Discoveries: Arts and Culture

Cindy Cox , a composer at UCB who is interested in post tonal language and new technologies spoke.  She is composing a piece about a Mayan myth.   She commented on the "hybridity" of the opera, and asserted that this production is a Western opera, which it is.  She sees Bright Sheng having a vivid musical language, with colorful instrumentation.  He has a Eurocentric approach and is engaged in text and material; he has to demonstrate metaphysics or "purity" of music, but in the last act the music is fast and dissonant, indicating that love and fate are meant to be corrupted.  All that is true from observation this evening...one might expect something more exotic like Puccini's Turnadot , but this is something different... Shelia Melvin gave a great history of opera in China, just what we needed. In 1852 there were 2 performances per day for five months and then the troupe would move to NYC.   In the 1870's , in California, 80 percent of the opera was G...

Here is Libby Larsen(b. 1950) " Black Birds, Red hills - A Portrait of Six Paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe (2005). Based on six paintings.   Pedernal Hills, Black Rock, Red Hills and Sky, A Black Bird with Snow-Covered Red hills, Looking (coda). Trio Brilliante in the Berkeley Chamber Performances series, at the Berkeley City Club, performed her composition.   Trio Brilliant e includes Tom Rose on the clarinet, and Emily Onderdonk on the viola, and Betty Woo on the piano. Pedernal Hills Black Rock Red Hills and Sky: Excerpts from Larsen's notes;  "Georgia O'Keefe found the flow of time and color in music inspiring to her work as a painter.  "Black Birds, Red Hills is inspired by six O'Keefe paintings, each exploring the flow of time and color on her beloved red hills of New Mexico...The first, third and fourth movements reflect the "V shape" of the hills just outside O'Keefe's window.  She describes the shape as th...

Patti Smith is very cool.  She was so authentic.  Some of her more profound revelations:  She admired Sebald, especially his poem on "Nature", but she is not influenced by him.  She says she is more influenced by Breton and his "Nagier" with the photos by Man Ray. Alan Ginsberg helped her get back on her feet, as she was absent 1979-1995 due to loss of her husband.  She toured with Bob Dylan and she chose "Dark Eyes" for her to sing.  She always dresses in t shirt and dungarees, but they went out and bought her a dress...you can see the performance in a poor cell phone video on utube. She and Lenny  play a song for Pearlman who told her she should have a rock and roll band and who had a beautiful mind, who lives in Montreal.  They are going to his memorial tomorrow. This man taught a course linking "Heavy Metal and Benjamin Britten." She didn't like poetry readings; she thought they were boring so she added music to the readings. Sh...

Patti Smith is very cool.  She was so authentic.  Some of her more profound revelations:  She admired Sebald, especially his poem on "Nature", but she is not influenced by him.  She says she is more influenced by Breton and his "Nagier" with the photos by Man Ray. Alan Ginsberg helped her get back on her feet, as she was absent 1979-1995 due to loss of her husband.  She toured with Bob Dylan and she chose "Dark Eyes" for her to sing.  She always dresses in t shirt and dungarees, but they went out and bought her a dress...you can see the performance in a poor cell phone video on utube. She and Lenny  play a song for Pearlman who told her she should have a rock and roll band and who had a beautiful mind, who lives in Montreal.  They are going to his memorial tomorrow. This man taught a course linking "Heavy Metal and Benjamin Britten." She didn't like poetry readings; she thought they were boring so she added music to the readings. Sh...