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Arts


Gregory Rose back with baton for SOSL Christmas concerts
Choral workshop
Mr. Rose hopes to conduct a choral workshop on the lines of UK summer schools next April for all singers and choral directors. "The last time I was here, I was quite impressed with the standard of music," said Mr. Rose who hopes to hold a week-long workshop where the participants could rehearse particular works to improve on their singing techniques. The workshop will culminate with a concert, featuring the participants. "The only obstacle however, is the lack of sponsors," he says. Therefore, any interested parties could contact either Mr. Rose or the SOSL.

By Marisa de Silva
Conductor cum Music Director, Gregory Rose is back in the island after his successful Haydn's 'Creation' six months ago. Rose will be guest conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka (SOSL) at their two Christmas concerts to be held at the Ladies College Auditorium on December 12 and 14.

Having a father who was a professor of music at Oxford University and a conductor cum composer, it was quite natural that Mr. Rose himself entered the musical arena. An internationally acclaimed conductor, who kicked off his professional conducting career 20 years ago, he has over the years conducted over 100 premieres of orchestral, choral and ensemble music concerts throughout Western and Eastern Europe.

Highlights of his career have included a Ravel and Schoenberg concert with the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, an all-Rachmaninov programme with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Baltic premiere of Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, and concerts with the London Mozart Players, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and the City of London Sinfonia. He has appeared in festivals throughout Europe including at the BBC Promenade Concerts.

He has conducted many opera productions and even toured Britain last year, with Bizet's 'Carmen'. Earlier he was the Chorus Master for the Wexford Festival Opera in Eire staging operas by Tchaikovsky, Leoncavallo and Wagner.

His first concert on December 12 will be the SOSL's Family Christmas Concert, where the orchestra and the chorus, initially trained by Soundarie David, will sing traditional Christmas carols and several songs performed by the young tenor Asitha Tennekoon, including Schubert's 'Ave Maria' and Adams' Holy City. "I'm going to try and prompt a lot of audience participation too," says Mr. Rose, enthusiastically. The concert will conclude with choruses from Bach's Christmas Oratorio and Handel's Hallelujah Chorus.

The second of the Christmas Symphony Concerts on the 14th will feature a range of classics like Rossini's Tancredi Overture and Edward Elgar's much loved Cello Concerto, with Tamara Holsinger as cellist. Mozart's brilliantly tuneful Violin Concerto No. 5 with violinist, Neela de Fonseka and a more extensive selection of choruses from Bach's Christmas Oratorio are also included.

Kala Korner by Dee Cee
A Master's touch
Everyone calls him 'Master'. The impactful poster adorning the walls throughout the city announced the felicitation ceremony for Dr. Premasiri Khemadasa (he was recently awarded the D. Litt by the Ruhuna University) as 'a tribute to the Master Musician of our time'. 'Master' was the simple title chosen for the evening of 'memorable melodies created by Master Khemadasa' over the past four decades. They were undoubtedly memorable. The audience at the BMICH that evening had heard these over and over again. Yet they were so refreshing. That's the Master's touch.

When Khemadasa was escorted amidst the usual drumming to the front row, followed a few minutes later by the lighting of the pol thel pahana, it was obvious he was feeling rather uneasy. He was impatient to go up and get on with the job he is used to, just as he was, forty-eight hours earlier at his usual haunt behind the BMICH car park getting the orchestra to rehearse for the occasion. Barefooted he was running here and there guiding, instructing, demonstrating.

The show started with the haunting melody from 'Golu Hadawatha' bringing back memories of the popular 1968 Lester James Peries creation. From there we were taken through Khemadasa's journey to free Sinhala film music from its South Indian clutches and transform it into a meaningful indigenous, pleasant to hear creative effort. Not many of us knew of Khemadasas's links with pioneer filmmaker Sirisena Wimalaweera in the 1950s. 'Rodi Kella' was the first film in which Khemadasa provided music. This was followed by Ariyadasa Peiris' 'Sobana Sitha' (1964) and B. Nandisena Cooray's 'Sepatha Soya' (1965). However, he really made his mark in K. A. W. Perera's 'Senansuma Kothanada' (1966) and when Latha Walpola sang the popular hit 'Adaraye Ran Vimane' , the audience was spellbound.

We had heard Sanath Nandasiri and Latha singing that lilting song 'Dedunnen Ena Samanalune' from T. Arjuna's 'Vasanthaye Dawasak' but possibly most of us had forgotten that it was yet another Khemadasa creation. Sanath also sang the ever popular 'Duleeka'.

Overkill
For four decades, Khemadasa's has virtually been a lone battle. Possibly he would have felt relieved when the appreciative audience enjoyed every bit of the show. I wished the introductory remarks were cut down to the barest minimum. And what was the necessity for the whole thing to be repeated in English? A few lines in English in the programme note would have been sufficient for anyone who did not understand Sinhala to follow the show.

Finally, a word of advice to sponsors. It's great when you lend a hand to recognise an artiste of maestro Khemadasa's calibre. But why spoil it repeatedly shouting about the sponsorship - and that too, in two languages. Just make the point once - the audience will remember it because they appreciate the sponsor's effort. But when, in addition to banners on either side of the hall that hit you right through the show, the presenters keep on repeating the same message, the audience really gets fed up. And that's exactly what happened that evening. Pity!

Colours of fire
Fire. It's a collection of colour. Reds squirm in through yellows and blues. The main focus is hazy and up to the viewer to contemplate and decide.

That is Jagath Ravindra's collection for you. "Gindarin epadeema" (Born out of fire) his third solo exhibition at the Paradise Road, Gallery Cafe opened last Thursday and will go on till December 24.

A holder of a Fine Arts Degree from the University of Keleniya, Jagath took to painting at a very young age. But it was only on completing his university education that he understood the gravity of art. "Art is undefinable. What I might consider a work of a genius, another might not. It's the complexity that drew me to it."

Everything about art depends on individual perception. "Contemporary artists draw a lot of inspiration from present happenings," says Jagath. "I myself was a university student when the troubles began and it influenced my work a lot even at the beginning. But now I take a more philosophical role with my work."

Jagath prefers to establish a firm idea of what each exhibition will entail by studying a probable theme for a few months. After a theme is decided upon he gets to work. Detailed works of the given theme follow in a series of paintings. Mainly acrylic on canvas.

His last two exhibitions held at the Gallery Cafe during the past two years focused on Silent Figures and Broken Dialogue. With Silent Figures he concentrated on the nature of our society to accept whatever happens regardless of the consequences. "We tend to accept anything and everything. After the economic reforms there arose different opinions. But our society is still the same."

Does his work have a political angle to it? "Not exactly. I just try to reflect society in my work to the best of my ability." The central point of all the paintings in Broken Dialogue was a torso. "I never featured an entire human body in that exhibition."

This year his main theme has undergone little change. He believes that society is falling apart. There's nothing that can be done to stop this destruction. But yet, it is only through this destruction that life will once again prosper. Life will be born out of fire. Perhaps chaos is not only an ending.

"I've worked with a multitude of colours to give birth out of fire, dust and ashes."The collection at this exhibition is thought provoking. "That is what I want to achieve."
-RHG-

Afternoon of sheer joy in Kandy
From Bach to Bartok - A review
This was an afternoon of masterful music, entertaining and exhilarating. It was a great idea to encourage young students of music by giving them free tickets. We are truly grateful for this gesture. Those who came in spite of their cramming for end of term tests were unanimous that they had lost nothing but gained a wonderful and rich experience of music.

Unusually, the orchestra performed standing - the 'cellos, of course, excepted - an attitude which enhanced the string playing. The saree clad cellist seemed quite at home with her music and her costume!

To start with I must say that the two National Anthems were played exquisitely. May I dare say that the Sri Lankan National Anthem has not been played with so much colour and feeling ever before.

In fact, it shone more than the theme from the last movement of Beethoven's Choral Symphony which was chosen as the anthem of the European Union.

The Bach Double Violin Concerto (which we playfully call the Dark Bubble) was a subtly controlled performance. The soloists not only sang out the seemingly seamless texture of the two violins, but also showed a wonderful balance of counterpoint between 'solo' and 'tutti'.

The sheer beauty of this work was further enhanced by the different timbres of the two violins. The first violin was bright and shimmering while the second violin was mellow and smooth. Was this a conscious choice of instruments or a happy coincidence?

It is interesting to note that Bach gives pride of place to the second violin in the first and second movements of this work.

The first violin comes scintillating in the brilliant third movement which in this afternoon's performance was truly awesome! Both violins and the supporting tutti maintained an incredible Allegro with professional precision down to the triplets and sparkling runs. The soulful second movement too, was executed with just the right degree of expressive phrasing.

This was followed by Preshanthi Navaratnam singing the popular arias from some of Handel's best known works. Perhaps the spirit of "Rejoice greatly" could have been truly captured with a slightly quicker tempo.

The second part of the programme began with a pleasing choice: the romantic Symphony for strings in B minor No.10 by Mendelssohn, the cheerful "sensuous" waltzes of Dvorak and the lively, energetic and passionate Rumanian Dances by Bartok which were a fitting climax to this special afternoon of music. The Allegro of the Mendelssohn displayed a slight insecurity in intonation by the second violins. But that said, I reiterate my heartfelt thanks to the European Union Chamber Orchestra for giving Kandy an afternoon of sheer joy through their choice of programme and their artistry in performing it.

Despite the common belief that " Kandy is a sleepy town" the European Union Chamber Orchestra took up the challenge to perform in Kandy, I believe for the first time, and I hope they'd perform again for us in the future.

The concert was held at the "sleepy" time of 2.45 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. I wonder why?

However, the audience turn out and the response was ample proof that Kandy is wide awake when it knows that something good is coming its way!
- Bridget Halpe

Self-expression of post-impressionist modernity
A review of the solo piano concert by the German pianist Dieter Koehnlein, at the Lionel Wendt Theatre, on Tuesday, November 26, 2002. Presented by the Goethe Institut Inter Nationes Colombo

"Jazz" is such an inadequate word to apply to a range of musical expression that encompasses over a hundred years of development through many stylistic ramifications and interpolations, with contributions and influences from every corner of the globe effecting subtle as well as overarching change from Traditional New Orleans through Swing, Harlem Stride to Boogie Woogie, through Be Bop , Hard Bop and Free, from Cool via Fusion to Smooth. Therefore, to have called Tuesday's concert a "Jazz Night" was curious if not symptomatic of misplaced enthusiasm.

Deiter Koehnlein played not a single "standard" from the American or European songbooks of Tin Pan Alley fare, and even the ubiquitous "blues" was mostly absent. He played just one 32 bar theme, while all the rest were departures upon his own melodic and harmonic concepts, and, often playful whimsy. He rarely " swung" along the well-worn rhythmic patterns of dotted eighth notes, but rather, developed peaks and troughs by way of emotional tension and release. His leaning was tellingly European, and his craft was lovingly hewn out of the rock-mass of post-impressionist modernity. This was no barroom frolic, neither was it a highbrow excursion into the abstract or esoteric. With disarming candour and an appealing stage presence, Koehnlein took his audience into his world of self-expression without the least hint of unease or self-consciousness. Comparisons are odious, but, as terms of reference it may serve to say that one encountered the sound clusters of Don Pullen, as one did the intricate devices of Denny Zeitlin, and the bold experimentation and management of " sound" pianism that marks the work of Ran Blake, in the various moods and intentions of this pianist. His touch was always assured and often brilliant in terms of such digital dexterity as one has come to associate with Phineas Newborn Jr, as well as with his stunning protege Harold Mabern. Notably in his delineation of the aforementioned 32 bar theme, did one become aware of those sharply intense, fingerbusting chordal and scalar approaches, as Mabern would do. (However, Mabern 'swings' ferociously while Koehnlein does it differently!) Koehnlein also favours greatly, the modal approaches that defined some of the post-1960s work of other pianists (remember, Keith Jarret's Koln concerts?); and this was most evident in the spontaneous improvisations that he delivered with panache and flair.

His acute sensitivity came to the fore in another rather poignant departure which was dedicated to the memory of a tragic figure of 19th Century Nurmberg, the unfortunate Kaspar Hauser, who was discovered at 16 after being locked in a container all his life without light or air, and fed on nothing but bread and water, and granted no leave to meet with or talk to a single soul until he surfaced unkempt, unclean and speechless in 1828.

For Kaspar, Deiter turned in a wonderful meditation, a sort of " organic" tone poem based on just four bars of melodic fragment, which built up to an awesome crescendo of angst and despair reaching a climactic call against the vilest social injustice that would lock and debase an individual to further the ends of political intrigue. (Incidentally, Koehnlein is not the first to be inspired musically by the spectral image of Kaspar; "Night Vision'' is the title of a song by Suzanne Vega on "Solitude Standing,'' the same album that contains ``Wooden Horse (Kaspar Hauser's Song") It was a year ago, that Cornelius Claudio Kreusch, another first rate German- born improvising pianist arrived for a concert in Colombo, under the aegis of the Goethe Institut. That Deiter Koehnlein performed this year is eloquent testimony to the German Cultural Centre's commitment to providing the best among performing artistes to entertain and treat a worldwide audience.
- Arun Dias Bandaranaike


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