CHRISTMAS, GASLIGHT STYLE

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, November 30th 2006 at 7:07

    In the latest Tucson Weekly, I pick through the Thanksgiving leftovers and come up with a review of Gaslight Theatre’s holiday show:

    Does a Gaslight Theatre show have to be funny? For a very long time, Gaslight has specialized in send-ups, first of old Western melodramas and eventually of ...

SEX AND MUSIC ...

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, November 30th 2006 at 7:05

    ... don’t mix, says Terry Teachout. One’s a distraction from the other. I agree. If you’re attending to both simultaneously, one of the two elements has to be pretty bad.

PHOTO FUDDLE

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, November 30th 2006 at 7:03

    An example of not thinking at a daily newspaper: The Star carries a story about a decision not to tear down a library building because of its architectural significance, and accompanies it with a photo of people browsing in the stacks. That shot could have been taken at any library ...

KNIGHT RIDER

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, November 29th 2006 at 7:03

    Remember that recently released Knight Foundation Magic of Music final report that stirred a lot of comment when people interpreted it as a declaration that everything orchestras were doing to build new audiences was wrong? Well, Drew McManus has gone to the trouble of actually reading the report, and he ...

PROSAIC PRESIDENTS

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, November 28th 2006 at 7:20

    Last night, driving home from a party, I turned on the radio, heard the opening orchestra-only section of Copland’s Lincoln Portrait, and groaned in anticipation of what would come. I dislike narrated music because the narrators are almost always monotonous, even if they’re professional actors. (For more on ...

VIVE LA DIFFERENCE

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, November 27th 2006 at 7:29

    Over the holiday weekend, several bloggers I read happened to take up, one way or another, questions regarding how classical music is different from popular music, and whether or not this is a good thing. Greg Sandow, whose mission as a blogger is to fret over the decline of the ...

THIS IS A RECORDING

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, November 24th 2006 at 6:39

    We have a shortage of relief announcers here at KUAT-FM, or at least a shortage of relief announcers willing to work on holidays, when we full-timers could actually use some relief. Hey, my first two shifts as a relief announcer here in 1976 were Christmas Eve and Christmas afternoon; that ...

DEAD IN THE WATER

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, November 24th 2006 at 6:15

    In the latest issue of the Tucson Weekly, I pass judgment on Live Theatre Workshop’s production of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Nile:

    Christie seems to be a reliable money-maker for Live Theatre Workshop, and if the company is dusting off one of her quaint mysteries yet again ...

DENK DONE IT

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, November 24th 2006 at 6:00

    Film noir meets OJ pseudo-confession in pianist Jeremy Denk’s latest post, wherin he relates his role in the death of Classical Music. It all starts with Denk mulling over the past in a seedy bar:

You see, Classical Music was my childhood sweetheart. Even in the sixth grade, when ...

LONG DIVISION

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, November 20th 2006 at 8:06

    At this temporal distance from last week’s Tucson Symphony concerts, there’s no reason for me to finally get around to writing a full review. Not much to say, anyway. Guzheng soloist Li Ma was superb, although the concerto she played, Zhanhao He’s Regret of a Hero, was ...

TWO MUSICALS

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, November 16th 2006 at 6:57

    Thursday is the day I rest on my laurels, duck out of original blogging, and simply point you toward material I’ve written for the Tucson Weekly. This time, two items. First, a review of the University of Arizona production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying:

Now ...

SONGLINES

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, November 15th 2006 at 7:29

    I really should visit the American Music Center’s NewMusicBox more often, not just when I find a link elsewhere. Here’s editor Frank Oteri grousing about a subject dear to my heart:

    Once upon a time, songs referred exclusively to single-movement musical compositions involving a singer or singers. They ...

ONE STEP FORWARD...

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, November 15th 2006 at 7:08

    A couple of weeks ago, the KUAT engineers installed some new digital transmitter equipment. Very nice, except that now, for technical reasons I won’t go into here, we’re operating on a delay. In other words, what you hear through your speakers is something I did a full eight ...

FOLLOW THE MONEY

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, November 13th 2006 at 6:48

    The Washington Post informs us:

    A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts blasts public radio, saying it fails to fulfill its obligation to provide music that commercial stations won't touch. The NEA says public radio—once dominated by classical, jazz and other minority forms of music ...

BACK TO THE BOARDS

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, November 9th 2006 at 9:44

    It’s Thursday, and you know the drill: Here's your chance to peruse my punditry in the Tucson Weekly. First, there’s a review of a fascinating if flawed show at Beowulf Alley:

    Fiction, indeed, is the title of the Steven Dietz play now onstage at Beowulf Alley Theatre ...

LISTENING VS. HEARING

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, November 9th 2006 at 9:38

    Blogger Patricia Mitchell muses on the news item I linked to earlier about how people seem far more willing to listen to classical music in their cars than in the concert hall:

I would like their definition of "listening" because I suspect listening in a car isn't the same ...

ORCHESTRA IN A BOX

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, November 7th 2006 at 10:43

    Via Artsjournal.com, here’s a link to a notice of a Knight Foundation study showing that all the trendoid things orchestras have been doing to lure new audiences are basically worthless. Note this:

    The report, which is based on both the experiences of participating orchestras and audience research in ...

SUITE SUCCESS

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, November 6th 2006 at 6:24

    My cover story for the current issue of Strings magazine is all about Bach’s suites for solo cello. I myself don’t have much to say on the subject; I left that to the cellists I interviewed: Yo-Yo Ma, Jian Wang, Maria Kliegel and Suren Bagratuni, with some comments ...

WORD FACTORY

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, November 3rd 2006 at 7:22

    Late yesterday afternoon I received an e-mail from the head of the Catalina Players advising me not to drive across town to see her play last night, because there’d be no performance. It seems that an inspector from Atria Bell Court Gardens, whose lovely little Academy Hall is home ...

DRIVERS WANTED

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, November 2nd 2006 at 6:55

    My theater review in the latest Tucson Weekly is, unusually for me, nothing less than a rave:

    There are times when an avid theatergoer gets so discouraged that staying home to watch TV actually seems like a viable option. Why venture out and pay good money to see yet another ...

NICE GUYS

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, November 1st 2006 at 7:45

    Some people perceive classical musicians as distant and even arrogant, and that's certainly true in some cases. But yesterday I was reminded how warm and genuinely nice many classical artists can be.
    I called violinist Jaime Laredo at his home in Vermont to get some comments for an article ...