YOU COULD BE AN OCARINA PLAYER GOING FROM DOOR TO DOOR

Okay, I may be going off the deep end here. While I edit this picture and write this post I've been watching a lecture, if you can call it that, on Zoom by my artistic hero, Laurie Anderson ( https://laurieanderson.com/). I won't try to describe the program. It's impossible. The photo is another from the performance of songbirdsongs with members of the St. Louis Symphony playing ocarinas to imitate owls. It made me think of Anderson's song Monkey's Paw, which contains the a line with the words in the caption. You can listen to it at https://youtu.be/4S8rtxPmHTA.                  

SURE, A PICCOLO CAN SOUND LIKE A BIRD

Another scene from the performance of John Luther Adams' songbirdsongs at Park-Like, across from the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. A piccolo is a likely candidate to imitate small birds. Part of the effect, though was the musicians were scattered around the garden, moving from place to place. It resembled the changing soundscape of a forest.                  

MARIMBA IN THE WEEDS

Back home again, although I'll be posting more pictures from the Northwest on Flickr (link to come).  STL has some little gems like the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, https://pulitzerarts.org/, named for the late art collector and publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Across the street is a relatively new garden landscaped to resemble wild prairie called Park-Like (draw your own inferences). On a recent night members of the St. Louis Symphony performed John Luther Adams' songbirdsongs, which has a bit of a back story. https://www.allmusic.com/album/john-luther-adams-songbirdsongs-mw0002304061 Not a typical urban experience.             

What A Great Gig

Anyone with an interest in the auditory arts would envy the members of Alarm Will Sound. They get to play all this cool new stuff. They live in New York (you may or may not think that's a plus but, as a native of that city, the idea tugs at me). They hang out with all sorts of cool people and they do a residency in St. Louis every year. But I suppose you have to know how to read music and actually play an instrument, be cool yourself and probably know somebody on the inside. I took violin lessons in Brooklyn for five or six years but was absolutely hopeless, devoid of physical talent. Then I emigrated from New York. I wouldn't qualify.

There are more pix from this event on Flickr here but I think I'll wrap it up on the blog. Don't know what I'll post tomorrow. Saturday has a lot of photo ops, though. In the morning there is an event at an air strip on the edge of the metro area where some people will be dumping pumpkins out of airplanes. How could you pass that up but how could you capture it? In the afternoon there is a parade or demonstration downtown by gun nuts (there, I said it) promoting what's called open carry, wandering around the city with your rifle or sidearm in plain view. Just might have to, ahem, shoot that one. And the evening has the insane annual outdoor Halloween party in the Central West End. It's horrifically crowded but there's so much eye candy.

We'll see. We always see.              

Concrete Forest

It occurred to me that walking around during the performance of 10,000 Birds was a bit like a stroll through a forest. The birds move, you move, the wind rustles and the sound constantly changes quality and direction. But the similarity ends there.

The listener hears traditional musical instruments, not birds. The venue is mostly a sleek concrete box. Alarm Will Sound animated the place. If you are interested in wonderful, challenging contemporary music you really should check out their web site. Download or buy CDs of some of their stuff.                       

A Little Night Music

It's not so unusual to have a music performance outdoors at night. It is different to have one on a cool autumn evening, with most of the audience and all of the performers standing or walking around. This created a fluid auditory experience. What you heard depended on where you were, where you were going, the audience around you and the musicians' wanderings. Add shimmering colored panels and you have entered new territory.                  

Alarm Will Sound Plays 10,000 Birds

So after the symphony on Sunday afternoon we got a bite to eat in the Grand Centre district, then walked down to the new Public Media Commons. The contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound gave a performance of John Luther Adams' new work 10,000 Birds. Adams was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for music.
               
The piece has been described as:

based on the songs of birds native to Missouri and the western limit of the eastern hardwood forest, [it] will fully embrace the orchestral range of colors in the instrumentation of Alarm Will Sound. . . Each page in the score will be its own self-contained world that occupies its own physical space and its own time. Each of these pages/places can be performed for an indefinite duration. They can be combined, simultaneously and sequentially, in varied ways.

It was ethereal. The performers carried small digital stopwatches and received cues on their iPhones as they wandered around the plaza. More to come.

A Musical Offering

It was a wonderful day for music in The Lou on Sunday. We attended a spectacular concert by the St. Louis Symphony, led by Conductor Laureate Leonard Slatkin. His reading of Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique was like none I have ever heard, played with exceptional clarity and nuance.

Then in the early evening there was another performance in the new Public Media Commons. It's late as I write this so just a teaser image. It wasn't what it looks like.