Friday, October 17, 2008

Ted Mook performs Daniel Rothman & Ezra Sims @ Roulette 10/17/08

When I was Berlin I started thinking I’m not broad enough. I need to expand my live music horizons a little more. I think what I really meant is I want to check out more people I don’t know. I’m starting to see a lot of the same people all the time. Of course, these people are great, it’s just nice to keep expanding.

That’s what led me to Roulette last night. I didn’t know who any of these people were and didn’t really know anything from the description. It was about celebrating the music of Ezra Sims and Daniel Rothman. I had no clue what it was, but it was Roulette, so worth a shot.

Before he began, Ted Mook told us about how the program changed many times since the beginning due to personnel issues – people are busy. It ended up being Mook doing some solo cello pieces, then some duos with pianist Eric Moe. Then he did this long cello solo.

I like cello and piano and the music was good. It was more like classical than jazz. I was glad to explore something different, but I don’t think I need to get into classical at this time. I was probably being too critical, but I just didn’t like the vibe there. After about 45-50 minutes of music they had an intermission because it was scheduled. There was only 1 piece left and there were a lot of pages up on the piano, but would it have been more than 30-45 min? And, I think that was a different pianist. Maybe Mook played with him and then I could see needing a break. I waited a little bit, but I didn’t want to risk missing out on the 10pm show at The Stone. I also figured I’d had enough. OK, and I had time to stop by one of my favorite bookstores, McNally Jackson.

It was good and my head was moving to the music. It just wasn’t something I need to much of.

http://www.roulette.org/events/2008_10.html October 16th @ 8pm Interpretations: TED MOOK performs Daniel Rothman & Ezra SimsPansonority/Luminance: Music of Ezra Sims & Daniel RothmanEzra Sims, one of the pioneers in the field of microtonal composition, celebrates his 80th birthday with a special performance of two masterful pieces String Quartet #5 and Clarinet Quintet. Composer Daniel Rothman presents his String Quartet and a work especially written for Ted Mook. Sean Carney, violin; Christian Hebel, violin; Liuh Wen Ting, viola; Ted Mook, cello; Gilad Harel, clarinet.

No comments: