Held my Post

I had written a discussion of Porgy and Bess, but I want to think about it before it goes out.    I did publish it for a few minutes, so if you received a copy, know I will revisit it when I have seen the production that is causing all the stir.    I was trying to bemore general but I fear I was less successful than I wanted to be.   So it will come back.    I'll post something in its place in a day or two.

Elation

      Well, if I'm going to complain about unadventurous musical things, I should praise something that was a huge risk which seems to be working out:  Stephen Sondheim's Follies (and James Goldman's book, of course, but NO ONE is going for his work.)    This is the giant show to end all giant shows.    Dozens of speaking /singing parts.    Huge score: 21 separate vocal numbers, a now famous opening instrumental prelude for the ghosts, a dance number not even written by Sondheim, and improvised background music that underscores most of the show.    And the 'big' numbers, written in the style of show music from the twenties to the forties, are sung (and occasionally danced) by older actors/singers, making it that much more difficult to cast.    And though it has humor, Follies is essentially a bleak view of the costs of aging on 'dreams'.   As almost anyone who is even remotedly familiar with the piece, the title has a double meaning.  
       The show was revived ten years ago to poor reviews, a huge loss of money, and a quick closing notice.    (I've seen a boot-leg copy shot from the balcony.    I was expecting a' miss' where things just didn't gel or were poorly directed or acted, etc.    To my shock, it was surprisingly well done.    No idea why the reviews were so mixed.)   So what's different now?
        Timing, for one thing.     Ten years ago, the country was on a high of conservatism.    This show is not family friendly: because it is about what happens when your family is grown or old or dead.    The Lion King is extremely family friendly.    It has a score people already know combined with great showmanship.   Nothing wrong with that.    The history of Broadway, hell, any performance-based art form, has been style and showmanship in tandem with smart writing.    Hooray for The Lion King!    But it is still style over (worthwhile) substance.    Follies is style alright, but combined with painful, thought-provoking, audacious, cynical, life-affirming while heart-breaking substance.    You leave feeling like you've seen one of the greatest works ever written.    Because you have.    Hamlet isn't happy either.   But in the Summer of 2001, no one wanted cynicism.     Cut to today.   Life is rife with cynicism.   People have been sitting for days in protest of Wall Street and what they believe it stands for.    Naturally, they are being used (more often in a hate-filled way) as a political sword, slashing away at the 'other' side, mostly ignoring what the protestors are actually saying.    The country is hurting, the bigots are out, and the large majority of us are frozen in fear or frustration.    So a show about reality crashing into your failed dreams seems like the news.     But with something humane at its center.    This aspect has been missed by (too) many critics of the piece, going all the way back to its original production.     It's easy to overlook: so much is happening and all through a fractured theatrical prism.  But 'life will go on' is the theme that lingers.    Life, imperfect though it may be,  has to.
     And casting.   Bernadette Peters is riding a wave of success from her amazing (I saw it) performance in A Little Night Music, the Sondheim show written just after Follies.    Believe me, if you didn't see it, you cannot fully understand why so many were telling people they would remember it for the rest of their lives.     The young opera singer sitting next to me said Peters' performance changed her life and how she would approach performing.    I doubt she was exaggerating.   And Peters had been in the original casts of Sunday In The Park With George and Into the Woods, classics now.   And she had sung the lead in a concert version of an early Sondhiem: Anyone Can Whistle.   And she gave a concert dedicated (mostly) to his music.   So Peters and another iconic Sondheim has its own appeal.   But the other three 'leads' are cast with great people, known and loved in New York.  
      And the production.     The producers have not skimped on the cast size or the orchestra or costumes or the other aspects that the production really needs.   It is not a carbon copy of some other production, but a fresh take on it.     The score really is as wonderful as any written.   Great number after great number.   Chances for good performers to show their stuff.   And this production seems to hit people the right way.    We may never witness its like again.    So go see it instead of the same old Boheme.    Or Lion King again.   Follies is a force for good--art that does not pander to the lowest common denominator.    So what that it will only be around until January?   That is enough.

Depression

 Back online after a long time of busy life and reflection on art-making in the "new" America--where neo-Nazis pose as 'concerned' citizens, real concerned citizens are denounced as 'un-American' by the same people (or their enablers), arts organizations drop like flies, funding vanishing, audiences vanishing, corporate funding for fewer and fewer (and almost always for things they know will be 'popular' not important--though this has always been the case for the most part), musuem-enbalmed 'musical performances' of the same repeating pattern: 75% war horses, 24% safe but under-played works, and 1% 'new' things, usually pale imitations of their betters.    Not that any of this is particularly new, but now it is almost all that is there.    Exceptions are indeed everywhere but they make up a dwindling minority, and even the 'new' is mostly older well-established musicians doing the same thing.    Yeah,yeah, yeah, I'm beating the same drum.    But I fear drums are banging in a ghetto chasm of re-runs.    And my heart just doesn't seem to be where it was.
         The Metropolitan Opera is a perfect storm of mediocrity right now.   The adventurous planning of a few years ago is back to business as usual.    The 'new' productions have little to offer, or like the Don Carlo, are left to dwindle into dullness.     Watching the televised presentation of last year's production, I felt a horrible sense of waste.    These were talented people walking through a masterpiece like automatons (I'd say zombies, but zombies would have been interesting.)   Any performance that makes Simon Keenleyside and Ferruccio Furlanetto look like amateurs has failed miserbly.    And the immediacy of the close-up view has been marred by poor choices.     I watched all the video productions and all of them had musically inept camera moves.     The sense of drama that was a hallmark of the first couple of seasons seems to have gone, vanished.    Well, it thrives in one or two cases, but mostly it's not there.     I watched some of the older ones to check to see if it was just my mood.   No, to a one that I own, the older were better.    How depressing!
       Sure, the Lucia with a one-of-a-kind Dessay was watchable, even with some really stupid filming, because Dessay--love her or hate her--will always be watchable.     How conventional Netrebko seems, comforting in her talented, 'tradtional' interpretation!    Yes, she is quite good, though the voice is getting harder, her notes are drooping into flatness, her 'emotional' treatments growing too predictable.    I still like her fine, but I don't love her.    Why?    There is much to enjoy, she never walks through anything like a robot, she sings with passion.     But it doesn't add up to gloriously wonderful to me.     I mean her no harm, nor disrespect.     She is a beautiful,talented woman.    But where is that spark of something different?    I haven't seen it.    Maybe that's what I miss.   And many of the reviewers vilified Dessay while over-comparing her to Netrebko.   No, Dessay is sui generis.    Netrebko is a very good, sometimes exciting musician.    And then there was Il Trovatore which was a debacle of enormous dimensions.
       At least Netrebko is offering something new with her Anna Bolena.    I think she will be a very good fit.    (I'll see.)    Otherwise, more of the same 'same''.     Does anyone really want to see Macbeth with those singers?   Or this Aida?    Or this Barbiere or Don Giovanni?   Nabucco?   Ernani?   (That seems particularly inapt right now.)   Sure, we have some great operas that are rarely done: Billy Budd, Makropulos Case, Khovanschina but James Morris is set to destroy Budd (God, someone shoot him so he will stop!), Makropulos is an ensemble work which have not been cast well lately, and Khovanshchina is loooong, cobbled together, flawed--though beautiful--work that is also an ensemble cast, but is tied to a weak libretto (maybe because it was never quite finished.)   And I fear for all of these.    If the Met can't make Don Carlo work, what chance does a Billy Budd have?     You need three amazing singer/actors and an inspired conductor.    The first half of these requirements is already not there.    And David Robertson is hit-or-miss.    Makropulos is here to showcase Mattila (which I'm all for) but it isn't a showcase kind of a role.    And the conductor is a mystery, so this could be great or awful.    At least there is some question.     You could not pay me to go sit through Aida.    Or Patricia Racette destroy Butterfly again to wildly idiotic ovations.     Why are people encouraging this once-fine singer to shriek her way through a role she never had any business singing?   Are they deaf?
      And the really terrible thing is: the Met is doing just fine as far as I know.    They have curtailed some 'big' productions to keep costs down, but other than that, all seems well.    With the New York City Opera all but dead, the smaller venues so far under the radar they might as well not be there (they might help themselves if they did more adventurous work) and the (wonderful) William Christie tours only here for very short periods, opera seems depressingly like it was.    I don't want like it was.   I want From the House of The Dead.    I want The Nose.    I want a marvelous Lulu not a polite, poorly cast one.   I want Renee Fleming to stop doing the same five roles.    I want a Henze opera, or a Birtwistle, or even a Gloriana to go with the Billy Budd.   I want something to transport me while the country falls apart around me.    I want art to remember.    And I'm only talking about opera in one particular house.    Beneath that?    Chaos.

What is Art?

Now that the cultural phenomenon that was The Metropolitan Museum Of Art's installation of Alexander McQueen's fashions, some questions come to mind, age old questions like: what is art and is it relevant and how many people seeing (or hearing or watching) something equals greatness?   No answers exist, of course--or more accurately, endless postulations exist with no final decisions possible, except person by person.   So this person asks them--and tries to give some answers.   (Which anyone can take or leave, naturally.)

To cheat a bit, art is anything someone considers art.   Hardly Earth-shattering.    And I am thrilled a museum considers clothing design art.    "Design" implies artistry.    No question, McQueen was an artist.    But is that why people liked his work?   Really, with no excuses, how many people went because the man was famous for putting clothes on rich, exciting, fabulous people who showed up at well documented events wearing something he put his name on?    I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing--but I fear it is not a particularly good one either.    Worth, skill, originality are not in the vocabulary of most of the people waiting hours in line.    They wanted to see up close what they've seen on TV.    They probably couldn't give a damn about anything else in the building.    The prevalent wisdom is that exposure to the other pieces that were on view to the hordes in line would somehow make them want to come back.    Right.    How many will that mean?    100?    Sure, it's good for the 100 but does it further any kind of knowledge about anything else than celebrity to the 99.99999% of the remaining viewers?    Isn't that what this is--the cult of the celebrity?    I guess it could be argued that seeing a Michelangelo sculpture is just a variation on the same.    Probably.   Still, it's depressing.    What if someone named Skidder had carved David?   Would we recognize its greatness?    My guess: no.   And what about all those artists who are no longer being taught in schools because they won't appear on any tests?    Is their art now lessened?    Since fewer and fewer people are learning who, I don't know,  Thomas Eakins was, will his work eventually disappear from the higher institutions?   And what about his 'nameless' contemporaries?     Sure, museums hang some of them, but for how long?    The Alexander McQueens of the world will always pull in bigger crowds.    With dwindling funds, fewer donors, fewer visitors, how long before smaller places only hang 'crowd pleasers' to pay the bills?    The Met will go on without the enormous crowds...they already get enormous crowds, even on days between exhibits.    But the past is becoming less and less a part of our education system.    People aren't encouraged to know, or care, about anything that is not disposable or popular on some electronic device.   I would guess most of my relatives have no idea who Thomas Eakins was.    This is tragic to me.   Eakins was an influential, talented man.    They would like his art, I have no doubt.   But fewer people in the world saw his work than Alexander McQueen's one summer in 2011, probably even if you counted all the people who went to all the museums where Eakins is displayed.     And saddest of all?   Just how many people cared?

Listening Experiment

      Taking my last post as a jumping off point,  I listened to two very different pieces to see how my new reactions might differ from my original ones (though I never wrote the first ones down.  Sorry about that.)    I chose a piece I did not 'appreciate': Luciano Berio's Laborintus II and one I did: Nicholas Maw's Violin Concerto.    Yes, their styles are completely different, but that is the point of the thing: how does emotion and mental acuity play into (my) perceptions.     I listened to them only once, on the same day, with a sizable break between.    I will admit upfront I was surprised by my response.    I enjoyed the 'experiment' thoroughly.    What conclusions did I draw?    Well, let me tell you what I heard...this time.
     Berio's piece is an early one compared to the more famous, 'influential' ones.    It has a 'libretto' (no plot nor narrative drive is at play) by a Dante Scholar and poet Edoardo Sanguineti.    It is scored for tape, narrator, three female voices, a mixed choir of eight, and ensemble from which a jazz combo can be formed. It contains poems by Sanguineti, plus texts from Dante, the Bible, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.    They all have something to do with each other, but explanations are unnecessary, because the music neither  'explains' the texts nor 'enlightens' them.   Frankly, they could be any group of words.    It was commissioned by the French and Italian Radios to celebrate the 700th anniversary of Dante's birth.  So the Dante connections make sense.    The rest?   Well, the Narrator does have to speak very quickly to get some of them in before his 'time' is up.     On my recording, Sanguineti is the narrator.     That must have helped.
     I am a true fan of Berio, but I find (to my irritation or impatience) that he has these pieces I call 'sketches'--works that seem to hold unperfected ideas that will find far more success in larger, better, more accomplished works.  ('Sketch' does not imply shorter length in his case...alas.)   Certainly half-formed ideas here will show up in Sinfonia and Coro, not to mention his operas that occupied him during the later years of his life.    For one thing, Sanguineti formed the performing texts for both of those following masterpieces using many of the same authors.    And the musical ideas--in particular, the overlapping, 'battle' of voices both sung and spoken; the deconstruction of words into morphemes, vowel sounds, even phonemes repeated in no particular order; the soloistic / virtuosic nature of the instrumental parts; the abrupt changes in musical style, especially the appearance of some form of pop music; the juxtaposition of two things that do not share any obvious qualities --will show up over and over throughout his career, sometimes more successfully, sometimes less.     The more of his work you know, the more likely you are to hear the connections and enjoy seeing where they came from.    But Laborintus II is roughly thirty-five minutes long.     It is episodic to a fault.    Ideas seem to either evaporate before you can grasp their make-up or drone on long after their pleasure has past.    Certainly, multiple sopranos will be used far more advantageously in later pieces like the two named and one of his great operas, Un Re In Ascolto (A King Listens).     Not that this piece has no merits--on the contrary, this is a major composer fleshing out important ideas he will use for decades.   The vocal music is for the most part masterly, if a bit disjointed at times.    The flashes of fragments of jazz poking out of the fabric of the first half comes to fruition in a delightful jazz combo fighting for its life amongst all the other things going on (it loses, by the way.)     The ideas that would soon lead to O King are here in miniature and can be beautiful, as they are in the later work (though not much later, a few years.)     But mostly, I still feel, this is a 'worksheet' on 'what to use later in my better pieces.'    Well.    I liked it more than I first did, certainly, but I am still not won over.   I'd rather listen to Sinfonia.
     Nicholas Maw wrote his Violin Concerto 'for' Joshua Bell, claiming he had finally heard someone who was in the grand Romantic line of violinists.    (Or so says Bruce Adolphe in the liner notes.   The conversation took place in Maw's kitchen while the composer carved a turkey.    I want to ask, "How many violinists were you listening to?"    I can name at least half a dozen who could lay more claim to the title back then.   And now, triple that. )    So the piece was premiered by the people who play on the recording: Joshua "Romantic" Bell,  the conductor Roger Norrington, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.   Bell plays wonderfully, actually, though I still wouldn't call him a "Romantic" violinist.    He seems to prefer a more "Classical" balance of things (for want of a more technical term) where nothing is too understated nor too overstated, the tone never too dark or coarse, nor, in fact, anything but lovely.     Sometimes this suits the music perfectly; sometimes, it does not help it through some of its weaker points, where someone less afraid to go too far might conceal weakness a bit better.    For the piece has some.   One: a huge mistake in my mind, a poor idea overextended.     It doesn't destroy the piece, but it blunts its impact.
     The work is in four movements: 1) Prelude 2) Scherzo 3) Romanza 4) Finale marked Allegro moderato e grazioso.     The style owes something to the mid-Twentieth Century Romantics, like Barber, but far more through-composed in form.  The movements have some ideas that bind them together very loosely: some melodic shapes that return, rhythmic motives, a recurring idea where the lower strings play a unison slow melody, usually forte, while the violin spins high free-flowing countermelodies.   A few others too technical to describe.    Most of the music is slow(-ish or not so -ish)--not all of it it, mind you, but more than half.    This tends to lessen the effect at times, but only for short durations.    The Prelude has one or two too many slow builds to a climax.   We'll skip the Scherzo and say the Romanza is lovely, probably the most successful of the four, and the Finale is a bit fragmented, luckily coming together with a welcome satisfaction at the end with some strong music.    But it does have a few awkward spots, meanders for a few short stretches, before finding its footing.    Not that I couldn't follow it, any of it.   It is most skillfully written.    Maw knows what he is doing as he should after writing music for forty years.  This is not abnormally complex music (nor too simple) but close concentration is needed for you not to drift off a bit on occasion.    Still, three of the four movements have mostly beautiful, memorable, enjoyable writing.    'Beautiful' often comes to mind while listening.    But there's that Scherzo.    Unfortunately.    It begins quite well: interesting fast movement of even note values, moving from small cells to larger, broader melodies...and then it gets highjacked by a big slow movement in the middle (!)    Why????    We've just had a slow movement to start (over ten minutes) and will have another at Scherzo's end.    And this is the least well-crafted of the lot.    And it seems to lose what momentum the movement had.    But Maw goes back to the original material and you shake your head but sigh relief that you're back on more solid ground.     And then he does it again.    Slower.    Thinner, mostly for long held chords with violin obbligato.    For more than just a passing instance.    Deadly.    Not ugly, just deadly.    Boring even.    A really poor idea that such an experienced composer should not use.    It all but ruins the effect of the beginning of the Romanza which begins like a second cousin to the chords in Britten's Billy Budd --the scene where Vere goes inside to tell Budd he has been sentenced to death.    If you know the opera, you know what I mean.   Isolated chords, in this case with small movements within them (just chords in the Britten.)    The piece moves into more lovely complexity, a fine chance for the violinist to play beautifully in all registers, which, of course, Bell does in spades.    The piece is a marvel of finely detailed work.    It would work perfectly well on its own.    If I could, I would cut the Scherzo right before it 'dies' and move directly into the true slow movement.    Maybe if this is how the piece went, the small weaknesses of the outer movements would pale.    Probably.    I was mostly happy with the Prelude.     The myriad ideas of the Finale might seem more germane if the piece hadn't been breaking into these slow reveries so often.    I found some flaws with it the first time I heard it.    I didn't like the Scherzo then either (from my recollection.)    I liked the outer movements more then (though I like them quite a lot now.)    I appreciate the Romanza more now.    Frankly, if a more risky, highly emotional soloist and conductor played it, they might help that big giant gaffe.   Say, Gil Shaham and Simon Rattle. Or maybe not.  In a few more years?

In the mood

     Like many people in The Arts (capitalized, naturally), I have bi-polar disorder.   Yes, me and Catherine Zeta-Jones.    Some people affected by this are stigmatized by ignorant people who either overreact or dismiss it, so often sufferers keep it hidden, from a real fear of mistreatment.   But public education is heightening awareness of this and thus, aiding responses.   Zeta-Jones should be commended.    Public perception is everything in Hollywood.   If a producer thinks she might hold up production even one day, they will most likely not use her.   Luckily, medicine helps me—others with the disorder are not so lucky.    But I am anything but “cured”.   I still experience symptoms, both elevated and depressed.  Due to this, though, I examine my emotional responses more than most people without it.    It is easy to overreact when I’ve done or said something unintentionally that may have bothered someone—and they let me know it in a blunt or cutting way.   This can make life a bit difficult, but who doesn’t have problems?    I’ve grown to live with it.    And it has its benefits.    When I experience a truly wonderful performance, or play, or piece of music, of work of art, I can feel it deeply.   That adrenaline rush can make even low emotions rise.    And I believe this helps me perform.    I think I can communicate emotions rather well since I am so aware of them.    Sometimes.   Let us not sugar coat things.   Some days, nothing gives relief.   But it passes, as long as I take my medicine, which I will take for the rest of my life.    This is a serious life-altering problem.   If you think you are experiencing some extreme emotional changes, seek help.   Go here to find out more information: http://www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/default.htm.    And see a doctor.    Please.    The sooner the better.   Symptoms can grow extreme without treatment.    For the people who love you, if not for yourself.

            But with all this self-reflection, I have come to ask myself some interesting questions involving my reactions to artistic experiences (and other’s as well.)   So often people watching, listening to, or looking at a work declare they do not like it, with the caveat “maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood.”   How often is this really true?    I’ve said it myself, but I mean it.   Really.   I rarely just drop the matter.  When I think that, I try to revisit it later to prove my hypothesis.    Was I truly in the wrong mood?    Sometimes, I truly was.    And the opposite can also be true: sometimes I’m in such a great mood, a piece can seem better than it probably is—using my own personal scale, naturally.   One man or woman’s masterpiece is another’s misfire.   [Which leads me to repeat one of my basic tenets of taste.  Only morons think there are intrinsic values that everyone shares.    No, Mozart’s works are not necessarily better than Britten’s .    Their music has very little in common.    I adore both of them.   Avocados and pears have pits.    Is one intrinsically better than the other?    Frankly, Mozart’s music is less complex—if you use that as a criteria, Britten is a better musician(!)    And nothing Verdi wrote remotely suggests he could write something on the scale of Berg’s Lulu, which proves neither one’s superiority nor inferiority.   And I’ve only mentioned operas.    The same goes for all the arts.    Time to get rid of the prejudices.    And to all who will continue to make the comparisons and find everyone other than the same “standard” artists wanting: maybe you’re just too lazy or too ignorant or even, maybe, you’re just too stupid to get what other artists are doing…ever thought of that?   At least one New York Times reviewer I’d like to say that to, because he seems to be a little of all of three.]

            So, my mood almost always dictates my reaction: but not just the first hearing, sometimes the second or fourth.    And many things I have heard, watched, seen more times than that.    This is where I find things get interesting.    In a sentimental mood, I just can’t make my way through a Elliott Carter piece.     His music isn’t sentimental.    It’s brilliant, and often wonderful (I am a big fan of his piano concerto and his vocal piece A Mirror On Which To Dwell) but requires different needs.    When I am in a clear-headed, probing mind-set, I can follow him to some far out places and get much excitement from the journey.    Usually, I love Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, truly love it, but not always.    Sometimes it just seems too overly familiar and perhaps a bit dull.    I can listen to the same performance a month later and feel completely different about it.    How many listener’s out there are feeling the same?     No one I know ever says that (s)he never appreciated, say, Birtwistle’s Punch and Judy until heard the second (or, gasp! the third) time.    But I know people who can listen to the same few pieces by Bach over and over and never be bored.   (I have to ask…How?)   

And what about those people who seem to dismiss anything not immediately ingratiating as useless, since “life is too short to listen to bad (useless, dull, ugly, complicated, ‘atonal’, modern, strange, new) things.”   Are they actually trying to like these new works?    Do they take into consideration their true feelings before they experienced them?     Do they also mean it when they say “maybe I was just in the wrong mood”?    Do they go back to give it a second chance?  Don’t get me wrong: if I think a work is “junk”, it is usually “junk” when (or if) I hear it again.    Lloyd Webber’s Cats is not Stravinky’s Requiem Canticles.    (And, yes, I did give Cats another hearing.   I’ve seen it.    It is utter junk.    I just needed to know a little more music before I could appreciate the Stravinsky.)

Well, life isn’t that short.    And ingratiating is overrated.    Cover your ears if your squeemish, but what the fuck does “ingratiating” even mean?     Every piece and composer I have mentioned so far can be ingratiating heard in the right way.   Yes, even Birtwistle.    “People listen to what they know” doesn’t explain it all.    I think mind-frame is a more accurate determiner.    Case in point: an audience consisting mostly of older opera fans watched a 90 minute German piece written in odd atonal beauties mixed with violent musical ‘attacks’ for lack of a better word.    The people in this audience were probably the same people who go to see Le Nozze di Figaro.   But they came ready to hear what they could get from it.    And the place was silent but for a couple of coughs.    (And I do mean a couple.)    The piece was Henze’s Phaedra.    The loud ovation at the end was genuine.    I was one of them—quite moved by its strange sonorities.    I have a recording off the radio, so I was somewhat familiar with it, but the first listen, I did not come away with much.    A second time, I was enraptured by it, and the third (the live performance) I was sure I was experiencing a masterpiece.    But had I gone on my first impression, I would most likely have stayed at home.    By the same token, the first time I heard Bernstein’s Wonderful Town, I thought it a gem.   But further listens have always left me somewhat cold.    It has its pleasures, still.   But as a whole?    I think I was just in a really good mood, so anything with some skill and some wit seemed brilliant.     Sometimes, being happy can just give you the wrong impression.    But I’ll keep listening ever so often.    Just in case, it was just my mood.

Freedom

The 4th of July is a big day for musicians (and other performers) so I celebrate the day not just for the country but for the men and women in it who are still able to do what they love and live by doing it.   With so much fighting over every penny, The Arts are the easiest things to cut.   For every win, like Gay Marriage in New York, we have a loss, like NEA dismantling.  Yes, gay marriage is an appropriate topic for this blog, because the number of free lance performers that will get benefits from it is a large one.    So celebrate who we are, all of us.   And yes, that is hard, especially when people go on TV and lie, distort, demonize to keep power (or gain it.)    Just don't listen to 1812 Overture!    You fools, it's written by a Russian about a war between Russia and France...as in War and Peace.   Why are you using Russian music to celebrate American Independence?    Play some Gershwin instead.    Or Berlin, or Bernstein, or Sondheim or Porter or Barber or Ives or ANYBODY other than Tchaikovsky.    (Play him any other day.)