Monthly Archives: March 2019

Tonight’s programme at the Chan Centre was quite extraordinary. Conducted by the UBC symphony, two of the symphonies performed (A Northern Suite and La Mer) were inspired and centered on a universal theme – the Nature – that is, our nature, which nurtured, enamored us, and ultimately shaped our perceptions of the world. It was particularly an honor to attend the Canadian Première of John Luther Adams’ A Northern Suite. 

Known as a composer whose passion and music was profoundly inspired by nature, John Luther Adam, a winner of Pulitzer prize for music, dedicated his life to the composition of music which shared a common theme of “nature.” Compared him to Mahler, one of the most talented composers of all time, Jason Victor Serinus of Classical Voice North America remarked, “Mahler may take us to the heavens, for example, but who else in the history of composition [except John Luther Adams] has so masterfully set us down in the middle of nature, and then enabled us to discover the divine in every sound?” 

Indeed, if Mahler claimed that his music was always a manifestation of the beauty of nature, Adams’ music simply took us to the breathtaking scenes of untampered nature and primitivity. If Become Ocean had won him a Pulitzer Prize, A Northern Suite was a symphony work that reflected his life experience living in Alaska, and even appeared to be highly relatable to the Canadian audiences. Let’s hear some of the titles of movements in this symphony – “Blue Ice, Crystal Air,” “Rivers of Ice,” and “Valleys of Frozen Fire” – at first glance I thought it was composed by a Canadian composer whose love for northern land was deep and sincere.

However, although grown up in the suburbs of New York City and educated in California, John Luther Adams’ passion for the icebound northern land was no less strong as any native-born Canadian. The trip to Alaska permanently bound him to the exploration of the beauty of nature, as he said, “In the summer of 1975, I made my first trip to Alaska. The sprawling distances, unbroken silences, and incredible qualities of light up here completely changed the course of my life and work.” In fact, the experience of being a dedicated environmentalist influenced Adams’ works in music profoundly and was reflected in the themes of nature that he explored. 

A Northern Suite was an unconventional work of symphony. Unlike many of the classical pieces that we heard in class, this piece diverted drastically from the traditional structure symphony. It was structured around the motifs of nature: ice, mountain, forest, and fire, and applied the sonorities of the orchestral instruments to elaborate on the images of these natural themes. “The magic of music” – it was my first impression after hearing the first movement “Blue Ice, Crystal Air” – in which Adams utilized string instruments to create a crisp and shimmering sound that alluded to the quality of ice. The second movement was especially fascinating that it only included a long and incessant rumble produced by percussion instruments. Although the sound lasted for around 10 minutes, the audience could hardly feel bored because of the ever-changing emotion and images that this simple sound delivered. It was magical that one could feel such complex emotions towards a single, homophonic sound – once I imagined I was standing on the top of mountains alone, with everything around me seemed so far away, and later I felt an accumulating fear and anxiety as I was traversing a dark valley in a high speed, hoping to see the light again. The third movement “Cloud Forest” was the most mesmerizing of all – it brought us to the middle of a forest – we could even smell the moisture of wood.

The last two movements were equally entertaining and even made us oblivious of the surroundings as we were in the embrace of nature and not in this congested music hall. One prominent feature of Adams’ symphony was that it vividly reminded us of the beauty of nature and it could certainly be utilized in film or video scorings for this powerful function. After a marvelous journey to the Great Nature, A Northern Suite won my heart, and it was indeed an honor to attend its première in Canada. I would also continue to follow the music of this idiosyncratic environmentalist composer, John Luther Adams, for his dedication to nature deeply moved and inspired me. 

The initial allure of this concert, however, was Claude Debussy’s La Mer, which was arguably his most far-reaching symphony. Although Debussy was reluctant to name it a symphony, as he claimed that there was nothing to exploit in symphony after Beethoven, this masterwork became one of the most loved and widely performed symphonies of all times. As a huge fan of Debussy’s music and his impressionism, I obtained a collection of vinyl records of his works, including La Mer, which was one of my favorite symphonies. The full title of the work – La Mer: Trois Esquisses Symphonies – referred to the theme of this work, the powerful evocation of three distinct scenes of the ocean. 

The structure of La Mer lasted for roughly 24 minutes in three movements could be found in here:  

•  ”From dawn to noon on the sea” or “From dawn to midday on the sea” – very slow – animate little by little (B minor)
•  ”Play of the Waves” – allegro (with a very versatile rhythm) – animated (C sharp minor)
•  ”Dialogue of the wind and the sea” or “Dialogue between wind and waves” – animated and tumultuous – ease up very slightly (C sharp minor)

Debussy was certainly a man who did not conform to the norm, as he said: “The real lesson Beethoven teaches us is not to cling to old forms; and nor should we feel under any obligation to take his beginnings as our own starting point. It’s important to gaze on the open sky through open windows, and yet it seems to me that they have been closed almost forever.” Understanding the guiding principle of his music implied, “le plaisir est la règle” or “pleasure is the law,” we caught a glimpse of Debussy’s creative process which produced unique and enduring works of music.

As for La Mer, his fascination with the sea might be originated to his father, who was a sailor; and later he was influenced by the artworks, especially Hokusai’s woodblock print “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa,” which Debussy transformed it to be his cover of the first edition of La Mer in 1905. As a spirited breakaway from the tradition, like Wagner and Schumann who utilized arpeggiated triads to evoke the movement of water, La Mer applied the full orchestral instruments to create a more splendid and rich sonority, avoiding the dullness of musical onomatopoeia. The complexity of instrumental sounds carried us from the serenity of the seaside to the tumultuous conversation between the wind and the ocean. It was an exceptional audio-visual banquet, as Mark DeVoto described, “much more complex than anything Debussy had written earlier.” It was indeed a unique and captivating piece that transcended time and found no counterparts in the entirety of music history. 

Overall, it was a superb experience attending a concert organized by the UBC Symphony Orchestra, as the director Jonathan Girard always kept up with the highest standard of music conduction. Participation in A Northern Suite’s Canadian première and recording was a nouveau experience for me and I truly appreciated it. Moreover, no words could explain my gratitude towards UBC Symphony Orchestra for bringing La Mer, one of my most beloved and cherished works of music alive. Violà, that was a night full of miracles and worth constantly remembering in the rest of my life. 

The most prominent aspect for me about the three pieces performed were how different and distinct each of them was from the other. The musicians, and Jonathan Girard as conductor, were phenomenal, as expected, and did a great job at conveying each piece in its uniqueness.

The first piece was A Northern Suite by John Adams, which was a very modern piece both in terms of when it was composed, and the musical style. It encapsulated the sounds of nature, and focused on the experiences in nature that clearly reminded me of the nature in our own backyard here in Canada. The mountain ranges, glaciers, clear blue winter skies and dark green forests. If this was a Renaissance choral piece, I would be tempted to use the word “madrigalism”, but instead of a voice imitating what it was talking about, there were instruments imitating nature’s sounds in a way that not only captured them effectively, but also brought to the surface their beauty and magnificence. To say the least, it made me yearn for a long hike into the wilderness and a night spent under the stars. 

The second piece was a jump back in time with Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 36, by Françaix. This piece featured a soloist on the clarinet who played with incredible emotion during the slower moments, and displayed his skill in the faster, more complex parts. For the most part, the texture was homophonic, with the clarinet providing a dominant melody and the orchestra backing him up, though there were moments where the clarinet dropped out entirely in which the orchestra took the lead. Overall, it was a pristine piece of grounded music that provided a great contrast to the first piece’s more ethereal presentation.

The final piece that came after the intermission was Debussy’s La Mer (which literally means “the sea” in french) and it did a mind-blowingly good job at embodying the sea in all its beauty and might. Much as the sea itself, this piece alternated between calm moments that sounded quite peaceful, to raging oceans of sound bringing forth images of waves crashing down on each other. The first movement started off slowly and rather quietly, but I felt perhaps a sense of foreboding as if there might be a storm brewing on the distant horizon. But the time the third movement had started, the waves had begun to build and the music became more tumultuous. The complexity of this piece, and all the individual elements that Debussy was able to bring together to create an immersive experience of the sea continue to astound me, and when it was over, I was surprised to discover that I wasn’t dripping wet with salty ocean water. If you want to stay dry, but love the ocean, this is a piece for you!

Before the symphony started, I had no idea how the three pieces could possibly fit together, but in many ways, their differences only emphasized the unique qualities each one brought to the table and highlighted three different approaches to music. 

On February 28th, 2019, I had the privilege of attending the American Choral Directors Association Conference with the Vancouver Youth Choir, one of 26 invited choirs (and the only Canadian choir) invited to perform at the conference. The conference is attended by approximately 4000 choral conductors, all of whom we had to perform in front of. We have been working tirelessly on our set since before Christmas and have performed it over 8 times in different settings to prepare to perform the same set twice in the same day for thousands of people who know and understand choral music, and the pressure was high.

The thing that’s unique and most challenging about the set we prepared for this performance was the drastic difference between each of the pieces – we start with a slow piece, to a modern, edgy piece with a lot of literal screaming and body percussion, followed by a German piece from the Romantic Era, then a Women’s’ piece from Georgia about political upheaval. The set then continues with an Indie Rock piece called Water Fountain, followed by an Icelandic dance song (which included real choreographed dance steps) and ended with a pop song called North by the band Sleeping At Last. All these pieces are not only different in character, but they also require drastically different sounds and to have to switch from one colour of sound to another in 10 seconds or less was something we worked really hard to master. The transition that was most difficult for most of us singers was between our second and third piece (From aggressive screaming and body percussion to a rich, serious toned Romantic Era piece.)

Our opening number was Ilus Ta Ei Ole by young Estonian composer Pärt Uusberg, a piece about love for homeland that starts with the Men section singing a repeated melody that outlines how bleak Estonia is while the Women section sings the same chord progression over, starting from a soft hum to a loud Ah before the piece abruptly stops and transitions into words that outline how beautiful estonia is and the melody line is passed on from one section to the next before the whole choir joins in to tie the piece together, building up to the shimmery chords in the climax before doing a decrescendo and taking the piece back down to an intimate stop. The thing that was so fun about this piece was getting to play with the dynamics and the finding different ways to interpret Pärt Uusberg’s writing – there are some incredibly intimate moments that required incredible delicacy, and there are also showy moments like the low bass notes in the opening of the piece as well as the climactic chor – and we had a lot of fun trying to find the most effective ways to deliver this incredible piece of writing. The most satisfying part of singing this piece is how we can always the climax near the end, and how a few bars before we get there, as we crescendo and sing our notes we would be able to tell whether or not we would perfectly tune the climax as the energy continues to build.

This is followed immediately by a piece called Fire by UBC Graduate Student Composer: Katerina Gimon. The piece is part of a larger work called Elements and has no words, just body percussion parts and peculiar sounds and screams that illustrate the energy of fire itself. This piece is incredibly fun to do but also vocally challenging, and having it placed so early in the set was something that made me nervous. It took a while for us to master the transitions from the first piece to this the to the next piece – as this piece requires not just a drastic change in sound but also an incredible change in physical energy. The thing we focused on the most while working on this was how to do everything with intent in order for the piece to sound energetic and fiery as opposed to just a piece with weird sounds. The key to performing this piece successfully was the full commitment from each and every singer not just with our voices, but also our body language, our faces, and our overall physical energy to propel the performance forward in order to do this incredible piece justice.

After 6 years in this choir and many fun performances along the way, this was truly one of the most high caliber and nerve wracking performances we’ve ever had to prepare, and I’ve never had more fun performing as I did that day. Given that it’s a National Choral Conference, we got to perform in one of the best spaces I’ve ever sung in: A beautiful concert hall like the Chan Centre or the Orpheum, but made especially for choral music (complete with built in wooden risers in a deep U-shaped curve with tons of space). In spaces like these usually the audience gets great sound quality, but as members of the choir it’s hard to hear ourselves and the people around us (for me personally, I usually hear myself a lot and not much of anyone else, making it difficult to tune or figure out if you’re singing too loudly or too softly). This space was didn’t just sound great for the audience – it sounded great for us too and was an incredibly comfortable stage to perform in as I was able to not only hear myself but also the people around me, and therefore was able to sing better and tune better and make better music. Getting to perform for an audience fo 4000 choral conductors also turned out to be a lot of fun – as there’s nothing quite as satisfying as getting to perform music you love and worked so hard on to be welcomed with cheers and standing ovations in a city where no one knew who we were.

I had the pleasure of attending the UBC Symphony Orchestra, directed by Jonathan Girard. The night featured the composers Adams, Françaix, and Debussy, and the three pieces were flawlessly performed. It was a night that featured pieces of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

The first piece was entitled “A Northern Suite” by John Luther Adams. It had interesting titles for the names of its movements – all related to a Northern climate. I would describe it as intense, deep, and dark. It contained recognizable points of imitation. An interesting feature, not seen too often as far as I have observed, is that the violins were not always in sync with their bowing. This seemed to catch the feature of nature that is not always exactly what you would expect.

The second piece was a “Clarinet Cocerto” by Jean Francaix. The concerto takes many twist and turns that sure must be difficult for the soloist to play. The first movement is fast and is in sonata form and has a cadenza right in the center of the recapitulation. It was the longest of the entire concerto, having an exposition, development, and a recapitulation. Interestingly, the clarinet concerto does not start with a clarinet, but rather a flute. The first theme of this movement was very lively. The second theme in contrast was much calmer. The second movement is compound ternary. The third movement is a slower one, seeming to be a sort of theme and variations. The last movement is also fast and is in rondo form and contains two cadenzas. The soloist Carlos Savall-Guardiola performed brilliantly, breezing through what seemed like many difficult passages.

The last piece of the night was “La Mer” by Claude Debussy. The first movement translates to “From dawn to noon on the sea”. It begins very gently with the harp at a slow pace. It then builds and picks up a little speed. It seemed the sea was quite calm that morning. The picture I got was that the waves were moderate during the start of the day. The piece features different sections of the orchestra and even short solos. Throughout the day, the waves became more active. The second movement was called “Play of the waves”. As the name would suggest, it was quite playful, beginning with the instruments playing running passages. It was not tempestuous, but rather light. The third movement was called “Dialogue of the wind and the sea” and right away was more intense than the previous movements. It sounded as though the wind and sea were competing and interacting.

Overall, it was interesting to hear more recent pieces, as compared to the many baroque and classical pieces I have listened to. All the performances were superb and gave me an insight into what more modern music is like. I would say that 19^th and 20^th century music is more outside the box than music of previous musical periods which tended to follow rules more closely. I would definitely recommend others to listen to more modern music and to check out the UBC Symphony Orchestra.

As this is my final concert entry, I am extremely pleased that I had the opportunity to be writing about my experience at the Colin James Miles To Go tour concert at the Orpheum on March 21, 2019.  Colin James is one of my favourite rock and blues artists – not to mention, he is Canadian as well.  He is an extremely talented musician who is able to engage with the crowd without skipping a beat on his guitar, and is amazingly technically proficient as is the rest of his 7-piece band which included a harmonica, another electric guitar, the drums, two saxophones, a base and a keyboard.  It’s hard to comprehend how effortless and naturally he plays the guitar.  He would frequently take a casual stroll around the stage and the theatre while performing an incredibly elaborate riff that typically, I believe, would take a lot of concentration.  It was truly an experience that I will not forget and has failed to leave my mind the days following the concert.

Colin James, “Canada’s blues man” has been around for quite a while now having started off his career performing with Stevie Ray Vaughan.  His most popular songs that are played occasionally on the radio would probably be placed in the genre of rock  but his most recent album, the one that the tour is named after, Miles To Go, is blues as is most of his other work.  We have been discussing the idea of ground-bass and ostinato in a lot of the songs we’ve been listening to in class lately and the idea of how a musician would be able to improv atop of the recurrent bass line as in Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor.  This is most obvious during the cadenza of the song when the organ has a prolonged solo.  That being said, I found a strong resemblance in the format that most of these songs being performed by James, to this idea of being able to improvise on top of a base line.  In most of the songs, there is a verse, a chorus, a verse, a second chorus, sometimes a bridge, and then space for solos (sometimes the bridge would appear here instead) until you finish off with a course.  During the solo sections, it would usually be one of the instruments like the harmonica, saxophone or keyboard that would play for a couple rounds and then James would finish off the solo section with a guitar solo himself.  This was probably the most stand-out feature to me in terms of concepts from the course that we have been learning about.

It is interesting and fascinating to watch the evolution of music from the early medieval ages until today. Because the genres of music of today have been around for such a long time it is sometimes forgotten that they all stemmed from the music in which we are learning about in our class.  The aspect of “music appreciation” has definitely shaped and morphed my way of listening to music now and it is striking how many similarities are translated through “classical music” to the music we listen to today.

The Vancouver Youth Choir (VYC) was founded by conductor Carrie Tennent in 2013, and has grown to include VYC Junior, VYC Kids, and a VYC Tiny. This concert featured the younger choirs in the first half, while the second half was devoted to the main chorus. Instead of a full intermission, Carrie Tennant led all choirs and the audience in a sing-a-long of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. The idea is slightly horrific for an audience member, especially if you are attending alone, but two lines in everyone was relaxed and enjoying themselves. It was an excellent way to revive the audience before the second half, and to encourage a community of self-expression.

The second half of the concert featured the Vancouver Youth Choir, performing the same set that they brought to the American Choral Director’s Association Conference in Kansas City. They began with “Ilus Ta Ei Ole”, written by Pärt Uusberg and inspired by Estonia. The piece starts with the basses singing “No, it is not beautiful”, describing the bare fields and empty houses of the Estonian countryside, as the tenors join in. Sopranos and altos provide a low accompanying humming, evoking the image of a bare, winter landscape. Soloists pick it up from the men, going on about the boring winter time, until there is a moment of clarity. The women take over now, singing “But it is all so beautiful”. The rest of the choir joins, singing proudly about the beauty of Uusberg’s homeland, as a soprano line soars above it all. This piece was a beautiful start to a very exciting set, and gave the audience a sense of pride in their own “homeland”, wherever – or whoever – that may be.

The second piece was a stark contrast to the first. An initial, jarring STOMP brought the audience out our winter landscape trance. A piece of music without words, or even a distinct melody, “Fire” by UBC graduate Katerina Gimon evokes the title element through body percussion and vocal effects. The set continued with a theme of contrasting emotion. A 19^thcentury hymn by Otto Nicolai followed, using polyphony and homophony to enhance certain lines of the German text. “Water Fountain”, an arrangement of Tune-Yards’ modern pop song, began with chorus members clapping a steady beat as the audience’s applause for the previous piece faded out.

It is rare, as a member of a choir, to have a feeling of intense connection with those around you. It has happened to me a few times, in rehearsal or a performance, but it is a very special, life changing experience. It is even rarer, as an audience member, to feel that connection with a choir that is not your own. I felt VYC’s energy and connection with each other radiate past the conductor towards me, enveloping me in a force field of high emotion which, honestly, made me tear up slightly. Their sense of unity and enthusiasm made songs like “Fire” and “North” so much more special to watch and listen to.

For the finale, all three choirs once again came together to teach the audience a two-part, 3-note accompaniment, while the Sopranos and Altos sang the melody. It was an excellent way to bring an evening of inspiring music-making to a close.

Listening to Corina Marti was an amazing experience, specifically because I have never heard or seen a harpsichord before. For some reason, I was expecting a harp shaped instrument. I was pleasantly surprised to see a small piano like instrument instead. As she started playing her first piece, Preambulum in g, I immediately started comparing the enchanting instrument to the piano. The harpsichord seems quite a bit smaller, and creates more of a string, plucking sound. The longer I listened to the pieces, the more I noticed was the lack of dramatic range in the harpsichord. Each note didn’t quite fill the Barnett Hall as loud as a piano or any other instrument. I felt as if Corina’s piece could almost use more range in volume, but was restricted because of the instrument.

I may be wrong, but I feel the harpsichord lost it’s popularity for this exact reason. Because it cannot use volume to express different aspects of the piece, it cannot convey feeling. To make up for the limit in shape created with volume, the pieces play around with speed to create this effect instead. It made sense that such an instrument was used in Baroque music for simplistic pieces. However, as the music era grew to more complex pieces that were emotion focused, bringing in larger musical arrangements, the harpsichord faded out as an instrument of choice. The piano then became more popular as it could use the playful aspect of volume along with speed to fill the atmosphere with the appropriate feeling.

The first piece played allowed the harpsichord to create a lot of arpeggios with chords. The feel of the song was generally jumpy and abrupt. The next piece, Preambulum in e, was a nice contrast to this as the melody focused on a lot of ascending scales leading up to the note. The piece almost never had large interval jumps.

I was proud to note that her repertoire truly reflected Late Medieval and Early Renaissance times with the homophonic pieces. The left hand, which often played the bass accompaniment, created a moving and supporting line for the right hand’s melody, which gave an overall clear homophonic effect.

As we are touching upon themes and repeating ideas in class, I tried my best to picture a form or try to figure out the structure. I found this very difficult as I couldn’t even tell when one piece would move onto the next. However, I did find it helpful to have an active listening ear while I was trying to figure this out. I managed to hear the bass line repeat itself in some instances, which I could only assume means a repeating theme.

I am definitely glad I was able to enjoy and appreciate the harpsichord with Marti’s talent, as I don’t think I’d have the opportunity to hear and see one of these instruments in person. I’d be intrigued to hear the pieces played once again by Corina Marti, however on a piano. I wonder how the overall effect and musical environment would change.

On March 1, I attended a clarinet and piano concert at Barnett Hall featuring two UBC professors, Jane Coop on the piano, and Jose Franch-Ballester playing clarinet. Because I had not heard the pieces being performed beforehand, the evening was full of wonderful musical surprises. The two instruments present were able to present a full breadth of musical emotion from upbeat energetic melodies, to pleasant moderate tunes, to somber reflective pieces, and finally to perfectly used moments of silence. 

The concert started with Three Intermezzi, Op. 13, by Stanford which was a cheerful way to begin the evening. I don’t know if the term “Intermezzi” used here in the title bears any relation to the intermezzi that would take place between acts in opera seria, but there was definitely a light-hearted feeling associated with these pieces which leads me to suspect there may be some connection. For me, the stand-out moments in this first piece were the moments of call-and-response between the piano and clarinet. One might even call it imitative polyphany, but only between two instruments, and as they imitated each other, the musicians were clearly playing off each other’s energies.

The second piece was the Grand Dup, Op. 48, by Weber which featured some simply incredible virtuosic playing by both musicians. What made this piece so enjoyable was that it was crafted to give each instrument it’s time to shine while also having moments where they both locked in together and flowed as a team. The overall feeling of the piece was a bright, enthusiastic mood especially embodied by Franch-Ballester who played his clarinet with a passion I have rarely seen before.

After the intermission we heard Four Pieces, Op. 5, by Alan Berg which, especially in comparison to the pieces heard before the intermission, was full of dissonance and discord with a somber mood. The two musicians captured the feelings conveyed by the music perfectly and one couldn’t help but picture a world of colour slowly fading to black and white. The silences in this piece were pronounced and kept me on the edge of my seat never knowing what to expect next. 

Everything wrapped up with Brahm’s Sonata No. 1, Op. 120, No. 1, which is a piece full of emotion. Since it’s in a minor key, it had a darker feeling to it, but in the midst of that had a sense of peace and life that is hard to quantify. The tempo in this piece was always changing which allowed it to go to many different places, often flowing directly from a slow, dark moment to a faster light moment and then back again, but never in a way that felt unnatural. This was a piece of music that somehow felt both organic and perfectly composed at the same time.

It was great to hear two professors from UBC playing alongside each other, and to see the talent that exists right here in this school. Both were stunningly good at their respective instruments; Jane Coop was composed and elegant on the piano, and Jose Franch-Ballester was exuberant and passionate as he played the clarinet. Together they brought the music to life, a life full of both joys and sorrows, and everything in between: a life that felt real. 

I attended the musical revue Better Than This, which was a combination of an educational and musical experience. The show chronicled the evolution of women’s roles in musicals from the early 20th century, around the 1930s, to the present day. Considering how we are studying the development of western Art music I found it quite appropriate that this musical revue offered a perspective on the historical development of musical theatre, both from a musical perspective and social historical perspective. As we have discovered in class, the evolution of musical styles is often deeply influenced by what is happening socially and culturally, and learning this provides insight into the intentions of composers and their works.  This musical revue definitely highlighted this, using musical numbers to demonstrate the sense of time and place that they were written in.

Starting in the 1930s, the songs written were largely interchangeable songs, or standards, that were used for multiple stage productions, not always being originally written for specific musicals. The songs written for women in these musicals painted them into very specific, stock roles, that were easily recognizable to audiences. The musical demonstrated that these roles such as the ingenue, or femme fatale, were often one dimensional and that the subject matter of these songs were often written about men, not offering much insight into the complex interior of a female character. Moving forward in time, the musical tracked how women’s roles in musicals became increasingly complex and diverse, with a greater variety of female roles being portrayed, with stories written about women of varying ages and backgrounds.

Seeing this musical made me think back on the operas that we have studied in class, and how the female characters often fit into certain roles, such as the furies or witches in Orpheus, Dido and Aeneas, and The Magic Flute, and the role of Queen Dido who resigns herself to death after Aeneas leaves her. Seeing this musical in the context of this class, I realized that this was not just a musical theatre phenomenon, but one that goes much further back. Female roles are especially categorized in Opera as there are different types of singers, such as the coloratura soprano that we listened to in the Queen of the Night, or the more mezzo-soprano role of Queen Dido, audiences recognize these women in their roles and have expectations about who they are.

As this was a very low budget production, it was performed with minimal sets and costumes in a very small intimate venue. This reminded me of our discussions of Dido and Aeneas and Handel’s oratorios, where the set dressing was done with the music because they were unable to put on elaborate productions. These productions used recognizable musical genres, such as the French overture to signal the regality of the French court in Dido and Aeneas, and the sacred style imitative polyphony in “With drooping wings” that was used after Queen Dido’s death. The use of these musical genres helped to paint the visual picture by counting on the audience being able to recognize these musical genres and were they would have been used, signalling time and place. In a similar way, the musical revue relied on our recognition of musical theater tropes and different styles of musical theatre tunes, such as the jazz influenced style of the 1930s musical numbers, to paint the picture for the audience and create the characters without the use of elaborate costumes or sets.

Watching this musical revue in the context of this class shed new light for me on musicals, and allowed for even further understanding of the historical narrative that I was watching. I will definitely be paying more attention to the musicals I see in the future and how they work into this history and play with my expectations.

On March 18, 2019 I attended the UBC School of Music’s Composers’ Concert at Roy Barnett Recital Hall.  UBC music students were the stars of the performance and their talent blew me away.  This is the first student production I have seen throughout all my years at UBC and I regret not coming to see others before hand. All of the music performed was performed by students and composed by students who went above and beyond what I had been expecting.  Some of the pieces were conducted by the student who composed it, as was “Avdiutt” by Isaac Zee.  Some of the pieces were performed directly by the student and an accompanist, as was “Chance Encounter” by Tze Liew who also sang.  The last variation of performance was that the composer simply wrote the song and another student performed their work.

There were five songs that were performed during this concert. Two songs, “29^thAvenue Station” and “Second Beach” by Eugene Shen, were performed by soloists: a baritone saxophone player and a flutist.  What stuck out for me during “29^thAvenue Station”, which was being played on the baritone saxophone, was that the song appeared to be the skytrain itself (which I am assuming what the song was about, according to its’ title).  There was no fixed meter but there were moments of steadiness – two characteristics of a typical skytrain commute.  At the very end of the song, the last note was prolonged and a bit abrupt which reminded me of the abrupt stop which occurs occasionally on a skytrain.  I found this to be a very creative way of portraying a skytrain ride and the music was able to portray the characteristics of this specific mode of transportation very accurately.  This reminded me of what we learned in class on March 22 about how the song was shaped by another musical association – in this case, the skytrain.  There were no words being sung yet there was some purpose behind the music that was driving it.  Because there was no textual purpose behind it however, this wold not be considered “Program Music”.  “Second Beach” was more of a melodic tune, it had almost a jazzy feel to it which perhaps was inspired by the street performers that are present, especially during the summer days, at Second Beach. This song did not have a story as much as “29^thAvenue Station” did per se, but did capture the essence of a sort of busker/jazz performer that is characteristic of a summer day at the beach.

“Night Piece” was performed by a soprano singer and accompanied by a guitar player.  This song had no meter.  It was almost an abstract piece of music, as the guitar accompaniment seemed to echo tones of obscurity yet tranquility.  The singer mimicked these sometimes acute and quick accents throughout the piece. “Chance Encounter” was originally a Chinese poem and the composer put it to music  The composer sang and was accompanied by a harp.  In contrast to “Night Piece”, this song was a lot more relaxed and had a melodious and calming tone.  This song though had no meter as well.  This piece reminded me of how there was no way to fit a “formula” but it was a through composition that was determined by the text, similar to the work of Schiller and Beethoven.

Finally, “Avidutt” had the largest ensemble of all the songs performed and this song also told a story.  There were three singers and they were all interacting with one another through song and laughter.  They were making loud siren noises and would repeat one another, which reminded me of imitative polyphonic texture.   This also had elements observed in “Night Piece” such as the abstraction and acute accents in which the singers mimicked with their voices.  This was a fantastic way to end off the show.

All in all, I enjoyed this concert very much and highly encourage you, if you have not yet fulfilled your five concerts, to go see a student production.  It is very inspiring to see the art that is being created and performed by our peers which we do not always have the opportunity to observe.