Rutter Gloria with Lots of Brass!!!

The occasion was the Eighth Annual Fall Festival of Music at the First Congregational Church in Ridgefield, directed by Edwin Taylor, which occurred on Sunday, November 2.. (It’s that church by the stone fountain, the one in the middle of the road that gets hits by cars so very often.) In fact the concert is part of the church’s Fountain Music Series.

The primary work was the Rutter Gloria with organ and brass. The singers included Edwin’s choir, singers from Jessie Lee United Methodist, and choir members who sang under the late Robert Ayotte of St Mary’s including a few of his paid soloists singing in the chorus(me for instance, and that is how I came to be involved) and a few from out of town. The 11-member brass and percussion ensemble was all imported and very expansive! The organist who played instead of Rob was Daniel M. Beckwith from Princeton. And no one ever forgets the fabulous Celebration Ringers – Edwin’s marvelous and discplined handbell choir.

We had dress rehearsal the afternoon of the concert. It was rigorous but very well organized so there was a minimum of hassle involved. Because most of us missed lunch, and would be concertizing well into the dinner hour, a meal was served at 3p.m. And there was coffee (I am always in need of caffeine), and I was grateful for the sustenance.
The brass ensemble opened in the side isles with a Gabrieli hymn arranged by Mr. Taylor. The brass and handbells were smashing! The handbells did Fantasy No 4 a new composition by Michael Helman and on Elgar’s Nimrod from his Enigma Variations. Later the brass and Organ together had a Taylor arrangement of Pacibell’s Deus in Adjutorium.

There were also a lot of congregational hymns. All in all, the concert went of without a hitch, Although it is hard to tell when you are singing – I think the choral works went very well too. I have to report that I actually did NOT GET LOST in the 5/8 sections of the Gloria. The Counting went very well.
There was a marvelous metaphoric talk Living in Harmony with the Universe, given by the Rev. Dr. Brenda Steirs about finding the tune and the key of life…..
For me the only difficulty was, that during a lush and beautiful duet The Lord’s Prayer, written by Mallotte and arranged by Mr. Taylor and sung by Amy Montanari and Faith Ferry – my eyes teared up, my sinuses clogged. It was so so very beautiful. I suppressed a cough until after this beautiful duet was done, then lost track a bit blowing my nose. We did the benediction ( The Lord Bless You and Keep You by Lutkin), from memory. And low and behold I remembered it. YEAH.

The concert ended with Moussorgsky’s Great Gate of Kiev in Mr. Taylor’s own arrangement for brass, organ, percussion, handbells and choir. And a good time was had by all….

Dia: Beacon - thought-provoking exhibit...

Last Thursday, fellow Shijin Robin Sampson, White Plains Slammer Ann Marie Marra and I visted the DIA museum in Beacon New York (a snapshot of its website is to the left), which opened in 2003 in a 300,000 square foot printing factory.  We got separated in this large maze-like building and I didn't see them for two hours.

I was constantly surprised - each time I thought I had reached the end of the exhibits, there was a still a large part of the building I had not visited!   Better, each time I thought I had drawn a bead on the meaning of what was exhibited, another twist was revealed.

The first room featured an exhibit of  minimalist work "24 Colors for Blinky" by Imi Koebel - large odd shapes each painted in a single bright color.  They were not at all like the monochrome canvases of Modrian  which contain subtle, though barely discernible, complexities. Koebel's colors are utterly flat and uniform.  Just shapes varied wildly. Imi may well have been trying to "shape-up" Blinky Palermo whose small and uniformly square works were on display in another room.  Another room had works by Agnes Martin whose canvases were more in the actual lineage of Modrian, but with a much more personal touched-surface  feeling....

Then there was an entire warehouse-sized room of light work by Dan Flavin. I mean, a kind of minimalist work created entirely as arrangements or "monuments" of florescent light fixtures. I didn't really get off on these, though they were interesting.  On the lower floor were a several works that were a kind of minimalist drawing  and the medium was vivid  blinking neon lights .

And then there was a room entirely containing abstract expressionist sculptures by John Chamberlain that looked as if, and I think were actually made from junk cars and scrap metal. I liked several that were imposing crumpled metal cairns each cloistering a small brightly color nucleus.  But My favorite work of the day was The Privet - one of his metal  sculptures. (The photo simply does not do it justice...)  It is a bit of an abstract expressionist hedge - of metal strips painted capreciously with high gloss enamel. It's metal fronds twisted organically, and each with a unique color scheme. The form was so familiar, the material and colors, arresting. I was inspired to write a poem, though it has a miserable slant rhyme.

The privet's metal stalks aspire
To rustle 'neath the critc's pire
In colors crisp with high gloss shallac
The metal hedge row with varied palette 

Louise Bourgeois' mythic Spiders inspire primal fear, I think and awe.... One can walk right up to the monster which is sci-fi man-eating sized!

Another area I adore, was a set of architectural scale works by Michael Heizer - that involved enormous holes in the floor, I liked the effects, and as a bonus the polished concrete floors in that area were so beautifully and intricately marked, each of the huge sections could have been hung on the wall as art....

Another area I enjoyed very very much contained huge iron spirals "Torqued Elipses" by Richard Serra like the hulls of mysterious ships or giant vats in a factory, that were 15 feet tall with walls several inches. You could walk inside the huge spirals and sometimes, there were hidden inner chambers.  Their juxtaposition also made a very pleasing view of differing angles. There was an erie sonority to the pieces as well. I tried singing inside of one and the echos were amazing.

Interpretive verses generative art

One of the most fascinating aspects of the artists on display were the many who had not constructed the piece on view, but who had left a set of instructions as an architect leaves blueprints, or actually the very same way a composer writes a a score and then leaves it to the future - for others to bring to life!

There was one Lawrence Weiner who had left large sized instructions for the construction of arrangements of monolithic stones. One huge obelisk-like monolith was recessed into the wall. There was an exhibit of drawings by Sol LeWitt (who had recently died). The work required  a team of 20 artists to draw patterns of six different basic squares.  Each looked like a geeks creation on graph paper. The squares were drawn in combination, juxtaposition and super-imposition  in pencil right on the four walls of a museum room. It sounds so prosaic but the effect was sort of  contrary to that. Inside four twenty-foot walls all covered with this work, well the effect was strangely imposing and the repetition made it comforting and  tranquil. It had a great quiet dignity.

The presence of a whole room of Andy Warhol canvases gives real weight to the idea of art by collaboration rather than by one hand.  So much of the art in this exhibit was  what I would call Art Divisi - that is art divided into inceptor or "Idea-ator" and executor. Or more completely - as in music - the generative artist and the interpretive artist. As in theater or in the performance arts, this allows subsequent generations to add cultural nuance...

Could an artist devise a handmade drawing or painting of so many layers that generations of interpretors would be required to fulfill the design? One thinks of the great cathedrsls ( one was still unfinished when I was in college. Not sure now)

And on the topic of great catherdrals - the Photographs of Bernd and Hilla Becher were of wonders of another sort - the great detailed twisting industrial cathedrals of European industry of an era past.

It's a great exhibit. They also have a fine coffee shop for lunch and a fabulous book store. Check the museum's website at http://www.diabeacon.org/exhibs/bindex.html

While we were in Beacon, we also visited the Muddy Cup for Lavendar Tea....

-- Mar Walker

Alternate Parking

It was hard to find parking at the polls. We voted at 6:15 a.m. this morning. Before coffee before breakfast. I personally voted straight Democratic - Duane Perkins, Chris Murphy, Joe Taborsak and most important of all BARACK OBAMA.

( I am an independent who went over to a party to vote in the primaries when John Kerry was running...)
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I think the odd angle and out-of-sight bike in this pale pic, contribute to the idea of hidden alternatives, escape routes, and alternate ways of looking at the familiar.... This is a photo I took in New Milford CT, standing by town hall looking towards the green, (you can see the intersection with Bank Street in the distance.) I fiddled with the photo in both iphoto and Adobe Photoshop Elements.



UPDATE; It's 11PM and ABC news has just projected BARACK OBAMA will be the next president..... HURRAY!

My Halloween costume this year....

This is how I answered the door this year. The thing on my head is black furry ear muffs that hold the dime store wig in place. In the front window we had a big "BOO" with orange lights!.  I had the door cracked open with Oggi dog on guard. Erie Thermin music was playing with its weird moans and slides.  It's eight thirty and we've had over thirty kids and attendent moms and dads. I love Halloween!

It's nine pm and we have had 38 tricker-treaters. We are out of treats and the lights are out.

 It's good to take off this wig...

My cat and dog are settling down now that the  weird music is finally off....

Priests screw up the mass - no ligntening, just screaming kids

There must be something in the air - at work (I am a mezzo soloist at an RC church, a mercenary arrangement not a religious one) the father forgot to follow the cross during the processional and got left behind. He also forgot to end the mass!!! A lay minister reminded him, and he shouted WAIT. What a riot. These guys need cue cards I guess. And the flock gets really peeaved. Deviation from the norm is not appreciated! Also, today, babies and toddlers were present in larger numbers than usual and they were so LOUD, hollering and shrieking all though mass. At least they were in a happy mood. None of those grinding and angry screams. If there were a god, surely he or she must remain baffled by this crazy flock....

Another face in polymer

Fog like cold smoke hugs the landscape this morning. A blood sun begins to burn through it now - the light is changing, a reluctant warmth rises in the air.

Grief is a fog that lingers for years. Visited my father's grave and also the grave of Rob Ayotte this past weekend.  (They are in the same cemetery. ) You hardly ever  know what the weight of a person is for you until you try to make do without them...   Some people leave a rend in the fabric of things.

The face is polymer clay It's of no one in particular.

It's resting on a wrinkled pedestal made of cement color pinkish like the polymer.

I read an amazing fact last night: in a recent month there were 2700 people PER DAY  who were losing homes to bank foreclosure.

Don Giovanni, Ave Verum, Poetry & Friends

This weekend was packed to the gills with music and poetry.
First on Saturday morning, with Edwin Taylor and his singers, and with other singers from St Mary’s, I rehearsed f the Rutter Gloria or two and half hours. This is Edwin’s the First Congregational Church (Ridgefield) “Concert Choir.” It’s a tough but beautiful and engaging composition with lots of time changes and spates of 5/8 just to drive us crazy. The concert which includes a brass and percussion ensemble, is Nov. 2.

Later that day, I saw the Hillhouse Opera Company’s first production – Mozart’s Don Giovanni with baritone Michael Trinik in the lead. He is a long-time student of tenor Perry Price, and at 36 years old, – and after years and years of hard work and study – this singer is really coming into his own. On the stage his voice just rolls out of him in a big grand fashion. He seems really in his element, really at home on stage, 100% engaged with his character. Another singer, really blooming in this production is soprano Victoria Gardener who’s high notes were lush and lovely. Besides sounding elegant, Ms. Gardener, all in red, tall and stately, looks like some legendary diva in training. She is also the person who made this show happen along with her parish, clergy, donors, and friends, especially Nicole Rodriquez and Regina Wagner and many others The church, St Mary’s in New Haven, is big, with its own natural reverb. There was a small orchestra under the direction of Mercy OBourke, and it was a pleasant surprise, being not only in tune but quite skilled — not a small feat for a volunteer, startup company production… I wonder if they tapped the Yale School of Music.
The score was uncut and the production was three hours. I enjoyed it all and had the company of fellow Shijin poet Eli Cleary to make the evening companionable as well.

The next morning back in the loft at that other St. Mary’s choir Mass, we sang Ave Verum and a choral version of Eye Hath Not Seen. Both seemed to go particularly well, so the experience was a good one, but I still terribly miss Rob Ayotte, our former Music Director who died in June.
Later that day there was poetry in two languages at a house warming party for Reggie and Marionela Medrano-Marra. What a lovely home, and lovely lively set of folks there to celebrate the occasion: poets, professors, artists, a college president, a radical intellect or two, not to mention the resident poet-therapists of this lovely new space. The vibes were good, the conversation lively and the food fresh, the wine, subtle, the company warm. Great day!