eating and drinking music

About that good news link from a little while ago. Well, now, the NYT article is only available for those who pay, so I'll just let yall know. The piece was about a movie about composers, including my friend Judd! What was I saying about how the mainstream media's gotta hip itself to the mass-market potential feeding frenzy that is classical music? Just kidding, it's a documentary. I'm embarrassed I didn't get to see it, but meanwhile super-psyched about all the attention these concerts in bars and local hangs are getting. A number of years ago, I witnessed a progenitor of this phenomenon in (of course) Berlin. A bar called Cookies, which apparently at other times is an exclusive, members-only place, puts on chamber music or solo concerts on the first Monday of every month. When I was there, the awesome and intense Kuss Quartet played, while a light VJ (LJ?) spun amazing atmospheres to accompany their Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Webern. Yes, Webern, and the coolest thing was, that was the stuff that suited the bar most. You could just feel the nervous energy of the too-cool-for-school young audience being perfectly captured and fed back to them in the Webern and its accompanying moody and swaying light.
This is what I've found: kids like new music. All this boo-hooing about the greying of the classical audience-- well, yeah, if you're going to keep putting shows on at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, even Miller Theater, which is on a college campus, only people "in the know" come. Yes, there should be money for bringing it into the schools, outreach is super important. But one of the things that bothers me about outreach is this condescending attitude, like, "We have something so splendid and holy and important, and aren't you lucky we're bringing it to you?!"
In Israel, I was lucky to witness a rehearsal led by Sergio Azzolini, who was leading Tel Aviv Soloists from the bassoon(!). He was playing a bassoon concerto, and going on about its composer, Vivaldi, and the musicians for whom he'd written his hundreds of works: orphan girls. "Vivaldi was their only connection to the outside world," Azzolini said, "and everything they learned about love and pain-- and the weather!-- they learned from him and his music!" I know that's kind of outlandish, but I was totally captivated.
What if today a composer was to write all his/her music in that kind of setting? Not for the court, like Haydn, or, metaphorically, like a lot of "commissioned" traditional composers ever since, whose music is enjoyed by subscription-holders?
I'm getting on my own high horse now, I realize. I'm a little panicked about my series out here in Jersey City. What with teaching the last two weeks at the phenomenally fun chamber music camp at Third Street School, and writing the section on Civil War music for a standardized test, I've been lazy with the planning and I'm now in crisis mode. I just see it so clearly as the low-frills embodiment of what I believe about music: that it should be available, and easy to get to, and fun. Right now my big project is to get the Italian Festival to put on our "4 Seasons." Cause what could be a better combo than Vivaldi + cannolis?

two jokes

I was just put on hold when I called my OB-GYN's office. Guess what the waiting music is? "It's Raining Men."
Also, around the corner from my house is an acupuncture place, decorated with videos of people being massaged, or close-ups of needles being stuck into skin. On their sign listing ailments these treatments can cure: Man Dysfunction.
I love how open they leave that to interpretation.

awesome awesome awesome

good news