INTERHARMONY INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL-SAN FRANCISCO

San Francisco State University School of Music welcomes the Interharmony International Music Festival.

While in San Francisco, the organization has taken up residence here at SFSU.
June 30 – July 12, 2009
Knuth Hall, Creative Arts Building

These events are absolutely FREE!

InterHarmony International Music Festival – San Francisco, offers you the opportunity to spend two weeks in San Francisco State University, California studying with an internationally renowned faculty of many well-known soloists and chamber musicians. The festival faculty combines their experience with elements of the famous Russian School to produce a unique and invaluable environment for learning and growth. This experience will allow students to significantly develop their musical abilities, achieve artistic growth, elevate their professional training, network with fellow musicians and perform in concert.

The first concert in the continuing series was held last Wednesday, July 1st in the Knuth Recital Hall. The concert was fairly well attended, but I want to encourage more of you to come out to see these fabulous players.

Misha Quint, cellist:
Russian-born cellist Misha Quint, 2009 first prize winner of the CRS National competition, captivates his audiences with his lyricism, passion and dazzling technique.

Master Classes remaining in the series:

MASTER CLASS II:STAGE PRESENCE
Shirley Givens, Violin
Monday July 6, 4:00 PM TODAY!
Creative Arts Building, Choral Room
An informal class on stage presence and projection of ideas. All students are encouraged to participate and bring their instruments.

MASTER CLASS III:THE ART OF AUDITIONING
Cyrus Ginwala & Sidney Harth
Monday July 6, 7:00 PM TONIGHT!
Creative Arts Building Choral Room
Join us for a masterclass for young string players who wish to audition for major orchestras.

MASTER CLASS IV
Harry Wimmer, Cello
Wednesday July 8, 4:00 PM
Creative Arts Building Choral Room
An informal master class on his six-part technique book series, “The Joy of Cello Playing”. Audience participation is encouraged, so bring your cellos.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 415.287.4136
Concerts and Master Classes are open to the public and are free of charge.

Here are the remaining concerts scheduled in the series:

Faculty Chamber Music Concert II
Tuesday, July 7, 8:00 PM
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor (1917)
David Yonan, violin

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor, Op.40 (1934)
Misha Quint, Cello
Tien Hsieh, Piano

Peter Klatzow
Sonata for Solo Viola (USA Premiere) (2008)
Claudia Lasareff-Mironoff, Viola

Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880)
Theme Original Varie, Op.15 (1870)
David Yonan, Violin

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Piano Trio elegiaque No.1 in G minor (1892)
David Yonan, Violin
Misha Quint, Cello
Tien Hsieh, Piano

Student Festival Showcase II
Thursday July 9, 8:00pm
Students, Prize winners
Soloists, Chamber Groups

Final Concert
Saturday, July 11, 3:00pm
InterHarmony Festival Orchestra
Sidney Harth, Conductor
Misha Quint, Violoncello
Jassen Todorov, Violin
Carmen Balthrop, Soprano

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Concerto Grosso No.1 (1710)
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Three Pieces (1905)
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Concerto for Two Violins in A-minor (1729)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Variations on a Rococo Theme (1877)
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Vocalise (1912)
Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Galop (1865)

HOW ART AND MUSIC CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

Mecca Normal are a duo from Vancouver, BC., Canada who work in a multidisciplined creative arts environment. They bring Music, Art, and Publishing together in performance. This year, they celebrate their 25th year together in a performance partnership. They recently came through the Bay Area to bring us “How Art and Music Can Change the World”. Here is a video of of one of these performances captured live recently at the Vinegar Factory, located in Vancouver.

ROCK AND ROLL LOST ANOTHER LEGEND-LUX INTERIOR OF THE CRAMPS IS DEAD

For a few hours I was thinking perhaps this was a rumour, so I hesitated to post this.  But indeed, it has turned out to be true.  Legendary Cramps member Lux Interior has died.   Here is his obit from the Los Angeles Times.

All Music Guide has this on The Cramps.

The saga of the Cramps begins in 1972 in Sacramento, CA, when LSD enthusiast and Alice Cooper fan Erick Purkhiser picked up a hitchhiker, a woman with a highly evolved rock & roll fashion sense named Kristy Wallace. The two quickly took note of one another, but major sparks didn’t began to fly until a few weeks later, when they discovered they were both enrolled in a course on “Art and Shamanism” at Sacramento City College. These two lovebirds were soon sharing both an apartment and their collective enthusiasm for the stranger and more obscure sounds of rock’s first era, as well as the more flamboyant music of the day. Their passion for music led them to the conclusion that they should form a band, and Kristy picked up a guitar and adopted the stage name Poison Ivy Rorschach, while future vocalist Erick became Lux Interior, after short spells as Raven Beauty and Vip Vop. Ivy and Lux hit the road for Ohio, and after living frugally in Akron for a year and a half, they made their way to New York City in 1975 in search of stardom.

While working at a record store, Interior made the acquaintance of fellow employee Greg Beckerleg, who had recently arrived from Detroit and also wanted to form a band. Beckerleg transformed himself into primal noise guitarist Bryan Gregory, and even persuaded his sister to join the nascent combo as a drummer. However, Pam Beckerleg didn’t work out on traps, and so Miriam Linna, an Ohio transplant who had gotten to know Lux and Ivy during their sojourn in the Buckeye State, finalized the first proper lineup of the band they called the Cramps. Between Ivy’s twangy single-note leads, Bryan’s shower-of-sparks reports of noise, Lux’s demented banshee howling, and Miriam’s primitive stomp, the Cramps didn’t sound like anyone else on the budding New York punk scene, and the foursome soon began attracting both crowds and buzz with their shows at CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. After about a year of gigging in and around New York, Linna left the group (she would later co-found frantic cultural journal Kicks Magazine and exemplary reissue label Norton Records), and another former Ohioan, Nick Stephanoff (known to his fans as Nick Knox and previously a member of infamous Cleveland noise terrorists the Electric Eels) took over behind the drums, and this version of the Cramps released the group’s first recordings, a pair of 7″ singles recorded in Memphis with Alex Chilton as producer and issued by the band’s own Vengeance Records label.

R.I.P Lux. You will be missed.

If you’d like to check out the music of The Cramps, I suggest going to last.fm where they offer free audio streaming.

Here are some great Cramps videos, below.

THE CRAMPS- TEAR IT UP

The Cramps – Bikini Girls with Machine Guns

The Cramps – Garbage Man

ODETTA IS DEAD

Odetta died a few days ago. Here is her obit from the Washington Post. You can listen to an interview she did with NPR back in 2005, here. NPR also has links to other programs about this great artist.

The New York Times offers an interview video that runs about 20 minutes about Odetta, here.

Back in 1960, TIME Magazine ran a feature on Odetta, which you can read here.

Tavis Smiley interviewed Odetta on his program back on January 25, 2008. You can listen to the archived program, here.

Here is a book that features Odetta as a songwriter:

I got thunder : Black women songwriters on their craft / LaShonda Katrice Barnett.Abbey Lincoln — Angélique Kidjo — Brenda Russell — Chaka Khan — Dianne Reeves — Dionne Warwick — Joan Armatrading — Miriam Makeba — Narissa Bond — Nina Simone — Nona Hendryx — Odetta — Oleta Adams — Pamela Means — Patti Cathcart Andress — Shemekia Copeland — Shirley Caesar — Tokunbo Akinro — Toshi Reagon — Tramaine Hawkins.

You can check out some of Odetta’s music by going to the HSS Building, where the audio collection resides.

My eyes have seen [sound recording] / Odetta.

LIBRARY MEDIA SERVICES- HSS 127 CompactDisc CD-93094 Poor little Jesus — Bald headed woman — Motherless children — I know where I’m going — The foggy dew –I’ve been driving on Bald Mountain ; Water boy — Ox-driver song — Down on me — Saro Jane — Three pigs — No more cane on the Brazos — Jumpin’ Judy — Battle hymn of the Republic.

You can also check out Odetta’s music for free on the internet based music station LAST FM.

There are also quite a few Odetta videos on YouTube, but here are a few of my favorites.

Tennesse Ernie Ford and Odetta singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”

Odetta performing “Water Boy”

WEBSITE OF THE WEEK-ARNOLD SCHOENBERG CENTER

The Arnold Schoenberg Center is located in Vienna, relocating to the cityof Schoenberg’s birth after a great deal of controversy.

The collection contains approximately 9.000 pages of musical manuscripts, 6.000 pages of text manuscripts, 3.500 historical photos as well as personal documents, diaries, concert programmes, his entire library (music, books and recordings) and a replica of Schönberg’s study in Los Angeles. Almost all of the original manuscripts and other Schönbergiana that are not a part of the collection are nevertheless available in copies or on microfilm at the Center. The Center’s reference library also offers visitors one of the most complete collections of literature concerning the (Second) Viennese School in the world.

If you can’t travel to Vienna, the place of Schoenberg’s birth, you can experience some of the collection virtually. There’s lots of virtual links here, so I encourage exploration of the site’s offerings. Here are just a few of the virtual links available.

Schoenberg Web Radio

Schoenberg Jukebox

Schoenberg Oral History

Schoenberg Texts

Schoenberg Music Manuscripts

Here at the Leonard Library, you can also find research materials on Arnold Schoenberg. Here are some suggestions:

The musical idea and the logic, technique and art of its presentation / Arnold Schoenberg ; edited, translated, and with a commentary by Patricia Carp

Music theory and analysis in the writings of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) / Norton Dudeque.

Schoenberg and his world / edited by Walter Frisch.

The early works of Arnold Schoenberg, 1893-1908 [electronic resource] / Walter Frisch.

Brettl-Lieder = Cabaret Songs : [For] Voice And Piano / Arnold Schoenberg ; [Edited By Leonard Stein].

Complete Lieder / [Sound Recording] / Arnold Schoenberg.

Moses Und Aron. / [Sound Recording] / Schoenberg.

MUSIC RESOURCES AT THE SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY

Bossa Nova Program Tonight 9/9/08 at SFPL!!

The San Francisco Public Library is among the few public libraries in the country that still has a Service Desk specifically for Music related questions. At the Art/Music/Recreation Center on the 4th Floor of the Main Library there are librarians with Music Subject specialties as well. They have a great selection of books, scores, periodicals, songbooks, and other related musical materials. Since many libraries face cuts in their collection budgets, it is helpful to be able to share library collections. If you live in the state of California, SFPL Library cards can be obtained free of charge. Here are just some of the items the SFPL can offer musicians and students of music.

Orchestral Music Sets – a database for searching sets of scores and parts for orchestral music.

Musicians and Performing Artists File – Newspaper clippings, articles and flyers collected from the late 1960s to the present.

Northern California Composers- San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California (1840s to the present)

Dorothy Starr Collection – songbooks, sheet music and instruction books

Programs of Bay Area dance, music and theater performances – local and visiting individuals and companies (1910 to the present)

The SFPL also subscribes to databases that are accessible remotely to Library Card holders. They have a few that the J. Paul Leonard Library does not currently receive that are useful for music research:

African American Song | (Alexander Street Press)
Covering jazz, blues, gospel, and other forms of African American musical expression, users can listen to approximately 16,000 tracks of music over the Internet.

American Song | (Alexander Street Press)
American Song is a history database consisting of over 16,000 tracks users select and listen to over the Internet. You’ll find songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys.

Contemporary World Music | (Alexander Street Press)
Listen to world music recordings over the Internet. Contemporary World Music consists of over 12,000 individual recordings in genres like world dance, neo-traditional, world fusion, and many others.

The SFPL also offers more than 200 music related magazines and journals, in both print and electronic formats.

And lastly, the SFPL also offers free musical programs for education and enjoyment. Tonight, for example.

Brazil – 50 Years of Bossa Nova

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Locations: Main Library Koret Auditorium,Main Library Latino/Hispanic B
Address: 100 Larkin St. (at Grove)
Library Sponsored Public Program

Event Time: 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Description:
In 1958, a group of young people who grew up on and around Rio de Janeiro’s beaches sought a more sophisticated way to compose music and eventually renewed Brazilian popular music to such an extent as to influence the international scenery. It was the start of bossa nova, when Brazilians combined extraordinary values of creativity, intellectual boldness and artistic modernization. Join us as we celebrate 50 years of an important musical movement with music by guitarist Mauro Correa and band.

Presented by The Consulate General of Brazil.

I highly encourage everyone to get a SFPL Library Card to enhance your research capabilities.

NEW YORK NO WAVE SCENE AND POPULAR MUSIC RESOURCES

As more scholars do research in Popular Music, more scholarly materials are being published about Popular Music. The J. Paul Leonard Library’s collection of Popular Music genres offers a bounty of academic material for the popular music researcher : jazz, blues, punk, rock, hip hop, rap, reggae, soul, etc.

There have been a few noteworthy books published recently about the New York No Wave Scene. If you click on the book jackets above, you will see the holdings for these books in our library. I have also included links to books that cover other types of popular music as well.

The New York Times recently reviewed the Byron Coley/Thurston Moore book NO WAVE. Follow the link for excerpts and photographs, as well as the story.

If you need help researching the various genres of music, I have created a Research Guide that will guide you to relevant sources. Go here. You can also read and/or subscribe to my music blog, which is designed to give additional and updated resources that will come to you directly either through just accessing the blog, or by subscribing to the rss feed.

If you have any questions relating to your music research, don’t hesitate to contact me. What you find out today may save you time and frustration tomorrow.

ISAAC HAYES IS DEAD

Soul legend Isaac Hayes has died at the age of 65.  Here’s a link to an obit with video.

Here’s the obit from The Australian

August 12, 2008

OBITUARY: Isaac Hayes, singer, actor and composer. Born Covington, Tennessee, US, August 20, 1942. Died Memphis, August 10, age 65.

WITH his soulful baritone and instinct for funk rhythms, Isaac Hayes was a powerful influence on music for four decades. His music had its roots in soul, paved the way for disco and romantic crooners such as Barry White, and pre-empted rap.

His album Hot Buttered Soul in 1969 first brought him notice, and his theme music for the 1971 film Shaft made him famous. In more recent years he won an entirely different audience when he lent his voice to the irreverent cartoon series South Park, playing the role of Chef.

Born in Covington, Tennessee, in 1942, Hayes had humble beginnings, and his sharecropper family was never far from his mind. At the height of his fame he bought an estate in East Memphis overlooking the same cotton fields where he grew up.

He began singing in church at age five and in high school caught the attention of a guidance counsellor who persuaded him to enter a talent show.

A self-taught musician, he was renowned for his characteristic baritone voice and mastery of several instruments, including the saxophone and the piano. Hayes won seven college scholarships for vocal music, but he turned down higher education to launch his music with Stax Records, where he worked with some of the biggest names at the time, including Sam & Dave, Otis Redding and Booker T & the MG’s.

Hayes became the label’s rising star and, during the next few years, 200 compositions, co-written with David Porter, became standards. Hot Buttered Soul stayed on the pop chart for 81 weeks and forced the music industry, for the first time, to conceive of soul music as an album art form.

It was groundbreaking in several ways. Hayes sang in a cool style, unlike the usual histrionics of big-time soul singers. He gave his songs distinct spoken-word rap introductions and the tracks ran longer than the usual three minutes, with lush arrangements.

At the time of emerging Black Power and with the death of Martin Luther King as a conscience-building experience, Hayes transformed his image into a revolutionary statement, dressing in black leather, draping his bare chest in rows of gold chains and shaving his head.

His career-defining soundtrack for Shaft picked up an Academy Award, three Grammy awards, a Golden Globe and an Edison Award, Europe’s highest music honour, and was influential on later music.

“The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence,” he once said. “And they’ll tell you if you ask.”

Hayes began acting in scores of films and television series. His guest appearances included TV shows The Rockford Files and Miami Vice. He appeared in films such as Escape from New York and Hustle & Flow.

Musically, he returned to the charts in 1986 with a new record deal with Columbia and a new album, U-Turn. In 1997 he began voicing the role of Chef in the animated Comedy Central series South Park, but he quit in 2006, apparently because of a conflict with Scientology, which he had followed since themid-1990s.

During a 1991 trip with White to Africa, Hayes became fascinated with his African roots and began his philanthropic devotion to spreading the message that education is the key to freedom.

He started the Isaac Hayes Foundation in 1993 and after being crowned king of a small community in Ghana, he returned to open an education centre in 2000 that provides literacy, computer technology and health courses for the public.

In 2002, Hayes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and moved home to Memphis, where he pursued business interests that flowered into two restaurants, a best-selling cookbook and barbecue sauces.

He wrote a self-help book, The Way to Happiness, and summarised his life experience in an interview: “At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own lives.

“If anything happens to us, don’t blame somebody else. Backtrack and look at what you did to contribute to that. You also contribute to your successes. Once you learn that, you’re on your way.”

Hayes died on Sunday afternoon after he collapsed at his home.

He was about to begin work on a new album for Stax, the label he helped build to legendary status.

And he had recently finished work on a movie called Soul Men, in which he played himself, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac, who died on Saturday, aged 50.

“Isaac Hayes embodies everything that’s soul music,” says Collin Stanback, an executive at Stax. “When you think of soul music you think of Isaac Hayes: the expression … the sound and the creativity that goes along with it.”

Hayes was married four times and fathered 12 children, according to Us magazine.

He is survived by his fourth wife Adjowa, whom he married in 2005 and with whom he had one child.

You can listen to an NPR Podcast with Isaac Hayes and Terry Gross that was originally aired in 1994, linked below.

Remembering Soul Icon Isaac Hayes

And here’s Isaac Hayes performing his hit Shaft, live in 1973.   RIP, Isaac.

Here at the J. Paul Leonard Library you can check out materials related to Isaac Hayes.  Here are some suggestions:

The Complete Stax Volt singles, 1959-1968 [sound recording]

The black chord : visions of the groove : connections between Afro-beats, rhythm & blues, hip hop, and more.

The envelope please– Academy Award winning songs (1934-1993) [sound recording]

The W [sound recording] / Wu-Tang Clan

Sweet sweetback’s baadasssss song [videorecording]

Shaft [videorecording]

San Francisco State School of Music Videos

The San Francisco State University College of Creative Arts is home to many talented students and faculty.  These talented individuals participate and perform in a variety of musical groups.  Here are some videos of some of the SFSU musical groups in performance.  Enjoy!   And don’t forget to check out the College of Creative Arts blog.

San Francisco State University Chorus

An Evening in Vienna” on May 9 2008 at Most Holy Redeemer Church, San Francisco.
Missa in Angustiis (“Lord Nelson” Mass) by Joseph Haydn

The SFSU Orchestra and University Chorus performing the Haydn Lord Nelson mass. This movement is the Sanctus (Holy)

San Francisco State University’s choir concert, December 15, 2007 at Most Holy Redeember Church in the Castro. “Tristis est anima mea,” a motet by Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722), sung in Latin. Conducted by Dr. Joshua Habermann.

The Afro-Cuban Ensemble

San Francisco State University’s choir concert, December 15, 2007. Brazilian song made popular by Sergio Mendes called “Lua Soberana” by Vitor Martins and Ivan Lins, arranged by Paul Kim and John Calloway. Conducted by Paul Kim, featuring members of the SFSU Afro-Cuban ensemble.

Hafez Modir (aka Modirzadeh)(soprano saxophone) with
Danongan Kalanduyan (kulintang), San Francisco State University, 2001

UTAH PHILLIPS AND BO DIDDLEY ARE BOTH DEAD

Bummer of a week in music with the deaths of two very important musicians in America. R.I.P Utah Phillips and Bo Diddley.

Here is a link to an article written by the family of Utah Phillips for the local area Yuba News.

Official Obituary provided by Utah’s family

Folksinger, Storyteller, Railroad Tramp Utah Phillips Dead at 73

Nevada City, California, May 24, 2008 — Utah Phillips, a seminal figure in American folk music who performed extensively and tirelessly for audiences on two continents for 38 years, died Friday of congestive heart failure in Nevada City, California- a small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains where he lived for the last 21 years with his wife, Joanna Robinson, a freelance editor.

Bo Diddley influenced a great number of musicians that came after him. Here is his obit from from the New York Times.