We last saw Jesse Stewart play in November and much of what I said then still holds: he's creative, playful, and extremely talented. This concert was originally slated to be part of a jazz festival in Guelph last year; I'm glad it was shifted, because we don't tend to go to see jazz music. (Many artists I like do jazz some of the time; I like the artists; but once it's called jazz, I'm predisposed to dislike it. I'm working on this prejudice. Slowly.)

The concert was improv between Jesse Stewart and Michael Snow, with a 40-minute piece and a 20-minute "encore." It felt to me like it gradually got better over the hour; it took me a while to get into the swing of it, and I think they were intentionally starting off with less exciting collaboration- Michael playing the piano and Jesse making percussion with drums, bowls, and a Waterphone. ...Then, Michael brought out the mallets and started striking and plucking the inside of the piano. I've heard John Cage's "prepared piano", but I have never seen the inside of a piano worked the way Michael did. My favourite bit: he dropped tin cans inside and we saw them bounce around when they were "played" (I've, um, heard that before; but it was my own family's grand piano and my Lego pieces; last night's audience was considerably more appreciative than mine had been.)

At one point, Jesse used a short length of hollow pipe to rub on the bottom of a wet mixing bowl, then he used it for percussion when the bowl was sitting in water, then he rubbed the pipe on the edge of the bowl, and then he used the pipe as a pan-flute.

During a quieter portion of the second piece, he walked over to his drum set making quiet rhythms, and the floor creaked, and you could see the same "aha" on his face as he was working his instruments; for the next 15 seconds he played drums and the floor by rocking back and forth.

If that wasn't my favourite part, it was the very last two notes, when they hadn't quite decided who would finish, and Michael hit one more note and giggled.

I was surprised to discover that Michael Snow is, um, a national icon- a sculptor and movie maker as well as musician- and because I don't spend much time in the Eaton Centre in Toronto, I didn't remember he's the sculptor who made the suspended Canada Geese there.

melted_snowball and I caught a Thursday-evening concert at KWCMS, the Chambet Music Society. Neither of us had been to that concert space before. It was essentially a living-room attic with 80 chairs in it and good acoustics and lighting. The performers had good things to say about the high ceiling. It felt intimate, though not warm- while I was OK, d. was incredibly cold, and he didn't warm up much during the concert. But the woman sitting next to me said that usually it's much warmer and often too warm.

This was my third time seeing Patricia O'Callaghan sing. The first time, at Open Ears in the King Street Theatre, blew me away- it was all Leonard Cohen songs, and I liked them all more than Cohen's versions. The second time, at the Guelph Festival, was a large affair with a full band, and she sang a wider repertoire, which I liked about half of, but I bought two of her CDs. I just bought her third CD, and between them, I don't think I've heard her sing more than one or two songs that aren't on the CDs.

She sang well, I think. She was accompanied by a pianist and bassist, who make up her traveling backup band. The pianist had two solos by Poulenc, in the second half. The two sets had Cohen pieces mixed throughout: "Take this Waltz," "I'm your Man," "The Gypsy Wife," and an encore of "Hallelujah." These, and the Magnetic Fiends' "Book of Love," were my favourites, because I'm not so much a jazzy-cabaret kind of guy. The rest of the concert was roughly themed. Mostly Kurt Weill in the first set, in German and English. In the second set, French singers and composers in the first half (Piaf's "La Vie en Rose", Poulenc's "Hommage a Edith Piaf"), and three Ladino folk songs at the end.

Even though I'm not a jazzy cabaret kind of guy, I enjoyed the Weill and the Ladino songs (which she translated; some were amusing and I have a bit of context for the tunes on the CD now).

I loved the "living-room concert" feel; she has a stage-presence and I think she's attractive (if not traditionally so) And she was pointing directly at me during "I'm your Man" which is a fun gender-bendy image. ("Here I stand / I'm your man / If you want a boxer / I will step into the ring for you" as she makes a fist directly at me, four rows and 15 feet away...)

And the encore was what I hoped she'd play when it didn't appear on the program (she does have a beautiful voice for Cohen songs!)

We left into the frigid wind and came home and got under the covers.

DaCapo played a concert this evening, titled "One: In the Beginning."

The first piece was "Calme" by Leonard Enns, the conductor; it had wonderful dissonances and harmonies, as well as some improvisation.

A Credo by Einojuhani Rautavaara (Finnish) felt overly long (or overly slow), but I liked a quote from him in the program: "music is great if, at some moment, the listener catches 'a glimpse of eternity through the window of time'... This, to my mind, is the only true justification for art. All else is of secondary importance." I can get behind that.

There was an Aaron Copland ("In the Beginning") that I liked less than other of his work, although the soloist mezzo-soprano was very good. And there was an OK Russian piece that also felt long.

After the intermission, there was "The Peacable Kingdom", by Randall Thompson, inspired by the painting of the same name by the Quaker, Edward Hicks. It's a surprisingly violent piece for the painting it was inspired by; lots of woe and howling. But in the 6th section, things pick up and there is a wonderful part from Isaiah 55:12 "the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" where "clap their hands" turns into a round, very joyful and playful. And it ends with an even more joyful Isaiah 40:21 "Have ye not known? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning?" Isaiah 30:29 "Ye shall have a song, as in the night when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goeth with a pipe to come into the mountain of the Lord."

The last piece in the program was Holst's "Nunc Dimittis", less joyful but wonderful harmonies.

The encore was a composer I didn't recognize or copy down the name of, so I'll have to only say that I enjoyed it.

The concert was well-sung, as usual- Leonard Enns was a bit chattier than usual, though they started precisely at 8 and the intermission was only 10 minutes, which I think melted_snowball will be happy to hear. :)

Accompanied by the ever-chipper chezmax (even though he somehow has a cold? And was bouncy anyway? I don't get it, but I'm not complaining in the slightest, as he was wonderful company!)

What's it say when I have no posts about two nights of great Open Ears concerts, but I'm roused to say "wow that sucked" for one afternoon concert? I guess it means I don't know how to describe good music. Or, I like complaining.

Anyway. Yeah. Wow. Both dan's and my spidey-senses were tingling as we walked into the venue for "Zs", but we decided to sit down anyway. The first time I asked dan if we should leave was when I couldn't tell if they were still playing or between songs and tuning. The second time was after I decided I could fall asleep with no qualms or guilt. Then realized I could also get up and walk out with no guilt.

They didn't look like they were having fun at all, either.

A quick concert review. If I have time, I'll go back and fill in details and links later, but I know if I start that now I'll fall asleep before I finish it.

This evening, after the last talks, eight or so people from the conference headed up to Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park to see the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma. This was a free concert to inaugurate an upcoming year of Silk Road events, including theatre, museum shows, concerts, and festivals, and lucky us, they kicked off tonight.

I have no idea how many people were actually present. The pavilion has seating for 17,000 (I think), and the few acres of grass outside were pretty full of blankets and chairs. But the concert-space is.. by far.. the best outdoor venue I've ever been in. (I've got to find a good representative pic to put here).

There were about 30 huge speakers suspended over the entire venue, very high quality; and three huge video screens suspended over the stage. This worked well. It's also beautiful, with the most elaborate permanant stage I've ever seen, indoor or out.

The concert was short (before encore) but they played three extra pieces in the encore. By the title of the ensemble, I was expecting mostly Chinese music, but there were only ~3 Chinese pieces. One Asian-influenced piece was commissioned for the Chronos Quartet; called "Gallop of a Thousand Horses" (I don't know whether to count that as a Chinese piece but it did sound it). There was a single Italian piece by Giovanni Gabrieli, performed by the Chicago Symphony Brass Quartet. There was tabla improv with string accompaniment which worked quite well; they had a guest tabla player from India named Sandeep Das who collaborated with local students on this piece. Most tabla sounds... monotonous to me. But this piece had "movements" which I could recognize, and I liked the string accompaniment (who knew: viola plus tabla?). This was probably my favorite piece.

There were three or so pieces of Roma music, which I wasn't as impressed with. There was an Indian piece which included a Chicago dance theatre. They didn't translate to video all so well, as far as I could tell.

There were a mixed group of people in their 50s and 60s right behind us who seemed to be getting quite into their cups (well, wine glasses) by the end. Otherwise, the crowd was fine. Very mixed crowd. i was surprised at the number of younger adults, people in their 20s and 30s.

There was a special moment, during a piece called "Swallow Song" where a gull started calling, almost in response to the soaring music. And another gull took passes overhead, trying to figure out how to get at all of that picnic food even though the space was really full of humans too.

it didn't rain, though it was threatening the entire time.

After, we took the train to Chinatown. The plan was to find a reasonably-close place that looked good from outside, but while we were walking, one person in our group (who is a bit... outgoing) politely asked an elderly Chinese couple we were walking past if they recommended anywhere for dinner.

They were headed to their favorite place and invited us along with them (down two blocks, and I imagined the gangsters jumping out of the alley and paying them off before mugging us); The restaurant looked like not-much from the outside but it turned out to be considerably better than I expected, and darn cheap too. (insert name here).

Over dinner we mostly talked about designing cities better (with less sprawl), ecology and water conservation, and open-source software. I made sure the group all added their names to the conference wiki page for the concert, since I expect I'd enjoy future conversations with them and I barely learned one name over dinner.

And now, to bed, since tomorrow starts early.

I've not read d.'s travelogues today (heck, I've not caught up on his 15-post set last week) so apologies if there's overlap.

Yesterday ( was great )

But today ( kicked ass )

Arvo Pärt's Beatitudes really kick ass. We heard the Elora Festival Singers perform an all-Pärt concert this evening. The Beatitudes were definitely the best part. It wasn't quite "wiping tears from my eyes" beautiful, but just nearly. I need to listen to d's CD version to see if it compares to hearing it live. This performance/setting had less organ than the first time I heard it (by Da Capo, this spring) and I think I liked tonight's better.