Sarah Wallin Huff » Thought for the Day

V.T.C.M.A. 13

Sarah — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:44:07 +0000

It’s our favorite lab-tech Beaker! Beaker meets Beethoven…

V.T.C.M.A. 12

Sarah — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:23:28 +0000

Yeah, yeah, I bet EVERYBODY’s blogged this one… But I just gotta get on that bandwagon, too!

Of course, I’m talking about John Williams‘ Air and Simple Gifts composed for and performed at Obama’s inaguration yesterday. The musicians? The venerable Anthony McGill on clarinet, Itzhak Perlman on violin, Yo-Yo Ma on cello (who was also asked by the inauguration committee to organize the performance), and Gabriela Montero on piano.

It’s a beautiful piece, no doubt – the instrumentation reminding me (and lots of others) of Messiaen‘s Quatuor pour la fin du temps, of course, and then my mind instantly turning to Copland‘s Appalachian Spring with the entrance of Simple Gifts in the clarinet. Which, it turns out, was done intentionally; and here I thought I was being clever.

Williams quotes that passage almost verbatim, and goes on to put the hymn tune through a very Coplandesque treatment before bringing the mood back down to earth with the opening material.

Although Williams chose to use the Copland material because President Obama counts that composer among his classical favorites, there’s another significant point here. In 1953, a pre-inaugural concert by the National Symphony Orchestra at Constitution Hall, a concert attended by then president-elect Eisenhower, was to have included a performance of one of Copland’s most popular works, A Lincoln Portrait. But a Republican congressman (from Illinois, by the way) objected, suggesting that Copland was too liberal and maybe even Communist-friendly, so the piece was pulled from the concert. Inserting the touch of Copland into the Obama inauguration, Williams told Variety last week, offers “a completed circle of events that is nice to think about.”

-Tim Smith (Baltimore Sun)

Without further ado, here is the video, and, if that’s not enough, you may download the mp3 file here!

V.T.C.M.A. 11

Sarah — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:17:54 +0000

Check it out! The rest of Larry Enriquez’s newest music videos are up on YouTube! Here are just a few of my fav’s (with nice closeups, too!)…

“Fill the Valleys”

“Worthy is the Lamb”

“God of Wonders”

Special V.T.C.M.A.

Sarah — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:57:49 +0000

Finally, now on YouTube, you can view Steve Zelt’s film, The Visit, in its entirety, with original music composed and performed by me and my good friend Danielle Cummins!

And, through my relationship with both Danielle and Steve, I met talented singer/songwriter Larry Enriquez and had the pleasure of improvising and recording violin parts for a good number of his original tunes. Well, later, we were able to make music videos of each of these tunes, so here is the first of those music videos (more to come later!). What a great experience!

“Embrace the Day”

V.T.C.M.A. – 9

Sarah — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:44:17 +0000

This is a hilarious episode from the French comedy show, “Kaamelott”. Titled “The Perfect Fifth (La Quinte Juste)”, it takes place during the times of King Arthur and details the evolution of harmony from the “holy” perfect intervals to the “pagan” thirds, sixths, and even *gasp!* diminished!…

(Thanks to Kay for sharing!)

(Find “Kaamelott’s” Official Site here.)

V.T.C.M.A. – 8

Sarah — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:33:08 +0000

The Baltic Baroque play Vivaldi – in style!!

Vivaldi’s “La Folia“:

Vivaldi’s Allegro (RV 565):

Check out more videos from this incredible group here!

V.T.C.M.A. – 7

Sarah — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:22:06 +0000

Really nice video-work here! Shows off Ed Alleyne-Johnson‘s electric violin mastery nicely, what he does and how he does it. And lovely scenery shots, too!

By the way, check out these great anecdotes about famous buskers, including Benjamin Franklin, Sting, Joshua Bell, and more!!…

Thought for the Day

Sarah — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:07:58 +0000

In the midst of my intense contemplations concerning my current in-progress work – my thesis composition for my Master’s degree, to be exact – I came across this fascinating interview with renowned composer, John Adams, concerning his Violin Concerto.

Excerpt:

Did the concerto genre and the expectations associated with it—especially that of virtuosic writing for the solo instrument—affect your customary compositional process in any ways that you can single out?

I think it did affect it a lot. I was very slow to come to the concerto form. In fact, even after finishing this work, I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with the form itself.

There were several issues that tended to make me shy away from the format; one was the problem of handling the dialogue between the instrument and the orchestra, something that really stood quite apart from—almost alien to—my normal way of experiencing musical discourse. It certainly would have been unthinkable for me to write a concerto ten years ago, for instance, around the time of Nixon in China. But in the intervening years my language has become less monolithic and ultimately more melodic…I would say very frankly that there are things about the concerto that even to this day cause me trouble when I hear it. I continue to conduct it quite often, and each time I come back to it I find myself going through oscillating periods of doubt or insecurity over certain aspects of the piece. There are moments when it seems to me very satisfying, very true to what I’d want from a concerto written in my own time. But then there are times when the choice of the conventional form irritates me and makes me wish I’d struck out into less well-charted territory…But then there are moments, especially after a genuinely inspired performance, when the almost Platonic perfection of the traditional form produces an intense sense of pleasure. At those times I can appreciate it for its genuine freshness and novelty…

Read the rest of the interview here and read more of Adams’ thoughts on the work here.

And what has this to do with me, you may ask? Why did I take heart from these words, aside from my admiration for this composer and his works? Well, let us just say that putting together my 20-minute “Leviathan Concerto” (working title) for six-string electric violin, chamber orchestra, and MIDI instruments has proven at times to be both a joyful and daunting task. But it is beginning to take real shape now, and I do look forward to the finished product…

An Amazing Realization

Sarah — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:53:50 +0000

Hey, get this:

Today is the 59th anniversary of the world premiere of “The Dirge” – the fourth section from Lenny Bernstein‘s “Age of Anxiety” Symphony (that’s Symphony No. 2 for piano and orchestra, based on W. H. Auden‘s 1946 poem by the same name). This partial premiere was given on Nov. 28, 1948, and was included in a fund-raising concert in Tel Aviv (Israel) held to mark the first anniversary of the UN partition resolution which had legitimized Israel’s claim to indepenedence.

I just realized this as I was working on my school paper – How cool is that?!

V.T.C.M.A. – 6

Sarah — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 06:29:03 +0000

“The trouble with you and me, Ned, is that we want everyone in the world to personally love us, and of course that’s impossible: you just don’t meet everyone in the world.”

-Leonard Bernstein, to composer Ned Rorem.

Presenting a brief clip from Bernstein’s acclaimed Norton Lectures at Harvard, 1973-74! A definite must-see for anyone interested in music, and the question of its existence as a universal language capable of conveying the metaphorics of human existence.

(You can get the book, too, Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard, here!)