Blog Post

NO SHOW

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, January 29th 2009 at 7:47

Once again, it's Thursday and I'm not linking to my stuff in the Tucson Weekly. But this time it's because I've got no "stuff" there. I was sick last weekend, and deputized my friend Gene Armstrong to cover two plays for me. Gene was one of the first two people (the other was Ed Severson) to come over and say "hello" and "welcome" when I was introduced as a new contributor to the Arizona Daily Star back in late 1988. Since then, Gene and I have both moved on to better things, including the Weekly. There, he most often writes for the Music section, but you can see his work as a theater critic here.

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THE LUMPENPROLETARIAT BEGS THE QUESTION

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, January 28th 2009 at 8:19

Misused terms seem to come in little epidemics. This week, in the course of filling in again as editor of the Tucson Weekly, I’ve seen three writers get “begs the question” wrong, and online I’ve seen two highly questionable uses of “lumpen.” ...

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CELLO IMPRESSIONIST

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, January 27th 2009 at 8:31

A video spoof by cellist Stjepan Hauser of the performance styles of many a cellist more famous than he is making the rounds of the Internet, and deservedly so—it’s hilarious. Embedding is forbidden, so you’ll have to go to YouTube and see it there.

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FINGER-SYNCHING CONFIRMED

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, January 27th 2009 at 8:30

This is old news now, but my “live” supposition that the Inaugural music was canned was independently confirmed.

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I HAVE RETURNED

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, January 27th 2009 at 8:29

Staying home sick in bed gets boring fast, so I’m actually glad to be back at work. There’s some catch-up blogging to be done, though, starting with links to my contributions to last week’s Tucson Weekly ...

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CATCHING UP AGAIN

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, January 21st 2009 at 11:06

I’ve been fighting an insidious cold for about a week, and haven’t spent much time in the studio, which means I’ve neglected the blog. Let me try to catch up a little with links to my material in last week’s Tucson Weekly, just before it’s time to replace it all with new stuff ...

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FAKING IT?

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, January 20th 2009 at 10:03

I'm watching the inauguration online, and Yo Yo Ma et al. are performing, but all the crowd noise has magically disappeared and the instruments have some reverb. Is what we're hearing an earlier recording?

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SURROUNDED BY BEETHOVEN

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, January 14th 2009 at 8:32

Tonight, the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music will present a concert by the Borromeo Quartet, including the world premiere of a work we at AFCM commissioned from Robert Maggio. The program also includes one of my favorite string quartets, the first in Beethoven’s “Rasumovsky” series. Not long ago in Fanfare, I reviewed a four-channel reissue of a classic recording of that quartet. Here’s that review, and as a bonus my review of the latest installment in Osmo Vänskä’s SACD Beethoven symphony cycle.

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CANCEL THE RESURRECTION

From the desk of James Reel on Monday, January 12th 2009 at 11:35

Here’s an interesting development: Tonight’s New York Philharmonic broadcast will feature the orchestra’s New Year’s Eve pops program, rather than the scheduled performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony under the baton of Mahler fanatic Gilbert Kaplan, the well-heeled musical amateur obsessed with Mahler’s second symphony, and a man who has bought his way onto the podiums of most of the world’s leading orchestras. Kaplan has even recorded the work twice, once for Deutsche Grammophon. Kaplan’s recent NYP performance got the customary respectful reviews, but some musicians in the orchestra thought the performance was a tragedy, and the griping, including a blog by a trombonist, got significant coverage last month. I wonder if the negative publicity led the Philharmonic’s management to pull the concert off the broadcast schedule?

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BOOK 'EM

From the desk of James Reel on Friday, January 9th 2009 at 8:05

As Robert Rappaport has already blogged, the Arizona Public Media site has a new book and author feature up, and you can find it here. Look down on the bottom left of the page, and you’ll find an audio feature that I did last October, an interview with Jennifer Lee Carrell about her Shakespeare-saturated mystery novel Interred with Their Bones. By the way, I also reviewed the book for the Tucson Weekly.

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DASHED HOPES AND DISILLUSION

From the desk of James Reel on Thursday, January 8th 2009 at 7:48

Bad economy means less newspaper advertising means lower page count means I have to cram reviews of two theater productions into a single story in the latest Tucson Weekly. “To say that the main characters in Tell Me on a Sunday and Hedwig and the Angry Inch—both shows that opened here last weekend—are unlucky in love hardly begins to describe their stories. These are two intimate shows of dashed hopes and disillusion.” That’s how the review begins, and you can read the whole thing here.

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HUGO DISTLER CD REVIEW

From the desk of James Reel on Wednesday, January 7th 2009 at 9:01

Written for Fanfare magazine ...

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CATCHING UP

From the desk of James Reel on Tuesday, January 6th 2009 at 7:50

Hello again! I took nearly two weeks off, during which I avoided everything resembling work, including blogging. Now, the first thing I should do is catch you up on my recent contributions to the Tucson Weekly, which I wrote before sequestering myself ...

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