More sports

I think I've finally figured out how to fill the void between the Super Bowl and the beginning of baseball season: Rugby! I watched my first two rugby matches this week (on the telly, not live) and I found it quite enjoyable. I don't really get the finer points, but it's pretty hardcore. American football has more pauses (commercials) but the actual game moves much faster than rugby. Another thing I noticed is that in rugby each guy kind of has to do a lot of different things: kick, run, tackle, throw. In American football each guy is a specialist in his position and has to know a huge number of plays corresponding to his position. This means that the players are built accordingly; i.e. a running back is smaller and faster than an offensive tackle. The multi-tasking involved in rugby means that there is a more standard "rugby-build", so they all kind of look like slow running backs. I just wonder why they don't get really fast big American football-style running backs who can cut and break tackles. Guess I have to learn more about rugby so I don't sound like a moron talking about it...

On a musical note, since this is purportedly a music blog, I heard a very interesting program on Radio 3 yesterday that discussed the role of visual images related to classical music performance. It was enlightening to hear Tallis Scholars' master Peter Philips talk about his impressions of choral music performances on TV. Although I wish music were always enough to fill the seats, I think that a tasteful, well-designed visual presentation does make more people interested in concert-going. It's just another way to break down the boundaries between the "performance" and the person receiving it.

If you see one movie this year...

I saw George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck this past weekend and am still under its spell. It is so refreshing to see a brilliantly crafted movie, with great acting, cinematography, costume/set design, writing and structure. In many ways, this movie is an heir to the great pot-boilers of the past, bringing together all of its elements to propel it forward rather than CGI effects, bad language and sex. The story deals with Edward R. Murrow's crusade in the mid-50's to bring down Joe McCarthy. Clooney smartly lets the late Senator speak for himself, using archival footage (who could really play Joe McCarthy anyway, with his mix of bluster, conviction and in the end fear and weakness at the hands of his interrogators?) What we get is a vivid portrait of incredibly smart and bold people using the power of television to educate the American people about their government's wrongdoings. When was the last time you saw television journalism aspiring to something so important? Of course, in this over-saturated information age of blogs, Bill O'Reilly, Fox News and Air America it's hard to sort through all of the talk to find a singular "fair and balanced" voice. The movie made me very sad, because it showed that we haven't come all that far in 50 years. We still live in a society of government-induced fear, where large corporations are in bed with politicians and the media. Still, this is partly what made the movie so powerful for me; Clooney has created an incredibly subtle critique of our troubled world. It seems that Hollywood may be beginning to rediscover its activist voice with such films as this, Syriana, The Constant Gardener and documentaries such as Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Maybe Hollywood is more than the land of glam and artificiality...

Like Tanglewood...but indoors

Yesterday I took part in a concert that creatively re-imagined the traditional relationships between performers, audiences and performing space. The event was called "Echoes of Distant Voices" and was held in York Minster. Apparently the Minster removes all of the chairs from the rather enormous nave of the church once a year for cleaning, leaving it wide open. The music included traditional Javanese gamelan music, overtone singing, medieval and renaissance polyphony, Gregorian chant, songs for voice and violin and some more modern choral pieces. As varied as this lineup seems, it all held together remarkably well. The point of the performance was to take advantage of this magnificent space, and each set was performed in different parts of the nave. Performers would simply emerge from the crowd to begin their pieces. As there were no chairs, the audience was encouraged to move around the room to experience the sound in different ways or to simply sit on a blanket and take in the sound. I found it rather nice to look around and see sleeping children, people meditating, and others sampling different aural perspectives around the room. I did a lot of walking around which was not only good for listening but also was a nice way to relax before singing.

I’m not sure this kind of concert-going experience would suit all kinds of music, but I wonder what would happen if more "art" music was re-contextualized like this: bringing music to creative and inspiring spaces and allowing the audience to experience it in a completely personal way. As everyone relates to music differently, maybe freeing people from their chairs in a darkened concert hall is a good thing.

Super Bowl

Very tired today as I stayed up until three last night to watch the not-quite-exciting Super Bowl XL. Fortunately for me, the game was being broadcast on the Yorkshire television station, which meant I did not have to go to some remote location to watch it. It was funny to watch it on a British network because we got less than half of the commercials that people in the States did. Instead of cutting to commercials with every break, we got commentary from a team on the sidelines (an ex-player and a British sports analyst) or from a BBC studio (a knowledgeable ex-rugby player, an attractive British newswoman and, of all people, the Eagles’ very colourful linebacker Dhani Jones - guess he wanted the paid vacation to London). Although Super Bowl commercials are generally pretty interesting and/or funny, it was nice to not have to deal with so many of them. Also, for our play-by-play we got the team of Daryl Johnston and Dick Stockton who I generally find more of a hindrance than a help. Johnston is the master of completely general and irrelevant commentary, while Stockton is always getting his facts wrong. Guess they pawn off the B-team commentators on the rest of the world...The half-time special with the Rolling Stones was quite tame compared to Janet last year, though Mick Jagger still gets around quite well for an old chap. And the game itself? I thought Big Ben Roethlisberger played a pretty crappy game, but he made some bold decisions which turned out for the best. The Seahawks dominated in almost every statistical category but they simply couldn’t turn out the big plays that Pittsburgh managed to. I’m rather impressed with Pittsburgh’s run up to the Super Bowl (defeating the top 3 AFC seeds on the road) and it was nice to see Bill Cowher finally win one. Hopefully Seattle will suffer the annual post-Super Bowl hangover, leaving room for the Eagles to dominate the NFC again.

And with that, I say goodbye to football for another six months, which means I have to start writing about music again. Too bad...