Aloha from Vienna... Aloha?

October 20, 2008

My last day in Europe this trip and I am finally getting a chance to sit still and write. The tour has been phenomenal.

I’m writing from Vienna, and even though today is a prime tourist day, I have out-touristed myself and so am staying in (mostly) to catch up on work, composing, small technical revisions of the tour material and to take time to rehearse Ngoma and Songs in San Francisco.

Firstly, my time at the Janacek Academie was superlative – the students were stupendous and Ivo Medek, my host, was absolutely wonderful. Brno itself is a city only two hours from Vienna, built and designed by many of the same names who fashioned Vienna. For this reason, the city bears a marked resemblance to Vienna, but with a contemporary sincerity not apparent in Vienna. I will elaborate later.

Brno is stunning to look at and what’s more, the people are kind, the city is thriving and alive. Pubs are open late, serving food, every night of the week. Seated in the south of Moravia, it is situated within some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen in my life. An unscheduled/unpublicized concert in the city of Uesthti Rsheshti at the opening of a retrospective for artist Ludmila Karikarova offered me the chance to see some more of that country-side, and let me tell you – it’s not matched anywhere. I absolutely love the Czech countryside and the people fit it well. I won’t be shy in admitting I also drank my fair share of slivovice, a locally/regionally distilled plum brandy, and with that I think I could spend many happy days in Southern Moravia, drinking the local wine and eating at the local pubs.

The students at the Janaceck Academie – I must mention them again: they were wonderful, attentive (both my seminar and my concert were packed, the latter yielding standing-room only and running short on printed programs) and eager to share their work. The compositions I saw showed excellent skill and prescience and a desire toward innovation in whatever steps can be taken. I haven’t seen US students producing much that is more interesting. At least not more that remains in the realm of notes to which the composer is committed. This is something lacking in much experimentalism these days, leaving so much to theatrics and spectacle, the musical experience is very literally out-the-door. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the last person to espouse traditionalism, by the same token, I think a composer has a responsibility to compose (damnit) not simply to stand on a stage and … well, much of what is happening in the most ‘experimental’ halls of academia (read between the lines here) is a pale imitation of the worst ‘art-happenings’ of the late 60s and early 70s. That was an important time for Art (with a capital and scarlet letter ‘A’) but that time is also past – let’s get on with the music! Bearing in mind that my definition of ‘music’ is extremely broad.

In addition to all that, I had the unbelievable pleasure of improvising (video) with the incredibly talented composer/performer Lenka playing piano, for the Czech public, the press, and the Czech Minister of Culture. I accompanied her at Ms. Karikarova’s opening and I can tell you, it was absolutely simple to provide dynamic visuals to her improvisation. She was truly inspiring! It seems a very strong possibility we will work again together in the not-too-terribly-distant future.



So here I am in Vienna. I have enjoyed Vienna tremendously, I find it lacks the vitality that I require of a large city. Vienna owes its current opulence to its outrageous plethora of museums. I have seen so much Art here it very literally began to hurt my head yesterday. I would love dearly to wander down to the Belvedere and gander at a few more Klimts, but to be honest, I simply couldn’t stand to see another thing. I certainly paid my due, however: I spent nearly 45 minutes with “Life and Death” the other day and at least as much time contemplating the Beethoven Frieze, if not longer. These are things I have both read and written about and whose reason for being are the same reasons I create. That is to say, the men of the Secession were very much about departing from tradition and finding new means of expression. I think it would please Klimt to know that, of all the many museums in Vienna, the Secession House is the only one exhibiting non-conservation-oriented work – they are showing experimental, out-of-the-boundaries work with which one may or may not agree, and that in itself is exactly the point. It was the perfect palate cleanser to the extensive, but under-explained Van Gogh retrospective that I saw at the Albertina immediately prior.

It seems to me that Vienna is very much a City Under Glass, resting on the laurels of past glories. It is a beautiful city, but everywhere I go I am reminded that I am in a case, a vitrine, a picture-perfect, scrubbed and polished monument to eras far long gone. Although visiting Vienna is fun, I cannot imagine living here, for the same reasons I can’t imagine living in Berlin: the past weighs so heavy on the present, there is no sight of the future, or at a future that is a thriving, dynamic thing.

This is my perspective coming from the West Coast of the US. Everything is still so incredibly new there, and we are still innovating, researching, finding, fighting our way in the wilderness and pioneering new standards. Remember, Morton Subotnick, Harry Partch, Terry Riley, John Adams, John Cage, Kronos Quartet, Lou Harrison all came from the West – and that only names a few.

I have taken a small eating break and now have much, much work to do before I pack up to catch my 7am flight to San Francisco. I will write more from there…