Day of Atonement

Today is Yom Kippur - Day of Atonement and the most holy day of the year for Jewish people. I have to know these things now, working for a Jewish company and dating one. The office was empty today, as were the streets. The Anesthetist has been at home fasting all day and is now getting ready to go to the "Synagogo" as he calls it. I'm such an ignorant heathen that when my Jewish colleagues asked me yesterday if he would be fasting, I blithely responded, "No, he'll be slaving away at his hospital all day, thinking of dinner and what red wine he wants. " Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong. No wonder they looked at me with pity.

Yom Kippur started at sundown last night and ends at nightfall tonight. It follows Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which was celebrated 10 days ago. During these in between 'Days of Awe,' you are supposed to seek forgiveness from friends and families. Then today is all about abstaining from everything - food, drink, sex, email - and attempting to mend your relationship with God. This is partly done by reciting the 'Vidui,' a public confession of sins.  The rest of the day, according to the Anesthetist, is filled with much navel gazing and balancing up your good with your bad on God's measuring scale. He hasn't asked me for any forgiveness this past week which I find odd to say the least, so either he thinks he's in the positive or his balance sheet is so bad he's afraid to face it.

I really wanted to go with him to the Synagogue tonight so I could hear the Shofar being blown. The Rabbis used to blow a ram's horn but now it could be made of any material. It has a wonderful history that you can read about here.

After learning more about Yom Kippur,  I realized that I actually do have a connection to this religious day - through music. At the beginning of evening service on every Yom Kippur, communal prayers commence with Kol Nidre, a legal document that is chanted with haunting undertones.  It turns out that when I played the cello many moons ago, my favorite and most spiritually moving piece was the Kol Nidrei Op. 47 by Max Bruch. I never understood then the religious significance of this music, only that it touched something deep inside me. I used to continually listen to a recording by my musical heroine Jacqueline Du Pre and vowed that one day I would play the piece with as much intensity as she. I'm not sure I ever made it to that level, but I still think it's one of the most beautiful pieces ever written for cello. Here is another musical hero of mine - Pierre Fournier - playing it. Enjoy.

image: reform judaism

Change of Season Meltdown

I had a major meltdown last week. You know the one; contents of bag thrown onto the floor, clothes flying, door banging, heavy footfall, screeching banshee etc. It was my first for a long time and certainly the first in front of the Anesthetist. I don't think he knew what hit him.  He sat on the couch in the dark staring at a wall until I had calmed down.

It all started because I couldn't find my keys - the product of being totally disorganized due to 11 hour work days, constantly traipsing between my house and his, never being in the city because of travel and really just because of a general feeling of exhaustion and hopelessness.

So this weekend, I decided to take my life back into my own hands. I cancelled a gorgeous country weekend away with the grey-haired wonder and decided to "get stuff done." I think the anesthetist was genuinely relieved to not have Medusa sitting next to him in the car for 7 hours. So was I. It meant that time was filled instead with a massage, yoga, reading, admin, fall wardrobe shopping and a catch up on all things wonderful about the start of fall in this city!

Fall is the best time to be in New York. Not only is the weather (usually) perfect, but the city comes to life with a gazillion cultural treats. After voraciously reading the NY Times this weekend, here are my top picks so far if you are going to be here:

• Italian conceptual artist and joker Maurizio Cattelan is about to take over the Guggenheim. There was a great piece in the New York Times on Sunday you can hopefully read HERE.
• Beer heiress Daphne Guinness gets a solo exhibition focusing on her extraordinary wardrobe at the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum
• Harpers Bazaar celebrates 10 years of high-impact fashion photography at the ICP
• Frank Langella (of Frost/ Nixon fame) hits Broadway in Man and Boy
• The incredibly sublime White Light Festival at Lincoln Centre has a second airing in November. I wrote a piece here about one of the concerts last year.
• It's opera season again! This year The Met's program includes the usual faves like Aida, Barber of Seville and La Boheme,  plus Wagner's Ring cycle. There's nothing like frocking up to attend one of the world's most venerable institutions.
• Woody Allan and Ethan Cohen have written one act plays as part of a Broadway program called Relatively Speaking, directed by John Turturro.
• And of course, everyone is talking about the De Kooning retrospective at MoMa. 

So get those culture boots on and start preparing to wait in long lines!

image: Steven Klein

Rock 'n' Roll in the City

I think the last big rock concert I went to was in the eighties, when I saw U2 play in Melbourne. I was sure my rock days were over. But that was before I met the 51 going on 21 year old anesthetist. He always told me he is a frustrated music producer. He strums a guitar well and encourages his sons to improve their rap lyrics. His i-pod positively bursts with music from every corner of the earth and he has been known to break into strange dance moves after attending open air concerts in Brooklyn to hear brands with names like Dead Weather and Bon Ivor.

So it should have come as no surprise when he told me he was taking me to see The Kills. Now, I had no idea what sort of music they played. Knowing the anesthetist, it could be anything from gangsta rap to sufi music. The only thing I did know about the band was that the guitarist Jamie Hince just married Kate Moss, so that meant they had to be pretty cool, because who else could pull off a sky blue YSL suit when marrying one of the coolest girls who walks this planet?

So that just begged the bigger, most important question; what does one wear for such an outing? It's bad enough working out what to wear to work every morning in Manhattan, but going to see an indie rock band at my age? Surely that shouldn't be allowed. I mean, I know 40 is the new 30 and all that, but aren't we supposed to be seen at the opera or some Upper East Side charity do? Not at some grungy west of west side dive where the beer is served warm and in plastic cups! To top it off, I was told on numerous occasions that singer Alison Mosshart is a super cool, super sexy tigress on stage, so that made the fashion stakes even more challenging. 

It had to be black. That much I knew. But try contemplating black boots, black jeans and a black t shirt when it's 90 degrees and you no longer have a body like a 20 something hipster! (Ok, I admit I never had that type of body).  Fine. When you can't beat join 'em, beat 'em. With the help of the very fashion astute anesthetist, I mixed the insouciant grunge of yesteryear with the modern rock fashion of today; black outfit with a YSL Tribute sandal in tan. Alexa Chung, eat your heart out! 

And after all that stress and anxiety, fashion verdict on the night? The crowd was a boring, uninspiring fashion disaster. At least Ms Mosshart didn't dissapoint with her feline antics on stage.

images: (1) the girlie report, (2) celebitchy, (3-4) mine, (5) new york times

Caramoor

"We built a home my husband and I, not to be old or new, just to be beautiful. And we built it for music."

- Lucie Rosen

Last Sunday the anesthetist was playing on his boat. I couldn't join him for fear of falling overboard and sinking straight to the bottom of the Long Island Sound due to my boot being as heavy as an anchor. So I threw caution to the wind and "stole" his car to drive further north to visit Caramoor, a lovely house & garden designed for the sole purpose of music and the arts.

Caramoor is the legacy of Lucie and Walter Rosen, a well-traveled and clearly well-heeled couple who purchased the property of more than 100 acres in 1928. They were both passionate collectors and musicians. They built the rambling stucco mansion that exists today, fulfilling their dream to create a place where they could entertain friends from around the world and host legendary musical evenings. In 1945, they bequeathed the estate as a centre for music and art and it is now the home of the hugely successful annual Caramoor summer outdoor concerts, featuring artists performing jazz, operetta and classical music.

What is most remarkable are the surrounding gardens. They're magical. They have evolved over the past 80 odd years and include sunken gardens, a cedar walk, a rose garden, a sense circle for the visually and physically impaired, and general rolling lawns dotted with picnic tables for the festival guests to enjoy.

It's a garden lover's paradise and a place where you would expect to see wood nymphs and sprites dancing amongst the trees. It's a far cry from the concrete of Manhattan.

Italian Pavilion

Pegasus Gates

300' cedars now 70 years old

Juliet Gate, a 17th C portal opening into the Sunken Garden

Sunken Garden

Jazz in the City

My partner took me to hear some jazz last night. He is in reality an anesthetist, but in his head he is actually a frustrated music producer one week and jazz saxophonist the next. Either way, he understands alot about jazz and decided to teach me, the heathen who thinks all jazz belongs in an elevator.

Of all the cities in which you could learn about jazz, New York is a pretty good start. All the greats have played or made their name here - Gillespie, Armstrong, Goodman, Davis, Parker - and the city has an abundance of history-laden, world-renowned jazz clubs. Blue Note is still here in the West Village, the Apollo Theatre is in Harlem and Birdland in the West 40's - although that has apparently become very pedestrian, catering to the Broadway tourist seekers (the anesthetist's summation, not mine).

New York has been the backdrop to many a film and novel involving jazz. When I think of jazz and the city, I think grainy black and white images of the East River and bridges, or the Empire State and Chrysler buildings rising up from the steam of the subways, cold, rainy nights, fedoras and trench coats, and a lot of cigarette smoke haze. So it was fitting that last night was freezing with cyclonic winds and enough rain to make you think you were better off swimming to the venue than taking a cab. I was being taken to the 'best' jazz club in New York, apparently, The Jazz Standard. It's your typical subterranean club environment with red velvet booths, low lighting and ceilings, and an intimate atmosphere. The only thing lacking from my idea of jazz purity was the absence of smoke, cool black dudes (you're allowed to use the word 'black' in this country. It's to risk offending a Puerto Rican by calling him Afro American) and fedoras. Jeans and white people seemed to be the order of the day. But when I mentioned this to the anesthetist he brushed it aside and said we were here for the music, not the people watching.

We were here to hear a young star called Ambrose Akinmusire, who has been hailed by the LA times as "...less like a rising star than one that was already at great heights just waiting to be discovered." As winner of the Theolonius Monk International Jazz competition, this 29 year old trumpeter, bandleader and composer is apparently poised to do great things. The fact that he is also incredibly good looking and has beautiful hands means in my mind, that he will go far. However, when I suggested this to the anesthetist, he gave me a look that suggested I should perhaps reserve these sort of comments for a fashion shoot and not a jazz performance.

In terms of learning about jazz, Akinmusire was not a good starting point for novices. His music is complicated and stylistically clever. Its like trying to understand an essay rather than enjoying a piece of prose. But he is captivating to watch when he plays. As the anesthetist explained to me, with the classic, traditional jazz of Miles Davis, the steady beat of the drums and bass "walk" the piece along, while Davis "flies" over the top with his trumpet playing. It's easy listening. With Akinmusire, there is no easy, linear direction. You lurch and stop and swerve and rise and fly before landing, with a exhausted sense of achievement. I guess at least you feel like you experienced something amazing even if you don't quite understand what that thing was. 

images: prints4every1, like me, wsdg, urban flux, letransfo, eyehot jazz, 

Inner Illumination

"Music exists to elevate us as far as possible above everyday life"

Gabriel Faure

Have you ever had a transcendent moment when life is suspended and all that exists is the sound that surrounds you? I experienced that twice last night during a concert in the stunningly renovated Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Centre.

The White Light Festival is a new annual fall festival that according to its VP of programming, "explores music's unique power to illuminate an interior universe far larger and more fulfilling that the narrow strivings of our egos." It has provided 4 weeks of the most reflective and spiritual moments from different cultures and centuries. Judging by the near impossilbilty to get tickets, clearly these moments of mediation are needed for us frazzled New Yorkers! Last night focused on works by Bach and Arvo Part, sung by the Latvian National Choir and conducted by Tonju Kalijuste from Estonia.

I have been a huge admirer of Part's music for over a decade. Born and living in Estonia, his music has often been referred to as "mystical minimalism." He is a deeply religious man who often sets alot of his music to sacred texts, some of which include a Magnificat, Te Deum, Stabat Mater and De Profundis. He began composing in the 1950's and found his true compositional voice in the 70's when he introduced chant-like melodic phrases, heart wrenching and sometimes discordant harmonies and wonderful periods of silence. He relies on the power of the human voice to create different timbres, with a small string orchestra or organ to support but never detract or take over from the voices.

Last night the two Part pieces had their US debut. The first was Stabat Mater composed in 1985. The second was Adam's Lament, which was commissioned this year on the occasion of Part's 75th birthday. Deviating slightly from his usual Christian bent, Part created this piece with a ecumenical intent and an awareness that it would first be heard in Istanbul, still a predominantly muslim nation. "When composing this piece," he stated, "I only had one wish, and it was that the work should be something to address the Turkish culture. It must be something that connects us all together."

Part used a text written by the monk Silouan of Athos (1866 - 1938) as the basis for his lament. The versus combine the two concerns of Adam; losing the garden of Eden but more so the loss of God's love. It focuses on the suffering of humanity and a longing to reconcile wtih God. Part saw Adam, the first man, as symbolically joining two great religions, Christianity and Islam. "[Adam] is our common forefather. His name carries our human history and at the same time represents each one of us. He marked the tragedy of mankind; By committing a sin, he lost the love of God. And he is still suffering."

The composition was heard for the first time on June 7th 2010 in Hagia Irene, a formerly Eastern Orthodox church and now a museum in the Topkapi PAlace. The choir and orchestra were conducted by last night's conductor, Tonju Kalijuste.

I can't find a recording online of Adam's Lament for you to listen to. But if you want to be transported to an other-worldly agony and despair and at the same time be wrapped in the exquisite sound of the human voice, please go and buy it. Meanwhile, I have embedded the Stabat Mater to tempt you!

images: ltc4940, all the cool spots,  panoramio, history for kids, 

The Lilting Lute

The Lute Player, Caravaggio

I went to a lovely lute recital on Sunday up in Harlem. I can't say I've ever really been a big lute fan, but after listening to recordings recently by lutenist extraordinaire Paul O'Dette, it seemed to be a sign when I saw a flyer promoting his concert in a church on West 121st Street.

O'Dette has been described as "the clearest case of genius to touch his instrument'" (Toronto Globe and  Mail) and certainly his fingers made the lute sing. The whole experience started me thinking about the history of the lute and how ubiquitous in has been in art, politics and everything in between.

The European instrument we know today derives both its name and form from the Arab instrument known as al 'Ud, which literally means 'the wood'. The Arab 'Ud was introduced into Europe by the Moors during their long occupation of Spain (711 - 1492), where it was played in the court of the Andalusian Emir.

Ivory Box, Louvre Paris

Since then it has spent centuries in the great courts of the world, appeared in art from Syria to Italy and beyond, had verse and subsequently songs written about it,  accompanied velvet-clad and buckle-shoed dancers and been played by gods and angels. In fact, Orpheus was never without his lute - sometimes lyre, but usually lute - and Masaccio's cherubs strummed gently to the Virgin and Child.

Young Orpheus, Henry Ryland 1901

Virgin and Child, Masaccio

During the Renaissance, the lute became the most prized instrument of the day and those who composed for or played the lute were considered rock stars. According to O'Dette, during the first half of the 16th century, three lutenists in particular were thought to be the living equivalents of Orpheus - Marco dall'Aquila, Francesco da Milano and Alberto Ripa da Mantova. They tended to play their own music which is still available today. Apparently Alberto was "headhunted" by the Ambassador of France  to come and play in King Francois I court. He was so highly revered that he was the second highest paid court member after the minister of defense!

Throughout history, the lute has been rich in symbolism. In the hands of angels it has represented the beauty of heaven, but in the hands of man, it has symbolised discord and division through a broken string (see Holbein's Ambassadors) or lasciviousness and scandal.

Angel with Lute, Fiorentino

Ambassadors, Holbein

A luteplayer carousing wtih a woman holding a roemer, Terbrugghen

Today the lute has waned in favor, but luckily O'Dette is keeping the music and instrument alive. I will leave you with him playing a piece by Alberto Ripa da Mantova.

Images: met museum, dsbx, art magick, artchive, flickr, artchive, hendrick brugghen

Play Me, I'm Yours

A really cool street installation has just finished up here in NY. It was called "Play Me, I'm Yours" by British artist, Luke Jerram and it has been touring globally since 2008.

Basically, Jerram worked with NPO Sing for Hope to install 60 pianos across the five boroughs of New York City. They were located in parks, streets, plazas etc and were available to anyone to just get on and play. Henri Matisse's granddaughter painted 4 of them and everyone from concert pianists to street urchins have tinkled these very public ivories.

Apparently Jerram came up with the idea in his hometown of Bristol England, where he was continually taking his washing to the laundromat. He was disturbed by the lack of interaction between fellow laundrette-goers and thought "put a piano in here, it can act as a catalyst for conversation."

The project has traveled to Sydney, Barcelona, London and Sao Paolo to name a few cities. Here in New York, everything from chopsticks to Chopin has been belting out in the open air for the past 2 weeks. Here are the pianos I came across.

Astor Place

Gansevoort plaza