I SEE THE LIGHT

posted by James Reel

    It’s a little disorienting, after two and a half years of leaving home at 4:30 a.m. to start my KUAT-FM shift at 5, to wake up an hour later, leave the house at 5:30 in actual daylight, and arrive by 6. This was my first day under the new routine (although back in the 1970s and ’80s the morning shift always started at 6, so this isn’t exactly a novel experience). The traffic was just a bit heavier at 5:30 than at 4:30, and when I arrived I felt that I was already an hour behind on my various tasks. No doubt I’ll settle into the new schedule soon enough, and it’s nice to be able to get eight hours of sleep now rather than the seven I’d been surviving on.
    From now on, I’m here until noon, at which time David Harrington takes over until 7 p.m. Then, we’ll have a new program (new to KUAT, anyway): Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin. Bill, of course, is the host of St. Paul Sunday, and back in the 1980s he was the music director of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra. You can get the lowdown here on what Bill will be doing weeknights at 7.

BEACH BLANKET ADO

posted by James Reel

    Last Friday, before I skipped town for the weekend, I forgot to post a notice about this year's Tucson Parks and Recreation Shakespeare Under the Stars production, Much Ado About Nothing. So here's a reminder that this is the final weekend for the show. Last year, I attended Parks & Rec's Taming of the Shew, expecting it to be a very uneven amateur effort, but I was surprised, impressed and delighted by how fine the acting was, top to bottom. I haven't attended Much Ado, and probably won't make it this weekend, but one of my spies, a deep Shakespeare admirer who doesn't put up with badly-done Bard, reports that this is a very entertaining and well-done effort, despite or maybe because of its setting in a Southern California beach town. The final performances are tonight, tomorrow and Sunday (June 29-30 and July 1) at the DeMeester Outdoor Performance Center in Reid Park. In public radio, we have to go through several linguistic convolutions to avoid announcing that something is free, so I won't even bother to try.

VIBRATO AGAIN

posted by James Reel

    Back in February I drew your attention to an essay by David Hurwitz, of Classics Today, demolishing the HIP argument that vibrato was largely absent from orchestral playing before World War II. I approved of most of Hurwitz’s contentions, but wondered why he drew most of his conclusions from markings in scores—which are open to a high degree of interpretation—instead of bolstering his points with reference to pre-War recordings. Well, Hurwitz now has issued Part 2 of what is looking like a nascent book on vibrato, and he does now examine several recordings.
    If you were intimidated by the large number of examples of printed music in the first installment, give this new chapter a try. There are far fewer score excepts, and Hurwitz repeats and extends his arguments, so you won’t be missing much if you skipped Part 1. The thing does stretch over 75 or so pages, though. I had copied several excerpts to post here, hoping that might inspire you to read the full essay, but the juicy bits I chose look, out of context, more like sheer provocation than elements of a reasoned argument. So set aside an hour or so and dive into a smart and thoroughly researched examination of an issue that’s a lot more interesting than you might expect.

THEY'VE GOT A SECRET

posted by James Reel

    In the latest Tucson Weekly, I condescend to approve of the latest romp at Gaslight Theatre:

    Before Austin Powers, before Johnny English, before Top Secret!, and just before Our Man Flint, there was Bond, James Bond, the spy who launched a thousand spoofs. And why not? The early Bond movies (as opposed to the original novels) weren't outright takeoffs, but they had an insouciance, a nudge and a wink that let us know we needn't take the girls, the gadgets and the supervillains too terribly seriously. So why shouldn't others join the spy game and push the silliness a bit further?
    Well, the silliness has been pushed right over the edge in the Gaslight Theatre's latest show, Secret Agent Man, or Gangsters Away! Let's just say that writer-director Peter Van Slyke's priority is not to, as they say in the espionage biz, gather intelligence. Applying much brain power to this show, or even trying to connect the plot points, would spoil the fun.

    There’s also a disco-revival olio at the end of the show, but don’t let that keep you away. Read the full review here.

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

posted by James Reel

    As part of its triage effort to stop our orchestras from hemorrhaging audiences and donors, the American Symphony Orchestra League has taken the bold step of—changing its name! Beginning this fall, the professional association and advocacy group will be called the League of American Orchestras. According to a press release issued yesterday:

For the past three years the American Symphony Orchestra League has been engaged in an intensive planning process, more comprehensive than any such effort in the League’s 65-year history, involving extensive consultation throughout the orchestra field and beyond. From that process a strategic direction and implementation plan have emerged that will enable the League to transform itself to better assist orchestras with the innovation, training, research and development, leadership, and advocacy they need. The League of American Orchestras name fits in with this broad new vision of a revitalized and re-energized League.

    Certainly, the League’s image will improve with the abandonment of an acronym—ASOL—that looks and sounds like “asshole.” In contrast, “League of American Orchestras” makes one think of a band of comic-book superheroes. Now, that’s how to appeal to a younger audience.

TOM MACHAMER

posted by James Reel

    Back in the early 1980s, the local news didn’t have to wedge into little slots in Morning Edition and All Things Considered, as it does now. (KUAT-FM doesn’t carry those programs, but our local news is simulcast with KUAZ, which does.) Newscasts back then lasted a full 15 minutes, give or take a few seconds (there’s no leeway now, when they have to mesh precisely with NPR). Our news director at that time, Tom Machamer, had a very relaxed attitude toward timing. He would always amble his way 20, 30, 45 seconds beyond the formal endpoint of the newscast, intruding into my four-hour block of music. This annoyed me a little, anal-retentive person that I am, but I never made an issue of it. For one thing, it just didn’t matter. For another, I saw no reason to make trouble for Tom, who was an able newsman and a very nice guy. That wasn’t just my opinion. Steve Jess was a KUAT news producer back then; years later, when he became Statehouse News Bureau Chief for Boise State Radio, someone asked him who his mentor had been, and Steve answered, “The news director Tom Machamer in Tucson, Ariz. was an incredible people person who had a gentle way of dealing with people. I try to follow his example personally and professionally.” (Go here and scroll down to Page 6.)
    Tom left KUAT many years ago to do missionary work with his church. His work had taken him to Fiji; I just learned  that recently, he had finished building a house for someone, went snorkeling, then began to feel tired and came out of the water. He died of a heart attack on the beach.
    The process of dying is often ugly, but passing quickly on a Fiji beach, relaxing after doing public-service work? I can’t think of a better way to go for a nice guy like Tom Machamer.