The Moth never disappoints. Anytime you hear the words “The Moth” you know you’re in for an evening, (or even a car ride) full of thought-provoking, laugh-out-loud, funny, emotional, awe-inspiring and sometimes heartbreaking stories that serve to shine a little light in the darkness that divides us and remind us all we’re less strange and less of strangers than we often think.

By the way, did you know the name of The Moth is derived from an idyllic and personal memory of group’s founder George Dawes Green? He wanted to recreate, in New York, the feeling of sultry summer evenings in his native Georgia, where he and his friends would gather on a friend’s porch to share spellbinding tales. There was a hole in the screen which let in moths that were attracted to the light, and the group started calling themselves The Moths.

Come to that light in Royce Hall March 1 for a special Moth Mainstage that is shaping up to be an evening of hilarity and poignancy around the theme Rush: Stories of Ticking Clocks– featuring tales of chasing the ephemeral, battling the ravages of the endless tick tick or begging the universe for just one more second.

Rudy Rush has signed on to host the show. Rush was the youngest host of the longest-running African-American syndicated show, “Showtime at the Apollo” and has appeared with Dave Chapelle and Martin Lawrence, and on shows such as “Def Comedy Jam,” Jamie Foxx’s “Laff-A-Palooza “and “Premium Blend.” He’s been featured in his own half-hour special on Comedy Central and was the comedic force on the long-running, nationally syndicated radio show, “The Doug Banks Morning Show.”

Joining Rush are a cadre of smart, funny, thought-provoking writers and storytellers including prolific essayist and author Jenny Allen, renowned UCLA hand surgeon Kodi Azari, poker champion Annie Duke, Upright Citizen’s Brigade regular and Emmy-nominated writer for “The Ellen Degeneres Show” Brian Finkelstein, and author, journalist and screenwriter Jerry Stahl.

Jenny Allen is an award-winning essayist, Broadway and New York Theater performer and writer of poignant comedy, often featuring tales from her life as a mom and cancer survivor. She’s been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York, Vogue, Esquire, More, The Huffington Post and Good Housekeeping, and in anthologies including Disquiet, Please!, In the Fullness of Time, and The Fifty Funniest American Writers.

Check out this incredibly witty, slightly explicit (fair warning!) tale from a 2010 Moth event titled Raised Eyebrows: Stories of Shocks, Scandals and Surprises. Allen comically reveals her reaction to an unsettling discovery whilst perusing her teenage daughter’s email account–left accidentally open.

A member of our own UCLA family will hit the stage for this evening of The Moth with internationally renowned plastic surgeon and Kodi Azari, MD and associate professor of orthopedic surgery and plastic surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He was one of the lead surgeons on the first double-hand transplantation, the first arm transplantation performed in the United States, and the first hand transplantation in the Western United States.

And, Azari is no stranger to The Moth setting, having appeared last June at The Moth event Night: Stories of Stars Aligned, which featured esteemed scientists, writers and artists telling on-stage stories about their personal relationship with science.

You may know her from the “World Series of Poker” circuit, Annie Duke joins us to spin yarns related to her career as a professional poker player. Through March 2012, Annie has earned more than $4.2 million in live poker tournaments. At the “World Series of Poker” alone, she has cashed on 39 occasions, made 15 final tables, and won a gold bracelet in 2004. Last year, Annie wrote and read a story “A House Divided” about her upbringing and how it lead her to a career in gambling for the moth iTunes podcast.

Comedian/writer Brian Finkelstein is a regular performer and teacher at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. His last one-person show, “First Day Off in a Long Time,” was selected for the HBO/US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen and chosen “Best in Comedy” by Time Out New York. The show was later developed as a sitcom for FOX. Brian has appeared in a variety of independent films, NPR, NBC’s “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” TBS’s “Cut to the Chase,” and Comedy Central’s “Upright Citizens Brigade.” Most recently he was an Emmy-nominated writer for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

Check out Brian at a previous Moth Mainstage, performing under the theme Love Hurts: Stories about Heartbreak. He self-deprecatingly talks about the bitterness left in the wake of an unrequited romance.

An author, journalist and screenwriter, Jerry Stahl is a unique player for this performance. His raw memoir of working in porn, television and film and chronicle of drug abuse and addiction recovery, Permanent Midnight, was made into a 1999 movie starring Ben Stiller. He’s also the author of novels Perv, I, Fatty (optioned by Johnny Depp) and Pain Killers and wrote the HBO movie, “Hemingway & Gellhorn,” starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman, which premieres in May.

Tickets are still available, starting at $20.

So please, come closer to the flame.

John Flansburgh and John Linnell of They Might Be Giants have always had a lot of fun being pop stars, and they’ve officially been pop stars for a whopping 30 years. The duo is known for whimsical lyrics and catchy tunes, (“A Little Birdhouse for Your Soul” anyone?) so their success in the realm of kids’ music has not only been unsurprising but also a welcome addition to the genre for parents who want to listen along with their kids, and well, not have to pretend to play along.

On January 28, UCLA Live presents a return appearance from They Might Be Giants in an afternoon performance the whole family can enjoy. A few tickets are still available for TMBG’s Family Show at Royce Hall (doors 2 pm, showtime 3 pm). Find out more and purchase seats here.

TMBG launched into kids’ music with the 2002 release of the album No! with a tracklist of songs celebrating imagination like “Robot Parade,” “Where do they Make Balloons,” “I Am a Grocery Bag” and more.

In 2005 the Giants released the well-received Here Come the ABCs replete with zippy tracks geared toward kids who are trying learning the alphabet. The album reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Children’s Music charts, won two National Parenting Publications Awards and Amazon.com called it “the best Children’s Music album of 2005″ and the 13th best overall album of 2005.

The duo followed up that success three years later with the release of Here Come The 123s, another Giants-branded installment of musical edutainment, this one with snappy songs starring numbers. The album won a Grammy Award in 2009 for Best Musical Album for Children.

The group’s most recent kids’ album is the Grammy-nominated Here Comes Science, released in 2009 and housed with such fun science-themed ditties as “Meet the Elements,” “How Many Planets,” “Solid Liquid Gas” and many more.

“Here Comes Science is not just a great introduction to the discipline for youngsters; it’s a body-rocking listen for Generation iPod,”Wired Magazine praised the album upon its release.

They Might Be Giants brought the house down with lively performances of the energizing songs from these albums at their last sold-out UCLA Live appearance. Join the eclectic pop duo for what is sure to be another lively afternoon that will go down in confetti history.

We had a bit of a good news bad new situation at UCLA Live over the holidays. The GOOD NEWS is we are thrilled to add the spectacular Christian McBride to our 2012 jazz lineup.

A versatile and in-demand performer on bass, and an acclaimed composer, arranger and educator McBride will co-headline our first jazz concert of 2012, closing out the night in a dynamic trio configuration after a performance from the Ravi Coltrane Quartet Saturday Feb. 11 at 8 p.m. LINK

The bad news is, the originally scheduled performer on this event, Geri Allen & The Timeline Band, had an unfortunate conflict that required the group to bow out of this performance. If you already purchased tickets hoping to see Geri and this change bums you out, never fear, we are offering ticket refunds at the point of purchase, so feel free to exercise that option.

While it would have been a great evening with Geri on the bill, we’re more than confident that Christian will be able to fill her shoes and help fill Royce Hall with an amazing evening of jazz.

Christian is an extremely skillful and talented bassist and a consummate performer with an ingratiating and genial presence. He charmed the UCLA Live audience in September by performing with Symphonic Jazz Orchestra unveiling the world premiere of Dark Wood, a concerto for standup and electric bass written in his honor by the legendary George Duke.

Christian’s been on something of a roll of late, releasing two vastly different but wildly successful albums in 2011. The Good Feeling, nominated for a 2011 Grammy, features McBride at his swinging best with his full big band. Conversations With Christian is an eclectic piece of work featuring McBride on bass performing 13 duets with some of his best friends and mentors including George Duke, Angelique Kidjo, Chick Corea, Eddie Palmieri, Regina Carter, Russell Malone and more.
Check out this December interview with Christian on NPR’s All Things Considered to hear more from this fantastic artist and these two albums.

Meanwhile, Ravi Coltrane has a treat in store for us on this same evening. Just this past December, he hit the studio to work on his first album for Blue Note Records, which will be released later this year. His February 11 gig at UCLA Live will be one of his first opportunities to perform the new music from this album and will be a Los Angeles debut of the latest from one of the finest musicians in modern jazz.

Hope your holiday season was fulfilling and we hope to see you here in Royce Hall for this exciting jazz event!

On March 8th, 2012 Los Angeles native Stew, front man of the band The Negro Problem and his collaborator and fellow Angeleno Heidi Rodewald will premiere their new song-cycle, The Westside of Your Mind in a DFS Demonstration Performance for public high schools in Royce Hall. The band’s controversial name refers to the “race divide” in the 60’s between white and black musicians, and how African American musicians are still often stereotyped into a particular style. In a recent interview about the release of their new album, Stew says about the name, “I’m actually glad that I have to keep explaining the name because it means it’s still something worth commenting on, it seems like something people can’t stop noticing.” Stew and Heidi won a Tony award for their groundbreaking musical, Passing Strange, which has been made into a film by Spike Lee.

We asked them some questions about growing up in Los Angeles, and how the city contributes to their creative lives.

Stew & Heidi treated audiences at The Hammer Museum with a brief acoustic set this past October, after a freewheeling conversation about their career, their creative process and their memories of LA.

–Do you remember the first time you performed in front of an audience? Where was it, and do you remember what it was like?
Stew: It was at a high school talent show…my band was performing a three-minute song…but it felt like we were rocking in slow motion. It was like a dream where you walk down the school hallway naked, the three minute song felt three hours long…the difference between playing in our garage and playing in front of people was like reality vs. a dream.
Heidi: Can’t say when was the first time, because I grew up in a very musical family, so we were always performing in one thing or another. During the holidays, my sisters and I would sing for everyone. And I was singing in the chorus in musicals as a young kid. Everyone in my family would perform at the drop of a hat.

–What bands/artists did you listen to in high school?
Stew: I listened to everything that was on the radio because back then even the music that I hated was kinda good.
Heidi: 70′s rock bands. On the radio in the car and also in my bedroom. In the living room with my family it was everything from classical to show tunes to everything else.

Do you remember the first concert or performing arts event you went to?
Stew: I saw The Who in 1976 at Anaheim Stadium (I think its Angel Stadium now?). The roadies took Keith Moon offstage during the quiet songs. I feel very lucky that I got to see Keith Moon live. Keith Moon would have rocked twitter.
Heidi: The Carpenters at Anaheim Convention Center.

–What was the first instrument you played, and is it the one you still play?
Stew: I came home from school one day when I was eight and there was a new piece of furniture in my living room and it was called a piano. And I was supposed to learn it. I liked writing songs on it but didn’t like learning Haydn on it.
Heidi: I learned the piano before I can remember. I thought that it was just part of life that you play the piano! I write on piano now.

–Is there an instrument you wish you knew how to play?
Stew: Trombone.
Heidi: I love the drums and wish I would’ve gotten serious about playing years ago.

–Is it hard to write music together? Do you have a system, or special way that you go about it? You’ve been writing and performing together for a long time, how has your way of working together grown and evolved?
Stew: We know each other’s strengths better than we know our own. That’s why we are a team. I know what Heidi is capable of as an artist better than she does and she’s exactly the same with me.
Heidi: It’s always a different experience. I trust Stew’s opinion and we’re so honest with each other that it saves a lot of time. I think when you’re working with someone you’re not so close with, you might not always be so honest.

–You both grew up in the Los Angeles area, but in the last 10 years you’ve lived and worked in other cities and countries. Are there things about L.A. that you miss?
Stew: I miss Mexican food and weather you don’t have to be afraid of.
Heidi: I miss listening to NPR while driving. And Mexican food of course. And family and friends.

–How has L.A. helped to shape your point of view about music and style, and the way you play and approach songwriting?
Stew: I owe my career to garages and loving mothers. I became a musician while jamming with my friends in garages all across L.A. County. In L.A. as kids
we had time, lotsa time, long afternoons and loving mothers who allowed us to make noise in their rusty paint can, lawn-mower filled, dusty old garages…and sometimes even in their living rooms.
Heidi: I think growing up in the SoCal driving culture and listening to lots of radio hits of the 60′s and 70′s has made me appreciate the perfect pop song. And my first band rehearsed in a garage in the Valley, which gave us the freedom to spend lots of time working on songs.

–We ask everybody in this feature – what are you listening to now – what’s on your iPod?
Stew: I don’t own an iPod.
Heidi: I’m currently obsessed with Sufjan Stevens.

Do you have a memory, impression, image or thought about Los Angeles? Share it with Stew and Heidi and see what others think at http://portablelaheadspace.tumblr.com/

–Meryl Friedman

We’re gearing up for Earl Scruggs’ performance here in Royce Hall tomorrow night. The 88-year-old musical treasure only makes four tour stops a year and we’re incredibly proud to be one of them this year. It’s going to be a lively and inspiring evening from a true legend who has had a major influence on pretty much every bluegrass musician who’s picked up an instrument over the last 50 years.

That includes UCLA’s very own Bluegrass and Old Time String Band (yep, we’ve got one of those!). These talented students got into the spirit of Scruggs visit by making up new lyrics set to the Bill Monroe tune “Shady Grove.” (Scruggs was a member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys early in his career.)

Check out the original tune at this fun clip from “The Andy Griffith Show” and then take a look at the new original lyrics the UCLA students wrote.

Turnips in the wintertime
Tulips in the spring
When I get my money made
I’ll buy you a diamond ring

If I had a moonshine still
I’d fill it up with grain
Siphon off the hundred proof
And commence to kill my brain

I’ve spent my summer cutting veins
Not mine of course nor yours
I’ve spent my summer cutting veins
Of leaves I speak of course

I went down to Charlie’s store
To pick me up some bread T
here I saw that boogey-boo
Holdin’ Little Maggie’s hand

Goin to the mountain top
Getting a point of view
But a thirdway climbing I just stopped

…

Daddy drinks his whiskey
Momma drinks her wine
Grandma prays to the Lord
While Grandpa makes moonshine

All ye good folk gather round
And hear my tale of Shady
I left my dear grove long ago
I swear tis not my baby

There’s a woody spot in Oaklandtown
Ain’t never touched by light
Where the little green leaves of the redwood trees
Keep it dark as the starry night

…

Momma said “get you a wife”
and then you’ll be a man
But I still feel just like a child
When Mary takes my hand

Stuck here sitting on the bus,
With a stinky B.O man,
The boogey-boo’s after us,
We’re going as fast as we can

And here’s a peek at the UCLA group performing the Scruggs classic “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”

That’s what Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Lang affectionately calls Stuttered Chant, a short piece he wrote for Evelyn Glennie and Maya Beiser specifically to perform together as UCLA Live brings the eclectic percussionist and stunning cellist to the stage together for the first time November 11 in Royce Hall.

“I’ve worked with both of them very very closely for a very long time and I know them very well,” Lang said. “The idea to write something for them came out of me finding out they were sharing a concert but they had no music to play together. I thought, ‘that’s terrible, these two friends of mine should be able to play together.”

Lang’s inspiration for the work was incredibly visual, he said. He imagined Glennie and Beiser walking out on stage together, sitting as equals and playing exactly the same music, both performing on cellos, albeit each playing the music in her own inherent style and interpretation.

“They’re both so lively and so up for any challenge, I really wanted to make a piece where it wouldn’t be a melody and accompaniment,” Lang said. “They are very exciting players and really dramatic. When you think of them as performers, you imagine how fiery they look when they play. They are both really alive onstage. Just the idea of seeing them do that together, side-by-side, at exactly the same time in unison, it became a very powerful image for me.”

Lang, who grew up “across the street from Royce Hall,” seems delighted that his friends are appearing together and said he hopes the four-minute piece will serve as a very special capper to the evening.

By Steve Hochman

“The whole evening will be a journey,” says Wu Man, leading virtuoso of the pipa, the demanding lute that threads through centuries of music from her native China. “We will take the audience on a journey from ancient times to modern China. What the 8th century sounded like, and then music of the Cultural Revolution in the ‘60s and ‘70s and then now, the 2000s, what does an American-based composer write for this instrument?”

The latter, the centerpiece of Wu Man’s Royce Hall program, is Ancient Dances, a gripping multi-media collaboration between her, Guangzhou-born/New York-based composer Chen Yi, percussionist Bob Schulz and video artist Kathleen Owen. The music draws inspiration from the 8th century Tang Dynasty poetry of Li Bai and ancient Chinese calligraphy, but also the 20th/21st century classical Chinese art of Wu Man’s own father.

“The three movements are all composed, none are traditional,” she says, noting each movement is titled for a Li Bai poem — “Cheering,” “Longing” and “Wondering.” “But the material came from traditional music. The first movement, written by Chen Li, is very much her language with a little bit of Chinese folk music, very fast. The second movement which I composed, I wanted to go back to ancient pipa repertoire, very slow, meditative. The scale is something I took from an ancient tune, 9th century, discovered in Dung Huang Cave in western China, very close to Central Asia. And the third movement, Chen Li composed, again using some ancient styles, very lyrical and slow and percussive.”

Behind the musicians, on two vertical screens images move and transform in Owen’s flowing program. The music and visuals are not meant to be synchronized as literal matches — the music includes improvisational elements and the length and pace of the movements can vary from performance to performance. But they are aesthetically linked.

“The piece starts very slow, the audience almost can’t recognize the screen is moving,” she says. “But the color of the music goes through the image.”

Throughout, Owen has incorporated paintings by Wu Man’s father, often birds and flowers done with ink brush. “I don’t know how Kathleen did it! They took my father’s birds and they can fly from one screen to another.”

Overall, this brings “new elements to the repertoire,” Wu Man says. “This is not standard. This is totally a new creation.  With the percussion, plus the images and poem, these elements are very classical Chinese art. I wanted to put it together, but use the high technology. That’s the idea. I haven’t seen other pieces like that.”

Ancient Dances —Three Poems by Li Bai, 701-762

About Ancient Dances, Wu Man writes:

I am very interested in exploring the inner relationship between artistic forms of pipa music, calligraphy and poetry of the Tang Dynasty (the Tang Dynasty, 610-906 A.D., was one of the most prosperous period in Chinese history). The playing style of the pipa, which consists of “civil” (tranquil and elegant) or “martial” (dramatic and military) schools, fits very well with the hand movement of calligraphy and body movement of dance. I believe that by combining the musical power of the pipa with these elements, I will be able to create a new dimension for pipa performance and provide a comprehensive experience of classical Chinese culture for the audience.

About Ancient Dances, Chen Yi writes:

It’s a privilege to write a new work for my friend, the pipa master Wu Man. In Chinese cultural tradition, in which I am deeply rooted, music is part of an organic art form, along with poetry, calligraphy and painting. I am glad that Wu Man suggested that our new work should be performed together with visual artists. We will combine the art forms together into one. I got my inspiration from three ancient poems, which are drawn in Chinese calligraphy with exaggerated dancing lines and shapes in layers of ink. The music will be accompanied by projections of Chinese painting according to the poems. The duet Ancient Dances is written for pipa and a set of percussion instruments (including woodblock, bongo, maracas, paddle castanets, a pair of small bells, a small Beijing Opera gong and two pairs of small Chinese cymbals). The movements represent various expressions, in different textures and tempos (Allegro-Adagio-Moderato), inspired by three Chinese poems by Li Bai from the Tang Dynasty: Riding on My Skiff, Night Thoughts, and The Cataract of Mount Lu. The flying lines, like mysterious and vivid ancient dances, bring the music, the calligraphy and the painting all together in our work.

The poems:

I.      Riding on My Skiff

Leaving at dawn the Baidi city crowned with cloud,

I’ve sailed a thousand miles for Jiangling in a day.

With screams of monkeys still the riverbanks are loud,

My skiff has left ten thousand mountains far far away.

II.      Night Thoughts

On couch bright moon shone,

Thought frost on ground foamed,

Raised head facing bright moon,

Lowered head dreaming of home.

III.      The Cataract of Mount Lu

In the warm sunlight, the purple smokes rising from the Censer Peak,

In the distance, the cataract hanging between the gorges.

The flying torrent drops straight down three thousand feet,

I wonder if it was the Milky Way falling from the Ninth Heaven!

By Billy Gil

A beautiful woman dressed in black sits unaccompanied and begins playing on the cello, somewhat harshly, an instantly recognizable, repeated phrase as dark, evocative imagery is cast on her and behind her — clouds racing, water, snow. The woman’s cello playing grows more agitated, eerie and mysterious as the show progresses, her cello looping over itself so it sounds as though a group were playing.

So goes one of the collaborations between longtime friends and collaborators cellist Maya Beiser and composer David Lang. The piece in question was entitled “World to Come,” written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Lang and performed hauntingly by Beiser, which was put on at Royce Hall in 2004.

Now, Beiser appears in performance at Royce Hall alongside percussionist Evelyn Glennie in a unique double bill, with the two together performing a piece by Lang.

Both Beiser and Glennie have performed at Royce Hall and have performed pieces by Lang, but this show gathers the two to perform for the first time, separately then collaboratively.

Beiser favors taking her audience on a journey of sorts, saying, “I really look at my concerts as an event. It’s really important to me that people experience something that is meaningful in that moment. When you go to a concert, it has to be an event — it has to draw you in.”

Israeli-born Beiser will perform pieces from her 2010 record Provenance, which features work by composers of Iranian, Israeli and Armenian descent, among others, drawing inspiration from the Spanish Golden Age and the multicultural confluence of music, art and culture there — plus, in Beiser’s words, her own “crazy rendition” of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.”

From the world’s first full time solo percussionist expect a free-flowing program style. Glennie gives more than 100 performances per year worldwide, offering her fans a transfixing, multi-instrumental dynamic experience. She often performs barefoot to enhance her incredible ability to sense sound through vibration. Her diverse collaborations have included Björk, Sting and for her younger fans she played in the infamous Oscar Grouch Band on “Sesame Street.”

Glennie will perform both pre-written and improvised pieces, including Steve Reich’s Clapping Music; Rhythmic Caprice by Leigh Howard Stevens and her own unique “Waterphone improvisation.”

Lang has written a work titled Stuttered Chant for her and Beiser and Glennie said she is excited by the prospect of a composition for two cellos with a percussive element. Therefore she comments that she may be playing an inexpensive cello in a completely new way.

Another piece that Lang wrote for Glennie, Loud Love Songs, consisted of her playing the tambourine for 20 minutes in what she describes as a “zenlike fashion.”

Glennie says: “There’s a real quirkiness to David’s music, he’s not at all afraid to bring in electronic sounds in any combination.”

She also comments that she thinks Lang really does know how to allow his audience to be on an extraordinary journey.

With these two virtuosos performing, and collaborating on a piece by Lang, audiences are faced with three exciting rule-breakers who challenge conventional notions of modern classical music. We can expect to see something no one has seen before.

By Jeannette Sorrell, director of Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra

“Farinelli drew every Body to the Haymarket.
What a Pipe! What Modulation! What Extasy to the Ear!”
- Roger Pickering, London, 1755

October 26 at UCLA Live Apollo’s Fire presents  a tale of two cities – two great baroque cities that attracted the greatest composers and singers of the time.  Though 18^th-century Venice and London boasted wealth and sophistication, it was their opera stages, above all, that made them the spotlights of the world.

Venice was a city of cosmopolitan decadence.  On a given day, Handel and Scarlatti might be found playing a duel as keyboardists at a lavish party, while down the street, foreign tourists listened to a famous virtuoso orchestra of orphan girls, led by Vivaldi.  Music was the supreme attraction – especially opera, which flourished in eight opera theatres.

Venice photo courtesy Emily Gates

In this magical city lived Antonio Vivaldi, a priest (of sorts) who served as music-master for the orphaned girls of the famous Ospedale della Pietà, while pursuing an ambitious international career as soloist and opera composer.  And in this city, for about five years, visited the young George Friedrich Handel – equally ambitious, equally international, and equally fascinated by opera.  Both composers were destined for tumultuous successes, failures, and upheavals in their careers as they pursued that passionate art form of love and rage:  opera.

A Priest Misunderstood

Many people think of Vivaldi as the composer of the Four Seasons.  In reality, though, we are still in the early stages of getting to know his work.  His 49 operas and approximately 30 sacred works are still in the process of being published.  It is therefore surprising to hear prominent musicians talk about Handel as being “the only important baroque opera composer,” and to hear people toss Vivaldi aside as merely a composer of violin concertos.  When I ask these people how many of Vivaldi’s operas they know, they look blank.  Likewise, we tend to talk about Vivaldi as a composer of youthful, light music, forgetting that we are primarily acquainted with his concertos, which he wrote for performance by orphan girls. His operas and sacred music could hardly be described as light or playful.

Vivaldi had a meteoric career, achieving the popularity of a rock star and then crashing to complete oblivion.  In his concertos for his orphan protégées, he was the great developer of ritornello form – the form that became the model for concerto-writing by all European composers of the century, including J.S. Bach.  The Italian word “ritornello” means something that returns.  The same word is used to mean the refrain in pop music – and indeed, Vivaldi’s ritornellos convey the bold and driving sense of rhythm and melody found in pop music.  Like pop composers today, he was writing for teenagers.  The Concerto for Two Cellos is a wonderful example of his driving rock-and-roll rhythm, as two cellists engage in a duel that is alternately playful and fiery.

Scholars believe that the great follia or folia dance-tune originated in Portugal, where girls would engage in the “folly” of a mad dance around the fire.  The follia is a ground bass in haughty sarabande-like rhythm, traditionally growing faster and faster toward the end.  It was said that the girls finished in a state of frenzied collapse. The theme is full of the tension of courtship and seduction, and has served as inspiration for variations by dozens of baroque composers, including Corelli, Marais, Geminiani, C.P.E. Bach, and of course, Vivaldi.  Vivaldi’s version, which I believe is the finest of them all, was originally a triosonata; I arranged it as a concerto grosso so that all of us could join in the fray.

Divas and Castrati

Opera performances in 18^th-century Venice resembled the atmosphere of a casino – people chatting, playing cards, and shouting their approval or annoyance with the show.  The operas were formulaic and the public demanded new ones every few weeks.  This was the pop music of the times.  Into this circus walked Handel and Vivaldi, both with ambitions to conquer the fickle public.  In 1712 Handel indeed had the Venetian public at his feet with his wildly successful opera Agrippina, performed 27 times that year.

Fifteen years later, we see Vivaldi, already an international operatic star, producing perhaps his greatest masterpiece for the stage:  Orlando furioso. With this opera, Vivaldi declared war on the trivial and formulaic operas that were all the rage.  Based on the 16^th-century epic poem by Ariosto, Orlando furioso is a tragic and heroic dramma per musica that explores the fragile strength of humanity. It can be seen as Vivaldi’s manifesto, proclaiming boldly that great music can and should be in the service of great drama.

London, too, was a city of rival opera companies and a fickle public.  Handel made London his home after his Italian studies were completed, and during his checkered career in the opera world he both made and lost a fortune.  In 1729 he became joint manager of the Theatre in the Haymarket, and travelled to Italy to engage seven new singers.  But he failed to compete with the rival Opera of the Nobility, who brought in more famous singers such the castrato Farinelli.

London opera house courtesy "cebete" via Flickr

Seven of the eight arias Apollo’s Fire are performing at UCLA Live October 26 were written for the great castrato singers of Italy (several of whom went to London to work with Handel).  Castrati had entered the musical world in the late 16^th century, when papal decree established them in the cathedral choirs.  (Women were banned by the Vatican from performing.)  By 1680, castrati were the rage.  An Italian opera not featuring at least one renowned castrato would be doomed to fail.  Singers such as Farinelli and Carestini became the first operatic superstars, earning enormous fees and hysterical public adulation.

By presenting Vivaldi’s neglected arias alongside the well-known ones of Handel, we hope  to give you, our Noble Publick, the chance to decide for yourselves:  Does Vivaldi deserve a place beside Handel on the baroque opera stage?

© 2011 Jeannette Sorrell
Cleveland, Ohio

Seven Operas in One Night! – A Whirlwind Tour

Handel’s Oreste –

1734 pastiche for Covent Garden.  Cobbled together from earlier works by Handel, this opera featured the great Italian castrato Giovanni Carestini in the role of Oreste, the tragic Greek hero who must murder his mother in order to avenge his father’s death.

Handel’s Parnasso in Festa

1734 serenade for the wedding of Princess Anne and Prince William of Orange. At a wedding feast on Mount Parnassus, the great musician Orpheus sings the angst-ridden song of longing for his lost beloved: “Ho perso il caro ben.”

Handel’s Imeneo –

1740 opera for Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London.  Act I opens with Tirinto’s lamentation for his lost beloved, kidnapped by pirates:  “Se potessero I sospir miei.”  The role of Tirinto was sung by castrato Giovanni Battista Andreoni.

Handel’s Ariodante –

1735 opera for Covent Garden, based on Ariosto’s classic poem Orlando furioso. The Act I aria “Con l’ali di costanza” (With wings of faithfulness) was written for Carestini, and contains many thrilling vocal acrobatics.

Vivaldi’s Catone in Utica –

1735 opera for the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona. Composed to a pre-existing libretto by Metastasio, the opera concerns Julius Caesar (“Cesare”), who sings the tender Act II aria “Se mai senti spirati sul volto.”  The role of Cesare was sung by castrato Giacomo Zaghini.

Vivaldi’s Giustino –

1724 dramma per musica for the carnival celebrations in Rome.  Vivaldi recycled much of the music from his earlier works.  Anastasio, the emperor of Byzantium, sings the Act I love song “Vedro con mio diletto.” Anastasio was sung by the castrato Giovanni Ossi.

Vivaldi’s Tito Manlio –

1719 opera composed for the Duke of Mantua.  Perhaps because of the lavish Mantuan resources, this opera features exuberant orchestral writing and many elaborate ensembles in addition to solo arias.  The Act II aria “Frà le procelle” depicts Tito being rescued from a storm at sea.  The wild accompaniment shows similarity to the concerto “La Tempesta di Mare.”

- Jeannette Sorrell

Very soon the darkened stage of Royce Hall will spring to life with the first show of our season—Sonny Rollins. What a show and what a life it is.

Sonny Rollins is known as the saxophone colossus and his great gift at expressing joy, sorrow, love, peace and humanity in general through the medium of jazz is legendary.  He’s an extraordinary individual who’s lived an incredible life. September 7 marked his 81^st birthday. You can celebrate with him (and us) here in Royce Hall Sept. 22 and you can pick up his brand-new live album next week. Road Shows vol. 2 hits stores on the 13^th.

Sonny’s 80th-birthday celebration at New York’s Beacon Theatre last September was the jazz event of the year, and the release of Road Shows, vol. 2 allows everybody to share in the proceedings.

More about the album and Sonny’s thoughts from the Doxy/Emarcy Records album release:

Sounding as robust and inventive as ever, the tenor saxophone titan joins forces with an unprecedented array of friends old and new, including Jim Hall, Roy Haynes, Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove, and, most unexpectedly, alto sax revolutionary Ornette Coleman. The festivities add another illustrious chapter to the career of jazz’s most prodigious improviser.

For Rollins, the palpable affection and respect of his peers was the evening’s most profound gift. “I was extraordinarily happy that my colleagues agreed to come and join me for this birthday celebration,” says Rollins, whose delight is evident as he energetically doubles as the concert’s emcee. “It was really a great honor that all these guys came. I was quite touched that everybody seemed anxious to do it.”

On an evening marked by one musical high point after another, the encounter that set fans buzzing for months was the dramatic arrival of Ornette Coleman, who was also in the midst of celebrating his 80th year. While they had never before shared a stage together, Rollins notes that he and Coleman once practiced together on the beach in Malibu back in the mid-1950s when he came out to Los Angeles with the Max Roach–Clifford Brown Quintet.

He didn’t know whether or not Coleman was going to perform at the Beacon until the last minute, so there was no rehearsal before he introduced the harmolodic innovator in the middle of an already riveting performance of Rollins’s blues “Sonnymoon for Two” with the ageless trap master Roy Haynes and bass virtuoso Christian McBride (reprising the pianoless trio format defined by Rollins more than five decades ago). At almost 22 minutes long, “Sonnymoon” is the album’s centerpiece, less a cutting contest than an inspired parallel conversation between jazz’s most surgically acute dissectors of time.

It was a piece Rollins selected with Coleman in mind, “something that would be open enough to lead to free conversation, and could go any place, rather than something like ‘I’m in the Mood for Love,’ with much more set harmonic patterns,” Rollins says. “The blues would be wide enough for Ornette to do whatever he wanted. It was all spontaneous. It was exciting to play with him again so many years later, a nice circular situation.”

Coleman’s indomitable presence on the stage was only one of the evening’s completed circles. McBride and Haynes performed with Rollins at the 2007 Carnegie Hall concert marking his golden anniversary as a bandleader, an epochal event documented on the concluding track of Road Shows, vol. 1.

Guitarist Jim Hall’s participation at the Beacon concert harks back to his crucial role on The Bridge, the 1962 album that announced Rollins’s thrilling return to the scene after his first famous hiatus. They’ve been close ever since, and Rollins was so intent on featuring him on Road Shows that he includes Hall’s sublime rendition of “In a Sentimental Mood,” a piece on which Rollins sits out.

“I love playing with Jim and I really wanted to get him in there,” says Rollins, who notes that a technical glitch on their version of “If Ever I Would Leave You” prevented him from including the performance on the album. “We go back a long way, and I have an affinity for his interpretations. It’s always exhilarating playing with Jim.”

A more recent Rollins associate, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, joins the saxophonist for riveting performances of Billy Strayhorn’s classic “Rain Check” and the beloved standard “I Can’t Get Started.” They’re accompanied by Rollins’s working band featuring guitar star Russell Malone, rising young drummer Kobie Watkins, versatile percussionist Sammy Figueroa, and Bob Cranshaw, the redoubtable bassist who’s been a dependably swinging Rollins mainstay since the early 1960s.

While Rollins first recorded “Rain Check” in 1957, he first heard the original Duke Ellington recording shortly after it was recorded in the early 1940s. “It’s a very important song in jazz history, something that I thought Roy could display his wares on,” Rollins says. “We didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse, and I thought ‘Rain Check’ was perfect for letting these guys show who they are.”

Rollins spotted Hargrove as an immensely gifted young player nearly two decades ago, and they bonded on a shared love of the American Songbook. It’s an ongoing passion reflected by their mutual caress of Vernon Duke’s soaring melodic line on “I Can’t Get Started.”

“When I first heard Roy and recorded with him back in 1990s I was amazed at his knowledge of jazz repertoire,” Rollins says. “I had some older fellows in the band that didn’t know some of the standards that Roy and I chose. It’s one thing that makes him so special. When he’s playing ‘I Can’t Get Started,’ you’re hearing him today and a history of the music.”

In keeping with the road rubric, the album opens and closes with tracks recorded in Japan about a month after the Beacon concert. A nearly 15-minute up-tempo romp through Irving Berlin’s “They Say It’s Wonderful” serves as a rousing overture for the birthday tracks, and offers yet another example of his capacious gift for turning familiar standards into vehicles for enthralling improvisation.

“That’s a great song to improvise on,” Rollins says. “Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane played it as a ballad, but it’s a great up-tempo song. The band really had a good groove on that one. That’s a tight rhythm section! I think finding drummers is part of my legacy. It’s very important for the drummer I play with to have a certain feel, and Kobie has a beat I feel I can improvise on. I accumulated some good karma by getting guys like Bob, Kobie, Sammy, and Russell Malone, who loves ballads and knows a lot of jazz standards.”

The album closes with a brief run through Rollins’s famous calypso “St. Thomas,” a piece he uses as a sign-off, perhaps following the old show business maxim to always leave the audience wanting more.