For non-cowboys brought up listening to Aaron Copland, many of the melodies from Billy the Kid and Rodeo are indelibly etched as Copland's own. That's how good the composer was at adapting existing folk tunes. And until Friday, it's unlikely that many listening to the Alabama Symphony Orchestra had an inkling as to their origins.
Along came Bobby Horton, toting his bango, guitar and encyclopedic knowledge of American folksong, to sing us straight. This was no mere lecture in music ethnology. It was Horton at his engaging best, drawing a symphony@6 audience to his historical vision through storytelling and music they won't often hear.
Songs like Old Chisholm Trail and Git Along Little Dogies told of the life on cattle drives. Goodbye Old Paint, a tune about a cowboy parting with his horse, was sung with poignant simplicity. Along with Streets of Laredo, Great Granddad, and others, they were all part of Copland's Billy the Kid, which the ASO performed with a fervor matching Horton's sincerity.
One of the more enlightening numbers was Sis Joe, a song with a rhythmic upswing sung by railroad workers moving tracks. Copland weaved it seamlessly in Rodeo, along with a Scottish ballad and two fiddle tunes, each deftly illustrated by Horton and ASO violinists Daniel Szasz and Roger James.
Horton and conductor Christopher Confessore made a good team, exchanging quips, admiring each other's work, even singing a duet.
The orchestra's showing in Rodeo was squarely on target " deeply etched dynamics, solid playing from the brass and percussion, even a well-deserved nod to the viola section. The Hoe Down, well-known because of beef commercials, was a thrilling finale.
Remembering a concert they played at Enterprise High School in October, 2005, the ASO was collecting donations for victims of the tornado that devastated the Alabama city on Thursday.
Review rating: Three out of five stars.
By Mary Colurso, News Staff Writer
Billy Joel had a vial of throat spray that he touched almost as often as his keyboard Monday night at the BJCC Arena.
Sing a song.
Squirt. Pause for a chorus. Squirt.
Turn away from the crowd. Squirt.
No offense to Joel, but the constant use of throat spray may be one reason his vocals were placed so far back in the sound mix at his 8:15 p.
m. concert.
Can the Piano Man, one of the most successful pop composers of the 1970s and 1980s, still sing well, with the same snazzy power as before?
Hard to tell, from two very different spots in the arena.
It's true that Joel's vocals were easier to hear from the rear of the arena than on the audience-left side of the house, near the stage. But throughout the show, his singing never rose strongly to the forefront.
Listeners want and expect vocal clarity from radio royalty like Joel, especially when ticket prices range from $40 to $85.
Of course, acoustics at the arena are notoriously muddy, and the sound quality can be spotty, depending on where ticketholders are sitting.
But some big-name performers have managed to provide vocals at the BJCC that rang out strong and true.
Why not Joel, who has the fame and clout to travel with the best technology money can buy?
We'll probably never get a definitive answer, so let's turn to the show's good points. It had several.
Aside from his grabs for the spray vial, Joel looked healthy and cheerful during the performance. He played the piano with verve. (Specifics of Joel's fancy keyboard work, by the way, were quite easy to distinguish.
)
He played many of his hits, including Angry Young Man, Innocent Man, My Life, Allentown, New York State of Mind, Keeping the Faith and She's Always a Woman to Me.
Joel's seven-member band was tight and tuneful. The energetic group included Crystal Taliefero, one of the most dynamic backup singers in the business.
Go, Crystal!
Joel's colorful light show was vibrant, creative and tasteful. It definitely boosted the pleasure for ticketholders sitting far away from the stage.
For a Billy Joel concert to triumph, however, there needs to be no quibbling over the vocals. Reasons be darned; this one just didn't cut it.
Ensemble Corund's 17 musicians brought historically correct Bach (and a little Albinoni) to Cathedral Church of the Advent on Sunday, producing a sound much like Bach might heard.
Or so scholars inform us.
For period specialists like this Lucerne, Switzerland-based vocal and instrument group, filling cavernous spaces with sound can be tricky business. 300 years ago, musical instruments were a mere whisper compared to the bountiful acoustical properties of today's instruments.
Variable temperature and humidity can play havoc with gut strings and reed instruments, contributing to chronic intonation problems. Even under the best circumstances, audiences are best advised to lend a more attentive ear to volume and style.
All of that may explain Corund's shaky start on a windy day after a mid-winter thunderstorm in the South.
They fairly groped through a Bach Sinfonia, in search of pitch centers, better direction and a healthy dialogue between strings and winds.
Three Bach motets brought the group more into focus, thanks to the take-charge octet of vocalists. With instruments mostly in the background, the intricate scales and dynamic flourishes of the choir helped give these little-heard works their due.
A joyfully sung chorus and brisk-paced Hallelujah were the highlights of "Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied."
By intermission, Mississippi-born director Stephen Smith had found a safe place for the ensemble in Alabama's climate. Despite a few mistched pitches, Albinoni's Sinfonia in F major blended well and provided insight in Baroque instrumental subtleties.
But it was the Mass in G minor, BWV 235, that had the entire group tiptoeing lithely through Bach's web of counterpoint.
Playing with minimal vibrato and lovely tone from the period oboes, this was pleasurable listening. Strong solos came from alto Carmen Wursch and soprano Susanne von Bausznern.
Tenor Jan Martin Machler sang delightfully in a duet with oboist Meike Guldenhaupt. Bass Thomas Moser, who is blind, gave a passionate rendition of "Gratias agimus" from a Braille score.
By Mary Colurso, News staff writer
Exquisite is a word that shouldn't be used frivolously or often when evaluating concerts.
Many of them simply can't hold up to such a standard, which is best reserved for virtuoso musicians at the peak of their powers.
Chick Corea and Bela Fleck formed an exquisite duo Saturday night at Birmingham's Alys Stephens Center.
Their 8:10 p.
m. concert, played to a nearly sold-out audience, was an absolute marvel of skill, structure and style.
Corea, a jazz pianist, and Fleck, a genre-hopping banjo player, have teamed for an album, "The Enchantment," set for release in May on Concord Records.
If Saturday's show is any indication, that title is warranted and then some.
The two men, jeans-and-sneakers casual, made it seem as if piano and banjo were the most natural combination in the world. The mood they set was of an avant-garde chamber concert -- part jazz, part classical, part bluegrass, part flamenco, part experimental fantasy.
Names of the instrumentals Fleck and Corea pulled from their new disc weren't mentioned, in most cases, but the first set included a Fleck-written "Waltz for Abby" (pastoral, intricate, sparkling) and "Banjo and Piano" (bracing, playful, subtle).
Corea and Fleck joked about the latter tune being called "Ojnab and Onaip," written in an ancient Mayan language they discovered on the back of a garbage-can lid in Mexico. (Actually, it's banjo and piano spelled backward.
)
But their light-hearted banter only served to offset the seriously challenging music they performed.
To get the most out of this performance, a good pair of binoculars was necessary, as they allowed the listener a close-up view of two pairs of hands moving quickly and delicately on stage.
Both players have absolute command of their instruments, and it was a pleasure to see their facial interactions, as well.
Still, you didn't need a degree in composition to enjoy this accessible concert. (Analyzing it closely would be another story.)
Also, anyone in the house who feared that Fleck and Corea would engage in self-indulgent, overlong solos and improvisation needn't have worried.
No noodling here, just intelligent and beautiful teamwork.
By Jim Dunn, For The Birmingham News
Here's the recipe for a fun Friday night. Take equal parts Japanese kitsch, indie pop and friendly atmosphere, then mix well.
Serve in an intimate setting. That's exactly the combination BottleTree served up when it hosted Of Montreal and Elekibass, and the concoction went down very smoothly indeed.
Accurately encapsulating openers Elekibass is as hard as, say, taking a nonstop flight from the band's home in Tokyo to Birmingham.
The seven-piece band is an amalgam of quirky Japanese pop and Beatles-like harmonies wrapped in genuine warmth. That warmth helps the band win over a room despite a language barrier.
At the end of Elekibass's 50-minute set, a crowd that was at first a little shocked by the band's strange masks, derby hats and general weirdness was waving to the beat and roaring in the affirmative when the band held up a hand-lettered sign that read, "One more time?
"
Despite its name, Of Montreal hails from the eclectic music haven of Athens, Ga., which makes the equally eclectic BottleTree a perfect setting for a night of the band's music. BottleTree has facets such as a mirror-tiled deer head, "Knight Rider" and Pac-Man lunchboxes and artwork you're invited to color on.
Of Montreal sings swirly songs with titles such as "We Were Born the Mutants Again with Leafling," "I Was a Landscape in Your Dream" and "Oslo in the Summertime." The band and the venue were made for each other.
The Athens band pleased the sold-out and largely college-age crowd with a relentless delivery of artsy pop numbers such as "Climb the Ladder" and "She's a Rejector," punctuating the night with the occasional thudding bass or tastefully screeching keyboards.
Lead singer Kevin Barnes gives off a pseudo-Morrissey/Robert Smith vibe with his posturing and emoting, but that's delivered with a slightly tongue-in-cheek air that makes you think he's getting a kick out of it, too.
Beyond the theatrics of ballet " the lighting, the eye-catching sets and costumes, the dry ice " there's a handful of ingredients that can make good ballet great. Among them are pristine execution in the corps de ballet, those visceral wow moments that speak directly to the emotions, lucid storytelling and consistent virtuosity.
Alabama Ballet had some of each at opening night of Swan Lake at Samford University's Wright Center. It was enough to make a satisfying evening of dance and drama, but it fell short of the company's best efforts.
Much of the corps hadn't yet danced with the ballet when it last produced this staple of the repertoire in 2003.
By comparison, the 2007 group looked ragged in the courtier and swan maiden dances in the first two acts. An Act 2 pas de trois lacked the edge it needed. An abundance of tiny out-of-sync moments kept this production from taking flight.
Those objections aside, there was much to admire Friday, chiefly, the abiding presence of ballerina Tatiana Ledovskikh. Her grace and maturity were as impressive as ever in the dual roles of Odette and Odile, the cruel fate of Odette showing vividly in her face and limbs. If the 32 fouettes in her Act 3 solo weren't as crisp as they were four years ago, Ledovskikh more than made up for it in subtle dramatic moves.
Opposite her, Kyle Seguin turned in a fine performance as the boyish Prince Siegfried, his expansive moves and physicality contributing to the drama. Even better cast was Benjamin Linn, whose portrayal of the magician, Von Rothbart, went beyond the requisite scariness to sinister and evil.
The Act 4 snow maiden scene was everything it should be " 18 dancers in flared-edge, feathery tutus in near-perfect synchronization, circling the stage so swiftly they could have left the ground.
The Leslie Fillmer-led Alabama Symphony was in good form all evening. The Act 3 violin and harp duet was a highlight, Daniel Szasz and Judith Sullivan Hicks accompanying passionately to a pas de deux between Ledovskikh (as Odile) and Seguin.
Who performed: At an Alabama Symphony Concertmaster and Friends event, Daniel Szasz and his former teacher from Romania, Andras Agoston, brought the true joy of small ensemble cameraderie to Highlands United Methodist Church on Tuesday.
The music: Rarely heard gems by three unsung masters from the Baroque to the 20th century were given their due. Jean-Marie Leclair was eclipsed during his time by bigger-name composers (Vivaldi, Handel and Bach among them). Two of his sonatas were delivered with warmth and delicacy, their quick imitative patterns tossed from violin to violin like a game of catch.
Five miniatures by Reinhold Gliere were more expansive and chromatic. Some were so densely score, two instruments sounded like four.
The film composer: Miklos Rosza is too often pigeonholed for his movie scores ("Spellbound," "Ben Hur," "King of Kings," the "Dragnet" theme), but his non-film music reveals a vibrant composer closely in touch with his European contemporaries.
The Sonata for Two Violins was painted in strident strokes reminiscent of Bartok or Janacek. The duo captured its passion and sentiment beautifully.
The series: Concertmaster and Friends is, simply, a good idea.
Only about 100 turned out in the light drizzle, but they were rewarded with highly satisfying listening.
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