Author: Lucy

Sir András Schiff, a master of the piano, recorded this presentation in the Church of St. Peter in Zurich. He is one of music’s most revered pianists, and is releasing this program to only a few US presenters. Luckily for us, it is available through UMS Digital Presentations.

I miss listening to live piano a whole lot, and he is performing a bunch of Bach and Beethoven that I would love to hear! Plus, the Church of St. Peter will definitely enhance the sound of the piano beautifully!

The performance begins streaming on April 8th: https://ums.org/performance/sir-andras-schiff-piano-digital/

With the wellness day coming up, I thought that a small art project would be the perfect way to destress and enjoy my “spring break”. This craft was an art project supplied by the Ann Arbor Art Center, and in the kit included some instructions, one package of white Model Magic air dry clay, a huge thing of gold paint (relative to the size of the clay), a paintbrush, and a piece of wax paper for letting the clay dry on.

First I looked through the instructions, which were pretty basic, and detailed how to create a pinch pot as a starting point to the suggested crafts. These included a ring tray, small bowl, and flat lipped tray. I chose to do a flat lipped tray, but make it heart shaped, just to make it interesting. The instructions also suggested using materials from around the house to push imprint patterns into the clay, which I thought was genius. I used a couple of my rings that I wear every day to make the shapes that I included on my tray, as well as some necklaces that I have which have heart-shaped pendants. I had so much fun looking through my room and trying to find different items that I could use to push shapes into the clay.

Here it is from the top, with two different necklaces used to make shapes in the clay for the inside of the bowl. I also tried to make shapes on the inside of the lip of the tray with another ring, but for some reason those did not turn out as well. You can sort of see them on the sides of the tray in the above picture as well. Pushing the necklaces in to the clay was hard without accidentally making other markings from the necklace, as well as not pushing against some of the shapes that were already there and causing them to fade a little. You can see that it was hard to make the hearts uniform in terms of depth. But it looked pretty cool at this point! Below, you can see I used another ring to do a different design along the outer edge of the tray too.

I waited 24 hours for the clay to dry like the instructions said, and then I started painting! The gold paint they provided was so sparkly and pretty, I wish I had more things to paint it with. It especially looked gorgeous because I was painting in the light of my window, so the sun was making it look so cool. Below you can see I outlined each heart on the inside of the tray along the lines of where I pressed them into the clay. I think it turned out looking pretty cool! I didn’t try to make it super neat or anything because I wanted it to be more fun than perfect. 

Below you can see I painted the whole outside so as to be able to see the pattern too. I love how it turned out overall and it was also a blast to mold the clay and paint.

This was one of the most fun things I have done for a review in a while! The art I review is not usually so hands-on, and I had a really good time playing with the clay and painting it with that gorgeous gold paint in the sun.

The documentary begins with Sorrell conducting and working with her own Baroque orchestra, Apollo’s Fire. I can immediately see her enthusiasm for and commitment to the work; it comes across in her physicality and the way she instructs her orchestra to play. Apollo’s fire only plays on historical instruments because it is a Baroque orchestra, which I thought was so cool. She really did a great job finding her own niche when Julliard and other prominent institutions turned her away for wanting to be a woman conductor.

Her own performers also laud her skills and conducting abilities, explaining that she is great at trusting them, at choosing new players, at understanding the music, and at guiding them to a great performance. Even her own ex-husband, who is still a member of the group, has nothing bad to say about her and still enjoys being part of Apollo’s Fire. I also loved hearing the players explain how some of their own instruments work, and how they are more complicated than todays instruments and their differences.

Sorrell, at one point, describes herself as “kind of driven”, but it is clear through her own experiences and others descriptions of her that she is more than driven, she is passionate. You can hear it in the way she talks about the music, and how she instructs others as well as plays herself. Her skilled expertise is apparent when she guides us through her own marking-up of a piece and when she directs for a group on stage. She also teaches budding conductors, and explains to the students how the music builds a story, and each marking in the music is an important element in the storyline the piece is creating. I never realized how much of a real story is coming across in every change in tempo, volume, and emotion of the music. I loved how she interpreted them using the knowledge of what the piece was supposed to be about but then also went further and put her own spin on it.

And, of course, I also really enjoyed hearing all of the beautiful music that was interspersed into the documentary as well. I am so glad that they included a lot of playing as well, not just information about her story and conducting abilities. It not only was fantastic to listen to, but it also helped to demonstrate that her skill in conducting is very real and impressive.

Overall, I thought this documentary was a great overview of what it is like for Sorrell to be a conductor, teacher, and just plain talented person. If you are interested in conducting at all, or just a very empowering story, I would highly recommend this documentary!

The movie begins with a skyline view of New York City, illustrated to look as realistic as possible, and a singing bird. The bird is cartoon against a real-life backdrop, and singing Can I Kick It by a Tribe Called Quest. This intro scene basically describes the vibe of the entire movie, which is abstract and out of place, but also nostalgic and occasionally familiar.

The first thing that gave me pause was that Tom, Jerry and their other pals that were included in the movie had gotten an update to their cartoon features. They were much more highly detailed and had more specific attributes than the original cartoons. This was quite off-putting, especially when they were set against the normal looking background. However, they were not so different that I couldn’t recognize the other characters who made short appearances, including Spike (the bulldog), Butch (the street cat) and his cronies, and Toodles (the pretty cat who Tom always goes after). I did not know they were going to include some of the other original cast, and it brought back some fun memories to see them there.

Another important factor of the movie was the way Tom and Jerry interacted. In the old cartoons, they are virtually invincible and constantly testing the limits of their invincibility, dropping anvils on each other, falling out of windows, smacking each other across the face with various objects, and generally beating each other up. They included this same level of violence in the movie, but it was super disconnected from the realistic background of New York City. When they first started beating each other up, I found myself wincing, because it felt so much more real and painful since they were in the actual world, not a fully cartoon world. But I did appreciate that they used a lot of the classic moves that are typical of Tom and Jerry, and recognizing some of these antics made the movie feel a lot more nostalgic. However, they overused the idea of the “pet fight cloud”, when two or more of the animals get into a punching match so big it turns into a blur of fists. This happens occasionally in the show for just a couple of seconds until something breaks up the fight, but the movie used it as a plot point. They had several of these punching matches that caused serious damage to the hotel where Tom and Jerry were staying, and it just seemed so silly and incongruous with the way the movie had previously shown the relationship between cartoon animals and real people. This idea got taken a bit overboard when they used to to move the story along, and it looked even more weird when it became a force of change in the real world. I thought they should have done a better job with keeping the cartoon and authentic worlds separated.

Overall, I had fun watching the movie. Even though it was definitely a bit strange, and the storyline was not great, it was enjoyable to see some of my favorite cartoon characters from childhood duke it out once again. I would recommend this movie if you are just looking for something fun and easy to watch.

Playing with Fire: Jeannette Sorrell and the Mysteries of Conducting is a documentary featuring Apollo’s Fire and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. This UMS digital presentation explores the art of conducting, and in particular follows the Grammy award winning conductor Jeannette Sorrell. Sorrell was told by the Julliard School and the Cleveland Orchestra that no one will hire a woman conductor, but she persevered. She formed her own Baroque orchestra, called Apollo’s Fire, which quickly rose to fame and won awards. In the film, we watch her work and teach at music festivals, as well as rehearse with Grammy winning orchestras.

I am excited to watch this because I love to watch women rise beyond those who tell her no or deny her, and achieve success. Also, I know nothing about conducting and I love to watch orchestras, so I think this will be a really interesting documentary!

It is available through UMS Digital Presentations, starting on March 12: https://ums.org/performance/playing-with-fire-jeannette-sorrell-and-the-mysteries-of-conducting/

If you search for this movie online, you will find that it has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and 86% of Google users liked the movie. However, I would be in the minority of people who definitely did not find it to be a good movie. While it had some elements and beauty that I enjoyed, I finished the movie thinking, “What the heck just happened?”. Even though there were some points that I found meaningful, I struggled to find meaning or have interest in the movie as a whole.

The film follows Fern, a woman who leaves home to travel around the US in a van. The movie had no plot or arc at all, not even a character arc for Fern, and I kept wondering where the movie was going, even in the last 15 minutes or so. It felt like the audience was just accompanying Fern on her journey, and that there was no resolution or storyline at all, which kept me in a constant state of confusion and anticipation the entire time. I would have preferred for there to be any kind of plot, or at least a resolution at the end for Fern, but there was none that I could see in my viewing. I kept thinking that Fern was going to find some kind of peace or change in her life, but she just kept plodding along, driving in her van and working wherever she was able.

The movie did have some elements that I enjoyed. Most of the scenery she surveyed was absolutely gorgeous, especially in Arizona, with views of the deserts and mountains that I had never seen before. I could certainly appreciate the mastery in some of the shots of the landscape. I also thought some of the relationships that Fern had with others she met on the road felt very real and tangible. The dialogue, for the most part, felt almost unscripted, and sometimes made the movie seem more like a documentary than a film. The people that she encountered were eccentric and engaging, and had their own stories to tell that were sometimes heart-wrenching. I wish they had focused more on all of the people Fern met, rather than on Fern’s journey, which felt very dull at points.

Overall, I would not recommend this movie to others, because it did not follow a moving, compelling storyline, and was very mundane. While I found the lives of the people Fern met to be intriguing, the focus on Fern’s day-to-day activities was not enough to keep my interest or make me excited to see what came next. I can appreciate that this movie was displaying what it is like to live so uneventfully and simply, but I think it came across as just plain boring.