COMMENT NO. 309,487 ON ALAN GILBERT

posted by James Reel

    Everybody this week in the classical-music world is talking/writing/blogging about the appointment of Alan Gilbert as music director of the New York Philharmonic. With all the chatter elsewhere, I haven’t found it necessary to toss in my possibly redundant comments, but I’d like to point you to the one post you should read if you’ve been overwhelmed by it all and have just skipped the topic entirely. Terry Teachout says much of what should be said here, and rightly criticizes the inanity and irrelevance of what little has come out about Gilbert (he’s 40, both his parents were members of the Philharmonic, blah blah blah). Terry’s a bit off base, though, with this comment:

Far more important, I suspect, will be whether Gilbert proves to be an effective communicator--and whether he can find new ways of getting his message out to a new generation of listeners that is largely indifferent to classical music.

    What’s most important, rather, is whether or not this guy is an imaginative interpretive artist. Hardly anybody has heard this guy's performances, and those who have seem quite reserved in their appreciation. The last thing a major orchestra like the New York Philharmonic needs is yet another dull Kappelmeister (like Kurt Masur and the post-L.A. Zubin Mehta). Why should anybody pay to hear a conductor leading a highly paid orchestra through sleepwalking exercises? The orchestra’s current music director, Lorin Maazel, has rightly been criticized for his staid programming, but wrongly criticized by the superabundance of dullards in the New York press for daring to have ideas about the music he leads, and for persuading the orchestra to express those ideas faithfully. Maazel’s performances can sometimes seem wrong-headed, but they’re always exceptionally interesting. The fact that the New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini, who has been one of Maazel’s noisiest detractors, has soiled himself over Gilbert’s announcement is not a good sign.

GONE TO THE DOGS

posted by James Reel

    In the latest Tucson Weekly, I review a musical about singing canines:

    Bark! is a recent show with music by David Troy Francis, words by a lot of other guys and performances by six singer-actors assuming the roles of dogs. Kevin Johnson's Arizona Onstage Productions always takes big chances with its material, and on every opening night, Johnson wonders if this will be the show that bites him in the ass.
    Despite all the dogs on stage, this isn't it.
    Bark! doesn't sniff around the dark corners that most of Johnson's productions--including the comedies--do, and it's way too slight a show to be as life-changing, gut-wrenching or merely thought-provoking as most Arizona Onstage fare. Yet the writing is sufficiently clever and the production sufficiently polished that it's pleasing entertainment you shouldn't be embarrassed to admit you've enjoyed ... even though you spend an hour and a half watching six grown men and women singing about chewing socks, peeing and discovering the benefits of being neutered.

    Read the rest here. Performances are selling out very quickly, so if you want to see this, you’d better not stop and sniff the hydrants on your way to the box office.
    Otherwise, some poetry news of interest:

    Pity the poet: Appreciated by few. Scorned by some. Ignored by many. Tortured. Solitary.
    But now that's changing. At least you can scratch the word "solitary."
    Oh, the torture, scorn and limited appreciation remain, especially for slam poets, those brave souls who get up on a stage and compete for audience approval and, in their dreams, valuable cash prizes. These days, however, slam poetry is becoming a team sport, and Tucson is sending its first-ever team to the National Poetry Slam next month in Austin, Texas.
    Traveling to the National Slam, of course, requires money. These are poets we're talking about, so money is a problem. Or it would have been, had the local team not had the bright idea to raise funds this weekend with a three-hour event offering poetry, music and a collaboration between a border poet, a Mexico City video jockey and Tucson alternative-entertainment troupe Flam Chen.

    My full preview of the event lies here. I’m also mentioned in Tom Danehy’s column this week; he was obviously desperate for material.

CRITICAL DEFENSE

posted by James Reel

    The staff critics at the Dallas Morning News have addressed a number of common public complaints about their work, including such old standards as “What a terrible review! Were you at the same show I was at?” and “Why do critics always criticize everything?” The answers/defenses don’t go into much depth, but together they make the point that professional critics are people who bring informed opinion, not fannish gut reaction, to their job, and must make their case in a very limited space. At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. You’ll find the article here.
    The ultimate lesson may seem arrogant, but it’s important and true: As a fan, you may have an opinion, but that doesn’t mean you know what you’re talking about.

ROBERT MCBRIDE

posted by James Reel

    Tucson-born and -based composer Robert McBride died a couple of weeks ago. As far as I can tell, neither daily paper saw fit to note his passing, although they fall all over themselves to eulogize young traffic-accident victims who've had far less importance in the larger community. I never met McBride, but I did talk to him on the phone a couple of times. About 10 years ago, he told me something remarkable: He no longer listened to music, because he heard everything about a half-step off, and it drove him nuts. Here's the paid obituary (supplied by family and funeral home, not by journalists) that appeared in the local papers; the memorial service was July 14:

Robert Guyn McBride, University of Arizona Music Professor Emeritus, died July 1, 2007. He was born in Tucson, Arizona Territory, on February 20, 1911. Robert is survived by Carol, his wife of 66 years; their daughter, Marion of Irvington, NY; their son, Lawrence (Barbara) of Arlington, VA; and by grandchildren, Karin Sosis, Andrew Sosis, Lindsay McBride, and Graham McBride. Bob's musical talents matured at the UA, where he received a Master of Music degree in 1935. This "desert rat" then taught at Bennington College in Vermont, where he met and married Carol. In 1945 he moved to New York City to write music for films. As television supplanted short subjects at the movies, he returned in 1957 to Tucson and the UA to teach composition. Skilled as an instrumentalist (oboe, English horn, clarinet, and saxophone), Bob performed widely at colleges and with orchestras. His compositions were played by major orchestras and chamber groups, and were published and recorded. His music, often with catchy titles, ranged from serious to whimsical: opera, jazz pieces, modern dance scores, instrumental solos, chamber pieces, and orchestral works. He received a Guggenheim Foundation grant in 1937, and in 1942 the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him a prize for "writing a new idiom and expression" in modern American music. Later, the UA honored him with a Medallion of Merit. Bob was a true gentleman whose great patience and wonderfully agreeable nature endeared him to his family, friends, and students. An achievement Bob especially enjoyed was scoring 11 holes-in-one at the local par three course, the last at age 92. The family wishes to thank all those who have cared for Bob recently; we are grateful for their help.

DOG DAYS

posted by James Reel

    I've been absent from the air for the past two days because I indulged in Lasik surgery yesterday, which, aside from a recovery period when it felt like I was chopping onions for two hours straight, has gone quite well, thank you. Anyway, yesterday I neglected to post a link to my latest contribution to the Tucson Weekly, which begins:

    The dog days of summer arrive early this year, as Arizona Onstage Productions presents a July run of the musical Bark! It's a family-friendly but not childish show in which all the characters are dogs. No, not real dogs--you can hear that on a notorious old Sinatra record--but people singing life stories from the canine point of view.
    Think of it as composer David Troy Francis' way of lifting his leg on Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats.

    You can find the full article here. I use the term "dog days" as a joke, by the way. Recently, I've seen many references to the "dog days of summer" as if the period were synonymous with all of summer. It isn't. One dictionary definition tells us that the dog days are the "hot, sultry period between mid-July and September," and some sources would limit them to August. The term is a translation of the Latin canis caniculares, referring to the time when the Dog Star (Sirius, not XM) rises with the sun.

KUPBEAT

posted by James Reel

    I just stumbled across something unexpected: Kupbeat, an archive of interviews conducted by Edward Kupperstein, KUAT's former radio boss and, before that, program director and, before that, music director. According to the home page, "KUPBEAT is a celebration of Edward Kupperstein's dedication to the the arts community in Tucson, Arizona. KUPBEAT presents a series of nearly 700 Arts Upbeat interviews of local arts personalities between 1976 and 2000 for KUAT Radio." There's also some biographical material about Kup, but it doesn't mention that he passed away a few years ago, not too long after he retired from KUAT.