First OS Concert

The program:

Brahms - Piano Concerto in D Minor, soloist Jonathan Shames
Beethoven - Fifth Symphony

Performing tonight. Huw's happy note on the board during yesterday's rehearsal:

Oly' SO: We are SOLD OUT!!

Eeeexcellent.

Tales from the Pit

Capitol Playhouse's Kids at Play program is doing Pippin this week. The show runs at 7:30 through Sunday (2 o'clock matinee Sunday), $12, at Black Hills High School. I'm in the pit for it, and am heartily enjoying myself. It's great seeing a show three nights in a row so far; may not be so after the seventh viewing, but it's all good now.

The rehearsals have gone on late enough to fairly well keep me from doing after-show activities thus far, including 1.99 missed dances and a populated bon fire at Ramona's house. Tuesday, I arrived for 1 dance at the Eagles, and hung out talking with a few people. Wednesday, I hit traffic so horrendous on I-5 that I averaged twenty-five minutes a mile. If I-5 were a rectum, I thought to myself at hour 0.8, I'd gladly take lubed dynamite to it right now. At least I got through two discs of Don't Know Much About the Bible. Ah, and I digress; bitterness for missing a dance because of traffic'll do that to you.

The late nights have been spent with a pit full of people I barely know. I'm familiar with Troy Fisher, because Aaron got the image of him and a juicer for my nuts tied into my mind. I haven't feared for the berries once this season, though; if he got ticked in seasons passed, he's gotten it down by now. The trombonist is the other guy I know, from SOGO; he and I are the only ones I see who do the Gramma Macarena in the pit, like Troy gleefully suggested to us. Audience participation, ladies and gentlemen.

This show has an odd level of audience involvement; it's almost like a meta-play at times. There are a few references to actors' talents; entrances of main characters are well-announced; and even the discombobulated story begins with a magic show that, somehow, is connected with Charlemagne and his son, Pippin. Somehow. In-play, there's also a healthy amount of sex for a youth production: Two scenes, a romp and a bedroom, the latter of which is refreshingly silly; and plenty of fishnet for some of the cast.

One day in rehearsal, Troy got a shock during the sex scene. The joke of the scene involves the, erm, gentleman...letting the ball roll out of the cannon, shall we say? This is symbolized with a large paper pillar, about as round as three or four paper-towel rolls, held by one of the cast's younger boys, breaking in the middle and flopping. They had to pause that rehearsal for a second and fix something after the flop. The kid who was holding the bent-over paper shaft, though, didn't really get what the scene was about (ah, youth), got bored, and started playing with the dangling end. That sure got Troy's attention ("Nooo! Don't do that! Oh no, I'm going to go to jail!").

And now, for something completely different. This is also the show that has the girls from France. Their mother's playing violin in the pit, and she's happy for them – though, the sword trick in the beginning involves the sisters, to her loving motherly (joking) despair. There's one French line, and neither of them get pushed down by a policeman like in Les Misérables last year.

One rehearsal, though, the sisters had climbed into their magic-show box, and had done some number of tricks. One of them thought vehemently that there was going to be another trick, but the other knew that the swords were coming soon. They couldn't agree, so a vigorous debate ensued. Or name-calling. Nobody at the rehearsal was really sure; it was loud, all right, but in French. Oh, I wish I could've seen that.

Here's to hoping they'll have a sisterly bickering fête again. Elle serait grande. Come on down, and hope with me! It's a fine show, and keeps everyone (pit included) happy and lively. It's not too often the pit and audience get to dance, ya know.

FW: [fools_play_improv / FPRL]

(Consider this a forwarded e-mail, sans spamming sensation.)

This Saturday marks two Fools Play Occasions you don't want to miss:

1. The Purple Fool makes his triumphant return to the stage.
2. Weird, Dirty Heel, Incredible Bastard, Squid-Bo and more make their
triumphant returns, too, in Fools Play Rassling League's latest
performance: FPRL, Indepaindence Day.

Don't miss one of our most popular Formats accompanied by one of the most popular Fools.

See you at Studio 321 on Saturday!

Mike
Blue Fool

The Big Drum

Lakefair. It's going on literally half a block from my office. We can hear the music that plays in the afternoon. A girl I dance with told me she'd be playing with her band yesterday, on bongos. They were a fun group to listen to – drums, bongos, guitar, bass guitar, with trumpet and trombone. Great show, though they were mostly white guys and one of them rapped – it was pretty ok, well lyricized, and the guitarist jumped off the stage and rolled on the ground. I'll try to buy one of their CDs next time I see that girl. That shouldn't be hard, except I'm blanking on her name; she looks like Ellen, for those of you who go to the Eagles. Any help?

The All-City Band takes stage tomorrow, square at noon. I'm on bass drum for the third year, and they've given me The Big One. Seriously, I could crawl inside that thing if necessary. It's humongous enough that I have the mutually exclusive options of walking with the back straight up, instead of an angle, or seeing in front of me. And, as an added bonus, if I don't shift it a bunch, which always looks awkward, my left leg falls asleep, because the bottom of the low-waist segment rests on my, uh, not-so-well-protected pelvis area.

But. It'll be good times. The concert's at noon, at Lakefair's main stage. Parade's from five to seven on Saturday, and it looks like the All-City Band's only marching once this year. Good, sweaty times ahead.

OHS Band Concert

This is really a quick note to myself, else I'd forget: Tomorrow night at 7:00 (or 7:30? not sure), Oly High will have a band concert. $4 seating for adults ("Students" means high school, $3 for students). I'm going solely to hear "Powerhouse" from the jazz band, regardless of how good I hear it is or isn't from anyone. If anybody wants to come with, lemme know, but I have no idea what else is going to be played.

Concert! Much sweat!

Where: Tomorrow at noon, by the Olympia Senior Center. Just follow the set of 40 blindingly white uniforms to the Lakefair Marching Band's concert on the grass; it should start a little late for peoples' lunches' sakes.

On a related note, tomorrow's also the "Disrupt Downtown Businesses" March. Again, follow the blindingly white uniforms, this time accompanied by police.

I've been looking forward to this sweatfest since last year's Lakefair parade. 'Twill be much fun, and really loud -- we've had a full compliment of bass drums since the first night, though the other percussion has wavered from half-there to all-there. I'm not sure how well we're balanced against the smaller-than-last-year band, since my hearing has started to diminish slightly. There's an inverse relationship between my ability to hear and the time Jon has been there on crash cymbals...I think the cymbals hurt my hearing much more than playing bass drum.

After tomorrow, The Parade. I'm not sure how to think about that: We were initially told that the parade route had changed, to the longer (by 6 mins) pre-quake route, but we'd only go through once. Then Lakefair booked the band for two run-throughs.

The next time I see any of you, I will be reaping quite the tan.

This next concert, in Smell-o-Vision

To the reader: Know that any writings on this weblog express solely the opinions of myself and no other member of the Olympia Chamber Orchestra, or any other organizations I happen to be involved in or associate with. Should what I have written here seem harsh enough to warrant a response, please read this weblog entry in presented order, following the first link.

I never thought I'd [see] it, but I am in an orchestra that will perform in Smell-o-Vision. At least, that's my loving dubbing of the concert's avant-garde piece.

Now, I don't know where the heck we got our other "neo-contemporary" composers, but their pieces haven't been very enticing. Sorry, but it's either been politically swing-jigs (Rattler's Narrative, the Mexico-California border), or just had pretty effects that lost their charm after they were repeated for the ninth time (Omong-Omong). However, Gerhard has an international following: He has composed or performed in Greece, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands...I wanna say somewhere in the Middle East, too, but I'm not sure. Point being, he at least has people's attention, and not shunning ignorance.

I still have no clue how they plan to contain the smells until the appropriate moments in the Washington Center, though. Oh, by the way, the scents have been changed. There will now be piles of:

• Garlic
• Coffee
• Dirt (or some other form of earth)

...in the Center. The dirt will mainly be on the dancer's body, so I don't know if that smell will be particularly strong in exposure.

The pre-recorded sounds of Spices (1+) seem to be pretty professionally done, though one of them sorta sounds like a "Gotta-Pee" inducing waterfall. So, should you experience this concert for One More Sense (we just need touch, and the elementary bases are covered!), get to the bathroom at intermission.

Spices (1+) plays after intermission. That's how the order has been before for concerts. However, the end of the program is the Berlioz song cycles, so there'll be carry-over from the coffee and garlic. This will be interesting.

Oh, about the soprano: She is really worth coming to see. She has quite a powerful voice with the high notes, which I suppose is to be expected for a music professor, and she has such fun with the Rossini aria. The smiles are for more than keeping character. It's also quite interesting to hear her sing in Italian for the first half of the concert, and French after intermission.

The last thing I have to say about Berlioz: He wrote a cool viola part into the first Song. So, at least come for the violas, eh? Eh? Hope to see you there. (Info. is on main sidebar.)

OS at the bridge, and other work

The Symphony's playing on the bridge tonight. I can hardly wait to see what goes wrong -- it looks like it'll start with the rain that's been threatening Saturday. I'll keep my fingers crossed. And, should things go right, come on over to the traffic-free 4th-Ave. bridge; the ceremony starts at 3:30, where they'll do ...stuff... and then the Symphony plays at 7:15. Come and here the brass! They're freakin' awesome. And the bass trombonist's bell looks bigger than her head. Good times come from that bell.

And on to other news, I may get a summer job after all. I may be maintaining the website of Looking Glass Analytics, or assisting someone with maintenance. I'm picturing the work being something like maintaining Forest-Shaded Howls, only with Visual Basic, Java and XML. The job is pending how patient Joe is willing to be with me, as I actually have dismal experience with those 3 languages. VB-knowledge is 4 years old, decrepit, and I've lost the Complete Idiot's Guide that taught me with great ease; I've never used XML; and my first Java experience will actually come in mid-June when I start my Learning Contract for Java Data Structures.

I'm hoping that Learning Contract and my history of little difficulty in computing environments will encourage Joe to train me for a week, maybe two, or however long it takes to get the necessities down.

I'm also hoping that I can work camping into this, too. I must see a beach this summer, or I'll go crazy...and by crazy, I mean probably pouty and un-refreshed in September. I'm the low-key type.

SOGO; OCO; and by gum, OS!

To the reader: Know that any writings on this weblog express solely the opinions of myself and no other member of the Olympia Chamber Orchestra, or any other organizations I happen to be involved in or associate with. Should what I have written here seem harsh enough to warrant a response, please read this weblog entry in presented order, following the first link.

For the last two concerts with avant garde "Music," OCO had a bit of audience disapproval with the New Stuff. The main reason there: The new stuff was neo-political the first concert (Rattler's Narrative), structureless and repetitive (Omong-Omong), and lacking in musical qualities otherwise (all of the above).

This time, though, OCO's concert will kick all-around ass. The "Classical" portion will be a Mozart Symphony (No. 38, Linz) with a familiar, yet difficult-to-place melody in the first movement; and two arias, from The Barber of Seville and Figaro. Our singer will fly in from Atlanta, where she's the head of a music department at...hmm...I can't recall which university. She's a specialist in the voice-styles of one of the composers in our program, but I can't bloody well remember which. Oh, but I seem to have forgotten one composer: Berlioz. His Summer Songs are amazing vocal pieces, mainly from the bountiful motion of the orchestra's lines and the singer's.

And the avant garde piece has a dancer. It most probably will not be crap, as this guy has worked with us before; I also hear that he's a fairly large man, and watching all his mass move with the elegance that it does is mystifying -- at least, from the audience. One of the second violins, a nurse in profession, wants to charge the guy with a defibrillator because he gives the image that his heart's gonna blow at any time.

Point being: Come to OCO. Concert plugging done rightward.

Sample of SOGO is next Sunday, and it's looking to be quite fulfilling. I have a quintet gig in the commons at some point in the day, so I won't just be eating marvelous food and listening to other groups; I'll be one of the groups! Yay! I'll also be making that asinine player-wiping-dirty-string screech for part of one of the songs. And I'll bet you think I'm kidding.

The Conservatory Orchestra will be playing after everybody's done; Capriccio Italienne is fun, hairy-chested-Italian all the way. The introduction to that piece has our trumpets giving their best blasts, and the end has best blasts coming from all sides of the group. That'll be a fun end-of-the-year piece. Good concert endings, in my humble violist opinion, have a chord that takes the full-length downbow to play so our arms end up holding our bows at our side, waiting tensely for the conductor to put his arms down and let the chamber finish ringing those last notes.

But that's only the end of the concert. Babar, the narrated orchestral Poulenc piece, will have a saxophonist-turned-radio-man for narration (to be named after tonight's rehearsal, since I forgot). I can't wait to hear how it goes.

The last musical performance I have planned for spring has a bit of controversy tied in. See, the 4th Avenue bridge has been completed, and will be dedicated with a community-wide event on May 16. The finale of this dedication will be the Olympia Symphony, performing for 45 minutes. On the bridge.

Here are the logistical issues:
1.) The OS will be playing at 7:15 pm, to 8:00. This means the sun will be a little low on the horizon, and if the orchestra's oriented just the wrong way, the sun will be in either the audience's and conductor's eyes, or the orchestra's eyes. Since the bridge runs east-west, this means the optimal route of no blindedness will have us facing towards the lake -- but then the audience couldn't fill more than 3 lanes of traffic, because:
2.) Without a shell, I have no clue how the OS will get any sort of sound out.
3.) OS will be playing on a bridge. If the crosswinds don't blow over the shell, they'll surely blow over a stand or three.
4.) Again because it's a bridge, there is the issue of sea salt to worry about. All of the orchestra members who will play are bringing "Beaters," instruments that they wouldn't mind subjecting to these conditions. However...
5.) Not everybody has a beater. So maybe half of the orchestra will be playing. The actual count of OS violas is at 3.

Here's the plus: Anne, one third of the viola section, is recruiting violists in the Oly area, and I volunteered to play. (My beater's Scarface, that fat-necked bast'rd viola.) I think she also recruited Catherine Lamb, for those of you Oly High alumni who remember her.

So, while I'm having many a merry chuckle at the expense of the Symphony, I'll get to play along with them. See, I'm not laughing at them, at laughing with them...since I'm with them. For now. It'd be really nice if they let me play with them for the Park concert, too...but hey, I'll at least get to play with them once. Good times.

I hope I see FallenEarth faces at one of these concerts...conveniently lined up 3 Sundays in a row. ...Wow. I hadn't thought of that: one concert per week for the rest of May. Yay!
I like busy times.

Weekend Rapid Right-Arm Activities

(Zach, amusing as that eight-equalsigns-pair of m's-equalsigns-conspicuous d was in one of Jim's blogs, no, that ain't it here.) I'm heeding Aaron's shameless plug, after my third concert this weekend.

The SOGO string quartet managed to get another gig! Huzzah! We're playing out at Panorama City, which as far as I've seen is an old folks' village. I have no clue who we're playing for; neither does Mary Jo (ensemble coordinator). But it pays the same as last time...I won't get fed, as I will be there for a short time.

The Beethoven Birthday Bash is Saturday, as my sidebar (off the main page) shows. If you don't understand the directions, which I didn't either, that church is adjacent to Sylvester Park--at the corner opposite the Starbucks corner. Come on down, and see the Olympia Chamber Orchestra try to fit onto that pulpitt (or whatever it's called)--apparently, last year's orchestra lost a wee bit o' breathing room, and last year had fewer people on the roster. I expect slightly less than full bowstrokes...

With the gig Saturday, and the quartet thing Sunday, and concerts, I am playing the viola for: 7 hours this weekend. I'll be glad to be at the HoHo, where I can do my deserved-by-that-point fat lot o' nothin' and sit in the audience, singing along to the carols afterwards. Mm, that's been soundin' good since last Sunday...

SOGO Concert plug

[Tech. note: I've been faithful about keeping my sidebar updated on concerts. So faithful, in fact, I'm on my longest streak! ...Which is 2. But thar be me concerti.]

Tomorrow is SOGO's first full-fledged concert of the year. Hooray!

I'm giving the speech before the concert. Hooray!

I hope people will come. Hooray.

OCO Plug

[Note: I've started plugging concerts in this blog's sidebar, if you ever scroll down that thing and look.]

When: Today, at 3 and 7, the Olympia Chamber Orchestra will play Bach's first Brandenburg Concerto, Haydn's Symphony No. 94, and Richard Burkhardt's The Rattler's Narrative.

The concert will take place in The Evergreen State College's COMMunications building, in the recital hall (entry at second floor). For directions to Evergreen and its COM building, see this map.

Tickets are $15 adult, $10 students/seniors, and $5 for those with an Evergreen ID.

Hope to see you there--I hope to see people there, actually. Somehow, we didn't have an advertisement in the Olympian this morning in the "Weekend Activities" list. I'm REALLY hoping there's more advertising than those posters I plunked up around SPSCC...ah well. It's a relaxing day to play some Bach, our soloists are good, and Haydn's Surprise's final movement sounds like those old black and white cartoons with owl children and lollipops.