When I arrived a few mornings ago, the computer desktop confronted me with an alarming image:
It's only the latest incarnation of 1980s pop star Boy George, but I immediately sensed that this would be an excellent addition to the cover art used for John Eliot Gardiner's Bach cantata series, featuring photos of exotic peoples of the world. Consider:
When Tucson Unified School District students return to school in August, they'll have a new companion if they ride the school bus...the radio.
The Arizona Daily Star reported over the weekend that TUSD has contracted with a national company to provide the service on 160 of the district's 250 bus routes. The service offers three distinct "screened" formats...elementary, middle school and high school.
The service is not commercial free, tough. Hey, nothing is free these days, but some critics say subjecting the kids to commercials on their way to school just isn't right.
The company simply is called "Bus Radio" and you can check out a live stream of the music here.
I sampled the music and it sounds pretty similar to Radio Disney, which has special edits of songs that normally have bad words.
What's next for school buses? Perhaps, seat belts.
Having just played a Jordi Savall recording of Marin Marais on the air, I remembered that his recording of Monteverdi's Vespers, one of the best ever, is back in print in better sound than ever before. Here's the review I wrote for Fanfare:
MONTEVERDI Vespro della Beata Vergine • Jordi Savall, cond; soloists; La Capella Reial; Coro del Centro Musica Antica di Padova; Schola Gregoriana • ALIA VOX AVSA 9855 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 95:43)
This is not a new recording, but a multichannel re-mastering of an old favorite: Jordi Savall’s highly Mediterranean 1988 account, recorded in Mantua’s Santa Barbara Basilica, where Monteverdi may or may not have first heard this music. Given the locale, Savall interpolates antiphons associated with the Feast of St. Barbara, and if you object to this, well, it’s only a few seconds of chant here and there that are separately tracked. He leaves out, as so many do, the second version of the Magnificat and the Missa in illo tempore. The performing forces include a smallish but colorful instrumental complement (not the 30 pieces Monteverdi may have used in at least one performance), a male quintet for the plainchant, a 32-voice choir and the usual complement of soloists.
Javall’s way with the Vespers is both sensual and devotional; tempos are on the slow side (akin to those of the more recent King on Hyperion, also on SACD), and there is a tremendous warmth to every moment (compare to the “whiter” voices of the leading English versions: Pickett, Parrott, Gardiner and especially the chilly McCreesh). The choral production is characterful rather than silken; Savall admits as much in a new introduction he wrote for the booklet: “United by the common bond of our very ‘Latin’ voices and sensibility, we all pursued an ideal approach to song, one in which declamation of the text and purity of sound were inextricably linked to an essential warmth and profound spirituality of performance.” Well, Savall just wrote my review for me.
Compared to the original Astrée set (I never encountered the more recent budget repackaging), this Alia Vox revamping is clearly superior. To begin with, the packaging is more lavish, with color illustrations, a bit more introductory material and translations into more languages (helpful if you are Catalan), although this means the texts and translations can no longer be given side-by-side. The sonics were quite good to begin with—a complex variety of forces captured only with a pair of omnidirectional microphones—but here the sound is even lovelier; rear-channel ambience provides a better sense of the basilica’s natural acoustics, while the performers seem to have been pulled just a bit closer to the listener than before, resulting in a hard-to-achieve clarity within a generous space. For nearly 30 years, Savall’s has been one of the finest versions of the Vespers on the market, and this Alia Vox revivification makes it even more attractive.
It's not that often we have a new show to tell you about, with NPR's 500-pound gorillas taking big chunks of the schedule, but today we can.
Beginning next month, KUAZ will be offering up the weekly NPR show "On the Media". This is part of the show's official description:
"With compelling reporting and uncommon insight, the program breaks through the white noise to uncover significant issues of the day and carefully expose the relationship of the media to culture and society."
You can check it out Sundays at 5:00 (a.m. and p.m.) beginning next month. It replaces "Justice Talking," which is ceasing distribution at the end of this month.
You can also hear an interview about the show on this week's Arizona Spotlight Podcast. If you want to hear only that part of the show, it begins at the 21:19 mark. Of course, you should listen to the entire show!
In the months ahead, politics will be a major feature on this website. The fun now comes in developing the best local site, with YOU in mind.
Sure, there are plenty of websites that will provide you with political information, but we at AZPM hope to have some interactive stuff to get you involved.
You can count on seeing all of our political interviews from our TV side, as well as hearing audio from our radio side, but it won't end there.
I don't want to reveal anything just yet, but I wanted to let you know you'll be in for a big treat when we launch the new content. If there's anything you'd like to see on our site that you've had difficulty finding in the past, drop me a line and let me know. I'll pass it along.
The fun is just beginning.
The Tucson Weekly kept me busy last week. In today’s issue, I review three plays and a restaurant. I actually liked all three theatrical productions, as you might guess from the teasers:
A poor production of Tennessee Williams' _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof_ subjects us to three hours with a disagreeable Southern family in countless forms of denial. A good production cracks through those hard, nasty exteriors and squeezes out the complex pathos of each family member. In that and all other respects, Arizona Repertory Theatre's production is very fine, indeed. … What Arizona Repertory Theatre presents is a play that's not at all about hard, hateful people, but about people who love too much. … Arizona Onstage Productions' mounting of _Sunday in the Park With George_ is critic-proof, insofar as the whole run, including some added performances, is sold out, with the possible exception of the show tonight (June 26). But, as usual, producer-director Kevin Johnson has critic-proofed his production in a more important way than putting butts into all the seats before reviews appear: He's crafted something of sufficiently high quality that it stands on its own merits and generates a buzz even without help (or hindrance) from critics. … The romantic comedy _Prelude to a Kiss_ is not a particularly ambitious choice for Live Theatre Workshop, whose seasons are dominated by this sort of well-crafted entertainment. But director Terry Erbe has complicated things to good effect by introducing a live musical component to enrich the transitions between scenes. The lovely Amy Erbe, in a black evening gown and long white gloves, sings snippets of standards with piano accompaniment, the lyrics reflecting developments onstage. These are not stop-the-action musical numbers, but merely brief elements that bridge the action. She sings full-length songs only before the play and during intermission, and it's a shame that the audience chatters so much that you can't hear her very well when she and the pianist have the stage to themselves. As for Craig Lucas' play itself, it's a witty and warm psychoanalytic fairy tale about sex and death. Don't forget that "witty and warm" part, which is most important. But the business about transference and fear and desire is what gives the play a bit more intellectual heft than most works of its ilk. … Lucas wrote this in the late '80s as a subtle AIDS metaphor, but that's barely evident in Live Theatre Workshop's mainstream approach. It's about love and devotion, period, and if you want to read more into it, that's your business. As Peter and Rita, Nate Weisband and Dallas Thomas are an irresistible couple; they have tremendous chemistry together, the sort that makes you really care about their relationship from the beginning and root for them to be reunited, one way or another, by the end.
Get my more detailed and enthusiastic opinions here. On the other hand, the restaurant didn’t do much for me:
Let me make it clear that there is nothing bad about Arizona Pizza Company, but not much about it is interesting, either. It might be an agreeable drinks-and-pizza hangout if you live in the vicinity, but the next time I eat in that neighborhood, I'll be more inclined to patronize the more characterful Lebanese place nearby.
You can read that full review here.
