That Curvy Brass Woodwind Dazzled
Thursday, February 13, 2025
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| Lana Victoria Lam - Piano - Michael Morimoto Alto Saxophone - 13 February 2025 |
Sometimes I define Vancouver’s cultural scene as sterile. But
I reconsider and believe that in many ways our city is avant-garde. That became obvius tonight at the West Point Grey United Church.
How is this discrepancy possible? With the death of our city
journalism and the CBC’s stress on bridge traffic, one of the few ways of knowing
what is going on in our city is through email subscription to friends in the arts.
Note the error in the program. Allison Balcetis did not play an alto but a tenor.
An thus I found out about tonight’s concert. I received a
communication from my composer and saxophonist friend Colin MacDonald.
It seems that every few years there is a conference in the
UBC School of music of prodigious Canadian saxophonists.
Before I delve into the concert, I do want to make clear that
not only am I an amateur music critic but in 1958 I played the alto saxophone
(and ancient silver coloured Selmer one) at St.Edward’s High School in Austin,
Texas. It seems that I was good enough to not only be in the school band but
also in the jazz band. After Texas I quit.
Tonight’s concert featured (is this possible?) and
arrangement of Claude Debussy’s Rapsodie. It seems that it was commissioned by
a female sax player who was deaf by the time, 20 years later when Debussy
finished it.
Just on that composition, had my friends of the Turning
Point Ensemble know about it, they would
have surely been present.
For me what was unusual is that Chinley Hinacay (a Filipino
cababayan of mine) played both the soprano and tenor saxophone. He would hold
one of them while playing the other.
When the well-dressed Kris Covlin played Charles Stolte's True Confessions solo piece I was into new territory. Colin MacDonald explained that all the
different sounds and dissolves were in fact clearly written on the music. There
were moments when a sound would come out and then Covlin would allow it to sneak
away into oblivion. Since I was on the front row I could hear those sounds.
Holly De Caigny, when she played David Lang's Press Release, I discovered that the composition had nothing to do with newspapers but about the saxophone action of pressing and releasing keys.
Allison Balcetis, wearing a most colourful dress, played a tenor saxophone. I was blown away by sounds she
made by just tapping the instrument’s keys. She made sounds by overblowing, that
back in my day, would have shot me down by my band teacher Brother Edwin Reggio,
C.S.C. Last night simply revealed to me to what extent the music of the
saxophone has evolved into this century.
That is something that Colin MacDonald amply proved with his
compositions. While others tonight did fabulous arrangements, MacDonald was the
only composer. One was even based on an obscure pre-Bach composition.
Finally at the end, after all those dissonant noises (I am
used to them as I like Bartók) Michael Morimoto on alto saxophone and Lana
Victoria Lam on piano played a long and nicely sweet composition. I was able to
drive home without a care in my world
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| Rose Yam - Chinley Hinacay & Matthew Robinson |
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| Kris Covlin |
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| Holly De Caigny |
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| Colin MacDonald |
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| Allison Balcetis |
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| Lana Vitoria Lam & Michael Marimoto |
Alice Cooper, Osvaldo Golijov & Jorge Luís Borges
Monday, February 10, 2025
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| West Vancouver Marina - 9 February 2025 |
Before I go into heavier stuff I want to point out that yesterday's Microcosmos Quartet's concert at the West Vancouver Marina was wonderfully unusual in many ways. It was organized by Dato (David) Siradze who runs the marina. This was the first time I have attended a concert in the round. During the interval Siradze suggested we change seats to get a different point of view. In the first half of the concert the lighting was overhead. For the second half Siradze use individual lights for the musicians and the room went dark. It was magic.
While I may be a decent photographer my musical journey has
not been one I can necessarily write about. That was evident to me yesterday
when I went to the Microcosmos Quartet concert at the West Vancouver Marina at
Eagle Harbour.
I had gone to an earlier version of that concert a few days
before. I have now heard Béla
Bartók’s String Quartet No2 in a minor four times. If someone were to play me
this quartet I would be able to identify the composer and no more. But on the second hearing, Dimitri Shostakovich String Quartet No. 11 in F minor Op. 122, I can safely write that I enjoyed it even more this second time around and I just might identify it in the future.
Earlier Version of Concert - Friendly Masons
While in my
high school in Austin, Texas in the late 50s, I became a fairly good alto
saxophonist in the school’s band and jazz band, whatever skill I may have had in
reading music, is all gone. My worse lapses into musical disasters began in 1971
when I was teaching at a high school in Mexico City. Students in my class asked
me, “Mr. Hayward what do you think of Alice Cooper?” My answer was met by a
roar of laughter, “No, who is she?” Not much later a musical friend asked me on
my opinion on Carmina Burana and my answer was exactly like the previous one.
I have
written in this recent blog about the Microcosmos Quartet concert like last
night’s how in music you cannot fake incompetence.
Earlier Version of Concert - Friendly Masons
With
that above clearing on my questionable skill in writing a musical review (I am
just an amateur) I would like to explain why I have gone twice. I wanted to
listen to Argentine composer, Osvaldo Golijov’s Tenebrae since at my age of 82, statistically; I
will never listen to it played alive and in my presence again.
Because I
am an Argentine I am quite obsessed in reading almost every day something of
Jorge Luís Borges. He had this obsession in later years of writing poems about
activities that he would be doing for the last time like closing a door or
seeing his reflection in a mirror.
When I see
toothpaste on sale I sometimes will buy a couple but I think in a Borgesian
manner, “Will I be around to use that second one?”
Here is the
poem called Límites. Borges wrote two versions. The longer one is more complex
so I will place here in Spanish and in English the simpler one.
Límites
De estas
calles que ahondan el poniente,
una
habrá (no sé cuál) que he recorrido
ya por
última vez, indiferente
y sin
adivinarlo, sometido
a Quién
prefija omnipotentes normas
y una
secreta y rígida medida
a las
sombras, los sueños y las formas
que
destejen y tejen esta vida.
Si para
todo hay término y hay tasa
y última
vez y nunca más y olvido
¿quién
nos dirá de quién, en esta casa,
sin
saberlo, nos hemos despedido?
Tras el
cristal ya gris la noche cesa
y del
alto de libros que una trunca
sombra
dilata por la vaga mesa,
alguno
habrá que no leeremos nunca.
Hay en
el Sur más de un portón gastado
con sus
jarrones de mampostería
y tunas,
que a mi paso está vedado
como si
fuera una litografía.
Para
siempre cerraste alguna puerta
y hay un
espejo que te aguarda en vano;
la
encrucijada te parece abierta
y la
vigila, cuadrifronte, Jano.
Hay,
entre todas tus memorias, una
que se
ha perdido irreparablemente;
no te
verán bajar a aquella fuente
ni el
blanco sol ni la amarilla luna.
No
volverá tu voz a lo que el persa
dijo en
su lengua de aves y de rosas,
cuando
al ocaso, ante la luz dispersa,
quieras
decir inolvidables cosas.
¿Y el
incesante Ródano y el lago,
todo ese
ayer sobre el cual hoy me inclino?
Tan
perdido estará como Cartago
que con
fuego y con sal borró el latino.
Creo en
el alba oír un atareado
rumor de
multitudes que se alejan;
son lo
que me ha querido y olvidado;
espacio
y tiempo y Borges ya me dejan.
Limits (English)
Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone
Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.
If there is a limit to all things and a measure
And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness,
Who will tell us to whom in this house
We without knowing it have said farewell?
Through the dawning window night withdraws
And among the stacked books which throw
Irregular shadows on the dim table,
There must be one which I will never read.
There is in the South more than one worn gate,
With its cement urns and planted cactus,
Which is already forbidden to my entry,
Inaccessible, as in a lithograph.
There is a door you have closed forever
And some mirror is expecting you in vain;
To you the crossroads seem wide open,
Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus.
There is among all your memories one
Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain
Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.
You will never recapture what the Persian
Said in his language woven with birds and roses,
When, in the sunset, before the light disperses,
You wish to give words to unforgettable things.
And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake,
All that vast yesterday over which today I bend?
They will be as lost as Carthage,
Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt.
At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent
Murmur of crowds milling and fading away;
They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by;
Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.
