Her loss still saddens me, and this vid . . .

Her loss still saddens me. 

I think it always will. 

This video tribute made for an architecture event  at   the    Met 

brings it all back. The loss of a someone 

who contributes so much to the world. 

Source

Johny Depp's gone mad

According to this story, he's sick of his LA lifestyle, whatever that is, and is moving to the lovely town pictured below. It's in another country! Personally, I love Norwich but I'm sure his net worth of $400 million will permit him, his wife and their doggies, to live there better than I have ever done. Don't get me wrong, dorms are great, even at my age. He could even make an offer on Sandringham, only 40 miles from Norwich, which is owned by Queen Elizabeth. And her corgies.
Alternatively, and the "alternate lifestyle" seems to be that which he seeks, he could teach some courses at NILE, a teacher training institution that has made the city well-known all over the world. I wonder if that's how JD heard of Norwich in the first place.

Let us hope that his wife has fewer problems importing their corgies (or whatever they have) than she did in Australia. QEII might intervene even if the sale of Sandringham doesn't go through. It'd be terrible if the Depps had to make another video like this one.

Unequal reporting

From today's Czech news summary in English comes a story that wasn't reported in the parallel Czech edition. Nor in the other five languages that Cesky rozhlas reports.

Ballet dancer wins Czech Mr Gay pageant

Michal Klepetek, a ballet dancer of the Moravian Theatre in Olomouc, has won the Czech Mr Gay pagent. The 28-year-old dancer defeated another six finalists in the competition’s final held in a Prague theatre on Friday night. The contestants competed in several rounds including a swimsuit catwalk, question responses, and a free discipline. The organizers raised 35,000 crowns that was donated to a cancer-research endowment fund.

The Cello Song - at last!

Iconoclastic as it may seem, especially coming from an ex-cellist, it's a relief to hear this dull piece of Bach brought to life for the first time.

My opinion is that this is very good

Click here for more on this house in Marbella. 

Yep, that's someone swimmin' by.

Tomáš Kelar swaps tough UK music bizz climb with Mountaineers for mega (and tiny) crowds with Midi Lidi

Nice big article in Prague Post today

Tom Kelar on the left.

Augmented something! I'd love to see this. Sadler's Wells in May

Olivier Dubois - Tragédie
 

Augmented Reality? Apparently not. Mindblowing!

Leosvel and Diosmani perform The Mast Couple of Cuban gay guys who could kick your ass. Read more at here.

Beware the law!

This is Prague, baby! :D

Little Secret: a must see - for me at least.

I have posted several times here about a highly-publicised incident last year in which a 15-year-old boy claimed he was severely beaten by a group of Romanies after he had refused them a cigarette. The incident sparked a wave of anti-Roma sentiment and saw benefit concerts organised to help the alleged victim. Under police questioning, however, it became apparent the boy made up the whole story. In truth, he had fallen badly on a landing, and made up the story to avoid being punished at home.

Now a 21-minute film, Strach, directed by Martin Krejci, has won one of the main categories at the prestigious LA Shorts Fest 2013. The result automatically pushes the film onto a list of contenders for an Academy Award nomination. 

See a short here.

My text derives from a Cesky rozhlas short news story.

El sistema blows my mind off the adjectival planet

La sistema must surely be the envy of the world. A generation of kids brought up with free music tuition across a nation far removed from the white first world where the music they play originates. But they are not polite young musicians - there is all the wild testosterone in their playing that clearly excites European audiences, who normally hear beautifully nuanced performances of The Repertoire by their (our?) orchestras. The Last Night of the Proms is a fair exception. But how about this: not a bad headline for these kids: Dudamel and Bolivar Orchestra spark an audience frenzy at Symphony Center – Chicago Classical Review. 

Now when they play for this TED talk, they really look like a bunch of kids before they start. The intellectual precision of their playing is astounding. It'd be impressive for Chicago or Berlin, but my god, these are kids, dressed up as kids. And the director of photography has unashamedly made the most of this. 

I don't want to sound like a big fat white snob, but those kids don't look the part. Youth orchestras are usually made up of clean skinned white elegant polite smart kids. When I played in Sydney Youth Orchestra, our principal violinist was brought to and from rehearsal by a chauffeur. Yes,  I know, egalitarian Australia - ha! The kids here look like they've been dragged up from somewhere. It suits my agenda very well to assume that these kids are exactly that. According to Wikipedia, 70 to 90% of the kids who play in the 125 youth orchestras across the country come from poor socio-economic backgrounds. Did you say 125 youth orchestras?

I live in the Czech Republic, a country with a pretty good history of music- think Smetana, Dvorak, Martinu and Janacek for a start. And Venezuela with c 30 mill inhabitants has three times the population. And yet how many extraordinary youth orchestras does CR sport? One third of 125? Not on your nellie. 

It is interesting watching the audience in LA's response to the "incredible high school musicians from Venezuala" as the Ted Talk production is entitled. They look as though they are applauding an orchestra which is playing well. But they do not get what is behind it. If they did, they would be in tears, or silent. Or someone would say something. I don't think they don't get it. 

Here is someone who gets it: 

From Chile, I have the pleasure and orgasm of present you the Great Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra with The National Youth Choir of Great Britain, ...

commenting on  Dudamel conducting the Bolivar Orch in Mahler 2nd at the Proms.

OMG.

Self-taught flautist

This young man has taught himself to play the flute. I just heard him say so on a BBC World Service piece on the Iraqi Youth Orchestra. The same we heard about a double bass player and a cellist.
What extraordinary obstacles they have overcome to be what they are and, at the moment, where they are: the Bonn Beethoven Festival. Deutsche Welle story here.

Opera composer sings pop songs on opera stage

Rufus sings a capella totally alone

It finished very, very well with a couple of numbers a capella. But it started rough. Didn't get right into it. Having performed the night before at another festival in another country might be reasons tabled. Mr Wainright couldn't even really talk at the beginning - all uhms and aahs and sentences restarted. It augured not well. 

There were two songs for his fiance, Jorn Weisbrodt, the worst songs of the evening. The first was a rickety ole thing in a tired and tiring 12/8. The second was no better and fortunately segued into another number so we didn't have to not applaud. Only about a quarter, maybe a third of the numbers were familiar to me. 

It was wonderful to hear Going to a Town live. And dedicated to Mit Romney! It was wonderful to hear his voice not only live, but older. Not nearly as reedy. It's matured very well. And he has an active range of over two octaves without resorting to falsetto. It was wonderful to hear him sing songs by his parents. And numbers dedicated to his daughter (sic) about which I know nothing and have neither time nor interest in pursuing. Probably safe to say, see Wikipedia. But the family thing did get a bit much. Even the musical director, playing bass, is the brother-in-law. 


 If you do visit him in Wikipedia, at the time of writing you'll find 20 refs to opera. A queer fish.

And it was wonderful to hear other solo singers - both of the backing vocalists and the lead guitarist had solos. They were all outstanding, and better voices than RW. Technically.

It was silly to flop, bog and fop his hair around. It was like, this is what we do to show how much we're in to doing what we're doing. It so didn't work.

His references to Vienna were glorious. Anecdotes about his trips to Vienna, things he'd seen live on the very stage on which he was performing, and as if he'd read my mind, he really wasn't sure that a pop singer in jazz festival on an opera stage was going to work.

It did. Can you see the roar of the crowd. We loved it.

Is this humanly possible?

Is this humanly possible?

Source (yeah, you can see a lot more than this one highlight)

Mahler's mood swings accompany Snow White

All the warmth, drama and neuroses of Gustav Mahler's orchestral music was chosen by this French ballet company to accompany their production of Snow White. I'll book my flight as soon as I their dates and mine coincide. These extracts portray the genius of Angelin Preljocaj. Thanks again to MEZZO TV for playing it in full last night.

Dance legend Cunningham dies at 90

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Arts & Culture | Dance legend Cunningham dies at 90

BEING GIDON KREMER Trailer

Who cares about my fabbie opining? These guys speak for themselves.

Graham Norton – Sing no more

You would have to be a special type of ole fag to get this reference to Noel Coward's beautiful song Sigh No More, but then you'd probably also be the very type who'd have a deep understanding of the world that Georges and Albin inhabit in La Cage aux Folles.

Grraham Norton's portrayal of Albin in said musical is nothing short of amateur musical society though to be fair to amateurs, rarely does one see such misused/miscast/missed-by-a-long-shot talent playing lead roles. Few sober karaoke renditions of I am what I am, so masterfully penned by Jerry Herman, have ever deviated so far from the score as Mr Norton's rendition at London's The Playhouse yesterday. If that were all (no reference to Coward's If love were all intended) and his singing contained some vibrato and shaped phrases and clear vocal projection, and if the role were executed with flair, elan and pazzazz, the voice might have got away with it. After all, who can forget those non-singer/dancers pulling it off in the quaint yet strangely execrable hit film Mama Mia last summer.

Grrraham's singing advanced the plot and reflected on poignant moments with such callous disregard for the plot, poignant moments, musicianship and the audience, that one can only wonder what the producers were thinking when they cast him in this role, one that the trained singer/dancer/actor would regard as the role of a lifetime. Anyone who wondered down memory lane may pass by a plethora of reasons for casting Grrrraham in this role but would inevitably arrive back at the box office. His name and fame are being exploited for box office gain, surely ... and at the audiences' expense and that on several levels. In another bout of fairness, not even I can deny that he looked wonderful in the frocks and makeup and wigs - the deaf theatregoer can only have been delighted with him! Get out of my way, Talent – who needs You?

To be fair to Mr Norton, he is quoted in the timesonline as saying

Truly, honestly, I have no ambition to inhabit this world permanently. Theatregoers can relax, I promise. I’ll do this one thing and then I’ll p*** off again.

Now if a talented lead happened to be on your agenda, and none fit your bill, you could always create a talent contest and broadcast it across the nation in which everyone in every county, in every riding, in every parish with a television and nothing better to do with their time could bask in the brutal elmination of talentless punters as the one diamond emerged from the merry-go-round of round after round until a real talent is found and the whole nation has casting couched itself for the sake of a failed Austrian nun who can turn curtains into clothes, a family of unsung children into a polyphonic chorus of goats, and a widower into a groom. Ahhh Maria, the most beautiful sound I ever heard, Maria.

This clever marketting ploy and admirably original use of the talent quest format also serves to ensnare the public. Ask ole widow Schnorton if she's seen the local musical society's Pirates yet and she's bound to ask who's in it? As the village postmistress, there will not be a name in town she doesn't know, but was she aware of their hidden talents? Did she know that the local butcher was butcher than all the pirates that snuck onto the coast of Penzance that night, or that the local constable truly believed that a policeman's lot is not a nappy one? These questions and more can be answered by getting oneself down to the local playhouse and seeing the very people from your quotidian life.

So if the global village is collecctively rooting for the next Maria, we all know and love the one who eventually gets the guernsey. Nobody need ask Who's in it I know?, as we all became intimate with her through the great medium of television. And the internet. We're hooked, lined and sinkered. This personal familiarity lies at the heart of local productions.

Such a pity then that the producers of La Cage didn't elect a more talent-based approach to casting it. Not one of yesterday's matinee cast is worth my bucks to see again. The only exception is one of the chorus boys who also chorused in London's The Producers a few years ago – a remarkably good singer and dancer, with a magnificent physique and exquistely handsome face. He's holding the tray in Keep it Gay from that production. But why should the most noticeable creature on stage be a mere chorus boy? Whose fault is it that he outshone everyone else?

La Cage has an extemely well-written book, thank you Mr Fierstein, a la the good ole musicals which being amateur musical society proof should have been a doddle for professionals. La Cage takes you into its sordid world of drag show homosexuality in which a middle-aged gay couple have brought up an unhomo son in a Riviera night club. Ooh la la! By the end of the show when the curtain falls on Albin and Georges in a long kiss, there can't be a single knife-weilding, beer swigging, shaven headed neo-Nazi in the audience who isn't rooting for gay love. Even they must grasp I am what I am. How perverse, how impossible, how Fwench. Mais oui, we have to hand it to zem.

Amateur musical societies can usually come up with a chorus larger than six and a band exceeding 5, and sets and costumes made with love and care and designed with flare. Yesterday's performance was stingy in every imaginable way except for the ticket prices. Nobody needed Grrrrraham Norton's crap singing and lack of stage presence, nor any of the cast's lack of elan. With the single exception of the chorus boy choreography, London's Playhouse was by and large a pazzazz free zone.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr