I just got the news that Davy Jones of the Monkees died of a heart attack this morning. Rest in peace, Davy!
The Monkees: Daydream Believer
The news is making me nostalgic for childhood, when I would often watch reruns of the Monkees in the afternoons after school. Continue reading
Happy Friday, music nerds! It’s been a quiet week at Music Nerd Central, as McDoc and I both needed a little R’n'R after our respective travels. There was no gallivanting in the streets for us this Mardi Gras, though we did observe the tradition of eating pancakes for dinner!
We Didn’t Do This: The Mardi Gras Mambo by The Hawketts
Now, being a church musician, I’m keenly aware of what follows Mardi Gras: Ash Wednesday, which kicks off 40 days of Lent, which culminates in Holy Week, which is topped off by Easter! It’s kind of like the Amazing Race, but with choir folders and organ shoes! I tend to think of Christmas as the busiest time of the church music year, but really, it’s a walk in the park compared to the marathon that unfolds during the week that follows Palm Sunday.
I may be a trifle odd for getting so amped about the whole thing, but I must confess: I love the music of Lent. Sure, it’s a penitential season, so it can get a bit somber and morose, but hey, that’s some of what art does best, isn’t it? It’s probably not the sort of thing Sir Elton had in mind, but it still applies: “Sad Songs Say So Much!”
Here’s a Lenten hymn that my parishioners love. We sang it on Wednesday evening, and they’re clamoring for it to be repeated in the coming weeks. With a text by English poet John Donne and harmonization by J.S. Bach, you’ve got some high-quality misery! Continue reading
Happy Friday, music nerds! I’m back in Boston, recovering from a wee bit of jet lag, and gearing up to tackle my annual “I’ll do that after the GRAMMYs” to-do list!
As you’ll know if you’ve been anywhere near my little corner of the web lately, I was in Los Angeles last weekend for the 54th GRAMMY Awards. My main assignment was to live-tweet every event I attended, as my Twitter feed still attests to. I also put up a couple real-live blog posts:
Also check out my GRAMMY photo album on Facebook, wherein I show off the fabulous clothes I was lucky enough to wear, courtesy of Boston designer Denise Hajjar.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled music nerditry! Continue reading
We interrupt this all-GRAMMY weekend for an important announcement! My dear, sweet McDoc left this morning for his second medical mission to Haiti, and he just texted me, as I sit here in the GRAMMYs Pre-Telecast ceremony to say he landed in Port au Prince.
He’s traveling with Boston Healing Hands, the local affiliate of Healing Hands for Haiti. They’ve been working in the country for about 10 years, so they know what they’re doing, and I’m confident that McDoc and his fellow team members will travel safely.
I’ve been joking for weeks now about the fact that McDoc is doing this great humanitarian work while I’m out gallivanting in L.A. It occurred to me this morning that it’s kind of like buying carbon offsets – his noble work balances my frivolity!
Of course, I am tremendously proud of him. His particular mission is to attend to spinal cord injury patients injured in the 2010 earthquake, who need ongoing care. He’ll also assist in training the local medical professionals to keep the care going after the team’s week-long stay. Other Healing Hands teams rotate through during the year.
McDoc and the team – he’s in front on the right.
Please send your good thoughts and vibes to McDoc this week!
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The big GRAMMY day is here, music nerds! In a few hours, I’ll head down to the L.A. Convention Center to attend the awards-show before-the-awards-show. Known by us cool kids as “Pre-Tel,” this is the ceremony that takes place in the afternoon before the televised broadcast, and it’s where the vast majority of the awards are given out. Including, of course, the Classical Field awards, so this is my big event! If you want the earliest possible results on the classical winners, refresh my Twitter feed frequently between 1 and 4 pm Pacific! (You can view my tweets even if you’re not a tweeter yourself!) You can also watch the online stream, which will include Pre-Tel as well as the red carpet goings on — go to GRAMMY Live. There’s an app for that, too, for Android and iPhone/iPad!
One thing I’ve learned from my past two GRAMMY seasons is that there aren’t necessarily a whole lot of classical nominees in attendance (but if you are here, please say hello!). This is regrettable for me, since I’d love to meet them, but I think it’s a sign that they are busy doing what musicians do, so that’s a good thing.
I do hope to run in to composer Gabriela Lena Frank, who told me she’ll be here with her dad as her date (aww!). She is nominated in the Best Small Ensemble Performance category, along with the ALIAS Chamber Ensemble, for Hilos
We’re all running around like chickens with our heads cut off this weekend, but I did to ask Gabriela the question of the moment:
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MMN: You won a Latin GRAMMY for for best Contemporary Classical Music Composition in 2009, and now you’re nominated for a Classical GRAMMY for the second year in a row. How did you feel when you learned you’d been nominated, and then when you won?
GLF: For us composers, we wouldn’t be getting recognized if it weren’t for the efforts and confidence of our performers — I have to give a shout-out to guitarist Manueco Barrueco and the Cuarteto Latinoamericano for the 2009 Latin GRAMMY win, a 2010 Classical Crossover nomination nod through the graces of the Silk Road Ensemble, and now this nomination because of the incredible work done by the ALIAS Chamber Ensemble based in Nashville. What makes this last one especially sweet is that I got to perform on the disc, too. As someone who composes more than I play, when I get a chance to perform with amazing instrumentalists, it’s a chance to achieve something at their level. In the process, we’ve all become incredibly good friends, and it’s purely awesome to share the recognition with them.
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Today is a celebration of all different kinds of music, and it may be clichéd to say so, but all of the classical nominees are already winners. I’m looking forward to their moment in the GRAMMY spotlight!
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Thursday night I attended my first official GRAMMY Week event: “One Night Only: A Celebration Of The Live Music Experience,” benefitting the GRAMMY Foundation’s Music Preservation Project. The official purpose of the evening was to highlight the GRAMMY Foundation’s work in preserving archival audio and visual media from the days before digital. But when it got down to it, the evening was about rocking out in a big way.
Along with a few of my fellow community bloggers, I got to hang out on the red carpet and see some of the stars in attendance up close. A few highlights:
Look, ma, we’re on the red carpet! L to R: Elements of Jazz, yours truly, the Hard Rock Chick & Twang Nation.
Co-host Sharon Osbourne, who looks elegant but can talk tough when she wants to!
Co-host Steve Vai won the prize for coolest shades.
Donna, our GRAMMY Jazz blogger, was feeling a bit shy, but I cajoled her into chatting with a couple of the artists. (I sometimes need a nudge like that myself — just ask McDoc!) Continue reading
Greetings from L.A., music nerds! GRAMMY Week is in full swing, and I’m already regretting my shoe choice… the Staples Center/L.A. Convention Center complex covers a wide area!
Did you know that you can see some of what I’m seeing from the comfort of your own computer? GRAMMY Live kicks off today at 2 p.m. Pacific Time. I’m particularly excited that it will stream the awards-show-before-the-awards-show on Sunday afternoon before the television broadcast. “Pre-tel,” as we cool kids call it, is where most of the awards are actually given out, including, or course, the Classical field!
Last night I saw some amazing performances at One Night Only, a benefit for the GRAMMY Foundation’s Music Preservation Project, including a classical curtain-raiser by the Colburn Orchestra with Yehuda Gilad I tweeted so much I actually hit a Twitter limit for a little while during the performance! The GRAMMY Community Blogger for Gospel got some great photos — check out his Tumblr. Continue reading
On Friday, January 27, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (a.k.a. BMOP) presented Strange Bedfellows: Unexpected Concertos, showcasing instruments don’t get to be concerto soloists as often as their ubiquitous cousins, like violin or piano. Here, the spotlight was on viola, electric guitar, mandolin, theremin and French horn. All but one of the pieces were written in the last six years, and together they showed that contemporary classical music is thriving — don’t let anyone tell you different! Continue reading
Greetings from sunny California, music nerds! I touched down in Los Angeles yesterday, and I’ve been tooling around in my rented Hyundai Sonata – very appropriate, don’t you think?
Tomorrow night I get to attend my first official GRAMMY Week event: “One Night Only: A Celebration Of The Live Music Experience.” If you’re an LA area music nerd, you can attend, too – tickets are still available! The event is part of the GRAMMY Foundation Music Preservation Project, and according to the Foundation, it “will explore the history and evolution of live concert performances and celebrate the various and invaluable contributions of those events, the key players behind them, and their influence on the American cultural landscape. The event will feature live musical performances and archival footage.”
Reading the lineup of live performers, I was excited to see great artists like A Fine Frenzy, Mavis Staples, Robert Cray, Jonny Lang, Shelby Lynne and more, plus co-hosts Sharon Osbourne and Steve Vai. But I was also curious about a group I hadn’t heard of before: the Colburn Orchestra. Did I dare hope there would be classical musicians playing alongside all these great popular stars? I got in touch with the orchestra’s conductor, Yehuda Gilad, to find out. Continue reading
Happy Friday, music nerds! It’s been a big week at Music Nerd Central, and next week will be even bigger, as I head out to L.A. for my annual GRAMMY pilgrimage! This week’s music links take us from fashion to sports to historic firsts! Let’s get started!
Where in the world is Miss Music Nerd?
Last weekend, I got BMOP’ed, and I’m still recuperating… full story still to come!
Last night, I attended Project Debussy, the Boston Symphony’s annual celebration of music-inspired fashion design. Eleven young designers showed off their fabulous designs inspired by Debussy’s music. Here are the two winning designs: On the left, audience choice winner Teresa Calabro with, and on the right, judge’s choice Kowoon Jeong (I’m sorry I don’t have the models’ names — they did a great job!)
Photo: Stu Rosner
Coming up next week: Los Angeles and the GRAMMYs!!!
Speaking of which, I found a fantastic resource for exploring the GRAMMY nominees if you are a Spotify user: blogger ulyssestone has put together a Spotify playlist with many of the nominated recordings. One-stop shopping — it’s a beautiful thing!
Image by Ain't Baroque.
There was once a string quartet which played a piece where pizzicato was marked twice without an arco in between. The violist was looking for it and the cellist asked, “Are you playing arco polo?”
The Week in Funny Music Pictures! Here is some serious music nerd humor, since you really have to read music to get it. But if you don’t, here’s a hint: you heard the tune here last week!
Good job, Don’t Shoot the Pianist!
On the serious side: I’ve long known Marian Anderson as the first African American woman to achieve major success as a classical singer. But this week I heard of another pioneer: Camilla Williams, the first black woman to land a contract with a major United States opera company. In 1946, she debuted with New York City Opera as Cio-Cio-San in “Madama Butterfly.” Williams died this week at age 92.
In an interesting tidbit of historical context, as the New York Times notes, “the year after Miss Williams’s City Opera debut, Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball.”
Here is a short documentary video about her, including audio of her singing:
What’s new in your music nerdosphere this week?
