Ward Stare, Resident Conductor for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, talks about Ingram Marshall’s Fog Tropes, in front of Gordon Matta-Clark’s Bingo. Stare will conduct Fog Tropes for the concert tomorrow, March 10, 2010. (Tickets for tomorrow’s concert are SOLD OUT.)

As I’m sure all of you already know (because you follow our blog, facebook and twitter accounts faithfully) our Urban Alchemy / Gordon Matta-Clark exhibition opening took place last Friday from 5pm to 9pm. Admittedly, scheduling a 4 hour opening did seem like a long amount of time and we therefore planned to evaluate the visitor attendance flow every hour to figure out if, for future openings, we should open later or close earlier. Much to our excitement, we found that our 900 visitors came in a steady stream – showing up on their way home from work or arriving after a dinner on the town for a glass of wine on our mezzanine. It certainly didn’t hurt the event when the skies cleared just hours before we were slated to open, giving our guests an amazing view of a setting sun against a St. Louis skyline.

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The Symphony’s Carnegie Hall performance that I mentioned in this post, was reviewed in the New York Times on Sunday.  Sounds like it was a trip full of challenges, but with amazing results.  For example, David Robertson filling in for the soloist at the last minute!  Read about why and what happened here.

I was lucky to be invited to last Friday’s Symphony performance by their blogger extraordinaire, Eddie Silva. He organized Bloggers’ Night, luring us in with promises of free tickets, drinks, and a chance to mingle with fellow bloggers.  In exchange we promised a blog post about the experience. Genius!The Pulitzer collaborates regularly with the Symphony, so they’re no strangers around the Pulitzer (I got a kick out of trying to find musicians on stage that had performed here in the past).  But this time, I enjoyed going down the street to hang on their turf for once.   Listening to the performance at Powell Symphony Hall, was in strong contrast to our stark, modern concrete.   At the Pulitzer, performances are very intimate, but I loved being in the middle of that large hall, dressed up, and surrounded by beautiful gold gilding and chandeliers.

Powell is one of my favorite buildings in St. Louis, and each time I walk through its doors – either for a performance in front, or for a meeting in back – I’m always reminded of my childhood.  I remember going to the Christmas concerts, and the main lobby with its red velvet, gold and mirrors, decked out in its holiday best, was the pinnacle of elegance.  My favorite part of the night was always walking up and down that grand staircase.  I still get a kick out of it.  If I worked at Powell, I’d use that staircase every day.  Or eat my lunch on it.  Though that’s probably not allowed.

We were lucky to be able to watch the Carnegie Hall preview performance.  Here it’s mentioned on Alex Ross’ blog, The Rest is Noise (he also gives a well-deserved shout-out to Eddie!).  It featured the full orchestra (also something we never get to see at the Pulitzer!) performing Wagner’s Good Friday Music from Parsifal and Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5.  They invited two incredible guest artists – cellist, Anssi Karttunen, (his fingers moved so fast, I could barely keep up) who performed on Zimmermann’s Canto di speranza and Mirage by Saariaho, which he performed with soprano Karita Matilla.  My favorite piece of the night was when she sang Sibelius’ Luonnota.  We were sitting towards the back of the hall, and even at that distance, she was completely captivating.

I enjoyed getting outside of the Pulitzer’s walls to experience one of our regular collaborators in all their full Powell Hall performance glory.  I hope I can not only finagle an invite to the next Bloggers Summit (cough cough) but also return the favor very soon.

An Interview with Courtney Henson, Visitor Services Manager (conducted via Gchat):

me: As the new Visitor Services Manager, what have you been working on in the last couple of weeks?

Courtney:  It has been a balancing act of scheduling-mostly getting all the Community Engagement groups scheduled within the other things, like symposia and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert, etc. The month of March is pretty packed with things to do-at least for the gallery assistants. The general public will be interested in the upcoming April events.

me:  So you have to make sure the Pulitzer building isn’t overbooked?

Courtney:  That is a part of it. It’s important to make sure that even when we’re open for special programs that we maintain our mission of being both a laboratory and a sanctuary.

me:  How will the GAs’ (gallery assistants) workload be affected by the events in April?

Courtney:  The GAs will be working Wednesdays, Saturdays, and all Sundays.  Saturdays and Sundays will be open days for the performances of Staging Old Masters.

me:   What have the GAs been doing with the Community Engagement groups, like Staging Old Masters or the adults with Alzheimer’s?

Courtney:  The GAs have been maintaining the galleries during these group times. Also, from time to time they are asked to assist in interviewing, a new way that we’re evaluating the programs that take place in the building.

The gallery assistants helped interview the participants in Let’s Look.  These interviews are a way to track the ideas held by participants at the beginning of the program. And another interview will

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Pianist Molly Morkoski looked nervous and had every right to be. Olivier Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus” contains twenty movements and spans two hours; a challenging work for any accomplished musician. So she took several deep breaths while intently looking at all 88 keys. When she began to push down on the piano’s perfect teeth, sounds escaped from its propped mouth. The language it spoke seemed without order but beautiful nonetheless. Like a charming schizophrenic bearing flowers and jagged glass, I embraced its message but remained cautious. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday evening, in the spirit of season, Molly Morkoski performed French composer Olivier Messiaen’s Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus (twenty contemplations on the infant Jesus). Before she began, Morkoski described studying this difficult, two-hour piece and expressed gratitude at the opportunity to perform it.

Molly Morkoski and Messiaen are mentioned in “Tis the Season 2,” on the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra blog: http://www.slso.org/blog/

Today is my co-worker Helene’s birthday – she’s registrar extraordinaire here at the Pulitzer and has been behind many a great blog post (though she would never agree!).  Another excellent reason to have cake today (not that you ever NEED a reason) - it’s also the 100th birthday of the composer Messiaen.  Next week we happen to be featuring a performance of his work “Vingt regards sur l’Enfant-Jesus ” as a part of our Ideal (Dis-) Placements Concert Series. There’s a great interview with SLSO Music Director David Robertson talking about this – and the full concert series - on our website. Listen in here.

Fast on the heels of last week’s Symphony concert which featured only one piece, Crippled Symmetry by the composer Morton Feldman, we’re already talking with Symphony staff about the particulars for the next symphony concert on April 23rd which features four pieces:

BERIO: Sequenza V for trombone

LIGETI: Sonata for Solo Viola

BERIO: Sequenza VIII for violin

LIGETI: Poème symphonique

I think the most exciting piece will be the final work of the evening, György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique. This piece calls for 100 wind-up metronomes (which the Symphony is now in the process of trying to locate – apparently not an easy task in today’s high-tech age). I spoke with Eric Gaston from the Symphony on Friday and he called to my attention a YouTube video where the metronomes for this piece were all started with a machine. Check it out here.

Instead of using this fancy machine we are going to be using ten people who will be responsible for starting ten metronomes a piece. The goal will be to start each metronome as quickly as possible so that the least amount of time exists between when the first object is started and the last. Eric has given us at the Pulitzer the task of figuring out how to best present these metronomes for the concert. We will be taking into consideration that the setup needs to easily allow the winders (my own technical name for the people who will start the metronomes) access to each object and that they will be waiting in the wings during the other three performances. Maybe we’ll think of a really creative setup that involves different podiums of different heights interspersed around the room or maybe we’ll just setup an 8ft table and call it a day. Feel free to give us your suggestions.

I think my reasons for liking this piece the most out of the four is due its association – at least in my mind – with concepts that were explored in the visual arts. The glorification/transformation of the musical aid brings to mind Marcel Duchamp’s readymade objects.

Okay, despite this work being my obvious pre-concert favorite, there are merits and exciting elements to all of the pieces playing on April 23rd – but I think I’ll wait till a time closer to the concert to figure them all out. ‘Til then!

Next Wednesday (March 12th) is the first in our Flavin Concert Series.  It will feature one piece – Crippled Symmetry by the composer Morton Feldman.  The musicians who are performing (and how to buy tickets!) are on our website here, along with the rest of the upcoming concerts in the series.

Eddie Silva (who writes the excellent blog on the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra’s site  – bookmark it here) sent me an article today on the piece and the composer.  It was written by John Rockwell (who also happened to have dated Feldman’s ex – interesting little twist!).  Check it out for some background info in preparation for next week’s concert.