Sunday, January 27, 2013

Playlist

Live

January 19, 2013

La Cenerentola - Rossini
Seattle Opera - McCaw Hall, Seattle

Whatever else this might be it is certainly among the poster children for works best left to the hopelessly scholastic. In performance the incessant quick patter is numbing rather than amusing (the cloying rats don't help) and then there isn't much of a fairy tale left in the fairy tale: no crystal dancing-shoes, no pumpkin-carriage, no coachmen, no fairy godmother and no evil stepmother (good feminine vs bad feminine). What's left is another tedious story about inherited wealth. And the music is dull to boot. Why is this staged? To lure children to the opera? It seems it would come across as bait and switch. "But Mom! I thought you said this was Cinderella?"

January 26, 2013
Cage/Joyce
Neal Meyer - Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

One7 (The Ten Thunderclaps) - John Cage
Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake - John Cage

What kind of a thing is a piece of music? A score? A performance? An event? An experience? Webs of thought concerning any grouping of the above? Pools of memory about the webs of thought that concern any grouping of the above? Any, all, and each, in infinitely nuanced inflection?

Neal Meyer & Anna K, Yellowstone National Park, 1988
The overriding strength of the work of John Cage, among the webs of thought that concern each of the above, is its strenuous engagement with the issues of its own epistemological status. Neal has taken these scores as an opportunity to work out, in performance, a constellation of ideas about Cage and Joyce, both through Cage's artifacts relating to Joyce, and also through his own thinking about Joyce in general, and about Finnegans Wake in particular, as a thing to perform. Ages ago, when Neal was living in San Diego, he memorized a large chunk of the first chapter and performed it several times. I was fortunate enough to be in attendance at one such performance: in a cabin at Flag Ranch, on the Snake River just south of Yellowstone National Park. I still have the tape. This night's amazing performance has been a long time cooking.


Recorded

January 21, 2013
Come Softly To Me (a capella version) - The Fleetwoods [from The Very Best of The Fleetwoods]

Nobody does aural soft-porn with quite the dewy-eyed innocence the Fleetwoods manage. That's thin ice, kids. Take care!

Rendezvous - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

An idea for a song. It would have been pretty good for nearly anybody else, but Bruce should have tossed it or finished it. As always, the E-Street Band's performance is full on.

Banned Rehearsal 32 - (May 1985 - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)

Assemble disparate and mutually incongruent sound activities in a small space. Apply pressure. Attend the textural fallout.

January 22, 2013
Lacrymosa - Keith Eisenbrey

I wrote this piece in 1985 for my Wurlitzer Funmaker Sprite electronic organ, and performed it several times (under a different title) as part of Banned Rehearsal's Three Compositions No Breaks. A few years ago I recorded it on my piano. It is a procession of tokens of the direst moments of mock early expressionistic angstism. It's kind of fun to play.

January 24, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 589 (my recording) - (November 2000 - Pete Comley, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Isabel Kosály-Meyer,  Neal Meyer)

flat
light
wash
beach
damp

In Session at The Tintinabulary

January 21, 2013
Banned Rehearsal 828 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer

Upcoming

Saturday May 4, 2013 at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey and Neal Meyer at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Music for solo piano:
Eisenbrey: Welcome to my planet. I come in peace.
Meyer: Cage - Solo for Piano


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