I know this blog was formed for the purpose of showcasing contemporary classical music composition and performances in Maine, USA, but in the broader perspective, planet Earth is a pretty cool place to be.
I'll be gone for two weeks participating in a NASA-funded research study where I will be living in an environment with no time cues, no windows to the outside, and no communication with the outside world via computers or cell phones. I've been trained how to operate the robotic arm on the International Space Station and will be tested on my performance in doing so.
This blog will be stagnant for the duration and I thought it best to take the opportunity to share some links highlighting the rich albeit recent history that music shares with mankind's exploration of space.
Many astronauts have played musical instruments in space:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/04sep_music/
http://www.hobbyspace.com/Music/index.html#InSpace
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/16/138171055/music-in-space
The fact is, music has played a very important role in many ways, during our explorations beyond this planet, as it should... because after all, music is ingrained into our psyche, whether we be on the ground or floating above.
To conclude, check out my absolute favorite, bridging the gap between classical and popular music in an extra-worldly way--this duet by Astronaut Cady Cole and Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson!
Enjoy! and.. I'll talk to you when I hit ground in Maine again!
Astro-lutely yours,
Major Meiklejohn
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Going "Organic" in Portland
Going “Organic”
Two Concerts Close Out the Kotzchmar Organ's Summer Series
In its 99th year, the country's oldest working municipal pipe organ, Portland's Kotzchmar Organ housed in Merrill Auditorium offers two concerts to close out its Summer Series in upcoming weeks. Ray Cornils, the man with the true “keys” to the city (sorry, I couldn't resist)--Portland's designated municipal organist since 1990—will conclude the series on Tuesday, August 30th. But first, California native and world-renowned organist and composer, 27-year old Chelsea Chen will grace the Kotzchmar solo this upcoming Tuesday with a diverse program ranging from early music organ standards to contemporary pieces.
Chen will open the concert with J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, probably THE pinnacle piece for organ. You know those notes you hear on horror films or on Scooby Doo, when the creaky door to the haunted mansion is first opened? Those are the initial notes of Bach's toccata. Expect this composition to return to Kotzchmar programs at Halloween time.
Chen will play her own arrangements also, Three Taiwanese Songs, from her Taiwan Tableaux-- a tribute to her Chinese father completed in 2007 after residing in Taiwan on a Fulbright Fellowship. The piece is based on Taiwanese folk songs from the 1930's and 1940's. Chen will treat us to her renditions of Four Seasons, The Cradle Song, and Song of the Country Farmer.
And then there is something for the children, the video gamers and jazzers. The program that Chen has planned has an impressive range of appeal—it's no wonder she was alluded to as “a harbinger of the generation on the horizon” by the Journal of American Organbuilders. Claude Debussy's Children's Corner and Rod Gorby's Three Jazz Standards (arrangements of pieces by Duke Ellington, Ben Bernie and George Gershwin) will be performed, but the highlight of entertainment will likely be Chen's arrangement of Koji Kondo's Super Mario Fantasia. With her masterfully placed imitations of Mario jumping over turtles and collecting coins interjected into Kondo's melodies, Chen brings the organ full circle and back to relevance for all of us that spent hundreds (ahem, thousands) of hours gaming in front of the television in the 1990's—something unheard of in 1912 when the Kotzchmar was first installed.
This brings us back home to Cornils, one of only a handful of municipal organists nationwide. Cornil's performance will include his own arrangements of selections not originally composed for organ—William Walton's royal coronation composition Crown Imperial March (to be performed with the Kotzchmar Festival Brass) and Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio. The Brass will accompany Cornils for pieces by Giovanni Gabrieli and Pyotr Tchaikovsky and for those who need their fix of traditional early music organ works, a requisite solo piece by Bach, the undisputed organ-master of all time, will be performed.
The showcase of this concert however, could very well be the performance of a work by a living artist, Toccata by Denis Bédard who is perhaps Canada's premier composer for organ. Toccata is a festive, very “20th Century” composition rich in sixteenth note passages and a finale so full in octaval depth that it should knock your tube socks off—a grand piece to close out the concert and the series with.
History may indeed hold the keys to the present, but Chen and Cornil demonstrate this month that the Koztchmar is not just a relic of the past, a museum so to speak. Owned and maintained by the people of Portland, it continues to serve as a vehicle for modern creative expression with contemporary relevance while simultaneously serving as a symbol of artistic heritage and pride.
Now that's something worth piping up about.
At MERRILL AUDITORIUM:
August 23, 2011, 7 30 PM Chelsea Chen
August 30, 2011, 7 30 PM Ray Cornils with Kotzschmar Festival Brass
Two Concerts Close Out the Kotzchmar Organ's Summer Series
In its 99th year, the country's oldest working municipal pipe organ, Portland's Kotzchmar Organ housed in Merrill Auditorium offers two concerts to close out its Summer Series in upcoming weeks. Ray Cornils, the man with the true “keys” to the city (sorry, I couldn't resist)--Portland's designated municipal organist since 1990—will conclude the series on Tuesday, August 30th. But first, California native and world-renowned organist and composer, 27-year old Chelsea Chen will grace the Kotzchmar solo this upcoming Tuesday with a diverse program ranging from early music organ standards to contemporary pieces.
Chen will open the concert with J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, probably THE pinnacle piece for organ. You know those notes you hear on horror films or on Scooby Doo, when the creaky door to the haunted mansion is first opened? Those are the initial notes of Bach's toccata. Expect this composition to return to Kotzchmar programs at Halloween time.
Chen will play her own arrangements also, Three Taiwanese Songs, from her Taiwan Tableaux-- a tribute to her Chinese father completed in 2007 after residing in Taiwan on a Fulbright Fellowship. The piece is based on Taiwanese folk songs from the 1930's and 1940's. Chen will treat us to her renditions of Four Seasons, The Cradle Song, and Song of the Country Farmer.
And then there is something for the children, the video gamers and jazzers. The program that Chen has planned has an impressive range of appeal—it's no wonder she was alluded to as “a harbinger of the generation on the horizon” by the Journal of American Organbuilders. Claude Debussy's Children's Corner and Rod Gorby's Three Jazz Standards (arrangements of pieces by Duke Ellington, Ben Bernie and George Gershwin) will be performed, but the highlight of entertainment will likely be Chen's arrangement of Koji Kondo's Super Mario Fantasia. With her masterfully placed imitations of Mario jumping over turtles and collecting coins interjected into Kondo's melodies, Chen brings the organ full circle and back to relevance for all of us that spent hundreds (ahem, thousands) of hours gaming in front of the television in the 1990's—something unheard of in 1912 when the Kotzchmar was first installed.
This brings us back home to Cornils, one of only a handful of municipal organists nationwide. Cornil's performance will include his own arrangements of selections not originally composed for organ—William Walton's royal coronation composition Crown Imperial March (to be performed with the Kotzchmar Festival Brass) and Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio. The Brass will accompany Cornils for pieces by Giovanni Gabrieli and Pyotr Tchaikovsky and for those who need their fix of traditional early music organ works, a requisite solo piece by Bach, the undisputed organ-master of all time, will be performed.
The showcase of this concert however, could very well be the performance of a work by a living artist, Toccata by Denis Bédard who is perhaps Canada's premier composer for organ. Toccata is a festive, very “20th Century” composition rich in sixteenth note passages and a finale so full in octaval depth that it should knock your tube socks off—a grand piece to close out the concert and the series with.
History may indeed hold the keys to the present, but Chen and Cornil demonstrate this month that the Koztchmar is not just a relic of the past, a museum so to speak. Owned and maintained by the people of Portland, it continues to serve as a vehicle for modern creative expression with contemporary relevance while simultaneously serving as a symbol of artistic heritage and pride.
Now that's something worth piping up about.
At MERRILL AUDITORIUM:
August 23, 2011, 7 30 PM Chelsea Chen
August 30, 2011, 7 30 PM Ray Cornils with Kotzschmar Festival Brass
Classical Music ME!
Welcome to the new blog--Classical Music ME--dedicated to bringing exposure to and casting spotlights on the variety of performances that occur throughout the state of Maine that feature contemporary classical compositions. I used to write classical columns for a local publication in Portland, Maine and one of my major focuses was always to find a way to cast "classical" music in the freshest and most modern of lights. Sure, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky were absolutely great composers, timeless even. But that doesn't mean we have to live forever in the past and cast a blind eye to the interesting and entertaining sounds being produced today in the 21st century, by brilliant and thoughtful living composers.
Yes, I also enjoy pop--rock, folk, disco, blues, funk, adult contemporary, punk--you name it. However, these musical forms already consume the vast majority of the publicity dedicated to music and the arts in today's media. Everybody is already a-ga-ga for pop, you almost have to go "underground" to really dig in to what it means to be a part of the modern classical music movement. If you're a local or modern composer or performer who is doing new and unique, interesting things in a "classical" context, and you want to get in on that little slice of the media pie that's leftover from pop and rock, you're probably going to get run over by aforementioned giants of the past--Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and more...
So... hence comes the ClassicalMusicME blog. I want to cover contemporary classical music happenings in Maine. You may occasionally see my articles as a freelance writer in publications in Maine, but I don't want to wait for them to get on the "bandwagon." There are
interesting things happening and they are happening now.
Classical music doesn't need to be relegated to the stuffy cobweb-ridden museums of the past. The bridge between yesterday and today can be crossed, and there's a place for the classical form in that passage.
The focus of this blog will be to bridge the gap of time, to modernize and bring to present relevance, the classical form, and promoting Maine concerts, performers and composers in the process.
I hope you will enjoy this blog, and I do welcome contributing writers. My first story will be up within the day!
Classically Today,
Benjamin J. Meiklejohn
Yes, I also enjoy pop--rock, folk, disco, blues, funk, adult contemporary, punk--you name it. However, these musical forms already consume the vast majority of the publicity dedicated to music and the arts in today's media. Everybody is already a-ga-ga for pop, you almost have to go "underground" to really dig in to what it means to be a part of the modern classical music movement. If you're a local or modern composer or performer who is doing new and unique, interesting things in a "classical" context, and you want to get in on that little slice of the media pie that's leftover from pop and rock, you're probably going to get run over by aforementioned giants of the past--Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and more...
So... hence comes the ClassicalMusicME blog. I want to cover contemporary classical music happenings in Maine. You may occasionally see my articles as a freelance writer in publications in Maine, but I don't want to wait for them to get on the "bandwagon." There are
interesting things happening and they are happening now.
Classical music doesn't need to be relegated to the stuffy cobweb-ridden museums of the past. The bridge between yesterday and today can be crossed, and there's a place for the classical form in that passage.
The focus of this blog will be to bridge the gap of time, to modernize and bring to present relevance, the classical form, and promoting Maine concerts, performers and composers in the process.
I hope you will enjoy this blog, and I do welcome contributing writers. My first story will be up within the day!
Classically Today,
Benjamin J. Meiklejohn
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)