Cafe Aman

Chronia polla.

Wishes for many years and happy holidays from Cafe Aman--and see you in the new year!

Poetry for Wednesday.

I've been talking with poet Mark Strand and violinist Mark Steinberg of the Brentano String Quartet for an upcoming piece in Playbill. (They are collaborating together in the Haydn Seven Last Words of Christ performance at Zankel Hall on March 6th, coupling the Haydn with Lee Hyla's Howl.) Strand's honors, by the way, include a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Award, and he is one of our former Poet Laureates.

It seems entirely appropriate, given my deadline, my mood and the approach of the winter solstice, to share this Strand poem:

The Coming of Light
by Mark Strand

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

(As Octavio Paz wrote of him: "Mark Strand has chosen the negative path, with loss as the first step towards fullness: it is also the opening to a transparent verbal perfection.")

Bombay, lost and found.

If you're in New York tomorrow evening, you'd do well to head over to the Asia Society for a panel discussion about the unspeakably vicious terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month in which people of all religious persuasions were murdered. The event features a stellar group of speakers. Moderated by Dan Harris, who anchors ABC World News Sunday, the panel includes Salman Rushdie, Suketu Mehta, and Mira Kamdar. And even  if you're not in NYC, you can check out a live webcast of the event.

I can't think of a better introduction to the modern-day city, in all its messy glory, than Mehta's Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found. With each chapter, Mehta introduces yet another facet of fractured Bombay life, from the heartbreaking to the horrifying, in vivid portraits of a handful of the city's some 14 million residents.

From Mehta's introduction:

"There will soon be more people living in the city of Bombay than on the continent of Australia. Urbs Prima in Indis reads the plaque outside the Gateway of India. It is also the Urbs Prima in Mundis, at least in one area, the first test of the vitality of a city: the number of people living in it...Bombay is the biggest city on the planet of a race of city dwellers. Bombay is the future of urban civilization on the planet. God help us."

For further reading, viewing, and listening:

• Rushdie's Midnight's Children, of course. (Don't take just my word for it; this sumptuous, utterly mesmerizing novel, with all its fantastic wordplay, was named the Best of the Booker earlier this year.)
• If you haven't seen it yet, run run run to see Danny Boyle's film  Slumdog Millionaire. I saw it just after the attacks, which made certain scenes all the more discomfiting, like those in VT (or, as the international news crews keep calling it by its official, current, Hindu-overtone name, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus).
• To get an easy taste of what makes Bollywood tick--Bombay at its most dream-factory overdrive-- the Rough Guide to Bollywood and its successor volumes aren't a bad place to start. 

photo: Prasangam via Flickr

What's in my ear (& eyes), mid-December edition.

As I attempt for the umpteenth time to clean off my desk (for real this time), I'm reminded of a couple of projects from the last couple of months that I haven't gotten to write about at length elsewhere, or here for that matter. But I would be seriously remiss if I didn't say that these releases weren't deeply lovely, each in their own way, and deeply inspiring, and very well worth searching out.

Gustavo Dudamel & the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela: The Promise of Music (Unitel/Deutsche Gramophone DVD)

This excellent documentary is an intimate snapshot look at Venezuela's famed Sistema from the inside out. (It's quite one thing to hear the orchestra in, say, Carnegie Hall or Bonn's Beethovenhalle; it's quite another to understand their achievements in the context of the gang- and drug-ridden barrios of Caracas.

Also fun: seeing Gustavo Dudamel, who is obviously incredibly committed to what El Sistema represents, just hanging out with the friends he grew up with in the orchestra, kicking a football around an airport departure lounge.

Jayme Stone & Mansa Sissoko: Africa to Appalachia (self-released)
For me, one of the best and most gratifying reasons to go to the WOMEX conference each year is the pleasure of offroad discovery: hearing artists who aren't necessarily part of the showcases or the official roster, but who have made their way there anyway in hopes of gaining some larger traction.

A wise Canadian colleague introduced me to Jayme Stone, a wonderful young Canadian banjo player and composer who studied with Bela Fleck. (Jayme's musical tastes range far and wide--we wound up discussing John Adams' new autobiography, Hallelujah Junction, at length.) Since I returned from Seville, Jayme's gorgeous and sensitive collaboration with the Malian kora player and singer Mansa Sissoko is frequently on the house stereos and playing on my iPod--it's actually become a favorite album with the whole family.

The celebrations continue.

A 100th birthday is far too momentous to celebrate on a single day--just ask Willard Scott (anybody catch the Today show this morning?). So, in that humble spirit, Cafe Aman offers salutations and many, many years to Elliott Carter, who turned a centenary old yesterday.

As heartfelt and spirited as the feting has been, I wish there had been even more.

Photo credit: The Kaufman Center (via Flickr)

Breaking news from Cleveland.

Many in the classical world, journos and others alike, have been following the Don Rosenberg story avidly. Now comes news that Rosenberg has filed suit today against the Cleveland Plain Dealer, editor Susan Goldberg, the Musical Arts Association (the parent organization of the Cleveland Orchestra) and some of the officers of the MAA. The suit includes charges the Plain Dealer of age discrimination, and the orchestra's organization of defamation and career interference. In his comments to Cleveland's WCPN, Rosenberg says
that Rosenberg the case also involves "freedom of speech...freedom of the press...and censorship."

As of now, the link above (to WCPN's coverage in both audiostream and text) is the only available news source on this topic. I'm sure it's not the last we'll hear.

(Thanks to Laurence Vittes for this tip--he's an LA-based writer who just did an excellent in-depth story on the situation for us at Gramophone: freshly out in the December issue, but alas not posted on the website.)

Thais Meditation.

The Metropolitan Opera was aflutter Monday night with the premiere of Massenet's Thais, a slim thing brought down from the brittle archives of the operatic repertoire twice every, oh, half century  or so. The regular opera-going crowd was agog with the actual celebrities in their midst: some opera-loving actors (John Lithgow, Sigourney Weaver, Christine Baranski) and Vogue's beleaguered editrix Anna Wintour, who notably fled after Act II.

Renee Fleming was indeed absolutely radiant, a thrilling performer with radiant tone. She also did a commendable acting job, given the pretty severe limitations of the Gallet libretto. (Thais: "I'm getting old!" Athanael: "Why not be the bride of Christ?" Thais: "Okay! Thank you!") I got the feeling that Athanael's fire-and-brimstone tirades were far more appealing to Thomas Hampson than the character's descent into moral desuetude, but when he was on, he was *on.*

The Met has no pretensions to being a paragon of postcolonial correctness, but this John Cox production had its moments of historical and geographical mash-up hilarity, much of it in the well-worn exotica orientalia variety. After all, why shouldn't one of the hangers-on (Crobyle? Myrtale? I lost track) march into Act II of an opera set in 4th-century CE Egypt bearing a modern Indian sitar?

Renee had her Christian Lacroix costumes, the rest of the party-hearty Alexandrians were dressed in 19th-century French colonial style, the desert monks in the earliest of ascetic wear (complete with horrendously heavy-looking dreadlock wigs)--and of course there was the 21st-century Cairo cabaret-ready dancing girl. I mistakenly assumed that she was some Met corps dancer drafted into a rough approximation of belly dancing, but no--apparently she's a professional with a very spiffy website and nice hip shimmies, though far less impressive upper-body isolation. Anyway... (ETA: Despite the credit listed in Playbill, an unnamed replacement performer apparently stepped in at the last minute. See Sira Melikian's comment below; she's the dancer who was originally slated to perform, and whose website is linked above.)

Despite the Egypt-mania of Western culture (with Aida as the example par excellence), the cosmopolitan port city of Alexandria is not exactly a common setting in opera, aside from Thais. (Note to Justin: We actually did forget one, if we counted oratorios--there's also Handel's Theodora.) I admit that, in the name of philopatria (or philopolia? is that a word?), just maybe I feel a little territorial about what happens to be my ancestral city. But it would be nice to see the Pearl of the Mediterranean given slightly better treatment.

Classical "Life"

Have you had any time to poke around the Life Magazine archive that Google now hosts? It contains millions of images, including these:

The July 20, 1942 cover:

Undated, by Gjon Mili:

 

Heifetz, off the stage but on the court (1950, unattributed):

And Franz Lehar (in a 1947 Alfred Eisenstaedt portrait) modeling his composing robe:

Overheard

Where: In line at the ladies' room after the OSL's concert performance of Ainadamar on Sunday at Carnegie Hall.

Dramatis personae: Two fresh-faced young women.

YW #1: Wow, I really enjoyed that. Did you?

YW #2: Yeah, it was really moving, you know? I love opera. (slightest of pauses) You know which one I want to see next? Mamma Mia.

Spread the love

I know that everyone is up to their eyeballs in holiday parties, concerts and spending, but I'd like to lure you to a fundraiser that's happening this Wednesday evening at Drom for the World Music Institute.

I'm not in the habit of shilling for presenters, but WMI is fighting a big uphill financial battle at the moment, and I can't honestly think of many organizations that have done so much to be a force for bringing great music from all over the world to American audiences.

For me personally, WMI has been one of my best teachers and guides imaginable. (Take a look at their list of the artists they've presented over the years, and you'll see what I mean--it streteches from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to Toumani Diabate to Hamza El Din and back again). 

So coming out this Wednesday night might be a little thing (though in this economic climate, I realize that the $20 ticket is perhaps not so small at all), but it would mean a lot in terms of giving visible support and love to the people for whom WMI has been their life's work, and a labor of true love and commitment.

See you there.

------

World Music Institute's Benefit Bash

Save the Music, Save the World (Music Institute)

Wednesday, December 10, 2008  7:00PM

Drom Lounge
85 Avenue A (btw 5th & 6th Streets)
New York

Celebrate with the Staff,
Boogie with the Board &
Mingle with the Members
of the World Music Institute,
and support the nation’s leading presenter of music and dance from around
the world.

Featuring the best DJs in the world spinning the best music in the world!

DJ David Medina- Latin World
DJ Cato aka Congri- Afrobeat/Brazilian
DJ Joro-Boro- Gypsy Joints/Balkan Breaks
DJ Karsh Kale- Asian Massive
DJ Funmi- Delights of the Diaspora

Plus special guest performances!

Complimentary drinks from 7-8:
the "MusicInYa Caipirinha" sponsored by Sagatiba Cachaça.

$20 (may be used toward membership fee if you join WMI that night!)
Tickets: www.dromnyc.com  or 212-777-1157

$10 WMI Members (you may bring a +1 at your discount rate!)
WMI Members: call WMI for discount tickets