Author: Ronald McTrump

This show is in the Newman Studio at the Walgreen Drama Center on North Campus.  Just go to the North Campus Building next to Pierpont Commons and it will be super easy to find the show, there will be signs. You can see it this Friday (3/15)at 7 pm or 11 pm or on Saturday at 7 pm (3/16), so three opportunities to see the show and all shows are completely FREE!

The description of the show (taken from BA FB page):  Agnes, a high school teacher, has found a D&D module (campaign guide) written by her teenage sister, Tilly, who has recently died in a car crash. She finds Chuck, a high schooler working at an RPG game store, and asks him to help her understand the module and play out the campaign. Initially taken aback by the complexity and “nerdiness” of the game, she uses it as a way of understanding her sister. As the play progresses, each character within the game is revealed to have a real-world counterpart, all of whom Agnes gets to meet. The play takes place both in the real world and within the D&D campaign.

Last time I saw a BA show, Crowns a Gospel Musical, I was blown out of my seat. These producitons are completely run and acted by students here at Michigan but are on a professional level. If you’ve never been to a BA show it something you need to do before you graduate.

I attached some  promo videos of the show:

This event was a talk. Any music played was to support a point he was making in the talk. Still the whole reason I attended this talk was to hear Yo-Yo Ma play the cello. Attending a 90-minute talk to hear 3 minutes of cello playing may not be the most logical reason, but I’m pretty sure half the audience was on the same boat as me.

Yo-Yo Ma’s first words on the stage were music to my ears (pun intended). He said ” Let’s start off with some music”. My joy turned into curiosity and confusion when instead of picking up the cello he walked over to the piano. He played some of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I was disappointed because I found his piano playing mediocre. It was a slow song, yet he was hunched over the piano looking intently into the sheet music like an unfamiliar student learning a new piece. It didn’t feel graceful, his hands were bouncing around with emotion, and I even thought I heard some mistakes. If this was just a regular piano player, playing this song, the size of this audience would decrease a hundred-fold. To his credit, he played the exact same piano piece to end the show. Although not great, I thought it sounded better the second time.

All of this piano playing was to make the point that music is based on variation and themes. In music, variation is change revolving around a theme, and in life, it is the exact same. Life is countless variations spiralling around themes. To my surprise, Yo-Yo Ma is a fantastic speaker. He is extremely cheery, full of excitement, and has a soft toned friendly voice.  His talk was very interesting, and I found myself engaged the entire time, even though it was not the reason I was there. I will summarize the points I found most impactful.

The greatest music teachers don’t teach their students to be like them, they teach their students to listen to the world around them. When Yo-Yo Ma performs, to keep his repertoire fresh he plays every song like it is the last time he will ever play the piece. In college, he went through an extremely painful back surgery to fix scoliosis. He was given a lot of pain medication, but what he said got him through the pain was Brahms second symphony playing over and over in his head.  I love music more than anything in the world, particularly indie rock and blues rock. I could never imagine San Cisco getting me through back surgery. Hearing him say this made me wonder how amazing and powerful it is to truly appreciate classical music. I realize how much more complex and beautiful classical music is than indie and blues rock, but I just find a hard time connecting with it. Yo-Yo Ma obviously has an understanding of classical music, from all his experience and practice, that I could never obtain, but hearing him say this made me feel as if I was missing out on something in life. This statement got me to vow to listen to more classical music. Everything humans do is to give ourselves meaning, and culture is part of this. Culture gives us meaning, and music is an abstract way of representing culture. Therefore, music gives us meaning as humans. How culture evolves will determine how we evolve as humans.

I was able to hear him play the cello twice. Once where he played a song and once where he juxtaposed scales with arpeggios. Unlike his piano playing, he is a master with the cello. Every bow movement is perfect as his fingers slide around the strings. My favorite part was when he was playing the scales and arpeggios he would occasionally play this ugly sound. It was a low grumbling note that still sounded beautiful mixed in with the rest of the notes. It was then that I understood the point he was trying to accomplish. He was showing us that the conflict between scales and arpeggios sounds beautiful together.

Yo-Yo Ma is one of the most famous classical musicians of all time and is probably the most famous cellist. He is internationally renowned and has won 18 grammys. You’ve definitely heard his name before, but now you can also hear him speak! He is coming to give a talk at Michigan about his career and belief in the power of culture to generate trust and understanding.  Using examples from his life he will talk about the role of culture in shaping our future.

I know talks can be boring, and it’s a little deterring that there is a price tag to this event with no reception following, but seeing Yo-Yo Ma is a once in a lifetime opportunity. This guy was awarded the National Medal of Arts and was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I am also secretly hoping that he will also have a cello on him, and play some music for everyone to hear.

This group boldly marched on the Michigan Theater stage yelling and rallying everyone in the audience to start standing, clapping and dancing. They did this while strumming a tune on their jarna jarocha’s (an instrument that looks like a blend between a guitar and a ukelele). I stayed sitting because I prefer when bands run on and immediately start playing great music that ignites everyone to naturally stand, or after proving their worth rally everyone to stand up. However, my bad mood quickly changed when the music started playing because it was very fun and upbeat music. Music that would be very hard to be upset while listening too.

This concert had a lot of ups and downs for me. Which I will explain in the following paragraphs.

I enjoyed the lead male singer’s voice. It was harsh, nasally, and whiney, but all in a good way.  It was very unique and could be the voice of a TV shows opening song. He also acted as the hype man of the group. After seeing a couple of latino shows this year, I realize that it is custom for the audience to break out into big applause and start hollering when the singer yells a phrase they like. He did a good job at this role I assume because even though I don’t understand Spanish, he got the people sitting behind me very exuberant.

I was not a big fan of the lead females singers voice, but only in the context of the music. She has a very beautiful voice, it is airy, fragile, and soft, which is great, but didn’t fit the style of the music well and didn’t sound good when harmonizing with the other singers. I even had trouble hearing her sometimes.  Granted there were songs, always the slower and stiller ones, where her voice sounded beautiful. These were actually by far my favorite songs of the night.

There were some good songs. Whenever the lead female singer was singing a song with the lyrics “I Love You”, which mentioned above also happened to be the slower songs, it was very pleasant and beautiful. They played an Afro-mexican song that had great instrumentals. My personal favorite song had a Spanish name that translated to “The Most Beautiful Ugly Person” or “Long Live the Ugly”. My favorite musician of the night was the lead jarana player. He had the ability to play extremely fast, and was the only one who offered some instrumental variety. My favorite scene was when the lead singer started tap dancing to one of the songs while simultaneously showing the lyrics in sign language to the audience.

Most of the songs sounded like they had the exact same tune, background, and beat. It was like I was listening to one song for most of the night which got a little boring. I also did not enjoy the rapping, which dominated the second half of the performance. I thought it sounded childish with the tuney music in the background, and none of the English lyrics were very clever, it was all pretty cliche. It felt like the whole thing was a freestyle they came up with on the spot (to their credit some of it was).

As both an up and down for me, the group was very political. They talked/sang about migration, healthcare for all, Trayvon Martin and other victims of racism and police brutality, environmental issues, and our current presidency. It was mainly just generic chanter, which I didn’t care to hear unless it directly related to a song. I did really enjoy one line that was said: “We got to get organized, how can we get organized if we can’t dance together”.

Bravo Bravo Bravo! Congratulations to the School of Musical Theatre for putting on this fantastic show. It was so original, unique, talented, and incredible that I went back on Sunday to see it a second time. To sum up this performance it is classic Broadway songs performed in the american musical styles of gospel, jazz, pop, and rhythmic blues. The students got to work with the composer Michael McElroy himself, which explains why it was so good.

I was surprised when what looked like 50 students walked onto the stage to perform the first song “Answer Me” from The Bands Visit. Most Broadway songs are sung by one or a couple of people. Also, the instruments accompanying the singers consisted of one guitarist, one bassist, one pianist, one cellist, and a percussionist, not a full orchestra by any means. I was curious if having so many people sing the Broadway songs would make the music lose it’s Broadway character and the meaning originally intended by the original composer. This did happen with a lot of the songs, but new character and new meaning was put back into the songs with the re-composition, and the students did a great job adding their own flair to every song.  Most of the songs performed throughout the night featured closer to 20 students, which is still a lot for the Broadway songs they were performing.

I most enjoyed the songs where all the students were on stage, I felt these songs were the most powerful. Every song performed was great, but some stood out. “Answer Me” was sung with a hushed whisper sound, but the crescendos were perfect and the buildup ignited what felt like a flame inside of me. “Luck Be A Lady” was performed by a small group of six guys, and was one of my favorites of the night. The harmonizing in the song was stellar, there was a big range of high to low, and the song still accentuated every individual singer’s voice. The two guys who had short solos during this song killed it with their high voices. They weren’t singing in falsetto, but it was still a higher pitch than I could ever achieve. “Silver Lining” was sung wonderfully by a group of five and was the only song to feature a guitar solo, which is important to me as a guitarist. “Defying Gravity” was the strongest song. It wasn’t just loud, it was powerful and got me feeling excited. “You Will be found” was the most gospely song. The girls and guys seemed to face off with two back to back songs, “Love to Me” performed by the guys and “Journey To The Past” performed by the girls. I think the girls did a better job.

There was no stories, props, or scripts, but this didn’t mean it wasn’t a very visual performance. All the students were wearing different outfits and there were choreographed dances. The best dance was during “A Whole New World”, this was a ton of fun to watch. There were so many different personalities on stage. Some students were singing with a giant smile while others furrowed their eyebrows. Some students did a lot of acting while they sang with strong facial movements, while others just seemed to sing with a straight face.

Genuinely awesome performance.