Mixed Media

Listen Again: Emiliana Torrini

If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, you might know the voice of Emiliana Torrini and not even realize it. That's her voice on "Gollum's Song," which plays during the closing credits of The Two Towers. But Torrini's talent goes much further than just a song on a movie soundtrack. In the U.S., she's released three soft-spoken yet confident and moving albums, including her latest, Me and Armini. She's also co-written songs with Kylie Minogue — one of which, "Slow," was a No. 1 hit.

Torrini's honest and beautiful voice, her constantly improving songwriting ability and her willingness to experiment across musical genres all help make her an artist worth following. In this session, Torrini stripped away the minimal but lush production of her music, leaving just her voice and Ian Kellett on acoustic guitar. Even in their sparest form, her songs still have a magical quality.

Listen to the full session from WFUV.

 

'Born in the Bronx' conference celebrates the early days of hip hop

    Afrika Bambaataa and other pioneers of hip hop will travel to Ithaca, N.Y., to speak at a two-day conference celebrating Cornell University Library’s acquisition of “Born in the Bronx: The Legacy and Evolution of Hip Hop,” a collection that documents the early days of hip hop with recordings, photographs, posters and more.

Events on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 will include music, performances and lectures by several of hip hop’s founders, and roundtable discussions led by prominent speakers from the hip hop and academic communities. Cornell University Library will host the event, which will highlight the one-of-a-kind historical materials.

“By paying tribute to those who laid the foundation, we tell our own history,” Bambaataa said. “Preserving hip hop’s early years will help future generations understand the places they come from.”

Bambaataa will address the symposium on Friday, Oct. 31 as part of a roundtable discussion featuring other hip hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Caz, Grandwizzard Theodore, Popmaster Fable, Tony Tone, Disco Wiz and Kool Lady Blue. Select artists will also perform in Alice Statler Hall that evening.

Noted hip hop historians will speak at the event, including authors Jeff Chang and Mark Anthony Neal, associate professor of black popular culture at Duke University. Hip hop photographer Joe Conzo will present his historic images of the Bronx during the conference. The event is free and open to the public.

"We want the community at large to celebrate hip hop's contributions to American culture through a better understanding of its origins, which are the focus of this unique collection,” said Katherine Reagan, curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts at Cornell University Library.

Johan Kugelberg, a collector, curator and writer in the field of popular culture, donated the materials to the Library. Kugelberg’s book, “Born in the Bronx,” chronicles the evolution of hip hop in the South Bronx, beginning in the early 1970s. The 2,000-piece collection includes the archive of Bronx photographer Joe Conzo, vinyl records and other recordings, handmade party and club fliers, and custom-painted textiles by artist Buddy Esquire.

(Image: Tony Tone, Afrika Bambaataa, and the chief rocker Busy Bee at the Zulu Nation Anniversary, Bronx River Projects, 1981. Photograph by Joe Conzo.)

Glimmerglass teams up with New York Festival of Song for a free concert

Critically-acclaimed pianist Steven Blier, Artistic Director of the New York Festival of Song, will  accompany members of Glimmerglass Opera’s Young American Artists Program for We Open in Paris, a concert of selections from French operettas and Cole Porter’s Paris musicals. The free program will be presented Friday, August 15, at 4:30 p.m. at the Alice Busch Opera Theater in Cooperstown, New York.

We Open in Paris marks the inaugural collaboration between Glimmerglass Opera and the New York Festival of Song. “2008 marks the 20th anniversaries of both Glimmerglass Opera’s acclaimed Young American Artists Program and the renowned New York Festival of Song. Mr. Blier’s support of and passion and advocacy for the song recital mirrors Glimmerglass Opera’s own enthusiastic pursuit of innovative and exciting recital programming for its Young American Artist Recital Series,” said Don Marrazzo, Glimmerglass Opera’s Director of Artistic Operations.

Joining Blier are sopranos Caitlin Lynch and Katrina Thurman, mezzo-soprano Liza Forrester, tenor Gennard Lombardozzi, and baritone Adrian Kramer.

“As the 2008 Festival Season also marks Glimmerglass’s first foray into the world of musical theater with Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, We Open in Paris is the perfect complement to the company’s 2008 repertory,” Marrazzo said.

Free tickets may be reserved by calling the Glimmerglass Opera Box Office at (607) 547-2255. We Open in Paris is made possible by a grant from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.

Glimmerglass opened its 2008 Shakespeare-inspired Festival Season July 5 with Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate and July 6 with Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto. The American fully-staged premiere of Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot opened July 19 and Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi opened July 26. The 2008 productions run in repertory through August 24 at the Alice Busch Opera Theater in Cooperstown, New York. For additional information and tickets, call (607) 547-2255 or visit the Glimmerglass Opera website.

Great Composers & a World Premiere with the Binghamton Philharmonic tomorrow (4/5/08)

Binghamton Philharmonic Composer-in-Residence Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez (pictured, right) and Music Director José-Luis Novo stopped by for a live radio interview today. I hadn't had the opportunity to interview either gentleman before, so it was a treat for me. I could have kept them for an hour, especially on the subject of new music and its place in the concert hall and on our airwaves.

The new music in question today is ...Ex Machina for for Piano, Marimba and Orchestra by Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez , which was commissioned by the Binghamton Philharmonic. Guest performers for the work are marimbist Makoto Nakura and pianist Cristina Valdés.

Sánchez-Gutiérrez also appeared on WSKG TV's Expressions program last night, holding forth on the same subject. You can see that program online.

The concert tomorrow night in Binghamton University's Anderson Center also features Brahms Symphony No. 2 and Beethoven's Egmont Overture (which we inadvertently played twice on WSKG Radio today within the same hour--I played it with the interview then our network classical service coincidentally played it right after the 10am news. I hate it when that happens.)

Interestingly, Sánchez-Gutiérrez work is inspired by the kinetic sculptures of Arthur Ganson, who joins the composer for a pre-concert talk in the Anderson Center Chamber Hall an hour before the concert. The lecture is free for ticket holders.

--Gregory Keeler

www.binghamtonphilharmonic.org

composer Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez' website

sculptor Arthur Ganson's website

'Ain't Necessarily So' captures the artists' true colors

Culled from a three-night run at Birdland in May 1997, Ain't Necessarily So captures the pianist/vocalist on the cusp of a transition. The booking came on the heels of Ballads, Blues And Bey, a solo recital on which Bey, then 57, primarily known for the power and rhythmic snap of his soulful baritone, complemented his supple, multitextured instrument with a startling array of free-flowing piano voicings and harmonic colors. In doing so, Bey revealed himself to the broader public as an A-list crooner, whose approach to the jazz songbook could be mentioned in the same sentence as similarly silkvoiced antecedents Billy Eckstine and Nat Cole. A year later, Shades Of Bey launched a trilogy of more elaborately produced studio albums.

Read the full review here.

Outlaw country singer tries a new pasture

Merle Haggard has been churning out albums for nearly 40 years, fashioning a career as an iconoclastic country-music legend and scoring dozens of hits — including that slap at the hippie generation, "Okie from Muskogee." Now 70, "The Hag" has just made a foray into bluegrass: The Bluegrass Sessions features revamped versions of songs both old and new.

One of the new tracks, "Learning to Live with Myself," was written in his bathtub — or at least, according to Haggard, "There was water everywhere."

"At my age, I've learned how to live with my spouse and I've learned how to live with my beautiful children," Haggard says. "I learned how to be friends with everybody and do everything. The only thing I hadn't learned how to do was to learn to live with myself. I think that's probably the hardest thing we all have to do. We can lie to everybody else, but you can't lie to yourself."

Click here to read the full article and listen to the piece originally broadcast on All Things Considered.

Musicologist Leonard B. Meyer dies

Leonard B. Meyer, a pioneering musicologist whose 1956 book, “Emotion and Meaning in Music,” remains one of the most significant scholarly works in the field of music cognition, died on Sunday at his home in Manhattan. He was 89.

His death was confirmed by his daughter Carlin Meyer.

“Emotion and Meaning in Music,” adapted from his doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago, placed Mr. Meyer at the forefront of the emerging field that connects music theory and aesthetics to psychology and neuroscience. In the book, considered his most important, Mr. Meyer sought links between emotional responses and musical patterns, especially those in which an expectation is built up and then delayed or diverted — for example, the “deceptive cadence,” a chord progression figuring prominently in Mozart’s compositions in which the dominant chord (based on the fifth note of the scale in question) resolves in an unexpected way rather than returning to the key’s “home” chord, or tonic.

Mr. Meyer was among the first scholars to explore the relationship between game theory and music composition, and suggested that the value of a musical work was in direct correlation to how well the complexity of the work engaged the listener. For instance, works in which the audience’s every expectation was met were found to be ultimately unsatisfying. So, too, were works in which no expectations were met.

Click here to read the full article.

Top Ten Unknown Artists of 2007

It's a great time to be a musician. Anyone can have a home studio and record an album, and there are more ways to distribute that album and get it heard than ever before. In Second Stage's year-end Top 10 list, All Songs Considered producer Robin Hilton shares the best of the great unknowns. These are the year's best outsider artists: musicians whose remarkable recordings went largely overlooked in 2007.

Click here for the full list and audio.

Top 25 CDs of 2007 (chosen by NPR listeners)

Tens of thousands of listeners voted in the All Songs Considered poll for the year's best CDs. It was tight for much of the race, with Radiohead and Arcade Fire running neck-and-neck for first place. But in the end, Radiohead's In Rainbows pulled ahead as an overwhelming winner.

There were also surprises: Some of the year's most anticipated CDs (like Rilo Kiley's Under the Blacklight), or most popular albums (like Lily Allen's Alright, Still) barely made the top 25. Meanwhile, smaller acts like Andrew Bird wound up in the Top 10.

Click hear to see the top 25 CDs of 2007 voted by listeners just like you.

The Sounds of the Ehru

It sounds almost like a violin — but not quite.

The erhu is a traditional Chinese instrument. Ma Xiaohui says that in China, people associate it with beggars.

But Ma is a virtuoso performer on the erhu, fluent in both regional Chinese and Western repertoire. She recently spoke with Robert Siegel about her craft.

The erhu is an instrument with two long strings, played using a bamboo bow strung with horsehair. Sound projects out of the small windows on the back of the instrument's body, which is made of old redwood and snakeskin.

The right hand controls the bow. Press down, and you play one string; pull up, and you play the other.

The left hand always touches both strings. Without frets, proper intonation is difficult, but the possibilities for tonal flexibility are great.

Listen to the feature that originally aired on All Things Considered.