Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Music In The Air

Don’t stop reading the blog entry just because of the seemingly trite entry title!

It has been a week with music in the air—alternately cacophonous and sweet, with an undertow of the theme from Jaws occasionally.

But at the end of the entry you will see why it had to be that title.

If you have been with the blog for awhile, you might remember my unsuccessful attempts at reaching the location for a singing group in Amman. During those oh-so-short-three-weeks when I had a car (no bitterness—PSYCHE) I attempted to find this YWCA in Amman. Tried three times. Failed each time. Anyway—I went to the concert of the group in December and it was glorious. Shireen, the conductor, is head of the Performing Arts Department here at KA, and she is one talented director.

Last night—another attempt to join the group. This time Shireen secured the services of a KA driver so I could get there. Wouldn’t you know—he got lost too! Round and round the neighborhood of Schmeisani he drove. Fortunately, we left almost a half-hour earlier than we should have, and I arrived to the location just in the nick of time. But there I was—ready for my first rehearsal with the group known as Dozan wa Awtar.

And I got to sing! Two hours of new music, new people, and returning to one of my great loves—choral singing. The group has about 40 voices, all adults, and like many things in Amman, people from all walks of life. It was sensational to focus on the warm-ups, get a new score, and wonder how the process will evolve over the next 10 weeks. Shireen picked an eclectic batch of pieces, too. Although no one in the world picks more eclectic pieces than Dr. Osborne, affectionately called WO, from Denison. We Denison Singers still quote verbatim some of the odd lyrics to odd pieces with which he challenged us.

So in the first two-hour rehearsal, we made a stab at sight reading this new clutch of music. We started with an Ave Maria by a guy named Franz Biebl. The tenor next to me asked me if I had sung the piece before. I admitted I hadn’t even heard of the composer. He smiled (non-condescendingly, I think) and said, “Oh, he’s a contemporary of Mozart.” Now, I might have rattled off Mozart’s dates (1756-1791—and no, I did not look that up, don’t have to!) to save face. Nah, I thanked him for the historical time period and made a mental note to learn about this Biebl.

Shireen is that kind of director/conductor who spends time on music a cappella so that she can control and shape the music. Just like the iconic Mary Schneider in my high school years, she knows that control and blended tone is the hallmark of a great choir.

We then moved on to an Arabic piece. Shireen did a nice overview of this piece—a piece of Christian music from Arab Christians with references to Christians in Lebanon, Syria, and Jerusalem. She offered that kind of background knowledge that stimulates interest and whets the appetite. And oh, the words are all in Arabic.

Then we moved on to Psalm set to music by a Brazilian calypso artist! The rhythms and the words—where did she find this piece?! Then we spent some time on a mass by a Spanish composer. It had a flamenco flavor with the words of the traditional catholic mass. And we ended with a piece by Harry Belafonte, another calypso number, but with the secular theme of how to “Turn The World Around.”

Just like every other time I have joined a singing group, the sacrifice of evening time was well-worth it. It was exciting to be around adults, eager to dig in and work on challenging pieces, gratifying to take instructions from a talented colleague, and glorious not to be in charge of the event. I could just bask in the music in the air.

Much of the music in the air this week, however, has been reminiscent of the stalking, ominous theme from Jaws. And all about silly stuff!

I am shepherding a group of students to the United States two weeks from tonight to the Harvard Model Congress, and while two boys enthusiastically offered to do the lion’s share of the prep work and planning, they are still teen-agers, and prone to errors. There was the disaster over the financial payments and transfer of money that almost went down a memory hole. Then there was the failure of students going to the U.S. Embassy to get visas (I had abdicated any role in this since I didn’t know anything about the visa application process) without adult supervision, and, as it turned out, no appointments at the Embassy. Listen to that sawing bass sound as the shark approaches! We can’t blame the teen-agers, but someone must take the fall! Oh! Nasty fall! And the music almost gobbled me up!

But then I am in tune with an exciting music in the air tonight—I am getting on a plane headed to New York for an oh-so-brief few days to visit a Job Fair with the Klingenstein Fellowship Foundation to interview prospective candidates to teach here at KA. I will be there for only a couple days, but one thing I notice, whenever I fly, there is a kind of music to the atmosphere. Flying to the United States has a kind of music, and flying back to the Middle East also has a music to it.

And while I am not interviewing candidates, what I will be doing? (Yes, probably eating some bacon…) I will be enjoying some musical treats. Dear Anne and I are going to the much-lauded Lincoln Center production of South Pacific and then on Friday night a return to the Lincoln Center complex for a ravishing concert by the New York Philharmonic. What a week of music!! The abstract kind, the concrete kind, the pulsing, exciting, life-renewing feel of music.

This weekend in New York is a rare treat for we musical theater lovers. The organization known as Encores! (started in 1994) has as its mission to produce semi-staged productions of musicals that will likely never get a commercial production again. The purpose is for audiences to see and hear musical scores from yesteryear that might be lost to the winds of time otherwise. And in the 8 performances of these shows, you hear the musical score with a lush, full orchestra. Oh, man!

This weekend Encores! is presenting an operetta (who would ever raise millions for an operetta anymore!!) from 1932, by giants Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, entitled, Music In The Air. See—not as trite as you thought.

The lead critic for the New York Times, the venerable Bosley Crowther, reviewed the musical in 1932 with the pronouncement, “No precision dancing troupes; no knockabout comics; no flamboyant song numbers; no grandiose scenic play.” He meant that as a grand compliment actually.

I know very little about this show—don’t know a single piece of music from it, but I hope to add it to the roster to see, working around all the job interviews. The show opened on Election Day, 1932, as the U.S. of A. swept Franklin Roosevelt into office that night. The show has not been heard in New York since 1952.

What intrigues me about the show has actually nothing to do with the plot, or even the music. It is how this musical fit into the history of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein’s trajectory. Most people are familiar with Oscar—after all, he and Jerome Kern had revolutionized the musical theater world five years earlier with the groundbreaking Showboat, and in 1943, Oscar (was he ever called Hammy? Or do I just miss pork?) embarked on one of the legendary collaborations with Richard Rodgers (you have heard of Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music, I am sure…)

But I remember reading in a biography of Stephen Sondheim (who was a neighbor to Oscar in the summer house pre-Hamptons world of the Poconos) that after this hit show in 1932 Hammerstein would endure nothing but flops for the next 11 years.

Maybe it is all this time in the desert, thinking of Moses and others tramping around for years. Or maybe it is that I have endured my own deserts of down years, but this just makes me so curious. Hammerstein, one of the musical theater legends produced show after show in the 1930s, without a success. He didn’t know Dick Rodgers would ditch Lorenz Hart and form a partnership in 1943. He didn’t know for certain that gold-plated success was in the cards. He endured.

I just find this a nice little devotion that in spite of the failures, and what would have to be the accompanying derision, he still sought out the music in the air.

As I take off in the jet in a couple hours I will be savoring the music of this week, and anticipating the music of the next few days.

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