Steve Smith
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Early Music New York at the Cathedral Church of St. John the DivineThe New York Times, October 15, 2007
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I spent several years of my childhood in Jacksonville, Florida, and grew up for the most part in League City, Texas, roughly at the midway point on I-45 between Houston and Galveston. You can believe me, then, when I say that I know from hot and humid. Even so, Vietnam is a smack in the…
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There was a certain symmetry to the opening and closing of my now-concluded vacation. A five-hour dangle in the Hong Kong airport (thanks to a delayed connecting flight from Chicago!) had me arriving at my hotel in Ho Chi Minh City at around 2 a.m. on September 27. And a three-hour delay at LAX this…
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Hong Xu, Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Juilliard Orchestra at the Peter Jay Sharp TheaterThe New York Times, September 25, 2007
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There’s a lot to say about tonight’s prima of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Metropolitan Opera; unfortunately, I don’t have time to work through my feelings about it in any great depth. The performance, in short, was hit or miss — many things felt unsettled. Natalie Dessay provided a bold, athletic and characterful presence, gamely…
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"If Grant Had Been Singing at Appomattox"The New York Times, September 23, 2007 A conversation with Philip Glass about two major operatic events coming up this season: the premiere of Appomattox at San Francisco Opera on October 5, and the first Metropolitan Opera production of Satyagraha next April. Despite nearly 30 years separating Glass’s creation…
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Trombonist Jeb Bishop, who participated in Thursday night’s performance by the Globe Unity Orchestra in Harlem (described in the post immediately below), stopped by here and provided a couple of comments regarding certain things that I wrote. I’m pulling his comments up for plain view, because I think both are important: thanks for the kind…
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There’s something irresistable about the sound of a free-improvising big band up close and in your face: winds and brass roaring and swirling in a hot caldera of molten sound, drums pattering and cymbals slashing, a pianist darting out now and again for surprising little cameos. Since it was founded in 1966, Alexander von Schlippenbach’s…
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I get to see a lot of amazing things in my line of work, but it’s hard to overstate just how excited I’d been all week long in anticipation of this afternoon’s outing. Thanks to my much esteemed colleague The Determined Dilettante, I was able to attend today’s matinee performance of King Lear, produced by…
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Ge Gan-ru: "Lost Style"Kathryn Woodard, pianist; Margaret Leng Tan, vocalist; Frank Su Huang, cellist; Shanghai QuartetNew Albion NA 134; CDThe New York Times, September 16, 2007(ArkivMusic)
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At its core, black metal is protest music. Put aside for a moment the infamous associations with intolerance, the unfortunately all too true connections to genuinely heinous crimes such as church burning and even murder: what remains is the same sense of societal disaffection that sparked "Masters of War" and "Gimme Shelter." It’s even closer…
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For all that the members of Led Zeppelin said they’d never reunite, the Cream reunions of 2005 demonstrated conclusively that "never" doesn’t mean what it used to. So, exactly as the rumor mill had suggested, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones will be joined by Jason Bonham, son of late Zep drummer John…
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Keyboardist and composer Joe Zawinul, a founder of Weather Report and one of the most important architects of modern jazz, succumbed to cancer this morning in an Austrian hospital, aged 75. Here is the obituary from Reuters — which unfortunately dwells on Zawinul’s electric work with Miles Davis and thereafter, but omits altogether his important…
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Fall and all attendant memoriesCrowd the day with unrelated historiesEach year leaves its unresolving fantasiesTo hang around each cornerHang around each street. Thick with ghosts, the wind whips round in circuitriesCarrying words as strangers exchange pleasantriesDo they intrude upon your private reveriesAs they meet you on each cornerMeet you on each street. Watch for daily…
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As JSU intuited yesterday, Luciano Pavarotti, one of the all-time operatic greats, has passed from our presence. I am forced to confess that I was not a passionate fan in the end, being far more a partisan of the singer generally positioned as his arch-rival. Even so, when all is said and done, Luciano Pavarotti’s…
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The Moscow Sretensky Monastery Choir at Avery Fisher HallThe New York Times, September 6, 2007
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David Del Tredici’s Final Alice (arr. Alexander Platt) at Maverick ConcertsThe New York Times, September 3, 2007
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"Concert Itinerary That Includes Dreamland"The New York Times, September 2, 2007 An article about the International Contemporary Ensemble, an ambitious, adventurous new-music group that has set up shop in Chicago and New York during the past few years. Each season, ICE has presented an increasing number of exceptional concerts here, culminating in the first local…
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Most of the time, I’m happy to stay far, far away from the spotlight — probably a lesson learned from my sole experience fronting a rock band in high school. I’m far better off behind a drumset, better still seated in the audience. Needless to say, when I tagged along with a group of Time…
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Two former Frank Zappa drummers go at it. The amount of time it must have taken just to assemble these two kits… well, kingdoms have surely risen and fallen in less of an expanse. My temptation to poke a bit of fun at Terry Bozzio and Chad Wackerman (heroes of my college years, mind you)…
Night After Night 