Alphabet Baroque Club 2016

Our concert this spring is called From the Ground up!
We start with a ground bass, add flowers, bugs, birds (mostly cuckoos and nightingales) throw in dogs, cats, owls and a butterfly and end up in the heavens. All on baroque instruments and with guest soprano Eileen Morris. The usual suspects wielding the instruments are Judiyaba on pardessus (the littlest  viol), Maria Caswell on baroque violin, Gwyneth Davis on viola da gamba, and Phebe Craig on harpsichord.

Two performances!

March 18, 7:30pm at the Iota Press printshop.  Sit amongst the presses, read your letterpress program ( a gift from the owner) and enjoy! 925d Gravenstein Hwy S. It is behind Bee Kind, the honey shop.
There is a suggested donation of $15.

June 9, 3pm at the Berkeley Piano Club.  This is a fringe concert of the Berkeley Early Music Festival.
Donations happily accepted.

Alphabet Baroque Club

Yet another somber meeting of the Alphabet Baroque Club. Rehearsals are deadly serious and of course never involve eating!

We're back!

Now calling ourselves the Alphabet Baroque Club.

We have a series of concerts this spring which we call Time Warp…….going back in time to play music as old as that of the 15th century. The players? As in our last Nursery Concert: Phebe Craig, harpsichord;  Maria Caswell, violin;  Judiyaba, treble viol;  Gwyneth Davis, viola da gamba (bass viol).
No cellos this time as we have to get ourselves and our instruments to Ireland inMay!

The dates!  
February 23 was our 4th annual concert at Grow Gardens Nursery

March 2, 2pm, at Trinity Church in Trinidad, Ca. (this is a benefit for the historical church repair fund.)

May 10, 4pm, Music at Pepperwood. Santa Rosa, Ca.

May 17, matinee, Galway Early Music Festival, Ireland!

  Hope to see you at one of these…and was very pleased to see all of you who crowded in at the Nursery last Monday!

Alphabet Players return to the Nursery!

For the 3rd year the Alphabet Players will serenade friends and plants at Grow Gardens Nursery! A festive concert of baroque music by Marais, Schmelzer, Biber, Buxtehude, Corrette and perhaps even a familiar seasonal tune…..just one.
The Players are Phebe Craig, harpsichord; Maria Caswell, violin; Gwyneth Davis, viola da gamba; Judiyaba, treble viol and cello.
The plants are too numerous to name, but available to those who want to shop at intermission.

Grow Gardens….1841 Gravenstein Hwy South.

and the players are....

The Hindemith duet: Judiyaba and Gwyneth Davis, celli

Lili Boulanger Trio: Terrie Baune, violin. Karen Rosenak, piano and Judiyaba

Pierrot Lunaire: Karen Clark, voice. Leslie Chin, flute. Roy Zajac, clatinets and Terrie, Karen R., and Judiyaba.

Facade: Elly Lichenstein and Michael van Why, speakers. Dan Gianola-Norris, trumpet. Steve Parker, saxaphone. Kevin Heuhoff, percussion,  and Leslie, Roy and Gwyneth.

A great crop of Bay Area musicians!

The Boulanger sisters

Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) was arguably the most important teacher of music in the 20th century. I would guess that most composers of that time studied either with her or one of her students. Copland, Philip Glass, Piazzolla, Piston, Francaix, Vigil Thompson......the list goes on. Aaron Copland said "she knew everything there was to know about music....pre-Bach and post-Stravinsky included". She taught rigorously using traditional harmony, counterpoint and sight-singing. She was the first woman to conduct a symphony orchestra (London, 1937) and between the World Wars brought Monteverdi into the musical mainstream, as well as bringing back French baroque and Renaissance music, and championing Stravinsky's music.

I would go on about this amazing musician, but it is actually her sister Lili (1893-1918) whose music we are playing on this concert. Nadia had always believed that Lili was the more gifted composer. Unfortunately most of her short life was spent in ill health, so her output was not huge. The 2 short trios  on the program have a wonderful character and a rather forward looking harmonic sense.

Two poetry settings

Arnold Schoenberg (born in 1874) wrote Pierrot Lunaire in 1912. It is in 21 parts; 3 groups of 7 and uses the poems of Albert Giraud. It's weird. And wonderful. The sprechstimme vocal part is a bit eerie and the small instrumental accompaniment changes with each poem. The first set of seven deals with love, sex and religion. That is enough for this concert!

William Walton (born in 1902) wrote his 21 part piece on poems of Edith Sitwell. It premiered in 1923 (the poems were written in 1918) And the vocal parts in this are spoken. This isn't sounding like a coincidence! We know that Walton had heard Schoenberg's music because he criticized his own string quartet from 1923 as "full of undigested Bartok and Schoenberg".  Yet he borrowed the form of Pierrot Lunaire very closely. Presumably it was well digested.

Made it to the 20th Century!

We covered the 18th Century on February 3rd.....everything from a treble viol solo to Beethoven Quartet Opus 18 number 2 (written in 1798)
And on April 28th we celebrated the 19th Century with a Brahms wallow. A talk by Will Johnson and then the Piano Trio in B Major and the String Sextet in B flat Major. It B a happy day......

And NOW!!!   Stories of the 20th Century!
The first part of the weirdly wonderful Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg; Facade by Walton;  A cute little duet by Hindemith and trios by Lili Boulanger (the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger)

June 2 at 2pm at Cinnabar theater in Petaluma.
763-8920 for tickets.

A-Zed starts in the 17th century.....

Our first in the A-Zed through the centuries starts September 9 with a Purcell program.

Called Magic in the garden, the program includes music from the Fairy Queen, a juggler, a hula hoopist and a comedian and an actor.

Soloists are Eileen Morris, Kira Dills-Desura, Corey Head and Eugene Walden. They will be joined by other singers and the Alphabet orchestra. This is a benefit for Cinnabar Theater so there will also be a Silent Auction and refreshments available at intermission. And the garden itself is the stunning creation of Sandy and Borue O'Brien.

Tickets and more info at cinnabartheater.org

A-Z thru the centuries

We have dates!
September 9, 2012....17th century. Purcell's Fairy Queen set in a gorgeous private garden.
February 3, 2013.....18th century program at Cinnabar Theater, Petaluma
April 28, 2013......19th century. An all Brahms program with one of the sextets
June 2, 2013....20th century. Hopefully Schoenberg's wonderfully weird "Pierrot Lunaire"

.....and then!

The plans are in the works for our follow-up series.

THRU THE CENTURIES...with the A-Zed players.

A quartet of concerts: first, one of 17th century music; second, one 18th etc. We're thinking of starting with an outdoor concert in early fall of 2012. "Magic in the Garden" based on Purcell's Fairie Queen, but incorporating other things as well. Then in winter the 18th century...too many options at the moment. Late winter of 2013, an all Brahms concert including a Sextet. Finishing in late spring with 20th century....Pierrot Lunaire (Schoenberg) with something we have in mind but aren't firm about yet......something very fun.....

After the first, in the garden, the concerts will be at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma.

We are having fun plotting and planning.

Details to follow.......

Z wrap-up!

A grand finale!

The audience sang along on the last piece...by Zespedes.

Not the original words, perhaps. This time is was:

It started out with A's

Then we moved on to B's

When we arrived at C's

We knew it was a Disease!

Z end!

Amazingly we finished our 23rd concert last night! 23 concerts in 24 months. It was great fun musically, and we awarded prizes to the people with the most letter cards. 6 of us will go to Chez Panisse for a meal, 5 people got wonderful (altho maybe tasteless) tote bags made from the sets of the "Dragon of Wantley" production. (L concert). Some got wine from A-Z winery and those who had come to "Z" for their first alphabet experience got Zinnia seeds......Hey, prizes! Then Gwyneth had made alphabet soup, alphabet cookies, and zwetchendatschi, for the whole audience!

Peggy Lucke compiled a list that included these stats:

Total number of concerts...23

Number of performers involved...66

Venues...16

Composers whose music was played...113

Blog Posts...115

Number of artists designing cards...20

Number of instruments played...18

Number of rehearsals!...137

Operas performed...1

Dragons...1

And so it was...a lot of fun and a wonderful feeling of camaraderie amongst the performers and audience members. Many, many thanks to all who participated in every way! It was a great adventure.

Z...little bits about the composers......

Alexander Zemlinsky was born in Vienna in 1871 and died in New York in 1942, having had to flee his native land. By 1893 he had written some chamber pieces which Brahms liked so much he wanted his publisher to publish them. He later wrote a few operas which have not stayed in the usual repertoire, though they are occasionally revived, and then forgotten again. He became friends with Schoenberg and taught him counterpoint. And though they were close friends, in fact Schoenberg married Zemlinsky's sister, Zemlinsky stayed with a tonal style of writing while Schoenberg moved on to the new 12 tone style.

Manuel de Zumaya (1678-1756) also wrote operas which are no longer performed. He was a priest and composer in Mexico, and in fact wrote the first full opera to be performed in North America: La Partenope. ( a topic Handel handled perhaps more successfully) This concert includes his interesting cantata "Si ya a aquella nave", with Lynda Higson, mezzo-soprano.

Juan Garcia de Zespedes (1619-1678) is another Mexican composer. (but he wrote no operas) He was also a singer and viol player and teacher. His "Convidando esta la noche" is a lively, fun piece that we will end the program with....with possibly some new lyrics!

Zappa!

Francesco Zappa! ( a great-great-great-great-grandfather?) was born in Milan. Sometime.

Grove Dictionary of Music just says "(b. Milan; fl 1763-88)" Isn't that lovely, to say when someone flourished? And that is known because of his dedication of the trio sonatas, one of which we will play, to the Duke of York. After teaching the Duke of York in Italy he moved to The Hague and continued teaching. His output is small but charming. Interesting that there are a few measures in the Sonata you will hear that are almost identical to bits in the Haydn C Major Cello Concerto, which was written in 1761.

Zappa lives.....

Zipping up the series with zeal....

Zounds!! It can't be 2 years already! But December 30 will be our 23rd concert of alphabet madness! And we have a cast of thousands (give or take...) to celebrate with. Singers, string players, harpsichord, piano, clarinet and a comedienne!! And after the concert we move to another room at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts for a little reception/party and the awarding of prizes. And some zwetschendatschi (yum!) and other alphabetical treats. Bring your letter cards, there are prizes for all sorts of combinations, etc.....

The zillions of composers include Zumaya, Zemlinsky, Zwilich, Zéspedes, Zoilo, Zannetti, Zielenski and our favorite....F. Zappa.

The cast of thousands include: Cynthia Albers, David Bowes, Maria Caswell, Phebe Craig, Gwyneth Davis, Nancy Hayashibara, Lynda Higson, Larry London, Elly Lichenstein, Judiyaba, Karen van Sant, Marilyn Thompson, and you, our wonderful audience!

The concert in the Nursery

It was a very varied program at Grow Gardens Nursery last Sunday night. We hope the plants recovered from the Xenakis and thrived with the 15th Century choral music (that we stole and used for strings). Good to have shovels and rakes handy in case we dropped notes.....Mr. London is taking it all very seriously in this photo.

And now....on to "Z" last concert!

December 30 in Sebastopol, where we started!

Xenakis: Composer and Architect

Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001)

Xenakis was raised in a music loving family and studied both music and architecture in school. Forced to leave Greece after WWII (where he had been a resistance fighter) he landed in Paris and studied with Le Corbusier. This picture is the Phillips Pavilion at the 1958 Worlds Fair in Brussels, which he designed. Looking at it might help in understanding the jaggedness of his music.

In Paris he also wanted to continue his musical studies. He was rejected by Boulanger, and Honegger, who said that the fact that there were parallel fifths and octaves in his compositions meant that they were not music. It was Olivier Messiaen who did finally accept him as a student. Messiaen introduced him to serialism and also encouraged him to use his mathematical and architectural skills in composition. That is the path he followed. He also went on to be part of the budding computer music world in the 1960's and 70's. His book, "Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition" was written in 1971 while teaching at Indiana University.

"Charisma", the clarinet and cello duet on this program is an edgy piece. In just 4 minutes he builds a sparse, varied, and yet unified structure.

We're back!

In case anyone had trouble getting into this blog, it actually was removed for a few days by Google. It somehow got trapped in a spam filter. After reviewing it I guess they decided that we really are not very scandalous!