Posted by Li Robbins at 04:00 PM
Guitars meet marimba tonight on R2 from the Festival of the Sound, as The Canadian Guitar Quartet perform with marimba virtuoso Beverley Johnston on Canada Live .
Then we turn our thoughts to shrimp dumplings, sesame balls, maybe a few of those squishy buns, pot stickers...whoops, sorry, dim sum not literally included. But the music recorded at this summer's Dim Sum Chinese Festival in Toronto sounds pretty savoury, with erhu master George Gao and his ensemble. The programme mixes traditional and modern Chinese music, and includes special guests, B.C.-based guzheng virtuoso Wei Li, and Grammy-winning Kitaro's pipa master Tu Shan Xiang from Japan.
Gao (and you must check out his website, if only for the picture of him leaping like a rock god with the erhu) is almost single-handedly responsible for sharing the erhu word here in Canada, and is much sought after by film and television producers -- among other things he's featured in the soundtrack for Earth: Final Conflict.
Posted by Li Robbins at 02:29 PM
A few days ago I posted an article from The New Statesmen about the remarkable amount of classical music education reportedly going on in Venezuela -- and mentioned that I was curious to see if the publication had also written about music education in Cuba, a system which has turned out some amazing musicians. (Some of whom have settled in Canada, and are making their mark, particularly on the jazz scene.) I finally got around to poking about in their archives earlier today, and it looks like the answer is a no.
However, I did come across a few related matters, including the fact that a Canadian, Lisa Lorenzino, who teaches at McGill, has done academic work exploring what makes Cuba consistently produce such fine musicians. As well as this related piece by musicologist, author and producer Ned Sublette, pointing to a more extensive report by Sublette on Cuban music, in case you're interested. And finally, a detractor of the Cuban music education system, in the form of a travel article about music in Havana in which the writer, Douglass G. Norvell Ph.D, seems to be suggesting that the high level of music education in Cuba results in overly-sophisticated musicians. Hmm....for everything a multitude of perspectives...
Posted by Li Robbins at 01:08 PM
With the ongoing hand-wringing about declining sales of classical music, Henry Fogel raises some interesting points on his blog, On The Record, countering some of the despair. (One point being the need to replace recordings is lower because of more durable technology being available...although that doesn't account for new releases...)
But what I find more interesting are his reflections on the history of electronically reproduced music and its connections to the way we hear music. For instance, this anecdote recalling the old multi-disc 12# packages, when each disc played about 4 minutes a side. (Hey, before my time but I've heard tell...)
"Symphonies were broken up into segments, sometimes rather oddly. My favorite example was an old set of 78s of Bruckner's Fifth Symphony, with Karl Böhm conducting. Side 11 was the scherzo and side 12 the trio section of the third movement. Since the scherzo section then was a pure da capo repeat, the label of side 12 gave the instruction: "Please play side 11 again before proceeding to side 13!" I doubt that Maestro Böhm ever gave a real performance of the piece where the repeat of the scherzo was precisely the same in every way as the first time through - but there it was."
I remember when I used to make cassettes from other people's LPs and not quite make it to the end of a song on side A., so you'd get half a song, then switch over to side B., restart it, and hear it in its entirety. Shudder. No one can make a case for that being a primo listening experience.
But what I think is more interesting, ultimately, than the rage against the machine (eg. CDs being supplanted by digital downloading) is about the sound itself. What quality of sound are most of us, apparently, happy to live with? Joel Selvin, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, explores this thoroughly in a piece called MP3 Music, It's Better Than It Sounds.
Posted by Li Robbins at 11:00 AM
Studio Sparks heads north today, with music by Sibelius played by violinist Joshua Bell with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Speaking of ringtones, as we weren't, on Joshua Bell's website, Sony BMG is happy to point you to their favourite ringtones, none of which are classical. But out of curiosity I googled "most popular classical ringtones" to see what was out there. First site? kickassclassical.com Kickass are not just selling the rings, they're also educating their clientele: "Learn all about the most popular Classical Music used in pop culture! You've heard these famous Classical works in movies, commercials, cartoons, songs, video games and ringtones."
High on the popularity index are the expected, for instance the "intense, almost evil sounding choir music," of Orff's Carmina Burana, and "Mozart's most famous piece," Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. (I could live with never hearing that on a crowded streetcar again, myself.)
Also what is billed as the "K9 Advantix theme song," because of some dog food commercial I must have missed using the theme from La Gioconda. (What were they thinking, don't they know that's really "hello muddah, hello fadda?")
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