The Lunar New Year with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra
Lunar New Year is the most important Chinese holiday, celebrated throughout the diaspora including in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and more. The Nashville Symphony—under the direction of Associate Conductor Nathan Aspinal, and in cooperation with the Chinese Arts Alliance, API Middle Tennessee, and The Porch—presented its first Lunar New Year with the Nashville Symphony concert on February 7, 2024 at 7:30 p.m. at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.
The Schermerhorn was beautifully adorned with bright red traditional Lunar New Year decorations, and API Middle Tennessee distributed lovely decorative red envelopes called hóngbāo to event attendees. Traditionally, people give hóngbāo as gifts to friends and family filled with money or other presents for the Lunar New Year. Before the start of the evening’s concert, the event featured an Asian market in the West lobby by vendors like This One Character (fun gifts), Jadeiva (mother/daughter jewelry), Poonam Crafts, Japan Miscellaneous (Japanese gifts), and API Middle Tennessee (fortune telling and paper lantern designed station).
For the concert, Laura Turner Concert Hall received a red accented lighting scheme, signifying the prominent red color of the Lunar New Year iconography. The musical program included Asian diasporic works by Li Huanzhi (1919–2000), Chen Gang (b. 1935) and He Zhanhao (b. 1933), Kelly Tang (b. 1961), a traditional arrangement by Phoon Yew Tien (b. 1952), and Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971). Writers Jing Geng (Nashville attorney), JR Robles (actor, writer, filmmaker), and Ben Tran (Vanderbilt University) authored a large program note in essay form inside of the program leaflet called “About the Concert.” It is an excellent read since it discusses how the composers listed contributed to the unfolding merging and integration of the Western orchestra into the Chinese musical diaspora.
First, Li’s Spring Festival Overture was the perfect opening since the term “Spring Festival” is significant to the event’s theme. The eve of the Lunar New Year kicks off the fifteen-day Spring Festival celebration. Spring Festival Overture interprets Chinese folk music using Western musical styles and orchestration. Namely, Li draws from two distinct Northern Shaanxi folk dances illustrating a lively celebration of the Lunar New Year. Composed between 1955 and 1956, Li’s Spring Festival Overture was partly this evening’s sonic backdrop for a gorgeous display of traditional Chinese dance—or a classical style of Chinese dance that developed in ancient imperial China that includes organic movements, elaborate costumes, and music—led by choreographer and founder/director of the Chinese Arts Alliance of Nashville (CAAN) Jen-Jen Lin.
A highlight from the evening’s performance was Chen and He’s The Butterfly Lovers, featuring world-renowned musician and erhu virtuoso Ma Xiaohui. The erhu is a traditional Chinese classical instrument with two strings bowed similarly to a violin. Composed in 1959, The Butterfly Lovers is originally a concerto for violin and orchestra, but the substitution of Ma’s stunning performance on the erhu was memorizing. The erhu, often described as having a wonderfully organic, vocal-like timbre, offered audiences a memorable listening experience. After The Butterfly Lovers, Ma followed up with a fun and fiery arrangement of a traditional fiddle-like tune called Horse Racing.
Tang’s Sketches of Singapore features four songs that are easily recognizable to Singaporeans: “Stand Up for Singapore,” “Rasa Sayang,” “Where I Belong,” and “Di Tanjong Katong (In Turtle Point).” The contemporary setting of Tang’s piece, specifically in its orchestration, is reminiscent of some of the ceremonial and commemorative works of composer John Williams. However, to Tang’s credit, Sketches of Singapore successfully seemed to evoke a sense of pride and maybe even nostalgia for audiences despite whether individuals had any previous connection to Singapore. The contrasting sections of the piece, each highlighting one of the existing songs stated above, elicited in audiences’ moods between celebrative joy, introspections, gratitude, and commemoration.
The Nashville Symphony capped off the program with Stravinsky’s The Firebird, and one might scratch their head wondering, “What does Stravinsky have to do with Lunar New Year?” Nothing really, but the program notes offered some intertext between The Butterfly Lovers and The Firebird, saying that both pieces:
…. are musical folktales of their respective traditions. Both had thrust their composers from youthful obscurity directly into the public eye. And both pieces earned their notoriety—the former as the most played concerto written in the 20th century (albeit, until recent years, solely in China), the latter as a groundbreaking work on the international ballet stage—through unapologetically direct and immediate emotional appeal.
Additionally, both Butterfly Lovers composer Chen and Stravinsky’s musical creativity partly stems from the same source of influence since each studied under Russian composers—Stravinsky under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Chen under mostly Russian immigrants in Shanghai.
Based on Russian folklore about a magical bird with golden feathers and crystal eyes, Stravinsky’s programmatic inspiration sonically frames a story of a prince who wants to free thirteen imprisoned princesses by an evil sorcerer. The firebird casts spells on the story’s villain and his guards through dancing, helping free the captive princesses. The Nashville Symphony’s concertized (music without dancing) performance of The Firebird was an exemplary exposition of its musical themes and leitmotifs—or short recurring musical phrases associated with characters or narrative ideas. The Firebird is known for Stravinsky’s employment of metric irregularity, which often commands audiences’ attention and concentration. From the musicians, audiences heard many of the piece’s extended playing techniques like ponticello (strings bow close to the bridge), col legno (strings hit strings with the wood of the bow), flautando (strings bow towards the fingerboard), glissando (long ascending or descending sliding gestures), and fluttertongue—or flutter tongue—(for wind instruments, the player rolls their tongue while playing). All sections of the orchestra performed The Firebird beautifully.
During my Uber ride home, I reflected on the entirety of the evening. It was more than just a concert; it was an enlightening, fun, and entertaining artistic-cultural event. For those who missed this inaugural Lunar New Year with the Nashville Symphony, be sure to attend next year!
The MCR Interview:
The African Company Presents Richard III: Interview with Director Lawrence James
Dr Lawrence James is directing a staged reading of The African Company Presents Richard III with the Nashville Shakespeare Festival at the Darkhorse Theatre February 22-24. This is a slightly edited transcription of his phone conversation with Grace Krenz on February 15, 2024.
Grace Krenz: When I first saw on the Nashville Shakespeare Festival website, The African Company Presents Richard III, I got very confused despite its clear title, because I was like, “is this the Nashville Shakespeare Festival or is it the African Company, which is in Nashville, presenting Richard III? Then I googled it and was like, “oh, it’s a play by Carlyle Brown and it sounds absolutely fascinating.” So, could you talk us through a little bit of the history?
LJ: Yeah, it is a fascinating story and I’m just so glad that Carlyle Brown tried to bring it to life in some way. The history of the play itself is that it concerns a true incident in New York City in 1821, where a troupe of free African American actors mounted a production of Shakespeare’s Richard III, and the play did attain critical and financial success. But then a larger white company, the well-established Park Theatre, during that time, connives to shut the production of the African Company down, to prevent competition with its own production of Richard III at the same time. And so the play focuses in on the company of African American actors. They go through their typical rehearsals and look at the reviews, and war about their roles, and how successful they are, and their costumes and all the other things that all actors go through. And at the same time they fill in a lot of their own background details, of their own special circumstances. For example, most of them work and they have other jobs, particularly the ladies, who work as domestics and so they talk about their servitude and a couple of the major characters are from the West Indies. And so the play does go back in time through memory in some moments there, and back to the present. You have some element of attempts at romance, but it really focuses in on their lives as actors, as African Americans, in 1821 America, and the dissonance and the happy times too: the positives of being free African Americans, but having to try to put on a show and to compete, of course, with a much more established white company and some of the famous actors that they’re bringing in from Europe and whatnot. So it is history, but it’s also character study, personalities of Blacks during this time.
GK: Wow, that sounds fascinating. Was the African Company a newer theater when they started to put on Richard III? Had they been established for a while?
LJ: Yes they had, the company had been founded by William Brown. He was a free African American coming from the West Indies. The company would put on plays regularly and they had a very good following of Blacks in New York during that time. In fact, Brown used his own home and the plays would be done in his backyard, particularly on Sunday evenings, and so you have a lot of the Blacks coming in as a Sunday outing. People would be in their Sunday finery, and so in addition to maybe going out to get some ice cream or something like that they would go and gather in Brown’s backyard and see these plays. So yes, they had done a number of shows.
GK: And so when they were presenting Richard III and being successful at that, were they still doing it in his yard, had they rented a theater or some other location?
LJ: Well, this is where it gets to be interesting. Yes, they would rent a theater, and they were going bigger now. They were being more expensive. So they’d started in the backyard, and then they went and they would begin to rent space. And here in the play, where the conflict gets real, they rent a ballroom in a hotel right next to the Park Theatre, where the other Richard III was being presented. And so you have quite a conflict here with the managers, Brown being the manager of the African Grove Company, and Richard Sheraton being the manager of the Park Theatre, and the police get involved, so it has some interesting twists and an ending to it.
GK: It’s kind of meta in a Shakespearean way of having the play within the play. I find it funny if the villain is gonna be the leader of the white theater, his name is Richard and the villain of Richard III is Richard. That’s just very tidy, I like that.
LJ: [Laughs] Yes, that’s right.
GK: Now was this the first Shakespeare play that the African Company did, or was this one of many?
LJ: This was one of the first Shakespeare plays that they had done. They had done some other original things there, and then near the end of the play we find out that Brown becomes motivated to write some more plays. So no, this was not their first play, but it was one of their first Shakespearean productions that they did.
GK: So these two competing theaters are trying to, instead of doing a dance-off, do an act-off. Was there a big disparity between the manner of their presentation, or the sort of costumes or attitudes going into it?
LJ: Well, in regards to the black actors, that’s a part of the story. One of the themes, or the subplots here, and I’ll kinda jump forward and say, [Carlyle] Brown introduces his play with the poem “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar. And in that poem the persona says, “We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks…” Then it goes on, “And why should the world be overwise? We grin and we smile but oh what all we have to bear,” and then it ends with “we wear the mask.” So the play is not that specifically about performing Richard III, even though there are some monologues and some scenes. It’s more about the characters and their joy, for some, in performing, but the dissonance and the conflict that others have in, you know, I have to say “yes sir” and “yes ma’am” and bow and do my servitude and clean the house and cook and do all of these things, and then I come and I play Lady Anne or I play a King Richard, or this other person who I’m not able to “be” or show to the real world. And so that’s really the story. Once again, there are a few scenes and monologues from Shakespeare’s play, but the story is really the company’s story: who they see themselves as, and where they came from, and what they do with their jobs and their relationship with the majority-white world, how they play that. And then, coming to try to be an artist and perform a great piece of art, but how is the character in Richard III different from the character in real life? And that is really the story.
GK: Dang, that is really interesting. I feel like this play seems to be covering one of those gaps in our education or historical understanding. I feel like at least, growing up, I never heard about the plight of African Americans living in New York City forty years prior to the Civil War. So I don’t have a good understanding of what their legal status would be like in the city. “Free,” but unable to vote. But how does that come across if you’re a tenant, or you’re trying to rent a ballroom? Did they come across some of the difficulties of what later would be segregation in the South, or were they more free at that time?
LJ: You know, that’s a great question. From the play itself we don’t get a lot about the kinds of experiences they may have as far as going about everyday life. Some of the characters do relay about some of the white people that they work for, and what that experience is like. And so there’s some positives, but they also talk about the negatives of that. It does relate some of the problems of being out in groups and maybe some of the harassment that comes about by the police if you’ve got too many Blacks during this time gathering. And oh, especially, of course, when you have the Blacks that do protest the Park Theatre, and that’s a serious conflict that comes about. But other than that, as far as being able to rent the ballroom next door to the Park Theatre, as one of the characters says, “As long as we’ve got some green,” some money, they will rent it to you. So only in the instances where there’s a gathering and particularly, when the Blacks are protesting, do we get a feel of the law of the police coming down on them. But other than that, we are told about their everyday life working, about the Sundays when they’re free and they’re able to dress up and go promenading out to the park and whatnot. So there’s kind of a balance between the negatives of being Black in New York during this time. And of course they were “free” Blacks, but of course there were some problems that were experienced there. But no, I think the play kind of balances it out with the positives and some of the negatives.
GK: So I looked up this play and saw it was first published in 1994. How did you first come across it?
LJ: I was familiar with the play and with the story. You know, it’s such a great and intriguing title, as you say, we look at The African Company Presents Richard III, so I was familiar with the script, but it really came into focus by way of Denice Hicks and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival. Denice has served on our theater advisory board for a number of years, and that was one of the ideas that she had brought some time ago, several years ago. She was interested in talking about it, “you know, this is such a great script, I’d love for us to think about doing it.” So it came about this past year, well maybe two years ago, that we really sat down and we talked about it. In fact, there was supposed to be an actual staged performance of this play, this month, at this time, here on the campus of TSU, as a collaboration between our theater program and university, and Nashville Shakespeare Festival. However, it fell through at the last minute, and was primarily by way of TSU. Nashville Shakespeare did an awesome job of stepping forward, really wanting to do something for the community, for the university, for the students, as well as for them, because they do do those kinds of things with other universities as well. So that was actually scheduled during this time slot here, but as I said, that fell through, and so Nashville Shakes decided to at least go with a staged reading of the play, off-campus, without any ties to TSU.
GK: Would you describe the difference between doing a staged reading and a full-fledged performance?
LJ: Sure. Well, you know, staged productions rely on a very inextricable relationship or balance of dialogue, conversation, character, interplay, paired with physical action, character business, to tell the story. The staged reading has very limited movement and there’s a variety of styles of staged reading, where you have the cast sit with the folders or the script and just read, other variations maybe you have the cast reading with reading stands or reading and up and doing actions. So there’s a lot of different variations with that, but the focus is more on the reading and creating the action through the dialogue of the characters with limited physical movement. Whereas of course, in the staged production, action and business of the characters tell the story in conjunction with the dialogue and the words of the script.
GK: For your performance, not to ask you to give spoilers or anything, but what sort of style of staged reading will you go with?
LJ: We’ll see what we’ll do with the script and with reading stands and whatnot. We’re exploring the space and the stage so I’m finalizing some thoughts. I’m thinking that we’re probably going to be using scripts with movement. It will still be a reading: acting and performance with some movement to tell the story, but we won’t be just sitting, reading, the entire script. No, there will be some movement, blocking, action, along with the actors using the script as they play the characters.
GK: As an artistic director, how is directing a staged reading compared to directing a fully staged performance?
LJ: Of course they are similar in ultimately being able to tell the story, bring the script to life, actualizing it in performance: well what did Shakespeare intend in Richard III, what does Brown intend in the African Company Presents? A major difference is getting the audience to visualize in the staged reading. That is, getting the audience to see the action of the play primarily through hearing, with some movement as opposed to seeing live action. So there’s more emphasis, I think, on the language, on the imagery, and the actors being able to color those images vocally. So that implies a lot of vocal agility, vocal expression, facial expression, without taking the play completely out of the mind of the audience. So it’s that balance of language, the creation of language, imagery, action, without losing the story, because the actors do have the script in hand, and so, you know, how literal are you? How much movement there? So it’s a balancing act. Vocal, life, with some suggestions of movement, to get the audience to see the action in their minds. And some of it visually too, to a limited degree.
GK: Well excellent. Now I think that I went through all the questions I had, but do you have any question that you think I should have asked and that you have a good answer for?
LJ: [Laughs] No not really, I’ve enjoyed talking with you. I’m appreciative of you doing this, we’re looking forward to it. But yes, I think that there’s a lot to be learned in this show; it’s history, it is life, it is the past but it also is the present as well. And I think that those who come and see will be glad that they did. And who knows, in the future maybe we’ll get an opportunity to actually do a staged production of the play. That would be wonderful.
GK: That would be fantastic. I’m looking forward to seeing the show! Thank you for speaking with me and taking time out of your day!
LJ: Thank you!
Tina Turner – The Tina Turner Musical
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical is a biographical jukebox musical, covering her life from her childhood to her fifties, ending at her record-breaking performance in Rio De Janeiro in front of 180,000 fans. Tina’s life was not easy. The musical starts in her childhood. She is born Anna-Mae in Nutbush, Tennessee, and after her mother leaves her violent father, she is abandoned by both to live with her grandmother until her late teens when she moves to St. Louis to live with her mother and sister. After she sings powerfully when offered the mic at a show, she gets the attention of Ike Turner, who has written the hit song “Rocket 88.” He brings her into his band and quickly dominates her. He ends a seemingly healthy relationship with another member of the band, changes the name of the band to the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, making her take on the stage name of Tina Turner, and finally convinces her to marry him. He is openly unfaithful, addicted to drugs, and beats her and her two sons. She finally, at the end of the first act, breaks out of the terrible marriage to freedom and safety. The second act shows her struggling to get by after the financial hits of divorce, losing her band with Ike, and lawsuits, then her development, with the help of her manager Roger Davies, into her new sound, hair, and solo success.
This adaptation of her life to a two-act musical keeps things simple; except for a brief moment at the beginning when we see mature Tina preparing to go onstage, events occur chronologically, avoiding the confusing pitfalls of artificial frame stories and the lurching momentum of flashbacks. I appreciated this clarity of the story’s presentation. Its pacing never slowed, but sometimes I wish it did; we never got to see Tina in repose, at her ease with family or friends. Her every moment is action or plot; the show communicates the events of her young life more than it does who she is. After seeing the show, I can tell you that Tina Turner became a strong woman who achieved great success despite overwhelming difficulties of abuse, racism, and starting her career over, that she’s worthy of respect and her music is lasting– but I can’t tell you what sort of personality she had, what made her laugh, what she for fun, or how she was as a mother or friend. I also wish that we had gotten to see more of her being happy in her success, and more of her relationship with Erwin Bach, the German music executive who became her second husband, and who was with her for almost 40 years, until her death in 2023. While we see much of Ike, we saw little of Bach, who even gave her one of his kidneys when she was seriously ill in 2017. Tina Turner did write multiple memoirs, and there’s a biographical film from the 90’s, so perhaps the creators of this musical didn’t intend to cover every aspect of her story.
The musical is full of Tina Turner’s iconic hits, some diegetic and some not. I preferred the diegetic songs, when we got to see the costumes and dancing, the energetic stage presence of Tina Turner performed by the lively Zurin Villanueva. The songs are not placed chronologically, so characters sing 80’s ballads in the 1960’s, undercutting the contrast of her reinvention. Some of the song lyrics feel slightly out of context, and in one scene, after Ike brutally hits both his wife and son, he sings “Be Tender With Me Baby.” I was unfamiliar with the song, but I felt that if I had been more familiar with her music, I would have been irked that a touching song was now warped in the mouth of a violent manipulator. Before seeing the show, I anticipated seeing “Proud Mary” performed, but I was disappointed to have them break the song off shortly after getting to the fantastic, fast portion, for backstage domestic violence. At the end of the show, after the bows, they perform a medley which includes “Proud Mary,” but only the ending portion of it, and it doesn’t hit the same way when its slow-grooved beginning hasn’t set it up.
The costumes are a lot of fun; we get to see decades of American fashion as well as many different stage costumes, including a vibrantly tacky Las Vegas performance. The orchestra is excellent and comes on stage at the end, allowing the audience to see the musicians perform some impressive instrumental solos. The set design is minimal, restricted to a few small pieces and props to set scenes and relying heavily on a busy screen which works as the backdrop. This screen is less visually appealing than classic backdrops (especially since many of the backgrounds it shows are deliberately out of focus) and is frequently distracting, moving swirls or sparkles or abstract effects accompany many scenes, as if the audience could get bored by Broadway performers would be captivated by glorified screensavers.
Opening night at TPAC, the hall was packed and the audience was invested, angry murmurings following Ike’s abusive actions, and cheering following a hospital scene where Tina stands up to her mother and Ike’s attempt at manipulation. At the end, as Tina and the ensemble performed their high-energy medley, people stood and the crowd screamed like they were actually at one of her concerts.
The cast was good. Zurin Villaneuva plays Tina Turner with unstinting energy and a wide vocal range, Deon Releford-Lee as Ike has a smooth manner which changes quickly to vicious anger.
I am very impressed by Brianna Cameron, who plays young Anna-Mae; that 4th grade girl has a bigger voice than most adult women, and her range is equaled by her vocal control.
This musical is for the fans of Tina Turner who want a little bit of everything, and to see a glimpse of what it would be like to see her perform live in concert; this Broadway cast does it better than a cover band ever could.
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical is at TPAC through February 18, 2024. For tickets and more information, see The Tina Turner Musical | Broadway in Nashville at TPAC.
Prokofiev, Shostakovich, & the Nashville Chamber Music Society at the Steinway Gallery
There’s something particularly compelling about Prokofiev’s F Minor Violin Sonata, Op. 80. It’s got this devastation and gloom about it that are impossible to miss and harder to shake. Program notes, virtually as a rule, save themselves a lot of ink by refraining from flowery, fruitless attempts to get at this aura in prose. Instead, they just quote Prokofiev himself, who apparently described at least some sections of the piece as “wind passing through a graveyard.” (If anyone out there knows the actual source for this statement, I’d love to know what it is!) But it’s not just that the sonata’s mood is so powerfully or uniquely dour—with maybe the exception of a few all-too transient moments in the energetic last movement, Prokofiev never lets up on the misery for long. It’s astounding the range of foul moods he finds across these four movements, where even a sudden (brief) turn to the tonal and tuneful in the second movement (marked eroico) feels more like seasickness than relief.
Prokofiev started work on the piece in 1938, but it didn’t see a premiere until 1946. Unlike a number of the composer’s other works, for instance his first violin concerto, which sat completed but unperformed for five years, the premiere of Opus 80 happened uncharacteristically quickly after its completion. That the piece instead remained incomplete for so many years first (and for these specific years) often adds an extra, crucial layer of mystique to the piece’s appeal. Without some clear paper trail of any number of more boring reasons for Prokofiev putting the sonata down for those years to get in the way, it’s even easier to let the relentless misery at this piece’s core truly balloon into something larger than life.
Since Prokofiev didn’t work on the piece at all during the years of the Second World War, and since it was during these years that he began to experience most directly the turbulence of Soviet political life, having moved back to the Soviet Union permanently in 1936, a political reading of the work, or at least interpreting the piece as a reflection of the dire political times themselves, is common and probably not far off the mark. Though it’s not like Prokofiev’s personal life during this same period was any less a source of misery. His marriage to the Spanish singer Lina Codina was beginning to unravel, largely as a result of the affair Prokofiev was carrying out with a woman, Mira Mendelson, who was half his age when they met in 1938. The affair carried on for years, and though Prokofiev and Lina had finally separated by 1942, they were technically married until the beginning of 1948. (Rather than being granted a divorce, their marriage was ruled invalid and therefore nullified.)
And of course, it’s not like there was ever a clear delineation between the political and personal for Prokofiev. Lina had never been a proponent of their moving to the Soviet Union, in part because of the censorship and legal troubles faced by Dmitri Shostakovich in the years just before 1936. After then having her travel visa revoked in 1938, she made several attempts to get a visa instead to leave the Soviet Union altogether, all of which were rejected. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Soviet authorities viewed Lina, a foreigner with a history of expressing political discontent, with some degree of suspicion. Very shortly after she and Prokofiev were legally separated, Lina was arrested and spent 8 years imprisoned, never seeing or speaking to her ex-husband again.
In any case, whatever the “source” of the darkness of the Violin Sonata in F Minor might have been for Prokofiev or any of his biographers, it might just as well have been the cold and gloomy rain coming down outside the Steinway Gallery last month the night of the Nashville Chamber Music Society concert. The recital hall at the back of the gallery is small but elegant, and a perfect size for their regular crowd. An intimate venue like this also helps conversations cross-populate in the audience before the performance and during the intermission, which is a special element of NCMS concerts, and one that speaks to their small-scale, personable origins as Wednesday night concerts at the Frothy Monkey.
The friendly nature and humble origins of the NCMS belie the top-notch nature of their ever-changing lineup of performers—here featuring Blair School of Music faculty members on violin and Heather Conner on piano, and the founder of NCMS MaryGrace Waggoner on cello.
The program included not just Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata in F Minor, but also his Sonata in D Major, Op. 94a, originally written as a flute sonata, but then later adapted into the Violin Sonata No. 2 (which was confusingly first performed in 1944, two years before Sonata No. 1), as well as a very early work by Shostakovich, his Piano Trio No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 8. The piano trio and Prokofiev’s Sonata in D Major were perfect foils to the F Minor sonata, especially the bubbly, up-tempo Opus 94a. The scale of the piano trio is a bit less ambitious than the violin sonatas (especially the F Minor), but it’s astounding to hear how the grand, romantic final moments squeeze out of three instruments almost an entire orchestra’s worth.
The placement of the Shostakovich second in the program, and directly after the F Minor sonata felt like a somewhat unusual choice. Not only would the shorter, and let’s say friendlier, piano trio have served as a better program opener; the vague sense of disquiet the Prokofiev leaves you with needs the kind of space a twenty-minute intermission can give. Oh well, like I said, the atmosphere at an NCMS concert is too friendly to leave everyone brooding and serious like that, and maybe it’s best not to dwell there too long after all.
From the First Bank Pops Series:
Patti LaBelle with the Nashville Symphony
Patti LaBelle has enjoyed one of the longest careers in contemporary music, singing everything from girl group pop and gutsy soul to space-age funk and hard-hitting disco. This past weekend, the “Godmother of Soul” was accompanied by the Nashville Symphony under the baton of Enrico Lopez-Yañez for three performances. These concerts were the fourth offering of the First Bank Pops Series this artistic season.
Still decorated from the Nashville Symphony’s celebration of the Lunar New Year earlier in the week, both Laura Turner Concert Hall and the lobby of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center were electric with excitement from seasoned patrons and newcomers alike. The Nashville Symphony was featured on the first half of the concert before intermission, after which Patti LaBelle took to the stage. An extended seating schematic was setup for the musicians with a block of strings placed stage right, a block of woodwinds located centrally, and a row of brass seated behind an encampment of percussion stage left. LaBelle’s own backing musicians were seated between the conductor’s podium and the woodwind block, leaving just enough real estate for LaBelle to travel the length of the apron of the stage.
Bolting to the podium after acknowledging concertmaster Peter Otto, Maestro Lopez-Yañez led the Nashville Symphony in an opening selection that was reminiscent of old Hollywood. Serving as Principal Pops Conductor of the Nashville Symphony, Enrico Lopez-Yañez operates in the same capacity with the Pacific Symphony, as well as being the Principal Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Presents. Lopez-Yañez is quickly establishing himself as one of the Nation’s leading conductors of popular music, becoming known for both his unique style of audience engagement and as an active composer/arranger.
Wearing a navy velvet jacket, Lopez-Yañez introduced Patti LaBelle’s career highlights between thoughtfully curated selections that both prepared and enhanced LaBelle’s portion of the program. Selections from George Gershwin’s English-language opera Porgy and Bess was presented alongside selections from the movie-musical Tommy celebrating the music of The Who, and, perhaps more importantly this evening, acknowledging LaBelle’s guest role as The Acid Queen on Broadway in 1989. The first of two renditions of the iconic “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” followed, with the first half of the evening ending with Matt Catingub’s arrangement of Tropical Smoothie, a smooth jazz setting that featured soloists from the orchestra.
The Nashville Symphony played beautifully during the first half of the program – more playing than they would do during the second half of the performance. While I wouldn’t expect any of the excerpts executed to be found in a book of orchestral excerpts or assigned to developing players studying at leading conservatories, except the infamous mallet-crossing xylophone excerpt from Porgy and Bess, many key members of the orchestra were featured. Using the Nashville Symphony’s season as a guide, perhaps more attention should be paid to pops-styled performances when developing future generations of musicians. Changing lights, amplification, and reduced rehearsal sequences can all prove challenging. Not every weekend of artistic seasons features those works cemented as perennial favorites from the orchestral canon.
Ms. Patti LaBelle welcomed her own group of musicians to the stage for her set. Background vocals were provided by Debbie Henry Ramsey, Brenda Roy, Aja Grant, and Aaron Marcellus Sanders. Throughout the performance, each background vocalist was given at least one opportunity to be featured, sometimes to facilitate breaks for LaBelle and other times in tandem with the headliner.
Stanton Lewis served as musical director and pianist, leading cadential moments and ensuring accurate pacing was always achieved. Other musicians featured with Ms. LaBelle were Danny “Jazz” Nixon and Keith Phelps, Jr. on keyboards, Eric Seats on drums, Alex Evans on bass, Andre Frappier on guitars, and three horn players: Andre Bradshaw, trombone; Aaron Janik, trumpet; and Hiruy Tirfe, saxophone. Most selections were performed with just these added musicians, while other selections also involved the Nashville Symphony.
Patti LaBelle’s first vocals of the evening came from off stage, igniting all in attendance. Dressed in crimson red, LaBelle’s presence engulfed the space and proved that she is seventy-nine years strong. “If You Asked Me To” gave LaBelle the opportunity to address hardship, particularly that being felt by her friend Celine Dion who also released the song – although LaBelle was quick to acknowledge she crushed this song first in 1989. The power of LaBelle’s vocals became even more intimate with her 2004 release “2 Steps Away” from the album Timeless Journey. The emotion felt from this couplet was palpable and left the audience meditative and contemplative with one’s personal struggles and those occurring on a global scale.
Next, Patti LaBelle threw musical director Stanton Lewis a curve ball and changed the setlist in real time to include a rendition of “Tennessee Whiskey” by David Allan Coe and for which Chris Stapleton has enjoyed much recent success. What else is one supposed to do when performing a mere block from the historic Honky-Tonks of Lower Broadway? LaBelle left the stage for her first of two costume changes, retuning with an equally captivating chartreuse ensemble. Like before, LaBelle was quick to kick off her stiletto heels, momentarily walking barefoot on stage, before putting on a more sensible pair of flats. Also flying during her set were microphone stands and a dozen long-stem roses that were periodically thrown to adoring audience members.
One of the most energetic moments of the evening was the singing of a spiritual, audience and LaBelle both, complete with a full shout chorus. Reverend Patti LaBelle was holding service and teaching the gospel of soul through song. Pure magic.
The concert ended with the second rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. Harold Arlen’s ballad and Yip Harburg’s lyrics brought everyone together, remind us of our connectedness and the importance of being kind. An extended outro foreshadowed the return of Patti LaBelle and a second costume change – this time to a black, sequined flapper dress and bobbed wig.
Six members of the audience were invited to the stage while an attentive bodyguard remained close. These six guests were asked to sing the chorus of “Lady Marmalade” and then dance. This was done to varying degrees of success, as one might imagine. This sequence of events created some confusion between musical director Lewis and conductor Lopez-Yañez, at times requiring Lopez-Yañez to cut off the orchestra, only to reenter at the next significant structural music happening. Had one not been watching the podium or aware of the dynamics of leading such a performance, these challenges would likely not be noticed. “Lady Marmalade” was combined with Donna Summer’s hit “Bad Girls” from 1979 to conclude a very memorable evening of music with a legend.
The Schermerhorn Symphony Center ushers should be awarded the Most Valuable Player Award for their work this evening. A significant number of late seatings paired with constant policing of recording made for what I imagine was a tough shift. Lighting design influenced the aesthetic and helped keep the audience engaged, particularly during the first half of the concert featuring only the Nashville Symphony. A constant murmur of dialogue was heard throughout the space; once one recalibrated it was encouraging to witness such engagement with every piece.
I would encourage all to attend performances offered within the First Bank Pops Series. It is a different experience than that of the Classical Series, not bad or less-than, but simply different! Three engagements are still forthcoming this artistic season in the First Bank Pops Series: Music of Elvis with Frankie Moreno (March 21-23), Amos Lee (May 9-11), and Titus Burgess (June 13-15). For more information visit the Nashville Symphony website.
From the Annals of Activism
A Conversation on Art and Activism
Last week, an exhilarating yet casual, interactive community conversation around art and activism took place at Tennessee Justice Center, a nonprofit public interest law & advocacy firm serving families in need.
Organized by Intersection, an established contemporary music ensemble based in Nashville, the modest gathering was moderated by the artistic director of Intersection, Kelly Corcoran, also composer and member of Vanderbilt Music Cognition Lab and it featured sound and visual artist Rod McGaha who uses photography as a mechanism to tackle social issues, Robbie Lynn Hunsinger with a background in classical oboe, visual arts, improvised music, composition and activism, working with technology, multimedia and sound reactive installations as well as composer Gary Powell Nash, professor of Music Theory and Technology at Fisk University and Conductor for the Fisk University Jazz Ensemble. The other participants of this gathering also came from various fields intersecting performance art, visual arts, even neuroscience with social activism.
To mark its 10th season and anniversary, Intersection has commissioned Gary Powell Nash, Robbie Lynn Hunsinger as well as composer Sungji Hong to create accessible works that open dialogue through contemporary music and connect people. Staggering and provocative photographs by musician and photographer Rod McGaha were present at the gathering room, thus expanding the context of what is possible within various artforms.
Intersection started with the idea of viewing contemporary music as a mechanism to bring people together, stipulate conversation and maybe break down some of the barriers of classical music and who can have access to it. Among others, Intersection has endorsed the Lullaby Project, a program of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (WMI), pairing parents with professional artists to create and sing their own personal lullabies for their babies.
To orient the commissioned artists in their creative journey, Intersection has given them a broad prompt by asking ‘How would you use your music to promote social justice?.
Gary Powell Nash was interested to react in response to the tragic shootings at the Covenant School in Nashville, TN and Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI, both of which occurred around the same time in 2023. His composition is titled “Look for the Helpers” referring to and appreciating those who in the face of tragedies, mean to heal and are there to help. He also elaborated on his previous composition “Stop for Equity” (2021) wind quintet which is based on and inspired by Gary Powell Nash’s daughter Giovanna Diệu Huyền Nash’s response to the George Floyd murder.
In response to the current events in Palestine, Robbie Lynn Hunsinger composed “Pavane for Palestine, Lachrimae”. Robbie Lynn shared the dilemma as an activist, having an urge to react, but instead choosing to respond through music. At the end of the discussion, Robbie Lynn led the attendees in an interactive music making experience using a Chinese oboe, the participants foot stomping and voices.
Rod McGaha’s photography comes to the forefront within Intersection’s initiative Photo Voice: a qualitative research method, giving a chance for community voices to come through photography. Intersection frames a prompt to which the community is invited to respond visually, to further share these photos with the city council decision makers and holders of positions of power. In his elaboration on photography as activism and his artistic language, Rod McGaha spoke of how art engages us in the questions and presents different perspectives to contribute to a conversation that may lead to a solution. This is where the collaboration with the decision makers comes to play. He also expressed his concern and critique with regards to the indigestible information intake through our screens that also take away from photography as art.
Vast questions such as: ‘How can we utilize art to make our voices more impactful?’ ‘What do we risk when speaking out about our social concerns and engaging our art in a social way?’, as well as the perspectives and concerns regarding AI were brought up and discussed during the one-hour conversation. Kelly Corcoran brought up the very sensitive topic on whether artists have the right to engage with the often tragic experiences of those in the margins who most of the time belong to other identities than those of the artists. In response, it was almost unanimously agreed that we all qualify as humans to care, empathize, thus voice the stories of those who have gone or are going through tragedies.
Many of the topics that were briefly touched upon are crucial preoccupations of socially engaged artists across the globe. Innumerous dissertations are written on the topic as well as conferences are held to discuss these themes more deeply every day. It is very promising to hear Kelly Corcoran say that ‘art for social change and the elevation of social conversations is in the Nashville art scene’s DNA’. I hope that more, deeper, and longer discussions on the topic follow and that the cultural and art institutions are able to recognize the remarkable importance of artists who utilize their artistic voice for social change and support them.
The world premieres of Gary Powell Nash: Look for the Helpers, Robbie Lynn Hunsinger: Pavane for Palestine, Lachrimae and Sungji Hong: Igerthi for Piano can be experienced within Intersection’s concert titled Thin Places, which will take place on March 23rd, starting at 7:30pm CDT at the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Hillsboro Pike Nashville, TN.
From Curtis Studio
Trio Zimbalist Enters the Scene with Heft and Gravitas
A new ensemble selecting repertoire for their debut release is an opportunity, a moment of freedom to set a tone for a group going forward. Trio Zimbalist, three Curtis alumni (Cellist Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin, Pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu & Violinist Josef Špaček) who have recently released their first album “Piano Trios of Weinberg, Auerbach, & Dvořák” into the wild, enter the scene with heft and gravitas. The group has thoughtfully paired three large trios that travel a chronological path, interconnected with shared geography and emotive weight.
These three trios are of Central/Eastern European composers, from the romantic era’s Czech musical pillar of Dvořák (1841 – 1904), then to Polish/Soviet/Russian Mieczysław Weinberg (1919 – 1996), and finally to living Russian-born Austrian-American composer & performer Lera Auerbach. Works were selected “in the spirit of the Dumka, containing works composed under the shadows of troubled and traumatic political histories. Dumka is a Ukrainian term meaning “thought,” and in classical music, it is a type of epic, Slavic ballad. Dumky were sung by traveling minstrels, usually Ukrainian, who played some kind of strummed instrument (e.g. the bandura, kobza, or lira). Often their songs would contain a thoughtful or melancholic lament of oppressed peoples”(Crossover Media, 2024). Considering the turmoil in the region and worldwide heightens these pieces’ already-rich pathos.
Mieczysław Weinberg’s Piano Trio, Op. 24, is a fascinating collection of contrasts to open the LP with. The first movement practically contains two movements in itself, a Prelude and an Aria. While the Prelude is strident and sustained both in its phrase lengths and heightened drama, the Aria is more questioning and brings a sense of wandering as the instruments fade in and peter out, attempting to find common melodic ground, finally uniting in pizzicato rhythm and folk sensibilities. The trio of performers tackle these vastly different soundscapes with poise – maintaining the sound and taut vibrato of the Prelude and then pivoting to the questing nature of the Aria is no simple task, physically or mentally.
The Toccata second movement continues to develop a stronger rhythmic force, with swiftly changing meters and piano chord stabs punctuating dueling strings and countermelodies. A dense and frenetic 4 minutes with nary a pause, before crashing into the third Poem movement, which is no less intense in its piano cadenza-like opening but returns to a more wandering set of ideas similar to the Aria. The Poem has more direction in its pathing, with several building moments that give way to additional plodding pizzicato, evoking a sensation of weary travelers trudging their way to some unknown journey. Finally, a Finale of some 11 minutes closes out the first selection on the album. The finale movement feels the closest to some of the other dense Romantic piano trios found on this album or traditionally in the canon as a whole, but Weinberg again diverges from the expected with a long postlude (not labeled as such in the movement, but felt) that casts aside the bombast of the opening of the Finale and instead takes nearly the entire second half of the movement to oh-so-gradually let off steam and arrive at a destination. The piano, for the first time in the work, is simplified to choral-like triads and tonality, alluding to an almost religious atmosphere for the final resting point of the journey this piece has taken.
Lera Auerbach’s Piano Trio No. 1 is a shorter, but no less impactful, middle selection of the album. Composed in the 1990s while still in her teens and twenties, Auerbach’s first foray into this ensemble configuration is confident, encompassing everything from baroque precision to modern percussive bombast. The first prelude movement is brief but contains sul ponticello moments from the very beginning, that at first listen sound like a strange choice in scratchy recording quality before revealing their deliberate juxtaposition with a sparse few clear-toned phrases. Several listens of this short movement reveal moments of contrapuntal ingenuity and an intriguing amount of cello extended techniques to flesh out the texture. The second movement begins attacca after the first, an Andante lamentoso that is achingly beautiful in its piano-led call and response moments. The movement wends its way between consonance and clash, which makes the final quiet C Major resolution that much sweeter and more hopeful.
The final Presto movement of this trio bounds through a number of ideas, including some surprisingly calm moments that evoke the opening of the work, again with appearance of sul ponticello. This tranquility is short-lived amidst the frenzied rhythmic unisons and oppositions that surround it as each instrument receives a chance to control the volume and momentum with long undulating phrases of 16th notes. The sensation of payoff is extremely satisfying upon reaching another C Major resolution before the final minute’s epilogue, although the cadence upon reaching this firmly diatonic moment is triumphant and proud in contrast to the second movement’s hushed aspiration. This 13-minute work fits in just as much of a journey as the larger works surrounding it, and is a surprisingly accessible work for an audience, despite the boundary-pushing nature of the sonic choices in composition.
Saving Dvořák’s mammoth Piano Trio No. 4 for the final piece is only appropriate, as it is subtitled “Dumky” by the composer himself, a form and label he used in several other of his compositions across his output. Due to Dvorak’s own influence, Dumky (plural of dumka) within a classical context has come to indicate “a type of instrumental music involving sudden changes from melancholy to exuberance”(Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music & Musicians, 1978). With good reason, this six-movement work is one of Dvořák’s most well-known, as the aforementioned sudden changes tug the listener’s emotions to and fro. While fundamentally rooted in Romanticism, the free form nature of this work (as Dvořák eschewed sonata form or other traditional chamber music structures in this piece) allows for a marvelous sense of a journey; rambunctious sections can be found in a Lento Maestoso movement and moments of quiet contemplation in an Allegro movement. Without diminishing the overall effect of the piece and its importance to the weighty theme of the album, the folksy frolicking moments are, frankly, a rollicking good time. Trio Zimbalist approaches these moments with gusto, hammering out the cheery sections with an energy that lets the listener picture some farm community jamboree.
Despite being a ‘mere’ three pieces, Trio Zimbalist’s debut album clocks in well over an hour. Tackling these multi-movement works with no shorter lighter pieces interspersed makes for an investment both from the performers and the listener. With impeccable preparation and dedication to the manic heights and somber lows of these works, the trio’s time and efforts are justly rewarded. This first studio outing will surely garner a core audience eagerly waiting to hear future performances and recordings as their output expands. 2024 is merely the beginning for this group, and an exhilarating beginning it is.
OZ Arts Presents
Mazelfreten’s Rave Lucid
Ten years after its founding by Cano Ozgener, the 2023-2024 artistic season of OZ Arts welcomes a new era of Brave New Art to Nashville, paying homage to those “artists, heroes, and stories that embody courage in the face of adversity and a rapidly changing world.” An upcoming production of Mazelfreten’s Rave Lucid will attempt to do just that February 29 – March 2.
Mazelfreten, a collaboration between dancers-choreographers Laura Defretin and Brandon Masele, bring together the talents of ten performers to depict 2000s Parisian rave culture. Sharply synchronized movements combined with opportunities for individual expression are all underscored with a soundtrack of electro dance music. The production lasts about fifty minutes.
Laura Defretin, also known as Laura Nala, was born in Paris, France in 1994 and has studied various styles of dance – modern, salsa, waacking, house, and hip hop. Defretin is a two-time France Champion, in addition to placing on a world stage in both 2008 and 2009 for dance. Brandon Masele, also known as Miel, was born in Le Mans, France in 1994, becoming a France Champion for dance in 2011 and crowned a World Champion in 2012. The pair’s first collaboration, UNTITLED, was a 2016 creation that mixed styles of hip hop and electro dance cultures, representing each creative personality.
Another important pairing is that of the Ozgener family and OZ Arts. The Ozgener family established OZ Arts Nashville in 2013 as a gift back to the city and country that they have thought to be so hospitable to them as first-generation, Turkish-Armenian immigrants. Selling their artisan cigar company, CAO Cigars, and converting the former headquarters into a nonprofit cultural center for contemporary art, performances, and events, OZ Arts enriches the arts community by working to continually realize its mission:
OZ Arts supports the creation, development and presentation of significant performing and visual art works by leading artists whose contribution influences the advancement of their field. Through performances, exhibitions, and community events, OZ Arts focuses on producing and presenting the work of local and visiting artists who reflect our diverse society, utilize new artistic forms and technology in creative ways, and provide opportunities for meaningful engagement with audiences, students, and cultural and civic leaders.
For tickets to Mazelfreten’s Rave Lucid and more information about an evening pulsating at 120 bpm, visit the OZ Arts website: https://www.ozartsnashville.org/mazelfreten-rave-lucid/.
teaser:
Tina: The Tina Turner Musical Coming to Nashville
Tina–The Tina Turner Musical is the inspiring journey of a woman who broke barriers and became the Queen of Rock n’ Roll. One of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, Tina Turner has won 12 Grammy Awards® and her live shows have been seen by millions, with more concert tickets sold than any other solo performer in music history. This musical depicts her life and career as she must fight to transcend racism, misogyny, and abusive relationships to achieve lasting love and success. Featuring her much loved songs, Tina–The Tina Turner Musical is written by Pulitzer Prize®-winning playwright Katori Hall and directed by the internationally acclaimed Phyllida Lloyd.
Recommended for ages 14+. The production includes scenes depicting domestic violence, racist language, loud music, strobe lighting, haze, and gun shots. Please note that Tina Turner does not appear in this production.
At TPAC’s Andrew Jackson Hall February 13-18, for tickets and more information: The Tina Turner Musical | Broadway in Nashville at TPAC
The Nashville Ballet’s got an Attitude
On February 9 – 11 Nashville Ballet held its annual program Attitude, a program “known for its groundbreaking choreography, original music, and cross-disciplinary collaborations” that often push the limits on what, according to Artistic Director Nick Mullikin, “…is traditionally called ballet.” This year featured a set of three world premiere dances from choreographers Yusha-Marie Sorzano, Mollie Sansone, and Jermaine Spivey that created an evening of beautiful, at times hilarious, and starkly relevant dance-centered entertainment.
The first dance, Sorzono’s “Weep” is a work that explores the idea and ideals of collective memory and monuments, danced to a composition by Nashville-based composer Cristina Spinei with a read text by Brian Frank. Through the relative abstract nature of dance, Sorzono is nevertheless able to achieve a more complicated and nuanced investigation on just whose story history tells and “whose story does it hide.” As such, there is much struggle expressed at various moments during the dance, especially during the duet, where one dancer would coerce and force upon the other brisk, fearsome steps that seemed to draw from Vaslov Nijinsky’s great choreography to Le Sacre du Printemps (violent, jagged or angular movements). The costumes, by Mycah Kennedy, in the off-green, worn copper of Lady Liberty, were perfectly drawn, and Lady Liberty’s appearance (not all monuments are of/to singular, ‘great’ men), was inspiring for me as a teacher of history. Sorzono’s work is a powerful reminder that there are always better, and more inclusive, ways to tell history.
Mollie Sansone’s “Speak” also engaged with coercion, but in oratory; it “…physically represents the metaphor getting on a soapbox.” On a stage set with multiple soapboxes of various sizes, the choreography led to different dynamic settings of the soapbox, both real and in metaphor—the couple in argument, a speaker to a crowd, etc, with dancers communicating various emotional responses (rage, pleasure, joy, courage) to the voices they hear and express. In her choreography, one can discern her long classical dance experience (as evinced in the underlying relish for the beautiful in the human form) but with innovations that allow for the development of individual characters, statements and expressions. In her work the movements are less stylized than they are natural and more direct expressions of ideas (the gesture and what it symbolizes stem more from human experience than dance tradition)—the movements emulate their subject. As with any great choreography, the narrative, the idea of the soapbox, is an excellent vehicle for Sansone’s beautiful dance.
Jermaine Spivey’s “In Many Ways,” derives its music (also by Spivey) from words that are spoken by the dancers (“Voices” seems to have been an early theme for the program–there is some evidence of last-minute program shifts) which then grow, from the function of a click track to a full-on score. The choreography has an emphasis on process, the idea of “Creation, Organization, and Reduction.” Despite that, or because of that, it is also a fascinating meta discussion of the process of improvisation and artistic expression. Lastly, at times, it is ridiculously funny.
Individual dancers stood out on Friday: Maia Montgomery and Sarah Pierce in “Speak,” and particularly Imani Sailers who, in “In Many Ways” demonstrated how she was born with more than her fair share of charisma. But overall, the highlight of the night was the troupe. There was a clear sense of synthesis amongst the ensembles, particularly in the way each choreography emphasized the individual and then the shared, all of the dancers are to be commended for their mutual, collective expression.
At the start of the evening, Mullikin came onstage and explained the aspects that, for him, made the evening’s program specifically reflective of Nashville’s culture, and he pointed to the collaborative effort needed to make such a program happen—in the stage design, the lighting, the costume, the composers, the musicians, and the dancers. To this I would add that one of the things that defines the artistic culture of Nashville is the fact that its ballet company is excellent, and Friday night was no exception. Attitude continues through the weekend (tickets are still available) and the Nashville Ballet returns to the stage in April with Paul Vasterling’s wonderful choreography to Romeo & Juliet.
