But that was the case this Saturday February 4, 2017 when Seattle’s Linda Melsted had lunch with Rosemary, my granddaughter Lauren, 14 and  Portland baroque bassist Curtis Daily and me in our Kitsilano home.

After lunch she went up to our piano room to warm up and to practice her part in Joseph Bologne de Saint-Georges’ (1745-1799) Concerto for 2 violins and strings )Op 13/2 in G mayor that she was going to play (with Pacific Baroque Orchestra concertmaster and violinist Chloe Myers). The concert was an amalgamation project of the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra and the Early Music Society of the Islands. The concert held at the Vancouver Playhouse was sponsored by Early Music Vancouver.

She closed the door of the piano room but her extraordinary violin (a Nicolo Amati) has a presence that punched through our walls and ceilings and it sounded loud and clear. At one point I heard her singing. I found this odd and asked Curtis Daily who told me that I may have noticed that guitarists can sing and play simultaneously but in some cases cannot play and talk. It seems that all that happens in several parts of the brain. He further told me that singing while you play (or humming) can help you master and immerse yourself in the work being practiced or played. I would have never known except for the pleasure of hosting both a violinist and a bassist in our little home.

The photograph of Melsted with my granddaughter Lauren has the purpose of being a “silent” impetus to Lauren who by her choice asked her mother to place her in violin classes six years ago. I picked up Lauren at the Arts Umbrella dance lesson at noon knowing that the two musicians would be at home (they braved a snow storm in Bellingham to get to Vancouver Saturday morning).

Lauren does not communicate verbally all that much but I am sure that the experience of listening to Melsted and to posing with her might leave a lasting impression.

If anybody reading this would wish to ever host a musician for a forthcoming Early Music Vancouver concert your contact would be Alicia Hansen, Production Manager, EMV [email protected]. The phone is 604-732-1610 extension 2004

Some might know that I am an Emily Dickinson freak. I have written two previous blogs here and here using Dickinson's poem that mentions the violin:

The Spirit lasts - but in what mode -
Below, the Body speaks,
But as the Spirit furnishes -
Apart, it never talks -
The Music in the Violin
Does not emerge alone
But Arm in Arm with Touch, yet Touch
Alone - is not a Tune -
The Spirit lurks within the Flesh
Like Tides within the Sea
That make the Water live estranged
What would the Either be?
Does that know - now - or does it cease -
That which to this is done,
Resuming at a mutual date
With every future one?
Instinct pursues the Adamant,
Exacting this Reply -
Adversity if it may be, or
Wild Prosperity,
The Rumor's Gate was shut so tight
Before my Mind was sown,
Not even a Prognostic's Push
Could make a Dent thereon -
Emily Dickinson 

 More Emily Dickinson
 
The Charm invests her face
A sepal, a petal and a thorn
The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman
T were blessed to have seen
There is no frigate like a book

In my photographic life in Vancouver since 1975 I have taken thousands of photographs and experienced situations where I photographed cops, hoods, a posible murderer (he was acquitted), actors, directors, dancers (of the exotic and of the more modern kind), politicians, businessmen (and a few businesswomen), lawyers, gardeners, authors, relatives and myself (but not too often).

I will not confess the fact that my interest if not an obsession has been the female in a mostly undraped environment.

I have told photography students in the past (before I was deemed too old to teach) that we all go through the same stages when we take photographs. The difference lies  in that these stages rarely coincide. We do something before someone else or we are too late when we find someone else has been there.

This is natural.  We might begin shooting in the street and taking photographs of Mexican native women in markets with beautifully arrange oranges in pyramid piles. Sooner or later we (or at least this guy) realize that a camera in hand might be pointed at an undraped person of the sex of our choice. That might begin with our amazement that the human figure can resemble a sand dune. So we shoot bodyscapes. From there we up the ante and start including the face. This could be as in boudoir (ugh!) or in other ways we think are sexy or erotic. Then we get sophisticated and discover Helmut Newton.

Sooner or later we (not this guy) may diverge into pornography. But this is so difficult to define. I believe that pornography is simply anything done in bad taste. Also depending where you live pornography here might be art elsewhere.

The proliferation of selfies in social media have levelled the playing field to my satisfaction. Why?

Because at my ripe age of 74 eroticism is no longer physical but in my head. I think it is more subtle, more sophisticated, more fun. This is something that I am pursuing while I can press on the shutter of my camera and get willing subjects.

But there is one area where care must be taken. I tell my students that when they are facing an undraped person in a studio that one must be like a doctor. You look straight into your subject’s eyes. Any other looking (details of light might be your excuse) you do when you are behind and looking through your camera. Touching is anathema but I have pointed one single exception. A bit of hair on your subject’s face might be moved aside (ask or warn first) with your pinkie. Anything else I always have a hand mirror handy or a nearby full-length mirror where your subject can check.

In my pursuit of the erotic narrative where I like to place anywhere from three to five little photographs in a row I have had some success. But there was one occasion when I found my principles challenged.

In my long career as a magazine photographer which I began in Vancouver in 1975 I did my best not to mess up my assignments. I knew that because of the big competition any error (and not coming back with a useable photograph for publication) would mean the end of further jobs for the magazine or newspaper.

This meant that I always took two of everything. I firmly believe in Patterson’s Law of Photography that states,  “Murphy was an optimist.” If I needed one camera I took two. I had two of my favourite portrait lenses for my Mamiya RB-67 a 140mm floating element lens. Once while taking photographs of a very chubby Raymond Burr the main spring of the 140 failed after the Polaroid test. This meant I had to shoot the rest of my pictures with a 90mm which did not take kindly to his bulk.

But the fact is that in photography errors sometimes become discoveries of note. If one is able to determine where it went wrong (and produced an unexpected delightful variation) one can repeat the mistake.

 

Tanya - acciidental double exposure- Mamiya RB -67 Pro-SD

The Mamiya RB-67 Pro SD has many devices that prevent an accidental double exposure. But also the camera permits one to double expose if one wants to. The double exposure here which I took with the Mamiya was purely accidental. Somehow in spite of the double exposure prevention protocols I managed to find a way around it! 

 

Anosh Irani

At St. Edward’s High School in Austin, Texas in the late 50s, I had a Plane Geometry teacher called Brother Gregory. He was soft spoken and almost always had a smile on his face. I learned geometry from this kindly man and to this day I cannot forget his explanation of the words congruence and congruent. In our classroom and homework assignments we were to fit one triangle into another and if this happened without overlap you had congruence.

In my career as a photographer I might have been cubbyholed as a portrait photographer even though I took my versions of landscapes and architectural photographs. At the same time I can assert that I did a lot of experimentation as I never wanted to do one style to the point that I would have been making the motions of taking the photographs. It always had to be and must be to this day a challenge.

Perhaps when Helen Yagi and I met and I persuaded her to pose for me I found a perfect congruence of ideas, style and experimentation. In the case of the photographs here I used a pinhole body cap on my Mamiya RB-67 Pro SD instead of a lens. I remember that the exposures were constant flashing of my studio flash on full power for one minute and 35 seconds. Because the exposures were so long Helen could move a bit without affecting the sharpness which was not all that sharp to begin with. 

Vancouver, B.C.

The events in the neighbouring country to the south today Monday, January 29, 2017 bring to mind that while Americans are better than most of us at just about everything there is one quarter where we Argentines may have the upper hand. 

Argentines are experts with the execution of the military coup d’etat. They have practiced for years. I recall one in particular. On June 28, 1966 our freely elected civilian president, Arturo Illía (an inoffensive if slow country doctor) was deposed by a military junta comprised by the head of the army, the air force and the navy. The former Commander and Chief of the Army, General Juan Carlos Onganía (he of the walrus moustache) became the president. As a conscript of the Argentine Navy my companions and I were ordered to surround the seat of government, la Casa Rosada,joined by representatives of the other branches of the armed forces.Through a loudspeaker President Arturo Illía was asked to leave the premises. This he did in a taxi.

One of the first acts of the military junta was to censure the arts:

My friends Graham Walker, Ian Bateson and I attended the Turning Point Ensemble’s Zappa Meets Varèse and Oswald –The Present Day Composer Refuses to Die on Sunday, January 29 2017 at 3pm. It was at the sonically powerful Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.

The opinions you will read below are purely subjective and keep into consideration that I am not a music critic and my knowledge of music is a rudimentary ability to read music and an even more rudimentary ability to play the alto saxophone.

The whole concert can be defined thusly: Peaches (and cream) and regalia.  It was a totally sweet delight to the ears and to the eyes.

As a product (me) of the 20^th century born in 1942, the idea of contemporary music was all about not understanding the not quite atonal music of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern. It was also about hating those composers and opting for the lyrical tonality of the romantics. The latter is what my pianist mother liked to play and to listen.

That brings me to the musicians of the Turning Point Ensemble. If you go to a varied palette of concerts you will note that you recognize many faces. The reason for this is that most of those musicians play for other symphonies and groups. You might think that it has to be a mercenary impulse to make money. That could be part of it. I believe it has to do more with feeling too comfortable with what one does. I believe it has to do with realizing that you might not want to play one more Bach double violin concerto or one more Vivaldi Four Seasons.

I would define this as the challenge to feel unsettled and to glory at that fact and feeling.

My two prime examples are violinist Marc Destrubé and bassist David Brown. Destrubé has a curriculum a mile long that ranges from playing and heading baroque orchestras and a Washington DC based string quartet to playing Bartok with his Microcosmos Quartet in Vancouver. And, he is a member of the Turning Point Ensemble.

David Brown and Jeremy Berkman

David Brown has been playing the string bass for the Vancouver Symphony for years and could comfortably end his career there. And yet as a member of the Turning Point Ensemble I have seen and heard him play a 6-string bass guitar while surrounding himself with all kinds of black boxes with lights and pedals.

David Brown extreme right

He is happy (I believe) to be restless in what he does.

And that is what you get with the Turning Point Ensemble. They are a bunch of restless musicians eager to try new territory with a smile on their faces. That they do so while playing in our presence, is what makes the music that they play not only more accessible but also enjoyable. It is one thing to listen to a bit of music you have never heard without seeing the musicians. That can be alienating and confusing. But seeing these musicians play and to notice instruments you may have never experienced before is part of the surprise. Because I see these musicians all over the place I can safely say that many are now my friends. They patietly answer my questions. At Turning Point Ensemble concerts they are not up on a stage. They are right there. You just stand up and go to them and ask them whatever you want. Even the chap with the muted (!) tuba, Drew Dumas puts on his pants one leg at a time.

The concert we heard had some funny moments and a few difficult ones. But every time you hear a difficult piece of music (that is all new not because it is new but because you have never heard it) as was Edgard Varèse’s Octandre which was composed in 1923 the next bit of music will be just a tad easier to digest. Music, unless it’s pop music, has to be listened to and digested.

Owen Underhill's bow tie

My first experience at a Subhumans’ concert around 1980 was sheer horror. I soon learned the thrill of loud music and the rapid but minimal playing of an electric guitar. Now “Slave to My Dick” almost sounds like a nursery rhyme. And all the notes played by Thelonious Monk sound not like the right wrong notes but like the right, right notes.

Sharman King's bass trombone

Where in Vancouver can one listen (live) the symphonic music of Duke Ellington, a Stravinsky tango or many a contemporary Canadian composer such as last afternoon’s John Oswald? Only in two places. One is the Turning Point Ensemble and the other in the Vancouver Symphony’s yearly New Music Festival (about to end as I write this).

What is new Music?


This service by restless musicians to a restless or to a perhaps too comfortable audience is something that is special in our city sometimes seen (and are they wrong!) cultural backwater.

As I am no music critic I can only say that the Zappa was special and the Varèse was interesting. Both were made more than the sum of their parts by the video projected designed by Vanessa Goodman and Dayna Szyndrowski aided by the production designer Julie-anne Saroyan.

David Brown's bass

Music in Varèse’s time seemed to be about modernity, electricity, progress, the building of bridges and an unstoppable humanity. The design team chose appropriate videos that seemed to mimic the intention of the music that was trying to blow apart the musical boundaries of their time.

As soon as the first half of the concert was over I told my companions that I expected the worst from John Oswald. After all he was a living Canadian composer. He could not possibly by lyrical and more accessible as my ever popular and favourite local composer Jocelyn Morlock. Of course I was an ignorant idiot. From the first notes of Oswald’s piece Refuse (a world premiere!) we all smiled in unison with the musicians. There is a new word in my vocabulary coined by the composer himself “plunderphonics”. Bits of 60s themes from the Pink Panther, James Bond and the Beatles shared the stage with music that challenged me ever so nicely.

Is new music with a sense of humour at odds? Certainly not!

And finally I must mention that sitting centre front row at a Turning Point Ensemble Concert brings in one more delight. In most symphony concerts you see, always the musical director from about the shoulders up. This is not the case at these concerts. You see the Artistic Director (otherwise called the conductor by we the masses) Owen Underhill from head to toe. And this is special. Underhill conducts his orchestra using Argentine Tango movements. I am an expert at this (but a lousy tango dancer) as I am an Argentine. Besides his swaying hips you cannot but note what he does with his shoes. It was so arresting that last night his shoes competed with cellist Marina Hasselberg’s avant-garde leg wear and short shorts (I could not discern if they were shorts or a skirt).

Marina Hasselberg's cello

Mr. Underhill oozes calmness and sweetness. Even without a tux (but he did wear a bow tie, a first, I understand) there is also an elegance.

Marguerite Witvoet & Owen Underhill (whose directing? That's an unanswered question.) Adrian Verdejo, extreme left in a pinch could be a rock star with his electric guitar. Have people forgotten that Zappa began as a guitarist?

It is my belief that the Turning Point Ensemble serves us well with this man at their helm. If there is no Order of Canada forthcoming for him then there is no musical justice in this world.

My friend Graham Walker is a graphic designer of note, an enthusiast of baroque and challenging music who likes to bring his sketchbook to concerts. Of the Octandre sketch he tells me (and perhaps some of you might discern it , I could not) that on the left of the drawaing each bar spells one of the letters of Zappa.

Jeremy Berkman, Ellen Marple, Sharman King & Drew Dumas

Dancers Anya Saugstad and Diego Romero, choreography by Rob Kitsos. Dance performed for Zappa's G-Spot Tornado (1992)