The Standing Room

Considerable

Yesterday afternoon I got a text message that just said:

we're scheduled to be on all things considered within the hour

And so I was on NPR's All Things Considered yesterday as a member of The M6, talking about the experience of singing Meredith Monk's music. The six-and-a-half-minute story by the Journalist Formerly Known as Dr. LP is titled Meredith Monk: Of Posterity and 'Impermanence'. My voice pops up around 4:30, but Dr. LP tells the story very well and the whole piece is worth listening to. (Don't bother reading the text on the web page, though; my quote is so heavily edited that it's been rendered nonsensical. And if anyone knows how to embed the NPR audio player into a post, please get in touch.)

Regular TSR followers will remember that The M6, a six-voice ensemble that works directly with legendary composer/singer/director Meredith Monk in learning, transcribing and performing her work, recently made our debut performance to a fully-packed house at Symphony Space in New York. Since then, many kind and curious folks have asked what Meredith's music is like and whether there are any recordings of our performance. So I've edited four short movies with excerpts and compiled them into a YouTube playlist. Here's one video, with selections from a set of songs for unaccompanied voice, to whet your appetite.

We've also got a website up and running at www.m6ensemble.com. It's still under construction, but it allows you to sign up for our mailing list (if you prefer to get emails) and also has an RSS feed (if you're a feed junkie). Naturally we still have our MySpace and Facebook pages too, if you prefer to follow us that way.

Regular blogging will resume when time allows. If I owe you an email, my sincere apologies; trust that you are not alone and that I am not ignoring you. And if you're in the Bay Area, come hear Volti sing a couple of supercharged, virtuosic Kernis pieces and a fantastic, witty, political, touching piece by Eric Moe this weekend. This is not your grandmother's church chorus, I promise you.

Professional Wrestling with a Full Orchestra

Stephen Colbert interviews Nathan Gunn ("Do you perform with clothes on?")

5/8 UPDATE: Guess who was on TV again tonight.

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One of the Slowest Trains, Slowest Trains

Check it out! Recently spotted on a City College ad posted in a MUNI train (Judah to ocean, as it were):

How small a thought it takes to fill a whole post. We're living in the third dynasty of Ur. The, ah, chief god is, ah, Nana. It was enormous and it was like silver (eeeeenoooormouuuuuus). Hashamayim m'saprim k'vod El! It's been a honeymoon honey honey honey huh honey honey uh oh, the Reich Tourette's is kicking in again can't take no mo'...

Another photo courtesy of our roving correspondent Mlle J—

Wie lieblich sind Berts Wohnungen

I want to thank everyone who has shared a thought with us on Bert's death. I don't know how to say it any better than just that it has meant a lot, getting all the emails and messages and calls and comments, and we appreciate it truly. I wish you all had had a chance to meet him; he certainly would have wanted to meet you. He was a social guy, always friendly and amiable, inquisitive and adaptable, internationally renowned for his courtesy and particularly fine coat.

Last Labor Day weekend, as I entertained myself decontextualizing Anna Netrebko quotes in front of the computer, Bert found his amusement outdoors in the garden, where he was having his last big weekend romp. We had herded the cats into the car for a ride up to our friend Mr. T—'s Healdsburg bungalow, where Bert could have a fun-in-the-sun vacation.

So it felt fitting when Mr. T— offered to let us bury Bert in the garden, and agreed to play the role of gravedigger. We placed Bert in the ground with his little green honeysuckle cushion, which has indisputably been his favorite possession since F&J gave it to him as a present nearly a decade ago. (I recall us laughing that day at the ridiculous cartoon cat on the packaging, which was pictured hugging the cushion. Then we looked down and saw Bert lying on his side, trying to hug the damn thing to his chest.) We replaced the dirt with our hands. He's under an orange tree now.

I heard/sang a bunch of music last week—both New York Voices sets at Yoshi's, a vocal jazz class, a Holy Thursday service, Dudamel leading the SF Symphony in the complete Firebird, Flicka and Jackie in a Pauline Viardot tribute—good extramural excursions, all. But home is a little quieter now, and it is interesting to find ourselves so keenly aware of absence instead of presence.

Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras

Bert (1988-2008)

I dreamt last night that we had a harpsichord, and that Bert peed on it.

Perhaps he was more of a contemporary music guy at heart.

It was clear from the time we got up this morning that something was not right. People have been telling us, you'll know when it's time. Today he let us know.

I went to see the 10:30am broadcast of Peter Grimes (highly recommended, repeat showing on Sunday), had lunch, and returned home around 4pm. As Kevin was preparing to head out for a show around 7pm, Bert made it known that the time had come. I think he wanted us both to be here.

He died at home around 8pm. It is odd to hold a creature as he breathes his last breath.  He was a most gentle and genteel being, and we cared for him very much. I hope we have done right by him.

I've posted the photo below before, but it feels appropriate to repost tonight.

Strange how fine the line between laughing and crying can be.

[Post deleted]

Wrap-Up

that's my head, directly above the white cap on the bicyclist

During the course of last night's performance, I honestly had no idea how many people were in the audience; there could have been, like, 5 people total, for all I knew. The house lights were all the way down and the stage lighting prevented me from seeing anything beyond the first couple of rows. I do remember thinking at one point, gee, it's strange that these people are sitting so close to the stage; people don't normally sit there unless they have to. And some part of my brain registered the fact that there were bodies in the loge-like seats on the side, but I chose not to give it much mind. So I hope my face didn't register the shock too obviously when the house lights came up for the composer acknowledgment after the second bow, because my first thought was actually, WHOA, who are all these people?!?!? I'm told that there were even a dozen+ standing-room folks in the back of the house.

My sincere thanks to everyone who turned up, and for being such a responsive and enthusiastic audience.  And thanks also to everyone who took the time to say hello afterwards and express the things that the program made them think about and feel. It means a lot to me that so many of the things people said went far beyond and far deeper than the usual "you have a lovely voice" or "well, that must have been hard!" type of comments. It was a very satisfying evening from the stage, and I hope it was equally so out in the seats.

Some reactions are up on Anne-Carolyn Bird's and Darcy James Argue's blogs, if you're curious.

The M6 at Symphony Space Tonight

Emily Eagen and Peter Sciscioli rehearsing Hocket (from Facing North),
which reminds me of Inuit throat-singing with its playful and
mind-bogglingly virtuosic sharing of breath

We've had a couple of runs at tonight's Symphony Space program already this week, including a performance at Sarah Lawrence College last night and an open dress in front of our various posses on Tuesday. The question that people asked me after both runs was, how much is "written" in these pieces, and how much is interpretation? 

This is, of course, probably the biggest question we have to grapple with in this project, and by "we" I mean both The M6 and Meredith Monk herself. I hope I'm not putting words in her mouth, but it must be both exciting and jarring to see and hear work that had previously never been separate from her own presence set into different bodies and voices. And since it's both impossible and undesirable for us to be clones of Meredith, in each of our coachings we have to work continually on honing in on where the essence of each work lies. Often the insights provided are about form, proportion, impetus, imagery, color, spaciousness—things that can't necessarily be communicated through notes and dynamic markings on paper or just by imitating a recording, especially since the pieces themselves are also somewhat malleable. In both cases, a transcription or a recording is just one snapshot of one performance or one possible form in which the piece can take shape. Patrick Vaz observed in a comment below that that this method of learning "sounds like the way dance tradition is passed on—training directly from the creators rather than interpretation of notation," and this is exactly on point(e).

Claire Bryant (cello) and Silvie Jensen (chopsticks) rehearsing Dolmen Music,
which has the sense of a ritual removed from time or history

I echo something that M6er Holly Nadal said in the NY Times: "You listen, and it sounds so free and improvised. You don't realize how much structure is there until you start trying to pick it apart. A lot of people...think there's a certain randomness there. But it's highly, highly structured." I would add that though there's a certain amount of freedom, there's no randomness at all. Depending on the piece, the structure can expand or contract a certain amount, depending on the individual performance. But only through rehearsing and performing these pieces has the essence of the structure, proportion and form really become apparent and internalized. What I've come to realize is that this process is the nuts-and-bolts work of building a legacy.

The M6 Performs Tablet

The first half of our Symphony Space program ends with a 20-minute work called Tablet, for the three women of The M6, who play piano and recorders in addition to singing. Tablet was the first piece that Meredith Monk had ever created for an ensemble, originally for four women and later revised for three. (Before Tablet was mostly solo work, and out of Tablet came Dolmen Music; our program follows a similar trajectory, for those who are interested in the structure behind it.) The only available recording of the piece is on a Wergo album that isn't even distributed in the US, as far as I know.

Last year, Tablet was heard in concert again for the first time in nearly two decades, first at La Mama and then at The Stone. I recently heard someone talking about how, in performing or listening to Meredith's music, which is often sung on unintelligible syllables, you start out thinking that these syllables mean nothing, but eventually come to realize they actually encompass everything. The three performers in Tablet move through a number of characters, archetypal women who appear in various guises throughout Meredith's work. They chatter, laugh, mourn, berate, flirt, comfort. The ending of piece includes a persona Meredith described to Holly during one of their coachings as The Oldest Woman in the World. An excerpt from The Stone performance is below.

Pictured above: Emily Eagen, Holly Nadal, and Silvie Jensen (standing) in a coaching with Meredith Monk and Andrea Goodman, one of the original Tablet performers

New York Stories: Music Bloggers in the Wild

Pictured: At least three music bloggers (including ACB on stage)
Not pictured: At least another two music bloggers
(including grecchinois who appeared on stage later)

When I passed through New York late last month for some rehearsals (M6 show on Thursday; did I mention?) I caught one of the Saint Louis Symph Orch's concerts at Carnegie. It was a magical evening: I showed up at the box office just as someone was giving away comps in Parterre Row U! (The concert was nice too.) Huzzah for not planning ahead.

Sometime during intermission the empty seat next to me was filled by a young man with program, pen and digital camera in hand. Something about his set-up seemed strangely familiar. When David Robertson came out, the camera went up. During the applause between pieces, furtive photos were taken and quickly reviewed with head bowed over the tiny screen. During the Doctor Atomic Symphony my peripheral vision caught sight of frantic scribbles in the program. Either he's an obsessive-compulsive, I thought, or...

"Pardon me," I said as we stood to put on our coats, "but do you happen to have a blog?" I had considered at one point taking a photo of him taking a photo of the stage, because watching him felt uncomfortably like watching myself in a funhouse mirror. (For Peter Matthews' post about the concert, visit Feast of Music.)

Photo from Anne-Carolyn Bird's Sing for Hope birthday concert benefiting The Children's Aid Society, which offers tuition-free musical training for under-served children in the New York area