Sequenza21

Sometimes a phone interview is the way to go, even if you live in the same town. And so it was on a rainy Friday afternoon this past December that San Francisco-based composer and cellist Joan Jeanrenaud and I “sat down” for a chat about her latest music theatre collaboration Your Body Is Not A Shark, which ran 7 11-13 January in San Francisco, and 17-20 January in Santa Cruz The celebrated and much sought after musician was the Kronos Quartet cellist from 1978 until 1999, when she “retired ” due to having been diagnosed with MS, which she’s been successfully battling ever since. With such a broad musical history behind her, plus a solo career as a composing and performing cellist and music theatre collaborator before her it’s hard to know how to begin. But how did it feel to play and record the second cello part in Vladimir Martynov’s Schubert-Quintet ( Unfinished ) ” after” Schubert’s Quintet in C D.956, with Kronos two years ago? ” We had so much fun. I really enjoyed playing with them again. It was like I’d never left, ” she recalls in a voice which still has a tinge of her Memphis, Tennessee roots. ” And I’ve always loved the cello because it’s such an expressive instrument, and composing–though I’d never thought of being a composer before–became a way of being really involved in music and playing.”

Her current music theatre adventure seems to have as many texts and sub-texts as music itself. And the focus of the project, which involves three other “gals –Cid Pearlman, choreographer; Denise Leto, poet; and Maya Barsacq, who conducts seven string members of the chamber orchestra, Cadenza, in Jeanrenaud’s score– is human fragility, in both body and spirit. That should be something everyone can relate to, or as the composer puts it “all of us have issues to deal with and the interesting thing is how you take that and make it your own,” which in her case means living with MS, which felled conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim’s cellist wife Jacqueline Du Pre, but also involves Leto, who’s disabled, and whose words will be projected as she writes. The piece casts the net even further by using a dance company of six, which ranges in ages from 18 to 62, and Jeanrenaud says that the navigation of Pearlman’s moves will naturally be more effortful for the 62 year old. The 10 section piece, which the composer calls ” a collage of interesting elements,” will also feature ace new music percussionist William Winant, “and there are a couple of sections of just me and Willy which are quite rhythmic.”

There’s a strong visual look as well. “One piece has the orchestra creating a bed of sound, and there are staging elements like a bed platform that moves around,. Stairs and chairs are used, and there’s a desk where Denise will be seated while the audience watches her.” Jeanrenaud has also added sound files to her score, which though not a visual element, will likely add both space and sonic weight to this intensely collaborative whole. It’s an ambitious and hopefully pertinent work for our increasingly fragile time where everybody either puts on a tough face or gets in touch with what’s really happening around and in them. But one thing’s certain. The composer-cellist is one of the most gifted musicians of her generation, and like any true artist, or human being for that matter, she’s here to learn. She put it this way in a firming up e-mail regarding her time with the great French cellist Pierre Fournier who was renowned for the elegance and depth of his playing. ” Working with Fournier was a great transition from being a student to becoming a professional musician.My lessons were very clarifying regarding technical issues I would be uncertain of in my own practice. It was wonderful working with him! “

The world has reached a sad state when our individual and institutional  worth is measured by how many people like us on a social media web site.  But, alas, these are modern times and in the spirit of getting with the program, we have created a Sequenza 21 Facebook page where we are cheerfully posting and reposting daily the new music community’s responses to the relevant news and happenings of the day.  You might say that making Mark Zuckerberg richer and more devious on the slippery slope of privacy rights has become a passion of ours.  If they can now x-ray your privates as you pass through airport security, what else do we have to lose?

But I digress.  Right now on the Sequenza21 page, you’ll find many of the obits, tributes, and reflections on the passing of Dave Brubeck and Jonathan Harvey, as well as samples of works completed and started, favorite YouTube videos, and the usual bitches and moans about the sorry state of the classical music business.  We’d love to have you join us.  We might even report your latest concert or CD announcement.  Come on over.

And don’t forget to hit the “Like” button.

What becomes a legend most? Well, in the case of two legends–director/designer Robert Wilson and composer Philip Glass, an international tour of their first and most famous of their five collaborations, EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH (1975-76 ), which began in Ann Arbor, Michigan in January ’12, goes on to  Amsterdam in Jan’ 13., and ends in Hong Kong in Mar’13. But there’s an irony. The piece “that broke all the rules of opera “– there’s no story, and certainly no star-crossed lovers, murder, or even betrayal — is an endeavor on a par with the scale, ambition, and wor force of 65, onstage and off ,  a standard repertory work, with–according to lighting supervisor John Torres–800 cues, with about 75 each for its Dance 1 and Dance 2. And its incarnation at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, and Mexico City’s Palacio De Bellas Artes was the product of 4-5 days of technical– each scenic element and the actors and dancers are lit separately–and cast rehearsals, with about a week’s lodging for all at each stop. But did EINSTEIN  exceed or even live up to its reputation as a seminal work of 2oth century music theatre? Judged by what I saw in New York and Berkeley, it clearly did, and it also drove home the simple fact that seeing it with others in a darkened theatre is a far more complete experience than hearing it at home alone on even the best sound system, and I’ve listened to both its original 1979 Tomato LP recording and its 1993 Nonesuch CD set many times over the years. But let’s face it . Music is as confrontational as anything else. It’s like meeting someone online. They may e-mail in a certain tone of voice, and may come at you differently if you speak on the phone, but encounters face to face are a different thing. It’s no longer an invention, but something implausibly real.