Real pain for my SPAM friends #342

Did they really think I was going to post this as a comment?

"It is glad to see this blog, it is good and detailed post, fun to read
this..."

Thanks for playing, "Term paper."

Comic baritone John Reed, 1916-2010

English singer John Reed in the 1966 D’Oyly Carte Opera Company production of The Mikado

English character dancer, actor and baritone, John Reed, who delighted generations in Gilbert & Sullivan’s D’Oyly Carte operettas, died on February 13, his 94th birthday. He is survived by his partner of 52 years, Nicholas Kerri.

Mr. Reed was born in County Durham, England, in 1916.
He joined D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1951 as a comic understudy. He
became principal comic baritone in 1959, where he performed and recorded
all the major roles in his fach, including Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S.
Pinafore, Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance,
Ko-Ko in The Mikado (his favorite), the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe,
and John Wellington Wells in The Sorcerer. He also directed
and appeared with other companies.

Mr. Reed appeared on the Celebrity Series of Boston season 3 times as a member of D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, in 1962 at The Shubert Theatre and in 1966, and '68 at The Savoy Theatre.

The Scotsman

The Telegraph

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Culture Club blog

Baltimore Sun blog: Clef Notes (Tim Smith)

The Halifax Evening Courier

Jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater on Talk of the Nation today (audio)

Dee Dee Bridgewater

Dee Dee Bridgewater, jazz vocalist and host of NPR's JazzSet, brings To Billie With Love, A Celebration of Lady Day, to Boston's newly refurbished Paramount Theatre on March 27 and 28 (courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Celebrity Series).

Ms. Bridgewater made an appearance today on NPR's Talk of the Nation (can one make an "appearance" on radio?) in support of her tour and new CD, Eleanora Fagan (1915-1959), To Billie With Love From Dee Dee. Joining the conversation was Billie Holiday biographer Farah Jasmine Griffin (If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday)to talk about the great Lady Day.

EdgeBoston (Bob Israel) reviews Monterey Jazz Fest on Tour

Bob Israel reviewed our Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour concert from last Thursday, and since he thoroughly enjoyed the performance I can confirm that it is an excellent review (heh-heh). Seriously, it was good to have several revues of this concert, even if some were, inevitably, mixed. More reviewers, please.

Read Bob Israel's review in its entirety here.

I do have one factual error to point out (he said, pedantically): The Animals' "Down in Monterey" immortalized the Monterey Pop Festival, not the Monterey Jazz Festival.

Finckel, Han and Setzer on the Schubert Piano Trios (video w narration)

David Finckel, Wu Han and Philip Setzer will perform Schubert Trios nos. 1 & 2 on February 21 at Jordan Hall. In this video, they play and discuss Schubert trios (from Music@Menlo in 2008).

Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour reviewed

Here are a couple of reviews from Thursday night's performance by the all-stars:

Steve Greenlee's review for The Boston Globe

Bob Young for The Boston Herald

Update:

Sophie Duvernoy reviewed for The Harvard Crimson

Pull-the-car-over music tonight at BPC

It's pull-the-car-over music, it's um-what-were-you-saying? music, it's sit-in-the-driveway-until-the-track-is-over music, it's Kenny Barron, it's Kurt Elling, it's Regina Carter, it's Russell Malone, it's Monterey Jazz Festival on Tour at Berklee Performance Center TONIGHT. There are some - not many - but some, tickets left. And students? It's all arranged, there WILL be student rush tickets available.

All courtesy of your pals at Celebrity Series of Boston.

Finckel-Han-Setzer concert to go nationwide

The February 21 concert by cellist David Finckel, pianist Wu Han and violinist Philip Setzer will be recorded for rebroadcast on WGBH's classical station at 99.5 FM (formerly WCRB, or rather, probably still WCRB in the eyes of the FCC, but - well, you get the idea) and will get a nationwide airing on American Public Media's Performance Today.

So, really, turn off those cell phones.

Richard Goode & Jonathan Biss encore

Schumann, Abendlied (for piano four hands)

Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet encores

The Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet's Boston debut wound up Friday evening with two encores. The idea for the first, fittingly, came to the group during their visit to Symphony Hall in November (also a Celebrity Series of Boston performance, ahem). Members of the ensemble ran into Gunther Schuller roaming Symphony Hall (ok, I made the roaming part up, but they did meet Schuller) and decided to play his Blues for Wind Quintet when they returned the Boston.

The second encore came form the pen of Brazilian composer Julio Medaglia, a friend of the ensemble. Tango el Porsche Negro is a kind of tribute to a former BPWQ member's automobile.

Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet Globe review

The Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet made its Boston debut on Friday night at Jordan Hall. Matthew Guerrieri reviewed for The Boston Globe: Berlin Quintet's blend mutes distinctiveness.

The Boston Phoenix weighs in

Both Marcia Siegel's Mozart Dances review and Lloyd Schwartz's Mozart Dances and Christian Tetzlaff reviews are already online in advance of hitting the streets in tomorrow's edition of the Phoenix. Here are the links to their columns:

Marcia Siegel - Squiggles and Lines

Lloyd Schwartz - Stopping Time

Mark Morris dancers and Parkinsons Disease

The City of Boston enjoyed a rich and varied visit with the Mark Morris Dance Group last week. In addition to enjoying 3 performances of Mark's gorgeous Mozart Dances, audiences were also treated to a Mozart Dances photo exhibit at The Prudential Center, a talk with Morris and music critic Richard Dyer at Sanders Theatre, and an event which may have flown beneath the radar of some: Dance for PD.

Mark Morris Dance Group dancers David Leventhal and John Heginbotham conducted a dance class at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center specifically designed for people with Parkinsons Disease. Read more about the company's Dance for PD program on this page.

Globe's Jeremy Eichler on Tetzlaff: "nothing more was required"

Jeremy Eichler's review of Christian Tetzlaff's unaccompanied violin recital last Sunday is in today's Boston Globe:

"There were no gimmicks in Jordan Hall Sunday night. No semi-staging. No actors employed. No mood lighting. No screen projections to help us feel the music. There was not even a pianist to accompany it.

There was only one deeply serious artist, the violinist Christian Tetzlaff, alone with his instrument on a completely empty stage. It turned out that, for one of the most rewarding concerts in recent memory, nothing more was required."

Read all of A lone violin, when nothing more is needed.

Slipped disc, by Norman Lebrecht

Every once in a while, Aisle Be Seeing You takes turn about the blog gardens and discovers a new and engaging bloginator (I know, just what none of us needs in our busy lives, until we read one, of course). One such recent discovery is the Arts Journal blog of "author, novelist, broadcaster,cultural commentator," Norman Lebrecht, who some may know as the author of the 2007 book, The Life and Death of Classical Music. Mr. Lebrecht's entry into the blog derby is called Slipped disc, and subtitled Norman Lebrecht on shifting sound worlds. A few of my favorite posts are listed below:

What Lang Lang did next

What to do when a conductor throws up

More concert disturbances

Permission to listen? And to share what I feel?

Here's a bit of one of Lebrecht's posts (guess which one), and a good indication that he will share whatever needs to be shared to make good copy:

"I once heard Franz Welser-Möst heaving his guts out in the interval of
a Tokyo concert. He returned from the flush to give a Beethoven Fifth
of reckless intensity, so edgy that no-one's insides were safe. That's
music - you feel something, and you share it with others."

Fee Free Week, February 1-5

 
Celebrity Series of Boston announces FEE FREE WEEK!

Order tickets through CelebrityCharge between February 1 and February 5 and pay no ticket fees. Offer is available by phone only.

CelebrityCharge:
(617) 482-6661 (Mon-Fri, 10am - 4pm)

Here is the 2009-2010 Celebrity Series of Boston calendar for your browsing pleasure.

The Hub Review (Thomas Garvey) reviews Mozart Dances

Thomas Garvey rendered a typically evocative and detailed take on this past weekend's performance of Mozart dances by the Mark Morris Dance Group with Emmanuel Music, conductor Jane Glover, and pianists Russell Sherman and Minsoo Sohn on his blog, The Hub Review.

Here's a bit from his concluding paragraph:

"This was an extraordinary evening of dance and music, and an extraordinary moment in the city's cultural life."

Aw, shucks... Quotes like that should be on posters or at least on multiple blogs. But Mr. Garvey is not Rex Reed, there is observational meat on the bones in his review. Garvey does not miss the point (not to imply that anyone else in print did so), nor does he neglect the stellar musicians who spent the weekend largely out of site in the orchestra pit.

You can read Mark, Mozart and Mystery in full here.