Author: JM

JM is a dual degree student in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance and the College of Engineering. Some of her favorite things include running, reading, all things creative, and the color purple.

REVIEW: Sheku Kanneh-Mason & Isata Kanneh-Mason Digital Recital

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Amid a crazy week, Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason’s joint recital was a respite from the turmoil of the news. Streamed especially for UMS audiences, the Kanneh-Mason siblings brought audience members into their Nottingham, U.K. home for an intimate and well-produced performance, and it gave me the opportunity to take time away from other distractions.

First, I was very impressed with the production of the recital. Though it was filmed from the Kanneh-Mason’s home, it still included multiple camera angles, allowing viewers a front-row seat to their superb technique. Unfortunately, video buffering (yay internet!) prevented me from enjoying the full experience, but I nevertheless was able to appreciate the camerawork.

When it came to the music, Sheku (cello) and Isata (piano) were even more impressive. Fortunately for me, the buffering on my computer did not affect the sound, and I was able to enjoy the rich sound of Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s cello entwined with Isata’s flexible and virtuosic piano playing without interruption. The recital program included two pieces: the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Cello Sonata No. 4 in C major, Op. 102, No. 1, followed by Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in g minor, Op. 19. Throughout both pieces, the musical connection between Sheku and Isata was evident, both visually and aurally. Their eye contact and movement were perfectly in sync as they took cues from one another, and this could be heard in the balance and interplay of their parts. The Beethoven caught my attention with its solo cello opening which melts into the piano part, and its boldness later in the movement. However, it was the Rachmaninoff Sonata for Cello and Piano that especially drew me. It has a wide emotional range, including an intensity that the Kanneh-Masons conveyed impeccably. I particularly enjoyed the final movement (Allegro Mosso) for its freedom – after the tension of the earlier movements, it feels like a celebration and a release, while also being tender and delicate at times. It was a fitting end to the program.

However, lucky for UMS audiences, it was not the end of the program – Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason also included an encore in their recital recording! Though some of the excitement of an encore is lost in a virtual setting (no thunderous applause echoing across the concert hall), the surprise of additional music was still very much enjoyable. For the encore, the Kanneh-Masons performed “The Swan” from Saint-Saëns’s The Carnival of the Animals. It was quite the contrast from the final movement of the Rachmaninoff, and I was able to revel in its peacefulness, made even better by Sheku’s and Isata’s gorgeous sound.

Even across the internet and the Atlantic Ocean, Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason’s artistry was not something to be missed.

PREVIEW: Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason Digital Recital

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Watch sibling duo Sheku (cello) and Isata (piano) Kanneh-Mason perform in a special digital recital that will be streaming on the UMS website from 2 pm on October 25 through November 4! I am especially excited to watch this after seeing Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto in A Minor as part of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s 100th Birthday Celebration.

The digital recital, which was filmed specifically for UMS audiences from the Kanneh-Mason’s home in Nottingham, UK, will include an excerpt from Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in C Major and Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata. On Wednesday, October 28 at 8pm, there will be a watch party for University of Michigan Students on Facebook.

Visit the UMS website starting October 25 at 2 pm to stream the recital!

Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh-Mason (UMS Digital Presentation)

 

REVIEW: Carrie Newcomer at the Ark online

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In these times of online-only connection, singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer’s virtual concert this past Saturday with the Ark was what I needed. Newcomer delivered a program, entitled “The Age Of Possibility: A Moment and Movement,” that was hopeful and peaceful, as well as a lifeline of human connection delivered across time and space via electrons. She was also joined by violinist Allie Summers and pianist Gary Walters. As an existing fan of Newcomer’s music, which falls somewhere in the vein of folk and the concert was more than I could have hoped for over the internet.

As I have noted in other reviews of virtual arts events, one of the main casualties of an online concert experience, besides sound quality, is the communal experience of being in an audience. However, the format of Carrie Newcomer’s virtual concert allowed for some of this connection to take place despite the circumstances. It was presented via an online platform called Mandolin, which is like Zoom, but specifically designed for music and concerts. It has a chat feature that allows audience members to interact during the program, and the artists can even see some of the messages that are sent. At the end of the concert on Saturday, Carrie Newcomer even performed an additional song after several people typed “ENCORE!!” into the chat! Additionally, Mandolin allows users to click emoji reactions, which then float up onto the screen and can be seen by the artists. I honestly never would have thought that I would get so much satisfaction from sending a spray of floating heart and clapping emojis after a song, but I suppose that is where quarantine has brought us! It was a way to find a little bit of the connection that so many of us are missing due to the pandemic, and the best “online” arts experience that I have had since the pandemic began. In fact, I have been watching Newcomer’s website to see when her next online concert will be (one plus regarding virtual concerts – you can attend from anywhere with an internet connection!).

Newcomer’s songs, which are often focused on the small things of large importance in life, are increasingly relatable during the pandemic era where life approaches monotony. For instance, one of the songs she performed was entitled “Who My Dog Thinks I Am,” which was both humorous and true in its observations. Another song, “You Can Do This Hard Thing,” starts by describing a struggle with a math problem: “There at the table / With my head in my hands. / A column of numbers / I just could not understand. /You said “Add these together, / Carry the two, Now you. / You can do this hard thing.” Newcomer performed a mix of old favorites and new, never-performed-before compositions. The program was both fresh and, for those who know her music well, familiar.

I left the concert feeling refreshed and full of hope, a feeling that is all to rare in the current world. I will leave you with the lyrics of one of Carrie Newcomer’s most beloved songs, “The Gathering of Spirits,” because that is what this concert was. It was a true gathering of spirits, even if we were gathered over the internet, and someday, when the pandemic is over, we will all meet again.

“Let it go my love my truest,
Let it sail on silver wings
Life’s a twinkling that’s for certain,
But it’s such a fine thing
There’s a gathering of spirits
There’s a festival of friends
And we’ll take up where we left off
When we all meet again.”
– Carrie Newcomer, “The Gathering of Spirits”

PREVIEW: Carrie Newcomer at the Ark online

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This Saturday at 8pm, singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer will present a concert entitled “The Age of Possibility: A Moment and Movement” online through the Ark in Ann Arbor. She will also be joined by pianist Gary Walters and violinist Allie Summers.

I’m particularly excited for this event because I attended another one of Carrie Newcomer’s virtual concerts earlier this summer, and it was an excellent experience. Her online concerts are presented through a platform called Mandolin, which is similar to Zoom, but developed specifically for music. Though I was a little skeptical of the idea of an online concert at first, the platform has a chat through which audience members can engage with the artists, and you can even react by sending different emojis (such as hearts or clapping) throughout the performance. Even though we can’t be in person, and even though the experience was definitely a new and novel one, it was a way to feel a sense of connection and community across time and space.

To purchase tickets, visit https://www.theark.org/shows-events/2020/oct/17/carrie-newcomer. Tickets are $20 for an individual and $30 for a family, and the link to the concert is sent out after purchasing. Additionally, this concert is a way to support the Ark, a local arts venue!

PREVIEW: The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult

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Having read and enjoyed a number of author Jodi Picoult’s novels, including Small Great Things, A Spark of Light, and Leaving Time, I am excited to start on her brand new novel, The Book of Two Ways.

Just released on September 22, the novel’s story is centered around a plane crash and is, according to Picoult’s website, “about the choices that change the course of our lives.”

If you are in need of an escape from school year stress and the news cycle, head to a library or local bookstore to check out The Book of Two Ways. The hardcover edition of the book currently retails for $28.99, or you can get it for free at the library!

REVIEW: Paul Taylor: Celebrate the Dancemaker

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Though it was not a traditional performance, UMS’s online presentation of Paul Taylor: Celebrate the Dancemaker was nonetheless something special. Near-equal parts dialogue and archival footage, it featured University of Michigan dance historian and educator Angela Kane and Paul Taylor Dance Company Artistic Director Michael Novak in conversation about the works of modern dance choreographer Paul Taylor, as well as the history of the dance company he founded. Because it was a presentation specifically for UMS audiences, Paul Taylor: Celebrate the Dancemaker was also able to provide a sense of local community, despite being an asynchronously viewed video.

One of the best parts of the event was the insight that it offered into Paul Taylor’s wide-ranging and ground-breaking career. Taylor’s experiences as a painter and a collegiate swimmer informed his understanding of depth and movement onstage. Expanding the boundaries of modern dance at the time, he was also one of the first artists to employ a year-round, full-time dance company.  After opening with a rapid-fire montage of selections from Paul Taylor’s 147 works, the video featured Novak and Kane discussing some of Taylor’s most monumental works, and then showing excerpts of them.

The first work explored during the presentation was Taylor’s 1962 work Aureole, which challenged the notion that modern dance was limited to “modern music and weighty meanings.” In fact, Aureole was a lyrical, flowing, light work that, in the grainy black-and-white original film of Paul Taylor and Liz Walton, appeared to be almost be a modern impression of a classical ballet.

Then, Kane and Novak introduced audiences to Aureole’s opposite, Scudorama (1963). Lyricism was replaced with sharp angles, jarring rhythms, and a weighty, almost apocalyptic feel. Given the immediately apparent contrast between these two works, it is no surprise that Michael Novak referred to Taylor as the “master of light and dark.”

If the previous two works illustrated Taylor’s artist range, the next work featured, Le Sacre du Printemps (the Rehearsal), illustrated his artistic genius. A hyper-stylization of Igor Stravinsky’s (notoriously controversial in 190) ballet Le Sacre du Printemps, or The Rite of Spring, Taylor’s work challenges audiences to reexamine the original. Taylor’s work features a rehearsal for Stravinsky’s work inside of it, along with a plot line that closely mirrors that of the original ballet (which reminded me of the musical Kiss Me Kate, which does the same with Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew; also similar in its reimagination of an existing work is Max Richter’s work Vivaldi Recomposed).

After a short clip from the Academy Award-nominated documentary Dancemaker (1998), which offered a candid view of Taylor’s creative process, the presentation culminated in video of Taylor’s monumental work Promethean Fire (2002) in full. Like Aureole, the work juxtapositions modern dance with music that is decidedly not modern (In this case, it is Leopold Stokowski’s orchestral arrangement based on three of Bach’s keyboard pieces – the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, the Prelude in E-flat minor from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and the chorale prelude “Wir glauben all’ an einen Gott.” Chances are, you may recognize the beginning from the Toccata and Fugue in D minor). However, unlike Aureole’s quiet lyricism, Promethean Fire makes a much bolder statement: it is tense, fiery-seeming, and almost overwhelming during parts. In fact, it was the first and last time that Paul Taylor would utilize all sixteen dancers in the company in one work, on one stage. UMS calls Promethean Fire  ”arguably one of his greatest artistic achievements created in the wake of 9/11, proclaiming that even after a cataclysmic event, the human spirit finds renewal and emerges triumphant.” For an audience in today’s landscape, however, the work felt timely, and was a fitting conclusion to an artistically informative presentation.