Weekly Update

Jones_weighted_BW_3405SPECTORDANCE EAST WEST

UNIQUE dance program about gang-culture in Salinas Valley now starting a national tour. Two performances at The Western Stage this weekend. Click HERE

MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL

THE NEXT GENERATION Jazz Orchestra thrilled a full house at the Garden Stage of the Monterey Fairgrounds last Thursday morning. All the picnic tables and bleachers were packed with hundreds of school kids who arrived in a fleet of big yellow buses to hear the “ridiculously talented” young musicians from all over the US, as conductor Paul Contos remarked to me after the one-hour performance. The show began with the classic Green Dolphin Street and ended with a New Orleans funeral in honor of Nancy Fowler, a popular Carmel Middle School music teacher who died in a car crash near Castroville. From the stage, Fowler was described as a “member of the family.” Janice Perl sang a dirge with the orchestra, which was then followed by a rousing When the Saints Go Marchin’ In that turned into a parade of the musicians and, as they passed, drew along most of the school students in the audience. Contos gave very sparing directions and, even stepped away as the orchestra played brillilegends_gala_2015MJF_(c)Monterey Jazz Festival_Cole Thompson-172 (Copy)antly with solos aplenty. To me the most astonishing piece, tinged with Oriental flavors and complex rhythms, was Three Brahmin by young San Diego composer/pianist Chase Morrin, described as a current student at Harvard and the New England Conservatory. This 10-minute tour de force was as tight-knit a piece as it was a performance. Pictured, the NG Jazz Orchestra played a gala performance to honor Wayne Shorter at the Clement Hotel on Cannery Row the same day.

BBC LAST NIGHT AT THE PROMS

CABRILLO FEST’S MARIN ALSOP conducts. Hear the entire broadcast on Radio 3, including Alsop interviewed by Sean Rafferty. Click HERE

LOW BLOW

so-low9455_DENISE TRYON, fourth horn in the Philadelphia Orchestra, gets all the low notes. Her new Bridge CD, SO-LOW, plumbs the repertoire, from 20th century hornist/composer Hermann Neuling and Danish composer Carl Nielsen (whose 150th anniversary occurs this year) to numerous new and virtuosic pieces by the likes of Peter Askim, Tim Martin, Brett Miller, Nathan Pawelek, Dante Yenque and Andrea Clearfield, most horn players themselves. Tryon plays without vibrato. She is accompanied by pianist Julie Nishimura. A couple of the pieces are dark workouts, others succeed through wit and charm.

SAINT JUNIPERO SERRA?!

HE BROUGHT Catholicism, European music, art, viticulture and deadly disease to California. A CNN investigative report. Click HERE

PERFORMING ARTS PEOPLE

MONTEREY NATIVE Janice Perl, a widely admired jazz singer and educator comes from a family of musicians. Click HERE

FRESH REVIEWS

PHILIP PEARCE attended Oliver! at PacRep and The Liar at the Western Stage. Click HERE

Scott MacClelland, editor