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Music
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: Britten: A Boy Was Born
GENRE: Music
GROUP: The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
ATTENDED: Sat., April 6, 7 p.m., Kimmel Center
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Benjamin Britten was undoubtedly one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century, with a diverse catalogue of works still garnering international recognition. … On November 22, 1913, the Feast of St. Cecilia, a boy was born whose music we continue to celebrate in the centenary year of his birth.
WE THINK: The Choir of King’s College overcame any potential expectations of churchiness from a choral program of mostly sacred music with clear voices and a resonant organ. The range of voices expressed a range of human struggles, faults and joys through the spiritual experience. Higher voices encouraged optimism, as lower voices warned of doom. The intricate network of sounds from the choir caused the organ solo on “Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria” to sound stark and plain.
The choir dispelled any idea of sweet, watery hymns met for pleasant and thoughtless listening. Even when singing the most life-affirming and love-focused lyrics, the deeper range of choristers had an authoritative and unnerving low spectrum that could make even the most confident atheist ponder the concept of an immortal soul. “Rejoice in the Lamb” in particular showcased the articulate force of the lower vocal ranges. Together with the organ, the choir created an unnerving but engaging sound.
—Elizabeth Gunto
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: The Arc of Curiosity
GENRE: Music
GROUP: Network for New Music
ATTENDED: 8 p.m. April 5, Rose Recital Hall
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Follow that path of the arc of a composer’s curiosity, and discover the many ways that electronic sound can join traditional instruments to become part of our own musical landscape.
WE THINK: The full event description brings up ENIAC (the first all-purpose computer) and how combining electronic music with traditional instruments can lead to a "third space" that extends the human imagination, so you might expect electronics to have a central role in the music. However, with these works technology mostly plays second fiddle to standard chamber music instruments. The combined sounds are of studious process-oriented design, more intellectual than emotional; the exception being James Primosh's Chamber Concerto, which features expressive clarinet solos and hints of jazz swing music.
And what of the "third space" to extend our imagination? Well, that's in the ear of the beholder. I noticed lots of folks listening with their eyes closed to more clearly focus on the sonics: A sign of minds letting the music take you away to private places, though I found these works to be too punctilious to be so moved myself.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Lady history in books.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: Last Call at the Downbeat
GENRE: Theater/music
GROUP: Jazz Bridge
ATTENDED: Fri., April 5, 8 p.m.,, Society Hill Playhouse
CLOSES: April 13
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: In November, 1942, 25-year-old trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie is in Philadelphia leading his own quartet at the Downbeat Club… he’s anxious to play you a little and tell you a lot about Philadelphia jazz — back in the day.
WE THINK: The voice of Dizzy Gillespie is divided between two performers in Suzanne Cloud’s new play: the energetic actor Erin Fleming portrays the legendary trumpeter as a gregarious 25-year-old sharing his life story, while Duane Eubanks blows some pre-bop trumpet, fronting a quartet standing in for the one that Gillespie led seventy years earlier at Philly’s Downbeat Club.
As the director and co-founder of Jazz Bridge, Suzanne Cloud has long been a staunch advocate for Philly jazz as well as an educator and a performer in her own right. All of those aspects come together in her first play, which is equal parts biographical sketch, history lesson and musical demonstration.
Drawn from Gillespie’s memoir, To Be Or Not To Bop, the show captures the soon-to-be innovator at a key moment. He’s at a low point, just fired from the bands of Cab Calloway and Lucky Millinder, but on the verge of changing the direction of jazz forever with the “new way,” bebop.
A monologue with extensive musical interludes, Last Call at the Downbeat teeters between drama and lecture, at times overstuffed with names and dates. But despite some opening-night stumbles, Fleming is engaging enough to temper the show’s more didactic tendencies, and Eubanks’ band keeps the music center stage.
PREVIOUSLY IN PIFA: Evolution vs. …not.
We always get a ton of stuff that doesn't make it into the official agenda for one reason or another. Or sometimes it does! Anyway, this is some of the stuff that CP staffers are attempting to get to this weekend their own selves. You have no excuse for boredom.
FRIDAY 4/5
- The large-scale, walk-through art installation Song of the Silken Mermaid at 2424 Studios. Plastic-sheeting caves: not as creepy here as they are on Dexter! (Fishtown)
- On the verge of Fluid's closing, the final Sex Dwarf dance party will likely have end-of-the-world energy. (Queen Village)
- Allison Weiss plays an early show at the Barbary tonight. Starts at 5:30 p.m., but there are five acts on the bill, so. (No Libs)
- Some of us at CP have an illogical hatred of the new Dolphin (because we fear change!) but Juan MacLean is DJing there tonight. (Newbold)
- Local rock band Restorations plays the Church. (Rittenhouse)
- Tonight's the first night of the Empty Air project, in which you download an app and walk around Rittenhouse Square triggering different musical cues from the Mural and the Mint. (Rittenhouse)
- Nothing Is Rather Do looks like a typo but it's a show at Space 1026. (Chinatown)
- Two sister art events about copyright, the internet and piracy, TAKEN at Practice Gallery and REPEAT at Little Berlin. (Eraserhood, Kensington)
SATURDAY 4/6
- It's supposed to be at least vaguely spring-like for Pilam's Human BBQ. (University City)
- Yeah, it's really silly, but we have a soft spot for the really silly. Therefore: Giant Pillow Fight in Washington Square Park. (Society Hill)
- Ex-City Paper staffer and esteemed poet Daisy Fried will read from her new book at Arts Parlor in the afternoon. (South Broad)
- How about 24 straight hours of Indian music? Raga Samay is a rare occurance, people. (University City)
- If you were not aware that there is a Stoogeum dedicated to the Three Stooges out in the 'burbs, there is, and it is this morning the curator is giving a presentation on Larry Fine as part of Cinedelphia (which has a lot of other cool stuff going on for its opening weekend). (Ambler)
- Brother JT fronts the Original Sins at Johnny Brenda's. (No Libs)
- And of course we will go to basically anything involving Skeletor and karaoke, ever. (Chinatown)
View gallery
The last time I caught The World/Inferno Friendship Society live, either some prankster pulled the fire alarm midway through their set or the dancing quantity on the floor reached its legal threshold. I’d like to believe the latter. It’s only fitting that World/Inferno would step up from the First Unitarian Church to the Union Transfer’s much larger dance floor — their fans are fervent, rabid even, to the point where safety becomes a pretty big concern when booking this psycho klezmer gang.
These huge arts festivals can be overwhelming — how to figure out what's worth seeing? CP's sending someone to nearly every event PIFA's putting on over the next month to help you decide, so check back with Critical Mass all month long for comprehensive, ongoing reviews.
SHOW: J.S. Bach, St. Matthew Passion, opening night performance
GENRE: Classical music
GROUP: Philadelphia Orchestra with Westminster Symphonic Choir, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
ATTENDED: Thursday, March 28, Kimmel Center
CLOSES: Saturday, March 30
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: "Rare local performance of a baroque masterpiece."
WE THINK: Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is the Sistine Chapel of music; it is so overflowing with beauty and meaning, all three hours of it, that it can almost be overwhelming. This Philadelphia Orchestra performance, their first in thirty years, was presented in such a way as to organize the drama, while not mitigating the gorgeous sheen of the music. It was made to flow in a theatrically cogent way, mainly via the use of minor blocking by the solo vocalists. The singers were not asked to “act,” per se, but to move about the raised stage, which was placed in the center of the orchestra, following the course of the passion play.
The instrumental ensemble itself was divided into two chamber groups that sometimes played separately, and elsewhere as one, and was abetted by a therobo and a gamba in the continuo, as well as two chamber organs. Yannick Nézet-Séguin found a delicate yet fulsome texture in this unusual grouping, and chose beautifully measured tempos, allowing the music to breath naturally. The singing was superb, with special praise going to the wonderfully nuanced tenor of Andrew Staples, in the central role of the Evangelist.
A short documentary on the Philly punk/DIY scene, house shows in particular, made by Temple film students Evan Lescallete and Luke Proctor. (Earlier I attributed the film to Kristine Trever-Weatherston. She's their film professor. Sorry about that.)
There's so much music stuff in the paper this week, it's crazy. Here's some links.
K. Ross Hoffman names his 10 favorite SXSW discoveries.
Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame president Greg Harris nominates four bands from his Record Exchange days.
MJ Fine reconsiders Lisa Loeb.
Album Reviews: BOY (who plays World Café Live on Wednesday), Flume, Lady and Killing Them Softly
Plus so many freakin' music picks:
- Esben and the Witch — tonight @ Kung Fu Necktie
- Sky Ferreira — Saturday @ Johnny Brenda's
- Joe Hardcore — Saturday @ Broad Street Ministry
- Helen Money — Saturday @ Kung Fu Necktie
- Thao & the Get Down Stay Down — Saturday @ Underground Arts
- Temple Symphony Orchestra — Sunday @ Kimmel Arts
- Phosphorescent — Monday @ Johnny Brenda's
- Benoit Pioulard — Monday @ First Unitarian Church
- Richard Thompson — Tuesday @ Academy of Music
- Mount Moriah — Tuesday @ Johnny Brenda's
- Schwervon — Wednesday @ Kung Fu Necktie
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