Wozzeck

After watching the final scenes of Alban Berg's Wozzeck (an expressionist opera; soldier driven insane, murders his wife, gets found out by the people at a bar, doesn't immediately recognise what he's done, runs to clean up after himself, drowns himself in the lake when he tries to wash off the blood) in class, we were asked to write a poem...this is what I came up with...

Blood Lake

A red sky on the lake-shore
Surrounded by a persistent tension
So dark and quiet, a man going mad
His eyes looking off into the distance
His eyes no longer looking at anything
Sense drowning in his insanity
A red knife, a bloody moon, caught red-handed
The lake takes the man as the insanity took his mind
Nature tells the story as the curtain falls
And yet the tension prevails
The curtain falls again
A child left alone in the world

Percussion Spectacular

I went to Percussion Spectacular the other evening by the Oregon Symphony.

It was a really nice concert!  From my seat WAY up high in the balcony, I could almost make out the faces of faculty from my college (Greg Ewer, violin, Brett EE Paschal, percussion).  I was impressed that I heard NO ONE clap between movements!  I think it has to have been the first concert I went to where NO ONE clapped between the movements!!

The Shchedrin arrangement of Carmen featured a lot of interesting parts, some which were of great interest to me because they gave me ideas of how to write the tango movement of the string quartet I'm working on.  Without the theatre aspect, this seemed really long at point.

The main attraction of the concert was soloist Colin Currie playing a percussion concerto composed by Jennifer Higdon.
It was really interesting watching Currie race back and forth, especially after reading the program notes that mentioned how a composer has to consider travel time for a percussionist when they are playing multiple instruments.

I found it very interesting  that the soloist joined the percussion section for Gershwin's Cuban Overture.  But that wasn't quite as exciting as getting more ideas for my unfinished string quartet (the tango and chacha/salsa movements are left)

It was a nice evening out with friends - two of us went for hot chocolate before the concert - and gave me a break from my studies and usual entertainment (the television or hulu :) )

Wagner - The Ring Cycle

A $16 million production, The Met's rendition of Wagner's opera cycle "Der Rind des Nibelungen" got off to an interesting start.  Over the next two years, the magic of the four-part opera is to unfold.

I read an article by Alex Ross in Music & Language...
and now I am curious to know what everyone thinks about the massive production in NYC!!



The Met's Website Article (with links to more pictures & videos/trailers & synopses!!)