We're going to Italy!

It's officially summer in Ann Arbor as the semester ends, commencement commences, and the students get the hell out. Corey and I are looking forward to enjoying the city again, but we are planning one big trip: Italy!

Corey got accepted to the highSCORE Music Festival in Pavia, Italy. It's a two-week program of classes, lessons, and concerts, and I'm going too! It wasn't until after he was accepted that we found out he was allowed to bring a guest, and with some generous help from our wonderful families, we are making it happen!

I have never been to Italy and Corey has never been to continental Europe, so we are both really excited for the location. Pavia is a college town of about 70,000 located 35 km south of Milan, so we will be in northern Italy. It's a little weird because Pavia isn't really a big travel destination, so I haven't been able to find out too much about it, but it's nice that we will be somewhere peaceful and not bursting with tourists.

I began errands for the trip today. I went to Walgreens to get a photo for my new passport. (My old one isn't technically expired, but it's in my maiden name.) I also visited Barnes and Noble to pick up "The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Italian Phrases."

I remember pronunciation from my days as a classical singer, but I only remember the words for "heart" "love" and "spirit" - not so helpful when trying to order lunch or buy shoes.

Stay tuned for updates on the trip!

The Keith Karns Big Band Debut Tour and CD Release

After a little break from blogging, I'm excited to come back with a plug for a friend! Keith Karns is a boss trumpet player and former classmate of mine and Corey's. He is currently based out of the Indianapolis area after graduating with his master's in trumpet performance at Indiana University. He's been busting his butt putting together his big band, recording an album, and planning a tour.

The Keith Karns Big Band plays mostly original works and arrangements by Keith himself. The sound is really contemporary while remaining true to the roots of big band. Not sure if you're into that kind of thing? Give 'em a listen for free! As of last night, you can download the track "Salt Water Rocket" from the band's web site free of charge. The full CD, "Thought and Memory," will be available for download on May 1st. (The CD features other players that are former classmates and colleagues of ours that are great in their own right.)

You can catch the debut tour of the Keith Karns Big Band next month in cities throughout the greater Midwest. (I'm super jealous of Corey. He is going to WI to visit his former comp teacher's class, so he's going to catch the show in Minneapolis.)

I couldn't resist, so I asked Keith to be my guinea pig for my new "Musician File" interview feature. I hope you dig it!

Name: Keith Karns
Age: 27
Location: Indianapolis, IN
Musical occupation: Band leader/composer/trumpeter
Media: www.keithkarnsmusic.com, facebook.com/keithkarnsmusic

What are you working on now that you are really excited about?
I’m really pumped about the CD release and our tour at the beginning of May. The album sounds AWESOME and we had so many talented people work on it so I can’t wait to get that out there. We’re playing some really great venues, but the three that I am most excited about are at Jazz Central in Minneapolis on May 3rd, the State Theater in Eau Claire on May 5th, and the Blue Wisp in Cincinnati on May 13th. I think we’re going to have a great turnout and I’m pumped to get this music out there!

What are you working on now that you are really stressed about?
Getting all of the logistics together for the album release and tour has been pretty intense. A lot goes into planning something like this and that definitely keeps me busy. I have been lucky to have a great team of people helping me out with booking and promotion so that helps a lot. I don’t know what I would do if it were not for them!

What inspires you to keep writing/practicing/playing when you’re going through a rough patch?
I have a pretty strong work ethic, but there are defiantly days when all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch TV. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately!) the trumpet is a pretty vindictive instrument so if you don’t have a solid practice regimen you really won’t be able to play the horn. Knowing that there are things I have to do on the horn every day regardless of how I feel keeps me coming back to the practice room. When I started writing when I was in college I applied that same kind of discipline to the rest of my creative endeavors and it seems to work out pretty well.

Tell me about your most memorable musical experience as an audience member:
When I was 12 or 13 Ingrid Jensen came through my hometown as a guest artist at the local jazz festival. I had been playing trumpet for a number of years in school, but wasn’t really serious about it. She totally blew my mind. It was the late 90’s and she was doing the post bop thing, playing in and out of the changes, I remember I walked out of that concert speechless. After that I knew I wanted to play like her so I signed up for a summer jazz camp and began take lessons, two things that eventually would lead me to where I am today.

What is your favorite not-music-related pastime?
I love the outdoors. I grew up in Alaska and so hiking and camping was a big part of what we did as a family up there. I don’t get enough of that stuff these days, but whenever I have the chance I try and get out as much as I can.

Would you recommend the last book or article you read to someone else?
I’ve been really into old school detective fiction this year. The two best novels I’ve read recently are Ross MacDonald’s Sleeping Beauty—which is SUPER dark, but a really well crafted story—and Mikey Spillane’s My Gun is Quick—which is so gritty its almost a caricature of the detective genre. I also just finished re-reading Nick Tucker’s “The Duke Ellington Reader” on the life and music of Duke Ellington. I think Tucker’s book is probably the best one out there right now about Duke. He does a great job and it really reveals a lot about Duke and how he ran his band and his compositional process.

Who would you invite if you could have any 6 people, living or dead, over for a dinner party?
I would have to go with Jim McNeely, Maria Schneider, Bob Brookmeyer, Duke Ellington, Doc Severinson and Woody Shaw. We would probably talk about music.

My First and Last Concert at Oakland University

I am shocked and appalled. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed a few sniping comments I made about Oakland University this weekend. Long story short, Corey and I drove over an hour to the north suburbs of Detroit for a concert this weekend. We were met with shoddy directions, a campus that doesn't label street names, a box office phone that is not staffed during performances, and worst of all, music students that don't know how to shut up during a concert.

I was so upset by my experience that I wrote the following e-mail to the chair of the School of Music:

Dear Dr. -------,

I am writing to you because I strongly believe that the behavior I witnessed during a concert at your school needs to be brought to your attention.

Last night, my husband and I drove up from Ann Arbor to attend Alarm Will Sound. The performance was wonderful, but the only word I have for the audience behavior is appalling. Several groups of students in the audience were talking at full volume and noisily shuffling papers throughout the entire concert. I and other audience members had to ask these groups to be quiet several times during the performance.

Being a former music student myself, I understand that it is sometimes necessary to take notes during a concert, but the level of noise and distraction present at this concert was inexcusably rude and unacceptable. From some of the conversations that I overheard (during the second movement of John Adams' Son of Chamber Symphony, by the way) I could tell that these were actually students of the music school, which I find deeply troubling.

I wanted to make you aware of how poorly your school was represented last night. This level of rudeness and unprofessionalism from a group of young musicians is bewildering. I hope that this is the first and last time you have received a letter like this. I hope that last night's display was a one-time fluke, and I hope that someone apologized to the ensemble.

I am not in any way seeking a refund of my tickets or a personal apology. I simply thought, that as head of the department, that you would want to know that this is going on. I certainly would.

Regards,

Lauren B. Cunningham

I respect the privacy of the chair enough to not reprint her response here, but I can say that after reading it, I am not at all surprised by the students' behavior. After a flippant apology, she proceeded to tell me this sort of disturbance can happen anywhere, and the house has no control over such situations. She attended the concert herself, and could not hear any talking from where she was sitting, so "it must have been more localized" to me "than I realized." The school apparently "invited students from many schools in the area" and "there is no way of knowing where the students I heard were from." Even if they were her students, "undergrads don't always make the best decisions." (I couldn't make this up.)

Also, if I ever encounter this situation again, she advised that I simply move to a different seat. She finished the e-mail expressing her hope that I will return to Oakland University for future concerts. I can assure you, I wont.

As both and musician and a PR professional, I am outraged. The behavior of the students in the audience was rude, but this response is unacceptable. The chair blamed every other entity she could think of, including myself, for the problem, rather than simply taking responsibility, apologizing and assuring it wouldn't happen again. No educator or administrator I've ever met would dream of insulting a patron like this. And let me tell you, if my undergrad received and e-mail like this, we students would have gotten an earful (via a stern departmental e-mail).

This person is responsible for training future musicians and educators, which really troubles me. Doesn't this school teach the taking of responsibility for one's actions? After what I've seen, I sincerely doubt it.

American Mavericks Finale

Today was the final concert of the American Mavericks Festival in Ann Arbor. The San Francisco Symphony and crew has shipped of for NYC for the final leg of performances.

Overall, I really enjoyed the festival. The programs were exciting, a great balance of "older" maverick works (Ives, Cage, Varese) and brand-new pieces (Bates, Adams, Monk). Some of the pieces were "easier" on the audiences than others, some of the new pieces were disappointing, but it was awesome to experience this festival. Click here for the full listing of the Ann Arbor series.

Maverick Highlights:

Concert 1:
I wrote a whole post on this one. I really dug the Mason Bates piece, but the whole program was great.

Concert 2:
Cage's Song Books induced booing from a member of the audience. It was more of a piece of performance art that just a work of music. I can't really do the piece justice in words, so let's just say that Micheal Tilson Thomas made a smoothie onstage. Literally. It was quite an experience.

The 45-minute intermission was ridiculous. I realize that the Cage had a huge set to tear down, but it should have been better organized and the orchestra should not have taken 15 minutes to get situated. Please be considerate of your audience.

The overall consensus for the John Adams commission Absolute Jest was that it was not his best. It was meant to be a piece of Beethoven quotations, but it lost focus about two-thirds of the way through. (Corey is a big fan of Adams, and he was disappointed in the piece.)

Concert 3:
Three pieces by three really interesting dudes. MTT gave a brief description of each before the piece was performed. In short, Ruggles was a small guy with a huge temper, Feldman was a huge guy with a quiet demeanor, and Ives had a great sense of humor. I particularly love Ives' sense of humor in his music. A Concord Symphony plays with Beethoven's 5th, and throws in a whole bunch of other styles, like hymn, ragtime and march. Your local library should have a recording of this, and I highly recommend it.
Concert 4:
All chamber works performed by members of the SF Symphony. My favorite piece was Lukas Foss' Echoi, a heavily improvised piece for piano, cello, clarinet, and percussion. However, the standout piece was Jacob's Room, a monodrama taken from Morton Subotnick's opera of the same name. The piece calls for a single vocalist to play all of the parts and narrate the story. The story was about a boy during the holocaust. The vocalist used extended techniques to add drama and characterize the emotions of the beaten mother and frightened child.

Corey and I feel very lucky to live in a place where we have the opportunity to attend concerts like this. We came from a town where new music was not performed very much, so we try to go to as many concerts as we can. A friend of mine, who is the wife of one of Corey's colleagues, once commented on how "good" I am about attending concerts. She says she would like to go to more but lacks motivation. My response was that the novelty may soon wear off for me, and I will stop attending so much, but I hope not.

The American Mavericks Festival, Concert 1

The San Francisco Symphony is in town presenting the American Mavericks Festival; the first concert last night was awesome.

Prior to the show, Corey had been at the American Orchestra Summit (#orchsummit2012) all day. On our walk from the parking garage to the auditorium, he told me about a panel discussion he attended earlier in the afternoon about how orchestras can better serve their audiences and in turn grow them. Apparently, there was a resounding disapproval by the panelists for social media involvement in audience relations. I find that extremely disappointing. These orchestra managers say they want to gain a broader audience and engage young people, but it seems they are not willing to meet them half way. Corey also noted that there was very little discussion about actual music and new programming.

This conversation was fresh in my mind last night during one of the most engaging concerts I have ever attended. For the first half, the full SF Symphony played Copland's Orchestral Variations and Piano Concerto by Henry Cowell. Conductor extraordinaire Micheal Tilson Thomas introduced each piece and talked about what made them "maverick" works of their times. I really enjoyed his descriptions; they didn't go on too long, told me what to listen for, but didn't give everything away. While the first half of the concert was a solid performance of two impressive works, the second half was much more exciting.

The second half opened with a new work by Mason Bates called Mass Transition. It is a piece for mixed choir, organ, and electronics. The text is taken from a conversation between a mother and daughter via telegraph transmission in the 1920s. The mother was in Holland, the daughter in Java. It was once of the first instances of a long-distance transmission for personal use. At first, I was just enjoying the piece as an interesting text concept and astute use of electronics, when all of a sudden, two soloists stepped out the of choir and sang the parts of the mother and daughter. Unexpectedly, I got really emotional! I didn't expect it, and it was a very fleeting experience, but I was close to actual tears. I always talk about the human element in music being the thing that really draws me in. Mason Bates just made a big fan yesterday.

Another thing I love is percussion music. I am fascinated by the visceral reaction we all have to just loud, driving percussion beats. (I think it's because my dad was in drum corps and I attended competitions while still in utero.)

The last piece on the Thursday night concert was Concerto for Organ with Percussion Orchestra by Lou Harrison. Before they began, MTT said that Harrison was influenced by music from all over the world, and you could tell in this piece. The eight percussionists played a menagerie of instruments from all corners, including some that Harrison himself invented for the piece. You could feel the excitement reverberating from the audience during the silence between movements. The end applause lasted for three bows.

At dinner, Corey and I were discussing the concert and the conference. The concert proved that new, exciting music is much more effective at engaging audiences. I think that these struggling orchestras would meet their goal of gaining a wider audience if they would present music that is more relatable than Bach or Mozart. For example, if you are trying to reach a teenage kid from the inner-city, present music written and played by people who are interested in and influenced by the same types of music that he already likes (hip-hop, rock, R&B, etc.) The music, life and times of Bach is about as far from his realm of experience as one can get.

That doesn't at all mean dumbing down your programs, just broaden your commissions and personnel. Once the kid is hooked by a really high-energy performance, he will be receptive to more "traditional" programming, just one step at a time. From this new composer, take a step back to Phillip Glass, to Copland, to Stravinsky, to Beethoven, to Mozart, and finally, to Bach. This reverse-chronological approach to music appreciation will take that kid just one step further out of his box at a time. I think this gradual transition from the familiar to the unfamiliar would be a much more affective and valuable experience for kids, rather that just making them listen to Mozart "because it's good for them."

I am really excited to attend the rest of the American Mavericks Festival concerts this weekend. I promise the rest of my posts wont be as long or rant-y. :)

At the DSO with George Takei

Say what you want about pops concerts, I had a blast on Sunday.

At the last minute, I found out that George Takei was going to be in the house when the Detroit Symphony Orchestra did a Sci-Fi themed pops concert. I was SO there.

I'm not a big Star Trek fan, but I am a HUGE fan of George Takei the LGBT activist and humanitarian. If you do not currently follow him on Facebook or Twitter, do it now. He is equally hilarious and wise. He's also leading a social media unification movement of "Star Folk" (both Wars and Trek) against the atrocities of the Twilight Saga. (I'm sorry Team Sparkle, pick up an Anne Rice novel and get an education.)

Anyways, I was really excited to hear some sweet Sci-Fi film music (a.k.a. the John Williams show) and see Mr. Zulu in person. There was no meet-and-greet with Mr. Takei, but it was worth it just to hear him speak onstage. He did a moving intro to the Star Trek music, and performed the final speech from The Day the Earth Stood Still.

It was actually very relaxing to go to a chill pops concert after attending a string of more "serious" works. It was exciting to hear iconic film music played by a really good ensemble, rather than XYZ High School concert band does "Selections from Star Wars." It ended up being a bucket list item I didn't know I had.

Anna Netrebko at Women in the World Summit

Miss Netrebko took time out from her busy rehearsal schedule to bust out a quick aria at the close of day two of the Women in the World Summit. Thanks to The Daily Beast for posting the video!

<The video has been removed by The Daily Beast's YouTube channel. Sad day.>

Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" is a bit of a cliche, and kind of a let down for those familiar with Netrebko's vocal prowess, but I can understand why she chose this. It's a short aria you can throw together with any accompanist. I don't know who the accompanist in this performance was, but I can guarantee anyone versed in collaborative piano has played this ditty before.

A great performance by an amazing musician for an inspiring event. Follow Women in the World 2012 at The Daily Beast or on Twitter with #WitW12.