clubhouse
The conference room smells like grease, leather, and aftershave. The attendees, mostly men, scarf down pizza and sit on colorful plastic chairs. They're talking about cutting-edge technology, while pretending that they're in a school cafeteria. There are board games stacked on every table.
colossal
The giant seated ballerina looks like a float that broke off from a parade and came to rest among skyscrapers.
future
Ten years ago, did you imagine your life as it is now? (When I ask her this, she shakes her head and frowns.) So that means that ten years from now, your life may also become something you can't currently imagine. Hopefully in a good way. You aren't stuck.
needling
After demanding that he prove his identity, they ask him a bunch of questions about himself. Like, "What's your nickname for string cheese?" He answers each one, but they look skeptical, telling him that they're not sure it's really him. These are the kind of mind games older siblings come up with.
overtures
Building a fragile trust with the baby, who smiles with saliva-bubbly lips and then breaks into a wail.
pause
Sunlight, green leaves, and a pale gray pond in the early morning.
prelude
Balloons float off into a dusky sky as the orchestra warms up.
Showing posts with label orchestra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orchestra. Show all posts
Monday, February 26, 2018
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Week in Seven Words #94
anew
With new determination I open up a Microsoft Word document that's been untouched for months, and I begin again.
concinnity
At the concert we sit closest to the violists and bass players. This way we're more aware of all the layers in the music, its rich harmonies, and the one moment where the lead bass player strikes a note out of tune. We're happy to hear all of it.
density
They sit around a table in the cafeteria pouring liquids of different densities into tall plastic containers - corn syrup, dish washing soap, vegetable oil, water, alcohol - and mostly they don't care about the bigger picture, only that it's fun to look at the liquid layers and see if their friends have made a mess. But from time to time they'll connect what they're doing to chemistry and to the properties of the world, before returning to the really important questions: will something spill? Or blow up?
interlude
On two different subway trips, a musical duo sing in Spanish and strum on guitars as they stroll from car to car.
low-key
The mild cold I come down with helps me mellow out a little.
origination
One school I visit reminds of a nest with birds huddled close beside a clutch of eggs. Another school reminds me of an airport terminal where litter blows across the clean bare floors.
ursine
At bedtime their parents slip out of the room for a short while to unwind, and I read them a story, then another one: The Berenstain Bears in their treehouse with the pink-trimmed windows poking out of the upper leaves. Brother and Sister Bear learn that if they watch too much TV or fight all day, they'll miss out on life.
With new determination I open up a Microsoft Word document that's been untouched for months, and I begin again.
concinnity
At the concert we sit closest to the violists and bass players. This way we're more aware of all the layers in the music, its rich harmonies, and the one moment where the lead bass player strikes a note out of tune. We're happy to hear all of it.
density
They sit around a table in the cafeteria pouring liquids of different densities into tall plastic containers - corn syrup, dish washing soap, vegetable oil, water, alcohol - and mostly they don't care about the bigger picture, only that it's fun to look at the liquid layers and see if their friends have made a mess. But from time to time they'll connect what they're doing to chemistry and to the properties of the world, before returning to the really important questions: will something spill? Or blow up?
interlude
On two different subway trips, a musical duo sing in Spanish and strum on guitars as they stroll from car to car.
low-key
The mild cold I come down with helps me mellow out a little.
origination
One school I visit reminds of a nest with birds huddled close beside a clutch of eggs. Another school reminds me of an airport terminal where litter blows across the clean bare floors.
ursine
At bedtime their parents slip out of the room for a short while to unwind, and I read them a story, then another one: The Berenstain Bears in their treehouse with the pink-trimmed windows poking out of the upper leaves. Brother and Sister Bear learn that if they watch too much TV or fight all day, they'll miss out on life.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Hatikva
Someone sent me this video today:
Violin maker Amnon Weinstein painstakingly collected and restored violins that were used by Holocaust victims, and here they're played at a 2008 concert in Jerusalem; one of the victims was a 12 year old boy who smuggled explosives in his violin case - these explosives were used against German troops in Eastern Europe.
Hatikva ("The Hope") is the Israeli national anthem. The melody is based on a Renaissance era Italian song, La Mantovana - from the Renaissance onwards this melody appeared in a number of different folk songs across Europe from Scotland to Poland; it was also used by the 19th-century composer Smetana in his piece, Vltava or Die Moldau - one of a group of several symphonic poems he wrote in tribute to Bohemia, his homeland (the Vltava is a river that runs through Prague).
Think of the music played on these violins prior to the Holocaust - klezmer and other folk music for instance; their owners might have once played the melody of La Mantovana on them in one form or another (or if they were classical musicians, maybe they performed Vltava in a concert hall). In any case these instruments, which were in pieces (at least one of them found buried in a concentration camp) are whole again, a legacy from the people who owned them and made music on them.
Violin maker Amnon Weinstein painstakingly collected and restored violins that were used by Holocaust victims, and here they're played at a 2008 concert in Jerusalem; one of the victims was a 12 year old boy who smuggled explosives in his violin case - these explosives were used against German troops in Eastern Europe.
Hatikva ("The Hope") is the Israeli national anthem. The melody is based on a Renaissance era Italian song, La Mantovana - from the Renaissance onwards this melody appeared in a number of different folk songs across Europe from Scotland to Poland; it was also used by the 19th-century composer Smetana in his piece, Vltava or Die Moldau - one of a group of several symphonic poems he wrote in tribute to Bohemia, his homeland (the Vltava is a river that runs through Prague).
Think of the music played on these violins prior to the Holocaust - klezmer and other folk music for instance; their owners might have once played the melody of La Mantovana on them in one form or another (or if they were classical musicians, maybe they performed Vltava in a concert hall). In any case these instruments, which were in pieces (at least one of them found buried in a concentration camp) are whole again, a legacy from the people who owned them and made music on them.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Some beauty and peace
I remember first listening to Dvorak's Ninth Symphony ("New World Symphony") in the 10th grade. I had tears in my eyes during the second movement, and it's remained one of my favorite orchestral works.
Someone emailed me these Youtube videos the other day, of the Dublin Philharmonic playing the 2nd Movement, and I thought I'd share them here (though I wish the movement didn't have to be divided up between two videos).
Part One:
Part Two:
Someone emailed me these Youtube videos the other day, of the Dublin Philharmonic playing the 2nd Movement, and I thought I'd share them here (though I wish the movement didn't have to be divided up between two videos).
Part One:
Part Two:
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Week in Seven Words #44
dreidel
The boys set multiple dreidels spinning at once. The dreidels whir around the table, sometimes clacking off each other and shooting over the table-edge. At the end of each round one of the boys likes to line up his dreidels and see which letters they fell on (what are the odds of getting four gimmels?) Their younger brother thinks it's more fun to climb onto the table and swat down all the dreidels; I call him the "Dreidel Monster", and he laughs in delight.
duet
We light Hanukkah candles simultaneously in different cities and sing together over the phone. "Maoz Tzur" makes me feel like a sturdy stone cottage full of light.
duo
They're a comic team, bopping each other on the head. They've been doing this for years - sometimes playfully, other times hard enough to knock each other out.
jollity
I needed an evening like this one - catching up with people I haven't seen in weeks, a long dinner with good food, lots of laughter, staying after to help clean up and then sitting at one of the tables, just three of us talking about all sorts of things until it gets late.
philharmonic
We start with the sprightly joy of Glinka. This is followed by the sweeping mastery of Tchaikovsky. From there we step into Debussy's engimatic lagoon with its choir of sirens. And then Stravinsky's firebird unfolds, full of dazzling unpredictable spirit (and that one golden passage in the finale when the French horn emerges from the near-silence like a lake catching the first light of the rising sun).
plunk
When I visit their apartment, there's a corner of the couch that's just mine. I know that I can sprawl there for a while.
stocked
After they visit, my fridge is full to bursting with meat, milk, cheese, yogurts and juice, cups of cinnamon-spotted rice pudding, baby carrots, pickles in tupperware, red-green apples and spicy olives, netted bags of tangerines and a bar of (opened already of course) chocolate in shiny foil.
The boys set multiple dreidels spinning at once. The dreidels whir around the table, sometimes clacking off each other and shooting over the table-edge. At the end of each round one of the boys likes to line up his dreidels and see which letters they fell on (what are the odds of getting four gimmels?) Their younger brother thinks it's more fun to climb onto the table and swat down all the dreidels; I call him the "Dreidel Monster", and he laughs in delight.
duet
We light Hanukkah candles simultaneously in different cities and sing together over the phone. "Maoz Tzur" makes me feel like a sturdy stone cottage full of light.
duo
They're a comic team, bopping each other on the head. They've been doing this for years - sometimes playfully, other times hard enough to knock each other out.
jollity
I needed an evening like this one - catching up with people I haven't seen in weeks, a long dinner with good food, lots of laughter, staying after to help clean up and then sitting at one of the tables, just three of us talking about all sorts of things until it gets late.
philharmonic
We start with the sprightly joy of Glinka. This is followed by the sweeping mastery of Tchaikovsky. From there we step into Debussy's engimatic lagoon with its choir of sirens. And then Stravinsky's firebird unfolds, full of dazzling unpredictable spirit (and that one golden passage in the finale when the French horn emerges from the near-silence like a lake catching the first light of the rising sun).
plunk
When I visit their apartment, there's a corner of the couch that's just mine. I know that I can sprawl there for a while.
stocked
After they visit, my fridge is full to bursting with meat, milk, cheese, yogurts and juice, cups of cinnamon-spotted rice pudding, baby carrots, pickles in tupperware, red-green apples and spicy olives, netted bags of tangerines and a bar of (opened already of course) chocolate in shiny foil.
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