Author Archives: Robbie

Atlanta Opera: The Seven Deadly Sins

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When they announced it last season, I wondered how Atlanta Opera would present Kurt Weill’s “The Seven Deadly Sins” without a double-bill. Not a traditional opera, the work is only about 45 minutes long and was originally commissioned as a ballet. I wondered if they were going to pull what Atlanta Ballet did with “Twyla Tharp’s The Princess & the Goblin” and just present it as though it were an evening-length work or if they’d add some kind of warm-up act. They ended up doing the latter, presenting a pseudo-cabaret of songs from Weill’s other works.
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Chamber Cartel – Pléïades

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This evening, in the back-room of Orpheus Brewing, Chamber Cartel presented us with an hour of sonic grace in the form of a fantastic performance of Xenakis’ piece for six percussionists, “Pléïades.” The slightly different kit for each of the six percussionists were arranged in a very large V that encompassed two rows of audience seats in the same shape except for one short row at each end that was perpendicular to the V, like dimples on a smile. I had the good fortune to sit at the tip of the audience’s V, such that I had two performers in front of me, two to the side, and two behind, absorbing me in a dramatic 6.0 surround sound experience. Each of the four movements of the work has different instrumentation and Xenakis suggested two different orders for the movements. The Cartel played a reversal of the first suggested order: Peaux (skins), Claviers (keyboards), Métaux (metals), and Mélanges (mixtures). Unlike the previous concerts in this series, the price of admission didn’t include tickets for beer tasting but they did include earplugs, which were absolutely necessary.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Jean-Yves Thibaudet

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The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra started it’s new year at the beginning of the second day of Rosh Hashana. The program had a few things about it that set it apart from previous season openers of which I’ve been aware. Particularly of interest to me was that the only piece to have been composed prior to the 20th century was the Star Spangled Banner. The Damrosch arrangement has traditionally begun each new season, as it did this year, but they also added a second, new arrangement by ASO Bassist Michael Kurth to begin the second half of the program.
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Sonic Generator at the High

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I was so happy when, earlier in the week, I got an email from the High about their First Friday event for September that said that Sonic Generator would be performing. Their website was taken down from the GA Tech servers some time ago, the FB group for them was renamed to “Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology,” and they’ve only performed a few times since the Sherwoods left for Cleveland, so I figured that they were no more. But, yes, they are still more! I didn’t see Jason Freeman there, so I’m assuming that they’re continuing with just the remainder of the ensemble and are no longer affiliated with Tech, but I’m perfectly happy with that as long as I get to hear them play now and then. I do hope that they develop some kind of way to let people know of their concerts, though: I very nearly missed this one.
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Chamber Cartel: Simulcast with Guest Artist Margot Rood

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This evening was the fourth of seven shows in a series by Chamber Cartel called “Don’t Look Back: Beyond the Zero” that Orpheus Brewing Company has been presenting at their brewery off of Monroe Drive near Piedmont Park. The program opened with a solo percussion piece by Anthony Donofrio entitled “Meditation on Italo Calvino’s Castle of Crossed Destinies”. It was contemplative and lovely and Caleb Herron brought a sweetness out of it that made it a wonderful way to start the show.
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Phantasmagoria: Wickedest Tale of All

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When I first looked at the promo materials for Phantasmagoria, I thought that their “Wickedest Tale of All” was going to have more circus-arts integrated into it and be much more of a grand, goth spectacle. As such, I rounded up a hottie goth-date last night and went in expecting some fairly fun and flashy entertainment but nothing particularly substantive or memorable. I ended up being delightfully surprised to find that, although it was certainly fun and flashy, it was a very slick and intelligent telling of some wonderful horror stories. This show focused on works of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens, but also had a Hindu story about a churel and a reading of Alexander Pushkin’s “The Demons” as part of a pseudo-encore.
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ASO: Robert Spano with Some Soloists Whom I Didn’t Hear

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I originally wasn’t going to attend the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s season finale because there was only a little over 20 minutes of music on the program that I wanted to hear. It took me roughly that long just to drive to Symphony Hall with all of the extra traffic in my neighborhood due to VaHi’s Summerfest. I ended up with an extra ticket to exchange, though, so I decided to come to this for three reasons. First, there was a world premier and, sadly, world premiers are often also the world finales of many wonderful works of music. Secondly, I really love the sea interludes from Britten’s “Peter Grimes” and suspected that Spano was likely to do a really good job with them. And, finally, my ticket for this evening also granted entry to the chamber concert this past Thursday.
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