Monte Music Festival 2009

R.I.P

Alan Hazeldine

Conductor and Musical Director

Mike testing, 1.2.3, 1.2.3...

If you go for a public event in India, you're likely to encounter this very peculiar method of testing the sound-system. A few minutes before the event begins, some flunkey will boom a sound test over the microphone. This "1.2.3, 1.2.3" will go on for about five minutes. If you're lucky, that's the last you'll hear from them, but usually, somebody will come and adjust the microphones, move them around, do a spot check and generally make their presence felt.

Even after all this, chances are that when the event starts, the microphones will be 'dead'. The flunkey will be hurriedly summoned and by magic, he'll get it to work. Proceedings can then begin.

No matter where one goes in India, you'll this happen. It seems to be quite prevalent here in Goa, too, especially at the Kala Academy where keepers-of-the-sound have been known to walk onto stage in the middle of a performance and adjust the mikes, irrespective of whether the extra sound and scraping is required.

Does this happen in the West? I must admit in all the years of attending concerts and other events in the UK and Europe, I haven't seen it happen once. This thought also struck me while we were waiting for President-Elect Obama to make his acceptance speech. The mikes were set up and waiting. How did they test them? I didn't hear any "Mike testing, Mike Testing...) going on. Did you?

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We were at Panaji's lovely Maquinez Palace (formerly part of the GMC, now offices of the ESG) for two events : A piano recital by Marouan Benabdallah, followed by a documentary on the glamorous Portuguese Fado singer, Amalia Rodrigues. What a voice! I feel like taking up the cigarette if it'll help me get a deep, rich and sensous voice too...

Here's part 1 of the documentary:

Myopusradio.com

Congratulations to my friend Carlton on the launch of India's first Internet radio station for international music. Listen to it here while you surf:
http://myopusradio.com

Still Desperate

While our interminable wait for broadband still continues, we're working out of cyber-cafes and erratic dial-up connections.

We're still looking for tickets to the SOI and Zubin Mehta concerts in Sept/Oct at the NCPA. The NCPA website has a link for booking tickets online which doesn't seem to work at either the cafe or at home. If you can get through to http://tickets.rediff.com, please let me know so I can either stop trying or get someone with a faster connection to book tickets.

As they say, much obliged in advance.

Desperately Seeking Tickets

We want tickets for some concerts at the NCPA. If you know anybody who might be a member, have access to tickets or is willing to go to the counter on our behalf, pleeze let me know!

The concerts are:

Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) Season : September 2008
Zubin Mehta & the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at the NCPA (October 7-12, 2008)

Music to our ears

In the meantime, while I’m waiting for the internet to spring to life, at least Mr. R is happy. He managed to get his Worldspace Radio connection reactivated.

The Worldspace website lists about 10 dealers in Panaji. Not one is currently operational. After making the rounds of one office we were given the number of someone in Mapusa (“You know the Idea shop in Mapusa? Just behind that”). That guy behind the Idea shop put us in touch with someone in Panaji, who promised to come the next day “after 10:30”.

The next morning, Mr.R and I waited. And waited.

About 12:30, two chaps turned up and tested the connection. They reactivated it, but couldn’t get the one channel that Mr. R wanted. Out of 40 channels, we wanted just one. And it was proving elusive.

Our friends suggested shifting the aerial. How do we do that? A shrug, a shy smile. They put their heads together, then decided to try shifting the aerial to the next room. So they dismantled the aerial, took hammer et al and climbed out of the window. After much trying, they gave up. The roof was out of the question.
By 1:30, we got fed up and sat down to lunch. They were still huddled together trying to figure it out. It was only after 2:30 that the strains of classical music filtered through the room. The antenna was back in its original position. Nothing had changed, yet they were able to get a signal.

All that is now long forgotten. Now that Mr. R has a very good 24 hour classical radio connection, all is right with the world.

An evening with the LSO

We had complimentary tickets to see the LSO perform at the Barbican yesterday.

The Programme :
- Prokofiev Violin Concerto No 2 (Viktoria Mullova violin)
- Britten Spring Symphony (Susan Gritton soprano, Sarah Connolly Alto, Mark Padmore tenor, Tiffin Boy's Choir, London Symphony Chorus)

Before the concert. A lone drummer rehearses.

The London Symphony Chorus takes its place.

The orchestra tunes up.

Viktoria Mullova comes on stage.

I wish I were a Spaceman...

Little Sis' sent me a text saying that they were watching 'Fireball XL5' last night. Remember that? There was Steve, Venus and Zooni...the good old days :)

Here's a video of the theme song. Never fails to make me smile :)

For Mr.R : I Hope You Dance

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances but they’re worth taking
Loving might be a mistake but it's worth making
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out reconsider
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you dance (time is a wheel in constant motion always)
I hope you dance (rolling us along)
I hope you dance (tell me who wants to look back on the years and wonder)
I hope you dance (where those years have gone)

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

Dance (time is wheel in constant motion always)
I hope you dance (rolling us along)
I hope you dance (tell me who wants to look back on the years and wonder)
I hope you dance (where those years have gone)

I hope you dance
I hope you're dancing
I hope you're dancing
I pray you're dancing
I hope you dance

More sunshine

*Apologies for the glut of YouTube posts, it has just been one of those weeks of wonderful discoveries...

If MB brings cheer, Ronan Keating makes me feel that the world is full of sunny days and I should be dancing.

I'd like to have a life full of RK songs, please - quiet, pleasant, fun, mischeivious...


From one of my all time favorite movies, Notting Hill...

When I'm back on my feet again

One of my favorite MB songs. Video good, but distracting! Lovely to listen to without visuals - never fails to make me feel good.



Wish he had sung this at the concert we went to...

Mr.R, here's something to brighten your day :)

Perlman at the Barbican - A review

Mr.R's review of the Perlman recital at the Barbican.

Itzhak Perlman, violin
Bruno Canino, piano

Schubert: Rondo brilliant in B minor
Beethoven: 'Spring' Sonata

Richard Strauss: Sonata in E flat major
Encore pieces (at least 5 or 6 of them)

We were privileged to hear Itzhak Perlman play yesterday.

The Schubert was exquisitely played. I have heard it played before, but Perlman made it his own. It always amazes me to watch Perlman play. He uses no shoulder-rest, and it always seems to me that his violin is a little too small for his frame, and that his fingers seem so pudgy that you almost expect less-than perfect intonation as a result, but far from it. He makes the playing seem so effortless, so easy, so relaxed. His choice of bowing seems so natural, "just right" for the piece he is playing, there seems nothing contrived about it. Reams have been written about the Perlman tone, and we got it all yesterday.

Canino is an excellent accompanist, caressing every minute detail of the score. His hands flew all over the keys, and every so often his left leg would flail about as he emphasised a musical point.

The Spring Sonata is a standard in the violin sonata repertoire, and was played again in Perlman's inimitable style, chamber music at its best, as the opening theme, and then the second subject, was passed back & forth from violin to piano. The Adagio was dreamy, the Scherzo was witty and brief, and the Rondo was another charming, polite, sometimes animated dialogue between the two instruments.

After the interval, we had the Richard Strauss sonata. I have not heard this played so often, but it is a delightful piece. it is unmistakably Straussian, and I thought I could detect little hints of his tone poems in the dramatic opening, played with the verve & panache that it demanded. The second movement smacked a little of Rosenkavalier, while the last movement sounded heroic, almost worthy of Heldenleben. It is a tragedy that Strauss did not write more chamber music. Opera's gain has indeed been a relative loss to chamber music.

We were then treated to a succession of encore pieces. the page turner carried a whole stack of works that Perlman flipped through, as he decided what to play for us, and his asides with his witty puns and mischievous anecdotes went down very well with the audience. For instance, he played Tchaikovsky's Song without Words (Chanson sans paroles), and introduced the piece by telling us it was dedicated by the composer to a friend who was imprisoned for a very long time, for a minor misdemeanour. ("sans paroles". Get it?)

He also played Apres un Reve (Debussy), and some works that I had not heard before, by composers that I had not heard about before, but were nevertheless perfect encore pieces with the right mix of lyricism and virtuosity, and length.

A great concert, one had been looking forward to for a long time, and it met every expectation.

Perlman at the Barbican

Mr.R and I were at the Barbican last night for a recital by Itzhak Perlman. With tickets booked as far back as March, the concert was not a disappointment - Perlman is one of the world's greatest living violinists and it was a treat to watch him in action. The audience enjoyed the encore which was full of Perlman's trademark puns and witty asides. The music was lovely and the pianist, Bruno Canino, was remarkable too.

I'm no classical music expert, so I'll leave the reviewing to someone else. Suffice to say that it was a very nice evening. It was a bit cold on the outside of the building, but a short chakkar in the Barbican library, then an early dinner at the Balcony Bistro on the first floor prepped us up for the rest of the evening.

Indian summer

As Independence Day fever builds up here in England, there's a lot of fine performances to choose from, if you're feeling home-sick.

There was Nitin Sawhney & Anoushka Shanker at the Proms last week, with a lot of Bollywood dhin-chak sounding music.

29 September - Kavita Krishnamurthy performs 60 years of Bollywood Hits at the Barbican. Promises to be a fun evening. Seats are almost sold out, so hurry! Other performers on the evening are Hariharan, Alka Yagnik & Roop Kumar Rathod accompanied by their orchestra and compered by Harish Bhimani.

Then there's the whole India Now festival that's on in London from July to September with lots of stuff happening.

If you know of any other event, let me know.

A touch of Frost

It's our first morning of frost today.

Mr. R left for work this morning only to find the car windows frozen with ice. Getting the windows de-iced enough to be able to drive delayed him a bit. To think that this will be a daily task and will steadily get worse...

The kitchen clock tells me that the temperature is 9.9 Deg C while the clock next to the laptop says 17 Deg C. That's minimum and maximum, I guess. Maybe the thermometer's frozen too.

Happy Monday everybody. Time to get to work.

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For the past two weeks, we've had a hectic social life what with relatives on Mr.R's side visiting. It has been a fun filled two weeks with people staying over and a gala concert (Mr R's orchestra celebrated 10 years - we had 10 people rooting for Mr R in the audience : F's parents from Spain, an Austrian penfriend of a friend and 7 people from all across the UK - Leeds, Shropshire and London).

It's Christmas season and the carols are out in full swing. Our town Christmas lights will be lit on Thursday after a gala parade and entertainment in the town centre. It's a lovely feeling listening to the old favorites everywhere you go - it's like being in a sudden time warp. Christmas is that time of the year here that makes you nostalgic for good old days and prompts you to keep in touch with long lost family and friends. You even feel like being nice to your co-workers :)

If you can ignore the displays in shop windows and leave your wallet at home, you'll be able to enjoy the ambience even more!

Soul Provider

Twenty four hours later, I am still smiling.

Last night, I was transported to a world that I had left far behind - or so I thought. It was easily one of the more memorable evenings of my life and one that I'm not likely to forget in a jiffy.

What am I talking about? Well, last night,Mr R and I went to the Royal Albert Hall to see Michael Bolton in concert. (Don't laugh now) but MB was one of my favorite poster boys in my college days (along with Imran Khan).

I remember knowing every song by heart. I had them written down. I didn't care that my (male) friends found this obsession funny - they didn't fancy his (at the time) flowing blonde locks and strong,lush voice. My (female) friends indulged me, as only they could. The concert took me back to those long gone days in the 'Woods' at Xaviers - where we were really footloose and fancy free. It was an emotional evening as memories and images kept flashing by, reminding me of little things that I had forgotten. It's funny how you can easily be taken back in time with just a hint of a song, just a reminder of a smile.

MB looks great, even though he's 51 now. The hair is neat and trendy. He seems to have lost weight and is more trim than thin. He had the audience eating out of his hands. The energy was wonderful and every moment was a treasure. I had fun, lots of it. The audience sang along to his songs, laughed at his jokes, ignored the 'No photography' warnings.

Vonda Shepherd (of Ally McBeal fame) opened the concert. If you are an Ally fan, you would know who she is. She ended her gig with the title song from the show and it was a treat!

MB sang many of the classics - his own and that of others. You can listen to some of the songs and excerpts from his new album 'Till the end of forever' here.

Not even in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine seeing him live and in concert. Not even once.

So now you know. I'm still smiling.

Asha Bhosle : The Legend in London

We almost didn't make it.

Tickets for an Asha Bhosle with the Kronos Quartet concert last night were sold out. I spent the whole day checking the Barbican website to see if any seats would show up as free. Mr R and I made many calls to the box office to be told that one seat was available. By lunch time or so, I had given up and was mentally prepared to spend the evening doing something else.

4.30 pm : Logged on for a lark (just in case) and voilà! two prime seats were suddenly showing as available. Quickly called the box office and booked them before anybody else found out! They were expensive, but never mind. Considering that this was probably a once in a lifetime chance to see Asha live in London, it was possibly worth the price.

A quick call to Mr R at work to inform him and I set about getting dressed. Now we all know that it's not possible for a girl to get dressed in 20 minutes. And especially since I was sure that the evening had other things in store besides a trip to London, I had not kept my clothes ready. Anyway, all that drama and I rushed to the station to be greeted with long queues at the ticket counter with people taking an average of 10 minutes each asking for directions and round about routes. Rush, Rush, Rush.

Managed to reach the Barbican just in time before the show and collected my ticket and left Mr.R's ticket at the box office for him to collect when he got there after work. Gave him a call to let him know that I reached and he was just around the corner! Glad he got there in time.

We took our seats along with the (almost) Indian audience. We were all here to see Asha sing RD Burman songs and give this Kronos Quartet a patient hearing. The Quartet came on stage and "played" a few tunes. The funny part was that it was not just the four instruments being played. They had a soundtrack that ran in the background and provided the rest of the music. It was very annoying and sounded 'off'. I don't know how these guys won a Grammy once (yeah). They've lost their touch since, I guess.

8.15 pm : Still no sign of Asha. I could see the audience getting restless in their seats. This was a noisy audience- they cough a lot, shift in their seats, whisper to each other in the dark - none of which would be acceptable behavior in a western classical performance, even in the same auditorium - our cultural attitudes to a performance are so different.

8.35 : Interval. The audience saunters out to the café and comes back in with drinks. Mr.R comments that this would never have been allowed in any other performance. You eat and drink in the lounge and come back in when you are done. Maybe it just got too much for the ushers to stop.

9 pm : Second half begins and the Quartet returns, fortunately with Asha along this time. She dazzles in her uniform of sequined sarees, a glittering white one to start with. She apologizes for her bad English and makes fun of the Quartet. She tells of how she wondered what playing with the Quartet would be like, especially since she was used to playing with 100 musician orchestras and found to her amusement that this one would have only four musicians.

Her performance is peppered with witty one-liners and comments. We look forward to the end of each song just to hear her speak. And her voice! Her voice is still young, strong and full of pizazz. She asks the audience to guess her age and receives a round of applause when she reveals that she is 73.

She starts with 'Chura Liya' and the audience loves it. She goes on to sing other favorites, doing a little acting now and then, breaking into a little jig in a dance number. She is fabulous and it was worth sitting through the Quartet's dismal performance just to watch her.

My favorite song of the evening was 'Mera Kucch Samaan' from the movie Ijaazat (arguably one of Gulzar's finest films) starring Rekha, Nasseer and Anuradha Patel. The lyrics (by Gulzar) are full of yearning and gave me a lump in the throat by the time Asha had finished singing it. Her rendition was full of poignancy and she sang it with feeling. The song is about loss. It is about wanting our lives back, of wanting to reclaim all those minutes, years, memories that we spend thinking about the past and wishing it were all different. It is about dealing with the baggage that we carry and in this case a little underhanded blackmail as it ends with a subtle threat (my analysis!)

It is a fabulous song, nevertheless and for this one alone, I was glad I made the trip into the City.
The night ended with a spirited encore with Asha (in a pink sari now) singing 'Piya Tu' . She got a standing ovation at the end.

Asha is truly evergreen and may she sing for many, many more years to come.

The new Asha Bhosle and Kronos Quartet CD is out now. It's called 'You've stolen my heart' (Chura Liya!!).
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Stop Press : Just heard of an earthquake in Pakistan and North India. Watching pictures of buildings falling on Star News and new of Army personnel deaths ...

If tomorrow never comes...

One of the things my baby brother brought me a few weeks ago (along with the Close-up and the masala's) was a Ronan Keating CD. I've been playing it often, singing along and generally enjoying the songs of one of my favorite artists. 'If tomorrow never comes' is one of my favorite RK songs. Originally written and sung by Garth Brooks, this new version (there's another by Westlife) still manages to re-capture some of that magic.

The lyrics hold true for each one of us - and it's not meant only for people "in love". If there's someone in your life you care about, tell them how you feel. For tomorrow may be too late.

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If tomorrow never comes

Sometimes late at night
I lie awake and watch her sleeping
She's lost in peaceful dreams
So I turn out the lights and lay there in the dark
And the thought crosses my mind
If I never wake up in the morning
Would she ever doubt the way I feel
About her in my heart

If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I love her
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes

'Cause I've lost loved ones in my life
Who never knew how much I loved them
Now I live with the regret
That my true feelings for them never were revealed
So I made a promise to myself
To say each day how much she means to me
And avoid that circumstance
Where there's no second chance to tell her how I feel

If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes

So tell that someone that you love
Just what you're thinking of
If tomorrow never comes