The Standing Room

Links for 2011-09-15 [del.icio.us]

2011-09-16T00:00:00-07:00

A Musical Revolution, With a Cost in Fidelity - NYTimes.com
“People used to sit and listen to music. It was an activity. It is no longer consumed as an event that you pay attention to.”
Law & Order Was On for a Long, Long Time - Law & Order - Gawker
"So someone who's a freshman (or a young sophomore) in college has never known a world without new episodes of Law & Order."
Ask the Appeal: SF Parking Tips for Tourists: SFAppeal
"When parking in San Francisco, don't walk away from your car until you've analyzed all of the signs within a block radius like an English major close-reading Pynchon. I'm kidding, but kind of not."
thirteen ways - Memorization Inspiration
"We’ve been accused of using it as a stunt" unbelievable that people can be so moronic
YouTube - I Am Sitting In A Video Room 1000
"An homage to the great Alvin Lucier, this piece explores the 'photocopy effect', where upon repeated copies the object begin to accumulate the idiosyncrasies of the medium doing the copying" - video uploaded to YouTube 1000x
Man arrested for slashing meter maids' tires in downtown San Francisco | abc7news.com
"Police do not know what may have prompted the tire slashings." mmm-hmmm. (via sfappeal)
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise: Ligeti sells out...
...so you might as well come to the M6 show at the Tank, Thurs 5/27 7:30pm http://bit.ly/9KB1YC
“Tu vois je suis encore coquette!” « parterre box
This literally made me laugh out loud.
The Cremaster Cycle at IFC - Village Voice
"what now looks like the freakiest Lady Gaga video ever"
Wonkette : Arizona School Demands Black & Latino Students’ Faces On Mural Be Changed To White
"Remember where you were, when you could still laugh about teabaggers and racists and Arizonans, because funny time is almost over." (almost?)

Links for 2010-07-23 [del.icio.us]

2010-07-24T00:00:00-07:00

Ask the Appeal: SF Parking Tips for Tourists: SFAppeal
"When parking in San Francisco, don't walk away from your car until you've analyzed all of the signs within a block radius like an English major close-reading Pynchon. I'm kidding, but kind of not."

Links for 2010-06-19 [del.icio.us]

2010-06-20T00:00:00-07:00

“Tu vois je suis encore coquette!” « parterre box
This literally made me laugh out loud.

Links for 2010-06-04 [del.icio.us]

2010-06-05T00:00:00-07:00

Wonkette : Arizona School Demands Black & Latino Students’ Faces On Mural Be Changed To White
"Remember where you were, when you could still laugh about teabaggers and racists and Arizonans, because funny time is almost over." (almost?)

Links for 2010-06-03 [del.icio.us]

2010-06-04T00:00:00-07:00

YouTube - I Am Sitting In A Video Room 1000
"An homage to the great Alvin Lucier, this piece explores the 'photocopy effect', where upon repeated copies the object begin to accumulate the idiosyncrasies of the medium doing the copying" - video uploaded to YouTube 1000x

Links for 2010-05-29 [del.icio.us]

2010-05-30T00:00:00-07:00

thirteen ways - Memorization Inspiration
"We’ve been accused of using it as a stunt" unbelievable that people can be so moronic

Links for 2010-05-27 [del.icio.us]

2010-05-28T00:00:00-07:00

Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise: Ligeti sells out...
...so you might as well come to the M6 show at the Tank, Thurs 5/27 7:30pm http://bit.ly/9KB1YC

What Singing's About, Part 3

2010-05-18T20:24:10-07:00

I was moved by what can most purely be described as Love. I could use other words like grace and radiance, and others still, which don't rightly belong together, such as joy and stillness; but, fundamentally, the experience was one of profoundly, magically, and beautifully revealed love. What I heard and saw and felt was to me, the greatest expression of what we humans can render here on earth: a gift that transcends space and time, and opens the heart and mind to the possibilities of what we can share with one another in the here and now.

In this human realm, our mystics and mysteries herald from the Elysian fields of Science and Art. In the world of Art, voyeurs like me can deconstruct the tools of creative industry, but only a true artist can produce a work that inspires unearthly wonder. I have felt this wonder in reading certain poems, and in sharing them aloud with others. There is a tremendous power in this kind of acoustic intimacy. But, this weekend, that same wondrous sensation went "electric."

Electric may seem a very odd way of describing the concert that I heard on Saturday at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco, but it was in fact electrifying. If you have never heard the Volti vocal ensemble perform, heal thyself and explore Volti. What these professional vocalists achieve in sound is to the ear what Auguste Rodin's sculpture is to the eye. Whether the best metaphor is clay or bronze or just notes on a page, there's no question that it was the material with which they had to work, which lifted their voices and their audience out of this world....

I suspect there wasn't a soul in that church who didn't feel transformed by the music. It shone through the faces of the singers themselves and of all those listening. It was love—the simplest and purest expression of the need to touch the lives of others—that shone forth.

—Tamsin Smith, Sound Effects, Huffington Post

Previously in What Singing's About: Part 1 | Part 2

This Land of Our Ancestors

2010-05-14T15:09:09-07:00

Ted Hearne:

Volti is the kind of choir i always hoped existed but until now had never encountered. a group of extremely smart musicians, dedicated exclusively to new music, in search of genuinely new compositional voices. they program some daring (not to mention difficult) repertoire, and the singers themselves are proud of their work and their unique place in the music community here. as someone who grew up in a choir and has a deep connection to choral music, it’s unfortunate that so much choral music in this country conforms to expectations without a fight, fails to challenge thinking musicians and thinking audiences, and is generally so… bland.

the musicians of Volti clearly reject this state of affairs and actively work against it. rehearsing with them, and with their excellent conductor Robert Geary, has been a pleasure - they’ve been full of questions and are eager to enrich their understanding of my piece and the ideas it should convey. and, you know, Volti could teach something not just to the many choirs across the country who could stand to take more risks with their programming, but also to the vocal ensembles in urban centers whose musicians may be super talented technically, but somewhere along the line have lost a meaningful appreciation for the communal benefits of singing in a choir - or even for the very purpose of making music with your fellow human beings to begin with. because Volti does it for love, and in music, that’s really the only thing that matters.

Ted's extraordinary new work "Privilege" premieres tonight, along with music by Robin Estrada and Don Crockett, plus a guest appearance by one of the deans of American choral music, Morten Lauridsen. Please come -- tickets here.

Snowpocalypse III: Volti Strikes Back

2010-02-25T12:22:25-08:00

... But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

—Excerpt from Shoveling Snow with Buddha by Billy Collins

"February" was, I think, number 2 or 3 on the list of reasons to move to California. Here we just sing nostalgically about shoveling snow.

Volti gives three performances this weekend—Friday in Berkeley, Saturday in SF, and Sunday in Marin—which include the premiere of Yu-Hui Chang's setting of Billy Collins' poem above, along with music by Orlando Jacinto Garcia, Felipe Perez Santiago, Jean Ahn, and Mark Winges. Details here.

If you're snowed in, stay warm. Bay Area folks have no such excuse.