Preservation Hall reopens tonight!

We announced our 2006-2007 season today (the link can be found here - much more to come about next season on this blog at a later date). Anyway, leading off the season will be the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with a wild new Mardis Gras-inspired show called The New Orleans Revue. Let's just say it involves more than just the band and leave it at that for now. But that's just my preamble (Muskrat Ramble?): Preservation Hall itself is reopening today and we want to wish them well. Here's an article from The Chicago Tribune as a warm up (I'll see if I can find something from The Crescent City...). And here's hoping they have a great time, make a lot of people smile - not to mention make a lot of the money they surely need.

UPDATE: I neglected to mention that the opening of Preservation Hall was part of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival which opened this weekend with a remarkable number of popular artists on the bill(s). Here's a bit of coverage from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Love at Fest Site.

Globe and Herald weigh in on Ailey's Boston engagement

The Boston Herald was first out of the gate. Dance critic Theodore Bale called Tuesday night's performance "sacred and spectacular." Here's the full text.

Thea Singer's entry for The Boston Globe was a bit delayed, but she had this to say about the Ailey dancers:

"Ailey's performers have historically had the technical chops and emotional tenacity to set a theater on fire, and this group -- particularly the men -- was no exception." Full text

Perlman, Zukerman and De Silva at Symphony Hall

Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman returned to Symphony Hall for a duet program last night with pianist Rohan De Silva. Richard Dyer was there and was kind enough to turn a review around overnight. Here's a bit:

"Mozart's First Duo for violin and viola found Zukerman playing from strength as
a violist -- he may play this instrument even better than he plays the violin.
This performance was as warm-hearted, elegant, and communicative as anyone could
hope for."

Full text: For fans of the violin, a perfect pairing.

The pair added 8 Bartok duets to the first half (I'm sorry I don't have the specific selections, hey it was 8 out of 44...), and here are the final encores:

Shostakovich, Three Duets for Violin & Piano (Prelude, Gavotte, and Waltz) and
Shostakovich, Five Duets (Fifth Duet Only, "Polka")

Hibernian Hall got Ailey early

Antonio Douthit of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (that's him on the left) puts some volunteer dancers through their paces during a free public lecture/demonstration at the Roxbury Center for the Arts at Hibernian Hall on April 19.

Does this need a comment from the likes of me? It looks sweet because it is sweet. The Ailey dancers are wonderful, as generous as they are gifted and professional, and these kids look to be getting their Fosse on. 'Nuff said.

Ailey hits town

They're here all week

Ailey dancer Matthew Rushing talks with Marji Borkow of CBS-4

Shoes


Rehearsing Acceptance in Surrender


Boston: A home away from home

Death and the standing ovation - The Emerson String Quartet at Jordan Hall

Twilight on Gainsborough Street

Author Harlow Robinson (left) leads a post-performance discussion with The Emerson String Quartet

The Emerson String Quartet played an evening of the late quartets of the late Dmitri Shostakovich on Friday at Jordan Hall. It was dark territory, indeed. Mortality is contemplated unrelentingly in these late works (in the ears of this listener, anyway), but in the context of a compositional career spent toiling at the pleasure of the likes of Josef Stalin, the focus on death can feel like a kind of liberation, a universality. At last, something from the Shostakovich canon with which an American audience can truly empathize!

But cheery it ain't, of course. When I read the following passage in David Weininger's Boston Globe review I knew what he felt:

"So it was an altogether strange experience when the audience then erupted in
cheers. Applauding and shouting bravos -- these are intensely affirmative
actions, and it was jarring to hear them in the face of music so intent on
negating any glimpse of happiness. Maybe silence is the most appropriate
response to such unearthly art."

Sitting in Jordan Hall at that moment, I felt the same way, "Why am I clapping, of all things to do at this moment?" It seemed wrong somehow. It reminded me of a concert earlier this season, when Richard Goode had contemplated the heavens via Beethoven's Opus 111 Sonata, and one local critic jokingly suggested Goode return to the stage and play "Kitten on the Keys" as an encore. Nothing like clapping and encores should follow certain performances.

Maybe audiences, on receiving a performance of this kind of emotional seriousness, should shuffle past the stage, heads bowed, quietly touching hands with the performers like a losing Little League team: "Good game...good game...good game..."

Complete text of Burning brightly amidst Shostakovich's darkness.

Artists, Go Home

Just came across this article about a problem that a number of Celebrity Series artists as well as our performing arts presenter colleagues in Boston have encountered. That is, the difficulty international artists now have obtaining visas to perform in the United States. From complicated regulations to processing backlogs to clerical error, things ain't what they used to be for internationally touring performing artists. It can be a Kafka-esque world out there, but you knew that already...

Read the complete article, Artists, Go Home from Seattle Weekly.