"One experiments and has to choose always the best results." Karlheinz Stockhausen

When listening to the BBC Proms, (on the Internet just go to BBC Radio 3 and you can listen to this summer long festival of concert music), I came along a name of a composer I had not heard about since the hazy memories of the '70's -- Karlheinz Stockhausen. Stockhausen, a German Composer was born in 1928 and died this past December. He was always weird and cool to a young guy in the 70's. Listening to Stockhausen could be compared to looking at a Picasso -- your listening to something, but you're just not sure what it is. And like Picasso, depending upon your own mood, it could annoy the heck out of you or it could interest you or it could actually engage you. Some of it is so bad and insane sounding that you want to throw a brick at the radio.

If you are like me, there is a tendency to think of this type of music as music that is nothing more than an annoyance -- almost childlike and not worthwhile. However, one composition, in listening to this year's Proms broadcasts of concerts of Stockhausen's work struck me: Gesang der Jünglinge (literally "Song of the Youths"). The text of Gesang der Jünglinge is from a Biblical story in The Book of Daniel where Nebuchadnezzar throws Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a fiery furnace but miraculously they are unharmed and begin to sing praises to God. There are three basic types of material used: (1) the recorded voice of a boy soprano, (2) electronically generated sine tones, (3) electronically generated pulses (clicks).

The boy soprano sings these beautiful verses with a background that is generously described as cacophonous: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RkdO_qBGvM

It makes no sense to us until this is placed in a historical context. This work is based upon the historical experience that Stockhausen endured in his youth. In 1941 or 1942, he learned that his mother had died, ostensibly from leukemia, though everyone at the same hospital had supposedly died of the same disease. It was generally understood that she had been a victim of the Nazi policy of euthanasia for what the Nazis called "useless eaters". In February 1945, he met his father, Simon, for the last time in Altenberg. Simon, who was on leave from the front, told his son "I'm not coming back. Look after things." Young Karlheinz, not yet twenty, was then conscripted in the German Army to be a stretcher bearer in Germany during the closing months of the war. The young Stockhausen, walking through the murderous cacophony, just like Daniel into the furnace...

So, if you ever get a chance to listen to Stockhausen, you will need an open mind and a bit of empathy.

SUMMERTIME!
SIMON: 1. Summer means no more soccer. 2. Summer means no more school. 3. Summer means vacations. 4. Summer means hot wether. 5. Summer means swet. 6. Summer lots of fun. 7. Summer means fire flies. 8. Summer means more short hair. 9. Summer means more camp fires.
ISAIAH: Summer is my favorite season because I can stay up late, sleep in, swim, and read more. I also like the heat except when I'm trying to sleep. This year I got to watch the Olympics. Unusually, we didn't visit the Nichols. I hope next summer won't go by as fast.
CHRISTOPHER: Summer is supposed to be about long walks on the beach, writing poetry, or sleeping in. For me it's getting up at 5:00 AM biking to work ten miles away then ten more back, then eating, running 5-10 miles, getting in bed by 7:00 and repeat. It's a sick cycle. However, I'm rich and have a highly fit body. I feel stoned all day if I'm not in bed by 7:00. So whoever reads this, appreciate your tan and your relaxation. That's how summer's been for me.
PAPA: Is a time for....... First days of paid work, Family and friends meeting at Fort Niagara, 10-Ks, Fireside chats, Smores!, Skiddin', The Delaware! Massage Trains, Popsicles, Piano playing with cousins, Pattycakes, Hugs, Funny Faces, Family Visits, and Mosquitoes!!!!!!
We hope all of you had a terrific summer! We did :) We wish to thank all of you for being such a big part of our family. Our friends and family bring us so many blessings! May God bless you all!!!!!!

You said it Joe!!

Last week I just wrapped up a six week program where myself (Colyn), Matt, and two of our friends set out to teach fifty or so inner city kids health, fitness, and nutrition through to medium of our favorite sport, Ultimate Frisbee.  The grant proposal for this program was written by my roomate, Edward, and another friend of ours, David.  They submitted to proposal to an organization started by the mayor's wife, Maggie Daley, called "After School Matters,"  (afterschoolmatters.org).  I have been teaching in their environmental science programs for about a year, and when Edward and Dave asked me to be the health and nutrition guy at one of their two sites, I decided to switch gears and try to remember enough of what I went to college for to teach the basics to some kids.  Something to note with programs sponsored by ASM is that they actually PAY the kids to show up.  No matter what the program is, and they range from all forms of art to computer science to sports, the teens get a non taxable stipend.  Yes I was paying kids to play Ultimate all summer, pretty sweet huh?  Anyway, long story short the last six weeks have been exhausting, inspiring, terrifying, eye-opening, and most of all a lot of fun.  Another friend of ours posted a few pictures of our end of the season tournament on his Flikr page  (DSC_0144 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

All, well, most of the kids played exceptionally well.  The truly amazing thing is that I have worked with rookie players at the college level who could not play at the level that some of these high schoolers were able to achieve in just six weeks.  However, it isn't the outstanding level of play that amazed me most, I knew that these kids had the raw talent.  It was their stories of how they live.  I had a very bright, funny and laid back young man who had to miss almost a week because of court.  He had also been stabbed about a year ago, and claimed that he gets into a lot of fights due to his "bad temper."  I had another girl who could easily compete with Natalie for sweetest person ever, who told me that she would have to miss a day because she was testifying in a court hearing regarding her grandmother's murder, (she also showed me the perfectly round scar on her right shin where a nine millimeter bullet hit her last year).  Last summer I met kids on the far south side who were not allowed to leave their homes except for school and these programs because there was a gang war going on.  I have even had a kid, who we knew was in a gang, threaten to "bring his G's and bust a cap!!!" because we fired him for pulling a knife on another kid.  

All these stories were things I had heard before, in the news, in books, etc., but when you are starring at someone who you have gotten to know as a sweet and bright young man or woman and they drop a story on you like that, well I can say that I was not prepared to comprehend it.  The point I guess that I am trying to get at, is that, though I think that The Flava of Love is an atrocity and it glorifies ideas and principles that I find awful and disgusting, principles that are glorified all over pop culture, Flava Flav is nothing but what we have allowed him to be.  TV has become a medium of shock value.  Whoever can do the most disgusting, crazy, terrifying, or depraved thing, whoever can be the biggest, fastest, or best looking gets to stay, all the rest must rejoin the ranks of the normal, unexceptional, those who may only watch.  The worst part about this is the idea that it is very, very uncool to be smart.  I mean it isn't that outstanding to make a lot of money and do well in life if you are smart, but if you are ignorant, like Flava Flav is on his show, and you make a bunch of money, well that is something to see.  

When I would do a quick review lesson on say, nutrition, the kids would actually make fun of the people who knew the answers.  I literally heard the sentence "I ain't trying to be smart!!" said with pride.  But every time I would pry an answer out of them, they would hide their smiling face by looking down and mumbling.  These kids DO want to be smart, but they also want to be cool.  It just so happens that there are more situations in their lives where they need to be cool than they need to be smart.  If you're not picking on someone, you're being picked on.  If you can't come back with something funny when someone makes fun of you, you're done.  It took, I would say four weeks to get the kids to complement each other for making a good play without me prompting them, they look at everything as a battle.  

So to address you're question, Joe, as to why your master violinist is not a role model is simple, he isn't trying to get teenage fans.  His record label isn't pushing MTV to put him on the lineup for halftime at the superbowl.  He doesn't have his own saggy pants tuxedo line.  He's not out on the block pushing his mixtape for five bucks till he makes it big.  He's working on his craft, not his image.  But the kids who really need a role model like him aren't going to admit that they need a role model like him, and they most certainly aren't going to go out and find him, he's got to come to them.

Whew!!!  Now that was a rant!!!  More to come from Espana!!!

-Colyn

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life." ~Ludwig van Beethoven

Conductor David Robertson, who conducts the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, along with several other orchestras as a guest conductor, recently spoke on the relevance of classical music. “In a society where more and more things are mass produced and the rule of business is to make it as streamlined as possible, so people have to put in as little effort as can be, a classical music event is one of the few remaining bastions where you come in and largely have an unedited experience,” Robertson says. “There are pieces that are pre-programmed and pre-rehearsed, but then it stops. Nobody picks the camera angles. Nobody sits behind a mixing desk. All of this is done by you. … This is why I think what we’re doing, although it has an entertaining aspect, is the difference between art and entertainment: in entertainment you pay your money and you expect to come out of the experience essentially the same way as you went in. Something that professes to art is subtly working at changing you, and there’s no way to predict what the change will be … Entertainment is not threatening. Art sometimes is.”

Last night, Paul and I went to Montreal to see the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Kent Nagano. The program included Prokofiev's 1st symphony, Hayden's 94th Symphony and Mozart's Piano Concerto 24 in C minor. Many of you will recognize the Concerto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqQPVDW7bkI

Teh pianist that Paul and I saw was Stephen Kovacevich who has a way with the piano and a way with Mozart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqQPVDW7bkI

Stephen Kovacevich was born in Los Angeles and at 11 had his concert debut. He moved to England for training. He has been named as one of the top pianist ever by Phillips Record Company which has issued his works in a retrospective album. If anyone would like to hear it, just let me know.

Another treat was Hayden's "Surprise Symphony". Now, I know that you have all heard it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLjwkamp3lI&feature=related

We had a great time.