeven already been in contact with some people. In the project’s early stages, she tracked down individuals who live near these deserts, largely through information on their social media pages. She admits feeling like a stalker at first, but has since had many engaging conversations with intrigued strangers who were excited to hear about her interest in singing sand. Many also immediately provided their own theories or shared traditional stories from their culture on the origin of the hypnotic howls. These narratives, too, struck Geeven, and she intends to collect and display the stories alongside her machine to share how people around the world give meaning to the unknown.

“Whenever a sound has a debatable origin, it tends to get even more interesting,” she said. “Here, the vivid friction between reason and fiction comes into play. These tones emitted by the deserts are a perfect example of something that can trigger the process of story making … How we attribute personal and cultural meaning to these natural happenings speaks about the way we relate to the abstract unknown.”

About a dozen people, from a woman in Nevada to a man in Afghanistan, agreed to send Geeven sand. But she has yet to actually receive any samples. Four, she explained, got stuck at customs, while others seem to have gotten lost in the mail. (Restrictions on mailing sand vary by country, but small samples, properly packaged, are probably fine.) For now, she’s waiting on three other helpers who will soon send her more sand and more participants to aid in this global search. And she’s remaining optimistic about it all, seeing the complications as part of a puzzle that she hopes, when complete, will provide others with a mystifying, moving experience.

“I always like an artwork to be like a kōan — an unsolved puzzle that provokes great doubt, not meant to be solved but to open up a space in your head that allow new thoughts,” Geeven said. “I hope the sound of the machines will be able to do this, just like the sound in the desert has been doing for centuries.”

A man in Morocco collects sand for the Singing Machine

The post An Artist’s Hunt for Singing Sand from Deserts Around the Globe appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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dawnajaynes32 · 7 years

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Ravishing Virtuosity and Power from the Canton Symphony Orchestra

By Tom Wachunas

In his program comments celebrating the 80th season of the Canton Symphony Orchestra (CSO), Music Director Gerhardt Zimmermann wrote, “Why do I love conducting this wonderful orchestra?...The CSO is that rare gem of orchestras that conductors seek to make music with. Their playing is committed, heartfelt, powerful, and above all, exciting.”

For the season-opening concert on October 14, that rare gem dazzled with exceptional brilliance, beginning with Samuel Barber’s Essay For Orchestra No. 2, composed in 1942.It’s a marvelous, single movement work of interwoven, contrasting themes and developments, and exemplary of Barber’s passionately lyrical aesthetic. Here the ensemble perfectly captured the work’s changing moods – like painting an expansive landscape of emotions in sumptuous orchestral colors - with compelling precision and dramatic sonority. The briefly tranquil opening theme gave way to darker passages of churning drama and foreboding. Those in turn transitioned to more light-hearted, pastoral interludes, with melodic counterpoints that eventually morphed into the majestic and triumphal solemnity of the explosive conclusion, all clearly thrilling the audience.

Lauren Roth, a former CSO concertmaster and now concertmaster of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, returned to Canton to perform Camille Saint-Saëns’ lavish Concerto No. 3 for Violin and Orchestra. What made this homecoming all the more exciting was that this was the first time Roth performed the concerto with an orchestra, though you’d never guess it from her virtuosic playing, delivered with astonishing fluidity and authority.

Roth’s demeanor was mesmerizing, at once gently measured and aggressive, evident in both her impassioned facial expressions and stance. She was communing with not only the ensemble, but also with her instrument, making it sing in a marvelous range of tonalities, and at times seeming to demand its submission to the many technical challenges of the music. Her playing was especially poignant during the second movement, wherein the graceful violin melody engaged in a delicate dance with the woodwinds. Throughout the work, she articulated Saint-Saëns’ lush cadenzas – ravishing in their fast arpeggios and scales, double stops, and flawless ascensions into incredibly high-pitched harmonics – with stunning bravura.

Respighi’s Fontane di Roma (Fountains of Rome), and Pini di Roma (Pines of Rome) comprised the second half of the evening. The orchestrally rich score for the latter work called for a massive orchestra. Consequently, for this concert, the CSO ensemble was 92 members strong – a substantially larger group than usual, providing an unprecedented aural depth to the proceedings.

While the performance of The Fountains of Rome was utterly enchanting, it was in the final movement of The Pines of Rome – “the pines of the Appian Way”- where the orchestra became an unforgettably unified embodiment, delightful in its unabashed flamboyance, of the composer’s intent. Respighi described it as the “…unceasing rhythm of numberless footsteps. A vision of ancient glories appears to the poet’s fantasy: trumpets blare, and a consular army bursts forth in the brilliance of the newly-risen sun…”

A low, rumbling, relentless cadence, suggesting an army on the march, reverberated through the entire concert hall in ever-loudening layers, enough to rattle bones and make the heart race. We were engulfed in plangent waves of brassy martial trudging, augmented by the extra brass players standing in the side aisles. Maestro Zimmermann was particularly animated, turning this way and that, like a general rallying his troops. The final jubilant chord was a piercing blast, raising a collective shout of amazement from the audience. It was as if all of Roman history had just passed before us in a protracted sonic boom.

Ravishing Virtuosity and Power from the Canton Symphony Orchestra syndicated post

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nxrecords-blog · 7 years

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NX Mixtape 2017

Presenting the NX Records Mixtape 2017, our fifth annual mixtape giving you a taste of 30+ brand new tracks from the best that Goldsmiths has to offer, creatively weaved together by La Leif. Over an hour of free, downloadable, new music.

Goldsmiths alum La Leif is an incredible composer and producer, plays in the duo ORKA as well as the Nomadic Female DJ Troupe and co-runs a collective for female and non-binary music producers/sound enthusiasts called Omnii. She was the perfect choice to mix together this year’s amazing selection of new music and she hasn’t let us down with our most exciting mix yet.

TRACKLIST

Tracks featured: 1. Luxes- Birds 2. Remi- Grief 3. Gillie Ione- Clouds Today 4. Mar- Who 5. Genevieve Dawson- Running 6. Charles Vaughan- Green Leaves 7. Francesca Ter-Burg- Into the Woods 8. Gaspar Narby- Drawing Lines 9. Tony Njoku- Once Again 10. Fille- Queens 11. Funeral for Bird- Over Now 12. YANNA A- My Love (runs from me) 13. Journeyperson- In the Business Lounge 14. Jay Hammond- Silky White Skin 15. Rosie Everett- 60 16. Calluna- The Drop 17. NX Panther- Oh Industry 18. Insect in Plexiglas- Agressive Adoration 19. Worm Hears- Only Wanted 20. Penny Churchill- ATA 21. Gus White- Ballroom 22. bRAt- Ur Heart 23. John García Rueda- City Trails 24. Sian Miriam- Paid 25. D Parks- The Pain We Feel 26. Hol- Best Dad 27. Ordinary Noise- Pale Blue Dot (You Are Here) 28. VUDA- Bateman 29. Keúk- Water 30. CYANA- Constant MRI (feat Sam Wilkinson) 31. Amy Hollinrake- Fade Into This 32. Catherine Okada- Fix This up 33. Megan Tuck- Let Me Apologise

Artists in detail

LUXES Luxes is a London based music duo, formed by current Goldsmiths BMus Popular Music students Marco Spaggiari and Penny Churchill. Both engineers, producers and musicians, they start to collaborate on various studio based projects in November 2016. Their main aim is to explore sound in a very textural visual sense and like to create ambient sonic worlds.

REMI

19-year-old singer/songwriter from Bexleyheath currently studying his first year of popular music at Goldsmiths. Soul/R&B/Gospel-inflected music.

GILLIE IONE

Gillie Ione is a producer/ singer-songwriter, centering around an experimental pop sound, with an undercurrent of folk influenced narrative. Originally from rural South Wales.

MAR

GENEVIEVE DAWSON

Genevieve Dawson is a singer-songwriter originally from Edinburgh and now based in South-east London. At the heart of her songs is an arresting honesty, a directness and warmth that has caught the attention of London’s alt-folk scene.

CHARLES VAUGHAN

producer, musician, performer, DJ, programmer and technician and current Goldsmiths Music Computing student. Charles has been producing music for 6 years now, first being signed at 16 introducing EDM, and now moving on to more intricate electronic music, hip hop and also ambient and experimental music.

FRANCESCA TER-BERG

Francesca Ter-Berg is a cellist, composer and sound recordest based in London. She is one of the leading Klezmer cellists of her generation and has studied with internationally renowned teachers including Ahmed Mukhtar, Tcha Limberger, Dr. Alan Bern and Dr Jyotsna Srikanth. She has collaborated with many of the UK’s top artists including acclaimed folk singer Sam Lee, The Unthanks, Talvin Singh, Portico and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Francesca has recently completed her Masters Degree in Popular Music at Goldsmiths where she started developing her interests in film composition, phonography and electroacoustic composition, resulting in her developing a live performance approach that encompasses some of these elements with playing the cello.

TONY NJOKU

Tony is a British-Nigerian electronic music producer and singer-songwriter from London. His self-penned and produced songs have been described as ‘strikingly evocative soundscapes, managing to make even the shortest pop songs sound like epic adventures.’

FILLE

Fille (‘girl’ in French) is a third-year Goldsmiths pop music student originally from Northern Ireland, a project started when she lived in Marseille - becoming influenced by French electronic music there, producing her own tracks after mainly playing classical music before. She likes to merge her classical background with electro and pop influences and also composes music for film.

FUNERAL FOR BIRD

An 18 year old singer/songwriter. It’s indie folk, but with elements of electronic and and rock, and more ecclectic influences from soul, ambient music and hip hop.

YANNA A

DARK/ALTERNATIVE, 20 yr old songwriter/musician based in North London. Currently studying at Goldsmiths and influenced by artists like Pj Harvey, Tori Amos and Hole.

JAY HAMMOND

Singer, musician and visual artist using foley and manipulating sounds of found objects alongside creative vocal techniques. ROSIE EVERETT

Starting as an acoustic singer / songwriter Rosie Everett’s soulful voice has always been at the forefront of the mix. Even as her sound has developed we can still expect to be captivated by her melancholic melody lines and deeply emotional lyrics. Now creating mesmerising dark pop, Rosie’s voice demands your attention by pulling onyour heartstrings and singing into your ear with a catchy and beautiful sound. Her Debut E.P. ‘A Change of Perspective’ is now available on Spotify and iTunes

NX PANTHER

NX Panther is the pseudonym of singer, songwriter, rapper and visual artist Alia Pathan. Fusing hip-hop/grime with world samples and home-made beats about cinema, dead technology, legacies and sightings of a mythical panther.

INSECT IN PLEXIGLAS

I am a 19 year old songwriter from Belfast currently living in South East London, I like making songs in my bedroom using old keyboards and cassette tapes.

WORM HEARS

A Three piece queer punk/noise pop band based in South East London, influenced by bands like Beat Happening, Pixies and Weezer. Writing songs about a lot of different things but often they are at least partly influenced by experiences of growing up as a transgender person.

PENNY CHURCHILL

A conceptual Producer, Artist, Sound creator (Musician?). Explores and uses songwriting as a medium, platform to reflect and create the internal thoughts of the ‘glass thinker’/human as a vessel. Their purpose is to create sonic worlds which bring to life the storyline narratives which their lyrics carry. Penny creates surreal moments within the music as a way of reflecting how thoughts, ideas and processing may sound in a musical context connecting the music and the body together in performance. Music as an extension and amplifier of the limbs, reflecting sonically the thoughts encountered by a human being.

GUS WHITE

Growing up in a small village in wiltshire, Gus began his career as a choir boy. He studied sonic arts at Queens University in Belfast and is influenced by Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake.

bRAt

“Classically trained musician writing pop music”

John García Rueda

Colombian producer, improviser and tiple performer exploring cultural heritage from contemporaneity. He has composed music and designed sound for film documentaries, dance works and multimedia installations.

SIAN MIRIAM

From the Isle of Anglesey in North Wales, a combination of darkly comic and openly emotional stories are brought to life through song and spoken word in both Welsh and English. The focus is on honest and brave direct storytelling developed through insecurity. Unaccompanied singing is integral to this work. However a string quartet enhances the various textures, dissonances and clashes in the stories - but the empty space of just one voice tells bold truths.

D PARKS

Until now, D has been sweet, humble, trusting, passionate, patient and kind. Now that she has finally grown up, been through shit, opened her eyes, D is now officially vexed. In her music, she reveals some home truths, empowers, and stir up some emotions, using her creativity as the tool.

HOL

Hol is the project of Luke Jackson, working within the creative community of South East London. His songs explore stories of confusing, lonely romance with explicit sexuality and blunt introspection.

ORDINARY NOISE

Colchester indie 4 piece, as heard on BBC 2, BBC 6, and BBC Introducing Essex and Suffolk.

VUDA

VUDA is a singer, songwriter and producer based in East London. She fuses electronic synth sounds with trip-hop inspired beats to create haunting and ethereal pieces of work. She has been likened to Banks, FKA TWIGS and Lana Del Rey and her visuals and her live shows are just as haunting and mysterious as her music. VUDA has also been writing for other artists over the last few years and has written four short films to accompany her solo debut EP VOLUME I to be screened this Summer. She will be releasing VOLUME II this Autumn.

KEÚK

British born Kyle Fairhurst AKA Keúk is the pseudonym of 21 year old Goldsmiths student in London. These are experimental projects inspired by the juxtaposition of electronics and nature. Before studying Creative Writing, Keúk has been writing and producing their own tracks since the age of 14. Even though ‘Water’ was recorded on a phone, it has recently received airplay on BBC Radio Introducing in 4 different locations. Keúk is in the middle of recording their debut EP named ‘Vessels’.

CYANA

This is CYANA’s first piece exploring sound design and is inspired by her epilepsy and the disorientation pre and during having a seizure. The sounds are from the machines in hospital used after having a seizure (EEG machine) and the harmonies and form play with the confusion and dream state the brain goes into to recover after the ordeal of a seizure.

AMY HOLLINRAKE

Vocalist and songwriter.

Session vocalist.

City University BMus.

Goldsmiths University MMus (current).

Debut EP ‘fade into this’ 2016.

CATHERINE OKADA

Catherine Okada, an independent artist, supported James Blake for numerous dates in 2011 in London and Japan, as well as collaborating with Airhead on “Callow”, featured on his debut album “For Years”. Expect to hear scatterings of nostalgia and strong hooks married with contemporary, alternative songwriting, often with dark lyrical undertones and powerful imagery. Having recently self-released her debut EP “Hourglass” in 2016, she has more releases lined up in the year ahead.

MEGAN TUCK

Megan Tuck is a singer-songwriter based in London, who’s powerful vocals are accompanied by her band and electronics which are also inspired by her EDM background. She also records and produces her own alternative pop tracks, while her band sets have more of a rocky vibe. Inspired by a vast amount of genres and people, her influences range from Beyonce and Lady Gaga to FKA Twigs and Bon Iver.

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catsynth-express · 7 years

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SF Sympony Performs John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary

In February, the San Francisco Symphony performed The Gospel According to the Other Mary by composer John Adams with libretto by Peter Sellars. The event was part of the celebration of Adams’ 70th birthday.

[Photo courtesy of San Francisco Symphony]

The Gospel According to the Other Mary is a monumental opus, over two hours in length and featuring a full orchestra, chorus, and staging with the principal singers. The orchestra also included some additional interesting instruments, including this large collection of gongs.

As implied by the name, the libretto is drawn heavily from the New Testament, specifically the story of Mary and Martha of Bethany whose brother Lazarus is raised from the dead by Jesus. But it also incorporates many other modernist elements. The story moves back and forth between the Biblical setting and a more contemporary setting, weaving in scenes of women protesting as part of Cesar Chavez’s farmworkers’ strikes, and Mary witnessing a fellow inmate in jail suffering through a painful drug withdrawal. The setting of Mary and Martha’s home is depicted as a women’s shelter that would not be out of place in any large American city. And the milieu surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion is a modern urban uprising, complete with police sirens.

Another unusual element in this telling of the story is that Jesus is never specifically shown on stage as a character, although he is sometimes represented by a trio of tenors who also act as something akin to a Greek chorus. The full symphony chorus meanwhile acts as a tertiary level of narration, with Biblical quotes, Latin phrases, and more contemporary sources in English and Spanish. All of this makes for a complex setting around the main characters on stage: Mary (Kelly O’Connor), Martha (Tamara Mumford) and Lazarus (Jay Hunter Morris). Mary is the central character – she is listed as “Mary Magdalene” in the program although biblically she is not the same character as Mary of Bethany – introducing the piece and then reappearing frequently with long arias and monologues. Martha is the solid rock providing structure but also her own story running the shelter and caring for her sister and brother. Both women are portrayed as major “fan girls” of Jesus, excited when he comes to town, but each in their own way. Lazarus comes across as a bit of a skeptic and in one scene questions and challenges the somewhat amorphous Jesus.

The simplicity and familiarity of the central story combined with the complexity of the visual and sonic setting make for a compelling performance – even those who cynically eye-roll at “yet another musical setting of Biblical texts” should be impressed by this work. It is also a departure from earlier compositions by John Adams – he is best known for his minimalist works, similar to that of Steve Reich but with a softer tone and west-coast source materials. But there is nothing soft about this piece. It is dark, angry, anguished at times, especially during Mary’s multiple scenes of personal anguish and confusion as well as the tense scenes leading up to the crucifixion. The modern elements blend effortlessly with the biblical elements and help to bring home to brutality and harshness in both contexts.

The two-hour-plus length did seem a bit daunting at first (there was an intermission between acts), but it actually went quite quickly as were were wrapped up in the many aspects of the performance. Overall, it was a great experience and I am glad we were on hand for it. As this is Adams’ 70th birthday year, we are looking forward to hearing more performances of his music, new and old.

SF Sympony Performs John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary was originally published on CatSynth

#experimental music #jay hunter morris #john adams #kelly o'connor #Modernism #Music #new testament #opera #peter sellars #review #San Francisco #san francisco symphony #tamara mumford #catsynth

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