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Monday, November 23, 2009

Arts and Eats!

Oh what a night! We had another incredible Arts and Eats event on November 20th 2009 at the UM Alumni Center and with nearly 100 students in attendance, a great time was had by all! The following are just a sampling of some of the photos Lu Huang took of the event. The rest can be found on the UMS facebook page!

Ishay Amir gave a short informational speech about Yasmin Levy and her unique style of music.

Ishay Amir with an Arts and Eat-er and UMS staffers, Liz Stover and Stephanie Normann.

UMSSC Member, Sayan Bhattacharyya, volunteered and helped serve drinks to some thirsty Arts and Eat-ers!

A group of student's enjoying Arts and Eats!


Want to get in on the fun for Handel's Messiah on December 5th? Join us at the UM Alumni Center from 6:30pm to 7:30pm for pizza, drink, a brief talk by conductor and former UM School of Music, Theatre, and Dance faculty member, Joseph Bloom, and time to mingle with other students! Tickets and dinner only cost 15 dollars and can be purchased online at the UMS Student Page or at the Michigan League ticket office. Limit of two tickets per student and the offer expires on Wednesday, December 2nd at noon.

By: Rachel Lum
UMS Intern

Photos: All rights reserved: Lu Huang 2009
For more information, contact huanglu@umich.edu
Images licensed to UMS for all official uses.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Berliner Philharmoniker: A Dream Come True

This is a big moment in my life! Can’t believe I was sitting in the grand auditorium waiting for the world’s best orchestra to show up. The interaction between Berliner Phiharmoniker and UMS dates back to as early as 1955, however its most recent appearance was already 8 years ago. Back then I was just a school kid playing lousy accordion, never dreamed of watching a prestigious orchestra performing live. Now I’m here in Ann Arbor, going to witness Berliner Philharmoniker playing right in front of my eyes. Amazing!

Honestly, I didn’t listen to Brahms that much. I agreed that his symphonies are rigorously structured and thoughtful in its own ways, but they’re somehow not as exciting compared to his contemporaries and some predecessors – there’s no buzz. However, tonight’s performance completely changed my mind. It commenced with Brahms’ Symphony #3. I like the slow movement a lot. The theme of Andante is very gentle and lyrical, recalling other romantic composers’ style like Schumann’s, while being performed by BPO the progression kinda gave a feeling of magnificence and grandness, creating the illusion that I was listening to one of Beethoven’s movements. The poco allegretto began with a well-known theme, introduced by cellos and followed up by violins. It seemed to depict that the composer is deep in meditation, and is recalling his old memories. The melody seemed to be accompanied by a feeling of sorrow and tragedy, an emotion not expressed in the previous movement. It’s eased a bit by bright and gentle melodies, but comes back soon and dominates the mood of this movement. The ending of the 3rd movement is graceful and poetic, yet the tragic feelings are prolonged.



I got a strong feeling that Brahms is a man with romanticism rooted in his personality, as in numerous paragraphs in his works I sensed grace and lyricism underlying the music which really catch people’s emotions. And yet he had rigorous ways to develop themes, and inherited classical symphony form and structure. He was a synthesis of romantic nature and the spirit of the classical, in which way he shares many characteristics with his predecessor Beethoven.

The sound was just wonderful, combined with the acoustics of the concert hall. The solo parts of flute, oboe and horn were extraordinary throughout the performance. In fact, the players of woodwinds and brass were asked to stand up and receive a hall of applause. I was sitting on the balcony, and it still sounds so great. I can’t imagine how fantastic the sound would be down the floor. Many thanks to UMS for everything they’ve done to make all these happen. It feels so good when your dream come true!

By Allen Wang,
UMS Student Committee Member

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Danke schön, Berliner Philharmoniker!

It seems like so many of this year's concerts at UMS have been "the best concert I've ever seen" - Alisa Weilerstein & Inon Barnaton, Stile Antico, Belcea Quartet, St. Lawrence Quartet...so in that sense, the Berliner Philharmoniker was just another day at the office.



But in another, more important sense, it was completely different from almost any other orchestral concert I've ever attended. Everyone onstage, from the concertmaster to the percussionist whose only task was to play the triangle in the 3rd movement of Brahms 4, gave 110% throughout the entire concert. These are musicians at the peak of their abilities, doing what they love. I couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than the cello opening of the 3rd movement of Brahms 3...until the oboe started playing. Instrument after instrument came in, each with their own uniquely beautiful sounds. It was such a colorful performance - all the differences of the orchestra came through, with each player playing the most he or she could offer on the instrument. At the end of the 3rd symphony, I felt as if I had emerged from a completely different world.

Danke schön, Berliner Philharmoniker!

By: Paula Muldoon
UMS Marketing Intern

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Yasmin Levy and Gal Costa: Some thoughts



Over there at Arts at Michigan's "[art]seen" blog, Krithika Srinivasan posted a preview of Yasmin Levy's concert, in which she made the observation that "Traditional Ladino music is similar to Portuguese fado and Spanish flamenco".

Coming as Yasmin Levy's performance did on the heels of the Gal Costa concert last week, Krithika's comment set me thinking.

Gal Costa had, among other things, sung the beautiful bossa nova song by Tom Jobim, "A Felicidade", which begins: "Tristeza nao tem fim, felicidade sim" ("Sadness has no end, happiness does").

This somewhat melancholy take on the world and on existence is, actually, quite characteristic of bossa nova.

Even when singing of happy things, the bossa nova musician's underlying palette seems always to be constituted of melancholy, autumnal colors.

As Krithika indirectly suggests, the Ladino music that Levy sang did have distinct similarities to the fado genre of Portugal (e.g. check out the songs of the great Amália Rodrigues), which also has this sense of melancholy. The morna genre of Cabo Verde (Cape Vert), a former Portuguese colony where the language is a Portuguese-based creole (e.g. check out the songs of Cesária Évora), also shows this sensibility.

We can think of another classic _bossa nova_ song that Gal Costa also sang (in both Portuguese and English) that evening: "Garota de Ipanema" ("The Girl from Ipanema"), also by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. Notice how the underlying sentiment is one of melancholy:

Olha que coisa mais linda,
Mais cheia de graça,
É ela a menina que vem e que passa,
num doce balanço a caminho do mar.
Moça do corpo dourado do sol de Ipanema,
O seu balançado é mais que um poema,
É a coisa mais linda que eu já vi passar.

Ah, por que estou tão sozinho?
Ah, por que tudo é tão triste?
Ah, a beleza que existe,
A beleza que não é só minha,
Que também passa sozinha.

Ah, se ela soubesse
Que, quando ela passa,
O mundo inteirinho se enche de graça
E fica mais lindo por causa do amor,
Por causa do amor, por causa do amor...

Tall and tanned and young and lovely,
the girl from Ipanema goes walking
and when she passes
each man she passes
says "Aaah!"

When she moves it's like a samba
that swings so cool and sways so gently
that when she passes
each man she passes
says "Aaah!"

[ Oh -- but he watches so sadly,
How -- can he tell her he loves her,
He -- would just give his heart gladly,

But each day when she walks to the sea
She looks straight ahead, not at he,

Tall and tanned and young and lovely
the girl from Ipanema goes walking,
and when she passes
he smiles,
but she doesn't see.]



(Here's a YouTube video of "Garota de Ipanema" sung by Joaõ Gilberto and Caetano Veloso, by the way. And here's the English version, sung by Astrud Gilberto.)

It occurred to me during the concert that flamenco and the ladino tradition are also examples of the "melancholy as an underlying state" -- this is especially true of the song "Adio Kerida" [Farewell my Beloved] that Yasmin Levy sang at the concert.

This sense of melancholy seems to be historically there in the entire
Iberian peninsula (both Spain and Portugal), and in many musical genres of the hispanophone and lusophone worlds: in flamenco, in ladino music, in fado, in morna, and even, as we saw, in the bossa nova.

What could have been the reason for this? Exile and the sense of loss (as in the case of the gypsies who were/are such an important part of flamenco, and the diasporic sephardic jews who were associated with ladino music), certainly played a role.

But I think that the strong influence of the Catholic church (with its teaching
that wordly glory is always transient and passing) in Spain and Portugal probably also had something to do with this general cultural ethos.

This also reminds me of the somewhat related phenomenon of the valorization of death in Iberian and Latin American culture. Interesting in that regard is the
following story
that I came across some time ago.

Incidentally, Ruth Behar, a professor at UM, made a documentary film some time ago with the title "Adio Kerida", borrowing from the same traditional ladino song with this title that Yasmin Levy sang at the concert. You can read about that film here.


By: Sayan Bhattacharyya
UMSSC Member

Friday, November 06, 2009

Gal Costa and Romero Lubambo in Ann Arbor, Nov 7

Gal Costa and Romero Lubambo will be performing at 7 pm at the Hill Auditorium on Saturday Nov 7 at 8 pm. She's already made it into town -- I went today to hear her being interviewed today at UM's Clements Library, by a couple of UM professors.




At the interview, Gal Costa talked about her almost 40-years-long collaboration with the musicians Maria Bethania, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso. (I have written elsewhere about Gilberto Gil's concert in Ann Arbor last year.) The four of them constituted the Tropicalia movement in the 1960s and 197os Brazil. When a right-wing military dictatorship took power in Brazil, the Tropicalia movement was persecuted by the military junta. Not because the four of them were overtly political, but because, with their openness and experimentalism, the four artists musically represented a spirit of a challenge to authority, which made them automatically suspect.

Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso had to leave the country and go into exile in London. Gal Costa, however, was able to stay in Brazil, where she continued to sing songs that Gil and Veloso were writing in Brazil. I learned, however, at the interview that one of Gal Costa's albums, nevertheless, was banned by the dictatorship. This was her album "India", which is shown below:




One of my favorite songs sung by Gal Costa is "London, London", written by Caetano Veloso (from the period when he was in exile in London). You can see here a video of Gal Costa singing this song.

By: Sayan Bhattacharyya
UMS Student Committee Member

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Pizza with Yasmin Levy

Ladino singer and world wide superstar, Yasmin Levy, is coming November 14th at 8pm to Hill Auditorium! The Ladino style spurs from the Judeo-Spanish tradition, which Levy then mixes with the more current Andalucian Flamenco, giving her music an increidlby unique sound.


Get a preview on the UMS youtube page!


The Yasmin Levy performance is also an Arts and Eats Event, meaning you can get great seats and a meal for only 15 dollars! Enjoy pizza and pop, a talk about the performance by an expert and there will be a photographer at the event snapping photos to be posted here on the blog and on the UMS facebook page! See you there!

Stile Antico

Stile Antico was amazing! They held my attention throughout the entire performance - a rare and impressive feat for an early music (or any) group. Their sound was absolutely beautiful, incredibly blended and with flawless ensemble. More importantly, they clearly had a passion for the music they were singing. One of the best concerts I've been to - can't wait to hear them again!

By: Paula Muldoon
UMS Intern