Latest on the Quixotic Quest cc @joshgroban

I saw a tweet on my timeline that reminded me of my Quixotic Quest.  This is the interchange I saw.

YES, YES, indeed!

So I tweeted back. These are screen images, so the tweets appear in reverse chronological order, just as they would on twitter.

I think I've blogged about these videos that appear in my tweets before but they're still on my mind.

This is one that shows Michael Jackson's audiences a lot.   I think it's a composite of many audiences. MJ liked to show his audiences, because he felt that these views demonstrated that he was channelling spiritual energy from the universe into those listening.  He commented later that he travelled to 40 countries, and everywhere he went people cried, fainted, lit candles &c in exactly the same places.  He concluded that music, dance, and children could heal the world.

This one shows a group of singers singing "We are the World" at the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010.  

These are all very fascinating performers who we haven't heard much about in the USA, but who are big in their home countries.  I really urge people to look into them, because it's not clear to me why we don't know about them.

I have been most interested in 費翔 Kris Phillips, because he is an American who lives in New York and performs in China. He is also a citizen of Taiwan. He went into China in 1987 -- alone -- armed only with his beautiful voice, his handsome face, and his disco dancing skills and he took that country by storm. He introduced pop music there and became a figure of similar magnitude to Michael Jackson there. We never heard a thing about it. He's the one who sings first in the video, the very tall, very handsome half Asian.

He was criticized by Taiwanese, because he was viewed as a communist appeaser. He was criticized by Chinese for being a decadent capitalist influence. Yet he went in. He seems to be a very idealistic person who loves China and wants to promote international cultural understanding.

I feel he deserves more recognition here, though I guess he likes the fact that Americans don't recognize him, while he probably can't go out on the street in China.

Tho I must say that Vitas' amazing falsetto is something that we have also been missing out on, presumably because he's Russian -- as if that should matter.

Laura Fygi is a person of fascinating mixed ethnicity. Rain is a big star in Korea. SunNan is a Chinese tenor with an absolutely lovely tone. CoCo Lee has performed here, once at the Oscars, I think.

The World Expo in Shanghai in 2010 got a virtual news blackout in the USA -- except for a few reporters who interviewed malcontents outside the event. Our press seems to have a see no good, hear no good, speak no good attitude towards China.  

Other countries took the event more seriously. The city of Copenhagen sent their actual Little Mermaid statue to the festival -- THE SYMBOL OF THEIR CITY. Think about it, as if we had sent the Liberty Bell from Philadelphia. During the Expo, if you went to the place where the Little Mermaid normally stands in Copenhagen, you would find a screen with a video feed to Shanghai. Now that's commitment. I admire them for it.

By contrast, our press attitude was deplorable.

(I don't understand why I can't clear the background color out of this section. Google's blogger interface is not so great)

But the curious, and remarkable thing, was that that only the month before, a group of Americans sang "We are the World," including Josh Groban -- who is a common theme in this blog. 

I erroneously said it was the same month as in China, but the YouTube dates of these videos are a bit more than month apart.  I'm not sure when the recording in China actually occurred.  The actual expo didn't start until May, but CocoLee uploaded her video March 31, 2010.

Still, pretty close.

------------------

Addendum

I see that this is what Adele actually sang for Brussels -- very nice

Audra McDonald & "Shuffle Along"

I saw Audra McDonald perform with Josh Groban or at least in the same concert at least twice. Once was in Lincoln Center, I think at the Marvin Hamlisch concert. The other was on his Stages DVD. Anyone new to this blog is perhaps not aware that being a Grobanite is a central feature of mine and of this blog.

After Stages, I looked up some of her videos on YouTube. I liked what I heard. I decided I wanted to hear more of her singing, and in person.

So I went to her website and looked for her tour. Josh said on the DVD that she was on tour. I found out she was in New York City for a while in March doing a show called “Shuffle Along.” I was still thinking this was the name of a concert she was doing. Josh always has names for his concert tours.

The show was in a Broadway Theater, The Music Box, but I know Jackie Evancho has done concerts in Broadway theaters, so I was still thinking it was a concert.

I got there early and there was a huge line to get in, people who already had tickets. I double checked my ticket and I had an assigned seat, so I went off to the side and checked in to my next day's acting job using my cell phone.

Eventually the line started moving. I went in past a very cool, historical drinking fountain, where the water was coming out of something that looked like a fish and there were small paper cups to collect it. These were really small, like shot glasses. You had to drink several of them to get any appreciable amount of water. Fortunately, there wasn't a line for that.

Nor was there a line for the bathroom, fortunately. I suspect they must have added some stalls since the original theater. The place was quite ample. Curiously, I later saw men waiting for the restroom at intermission. You seldom see that.

It turned out that the show was sold out. I like to buy cheap tickets, so I was near the rear of the balcony. I don't have long legs. My height has always been in my torso. Even so there wasn't enough leg room. It was quite uncomfortable.

It was the guy sitting next to me who clued me in to the fact that it was a Broadway show, a musical. Fortunately, Audra was appearing in the musical, as one of the leads. Naturally, there four male leads, and only one female, though there were some supporting females who got substantial performance time.  

One of the other leads was Brian Stokes Mitchell. He also has performed with Josh Groban. There's a recorded duet of them somewhere. Also I saw Mitchell at the Americans for the Arts Awards, where Josh got an award back in 2012. They both got awards.

So I essentially killed two birds with one stone, getting to hear them both perform. 

Apparently some of the other performers are well known also, but not to me, so that wasn't as exciting for me.

Anyway, the guy next to me informed me that Shuffle Along was the first Broadway play to be all Afrimerican performers. He thought this was a reenactment, tho that also turned out to be not quite right.

They sang the songs from the original show, but in between they told the story of the show and of the performers. It turned out to be a history lesson.  I found parts of the show fairly confusing at first, possibly because I was coming in with the wrong expectations. 

I did like Audra best of all the performers. It turns out that she's a triple threat.  She acts and she did tap dancing.  Although she seemed quite shy and retiring in the video where she performed with Josh, she didn’t seem so on stage at all. She played a sassy character convincingly.

I definitely did like her singing a lot. Everyone was singing on stage, but her voice was the one I liked best. If she were to do a concert on her own, I would love to hear her.  She has a very rich, full tone.  Though belting seems to be all the rage on Broadway, she’s more of a legit singer.  It’s nice to know that legit singers aren’t completely excluded from Broadway.

Questions for @joshgroban

There were a couple of instances recently where questions for Josh were solicited.  I did submit some, but they didn't get answered.

I decided to post them on this blog, because it's been my experience that Josh does eventually answer questions that he sees on line.

Your improv has inspired me to study improv, so I’m interested in learning more about your improv background.  I've been studying improv for 3 years now.

I’ve heard you say that you were studying improv before you became interested in singing.  Does this mean before you were 12?

I heard a rumor that you studied improv at a summer camp at Second City, in Chicago.  Is this so? How old were you then?

When you studied improv, did you study short form or long form, or both?

Also, you once said that Stevie Wonder asked you to call him so that the two of you could write a song together that might save the world.  You also said that you were too chicken to call him.  I’m not sure if you’ve become aware of my quixotic quest for the world anthem.  I’ve blogged about it a lot.  Here’s a summary

http://skysong263.blogspot.com/2015/05/trying-to-organize-information-about-my.html

So Stevie Wonder’s request to you is of great interest to me.  Have you called him yet?

My dream band for you would include all of the following: Tariqh, Lucia Micarelli, Ruslan Sirota, and Taku Hirano. Any chance that we could get all of them at once?

being obsessed with @joshgroban makes me a successful tweeter, apparently

Sort of in shock.  Twitter & blogger just gave me all this data -- see below  People are actually reading what I'm writing on here. I mean I know this blog has over 23k page views -- but 1.5k impressions per day on twitter???  Phew!

Of course, they want me to pay to post ads.... as if this were a business.

Wow.

Now, I came on twitter, because I was obsessed with Josh Groban, and I wanted to be able to tweet him.  I also had this idea about my quixotic quest for the world anthem: more here Blog about the Quixotic Quest for the World Anthem

 I was really embarrassed about being so obsessed with a celebrity.  I thought this was an example of some kind of character defect on my part.

Of course, what I found out when I started coming here is that a lot of people are obsessed with celebrities.  I should know better than to think I'm terminally unique.

But I also have 2 real name twitter accounts, which I really am thinking of as being for business, and they don't get nearly as much attention as this account does.  The posts I put on those other accounts are much drier -- in keeping with my idea of being business-like and professional.

What I'm learning about from this, which I feel I should have known, but didn't, is that play is better business practice than being "business-like" or "professional."

This is not what my very strict, conservative German Jewish immigrant father taught me.  He was a very straight laced fellow, indeed.  I'm sure he would be disapproving of this whole account and this whole blog.

I recently saw a FB meme on this topic FB meme about how people know about celebs but not public affairs/history  I posted it on my real name timeline.  My friends and I all clucked with disapproval about it.

But the truth is that if one wants to understand how to make friends and influence people one has to understand and master this phenomenon.  My Aspie brain is straining to get it.

@joshgroban fathom event 2/4/16

I attended this event at the City Center movie theater in White Plains, NY. Not more than about 10 people there-- at least 4 of whom I knew

There were some inauspicious events linked with this venue.

Two weeks before there was a big article in the local newspaper about how this venue had bed bugs, lice, and mice.  A citation was issued by the City of White Plains against the venue, which was later lifted when an independent inspection failed to reveal the alleged vermin.

Still, I think many people in the area were nervous about going there, and may have chosen to go to the event in New Rochelle instead.

Then this afternoon a severe weather alert was issued for the area, with forecasts of 2-4 inches of snow -- sometimes heavy enough to impede visibility -- for the time of the event.  This may have discouraged others from going.

So far the snow has not materialized.

But it was an odd event.  I guess it was timed to celebrate the issuance of the DVD tomorrow -- but, for those of us who were enough clued in to know that the fathom event was even happening, that DVD had been already readily available for order from PBS for several months.  I certainly already had it.

I had understood that there were going to be some extra songs not on the DVD -- if there were they were played before the start time of the event as printed on my ticket.  It was distressing to walk in, thinking I was on time, to see that material was already airing, though it seemed to be taking, not music.

So far as I could tell, the musical part of the show was the same as my DVD -- tho clearly my home theater setup is rather modest compared with a movie theater.  I did splurge on good, BOSE speakers, tho, so I do hear fairly well at home.

His singing was near flawless. We just have to keep thanking Kristin Blodgett for her good work in  retraining his singing style.  It's just so much better, not that it was bad before, of course, but it's definitely much better.

I really liked the stage setup for this concert.  It had a feeling like an elegant living room, rather than a stage.

I find bizarre that they pump fog over the stage during music concerts.  In this case, I don't think it had the desired effect, because some of the cameras were too far away from the stage, so it just looked like there was smoke on stage.  I kept fearing that the singers would start coughing.  If the camera angles were better, i.e. all closer, it might create a better illusion that the singers were actually singing in the fog -- but I wonder why the powers that be think that it would be a good idea for the singers to be surrounded by fog.

Josh introduced the British pianist/producer Bernie Herms several times -- but never introduced the Native American pianist, Mark Stevens -- why?  Herms is very sexy.

They did have a Q&A with Josh, which went fairly well.  One of my friends, was thrilled to hear her question answered.  I think I got my question in too late, not that he would have answered it anyway, necessarily. I'll have to tweet it to him.

After the Q&A was over, they did not turn on the lights, and we got a Tom Jones concert that said "test material." I waited after everyone else had left, because I thought I understood there was going to be more Josh music, but I guess not.

There were some technical difficulties during the transmission.  The signal was interrupted once during the concert and 4 times during the live Q&A.

During the Q&A, Josh apparently believed that his mike was not working.  I'm not sure why he thought so, as I could hear him fine, but maybe the mike he was using was just not connected to the speakers in the same theater where he was sitting.  Maybe that was intended to prevent feedback??

He kept asking whether we could hear him.  We shouted back "yes," but that was not transmitted to him.  He borrowed the other fellow's mike.  I tweeted to Josh that both mikes were live, as that's the only way I have to reach him directly -- though I know that he couldn't be reading twitter at the moment of being interviewed.  I hoped there might be some assistant reading it, who could forward anything important.

I notice that Josh seemed to be making an effort to use a lower speaking voice.  This seemed make him get hoarse, so far as I can tell. Unfortunately, his past tendency to speak in a high, nervous voice, during interviews probably led at least one fan to become obsessed with the idea that he's gay.  I hope that this type of bizarre obsession is not leading him to strain his speaking voice lower.

---

Addenda

One fan pointed out that this fathom event was held exactly 3 years after the Allen Room Fathom event with respect to the release of the All that Echoes album.  There was a critical difference between that event and this one, though. That was an actual live concert announcing a new album, that was broadcast live into theaters.  This was a concert that had already been broadcast on PBS and the DVD had already been sold through PBS.  It seems to me that this situation makes less sense for a Fathom event than the prior situation.

Also there was this bizarre incident where someone was talking back stage during the Q&A, which made it hard to hear. Josh fortunately noticed and called it out and it stopped -- but, really, during an event broadcast like this you would think they would be a bit more professional.

@nyphil Concert 1/15/16

I first subscribed to the New York Philharmonic last season, because Josh Groban was featured at the opening gala.

I haven't really considered myself a classical music fan.  In fact, classical music often gives me narcolepsy.

Still, I do feel like the New York Philharmonic is special.  They're amongst the best at what they do -- orchestral music.  When I was a kid, growing up in Wisconsin, I used to watch them on TV, with Leonard Bernstein.  We had an orchestra in Madison, Wisconsin as well, but somehow I never even considered that it could be as important as the New York Philharmonic.

So I resubscribed.  I went for matinee performances, because I hoped that I would be less likely to get narcolepsy earlier in the day.

So far this strategy seems to be going well. I haven't fallen asleep.  On the other hand, I've been to two concerts that might have been atypical.  One was Handel's Messiah, which I know very well, and the other was last Friday.

This last concert was

Respighi

Church Windows

Magnus Lindberg

Violin Concerto No. 2 (U.S. Premiere—New York Philharmonic Co-Commission with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra)

Stravinsky

The Rite of Spring

The program notes for the Stravinsky piece were fascinating. Apparently, the first time it was played in invoked a riot amongst the audience with proponents and opponents of the music going at each other.  That made me particularly curious about it.  

It was definitely an interesting piece with lots of unexpected musical twists, including quite a few chords that were jarring.  Still, we're used to this stuff now, and the largely elderly audience at the matinee listened quite peacefully.

The part I liked best was the Lindberg.  This was part of a series of 3 performances of the world premiere of this concerto, by the living composer Magnus Lindberg.  I tried looking for him on twitter.  Apparently this is a very common name on twitter, so I didn't succeed in finding him.

Still, the style reminded me of the parts of Josh Groban's music that I like best. I included some links in this blog about that sort of music: quiet, beautiful, but with unexpected chords and chord progressions.   I have often felt that calling Josh Groban classical/pop crossover is misleading.  I would rather hear him called new music/pop crossover.  I think that's more accurate.

http://straightarrow372.blogspot.com/2015/12/so-this-happened-joshgroban-nominated.html

I have to conclude that my preference is for what's called "modern classical." 

Anyway, I'm sort of hoping now that Josh will write a song, collaborating with Magnust Lindberg.

I finally got to see Lucia Micarelli @theloosh live

I finally got to see Lucia Micarelli live -- twice actually.  I first found her on YouTube performing with Josh Groban -- but then she never played with him since 2010, when I became a Grobanite.

This made me sad. I really liked the Awake DVD with Josh, Tariqh, and Lucia.  Not only did the music please me, but i loved their diversity.  You don't see too many diverse bands in popular music.

She's been touring with Chris Botti in 2015.  She also a stint with Barbara Streisand with him recently.  I looked at the tour schedule occasionally, but the gigs all seemed to be far from the NYC metro area, where I live.  I tweeted her, asking her to tell me when she got to the NYC metro area, but that never happened.

Then, on FB, I saw a photo of Chris and Lucia with Cicely Tyson.  Now I happen to know that Cicely is playing on Broadway with James Earl Jones in "Gin Game," right now, so I knew Lucia and Chris were in NYC.

I went and searched on the Internet, and found that Chris was doing a residency at the Blue Note Jazz Club -- 28 days, 56 shows -- an insane schedule.  Lucia was listed there with him on the Blue Note Jazz Club website.

I immediately bought a ticket and went on December 21.  Then I went again on New Year's Eve.

She played the 2 opening numbers with him.  Then she came back to do Emmanuel and Aurora/Kashmir.  Then I think she came back for at least two more, one of which was "Time to Say Goodbye," which was not actually the closing number, but was perhaps her last number.

She was just excellent.  That beautiful tone that I've always so admired was very evident.  On New Year's Eve, I took a date.  He fond her tone so unusual that he was convinced that it had been electronically altered.  I told him that I was quite sure that that was not the case, that it was just her extraordinary bowing style that we were hearing.

She wasn't there for the whole residency.  Starting January 2, they brought back Caroline Campbell, who was playing with Chris the last time I saw him prior blog about seeing Chris Botti Caroline is a fine violinist, but just not as extraordinary as Lucia, at least to my ear.

I had seen the videos of Lucia playing in Emmanuel and Aurora/Kashmir many times.  There's something magical about seeing something on the screen that makes it seem especially elusive.  The idea that I might hear these pieces live, just seemed incredible to me -- but there they were doing them -- and they were stellar -- just stellar.

I know she occasionally has done solo shows.  I hope that she does one again soon here in the NYC metro area.  The last one was in Utah, if I understand correctly.

She's still just as slender and beautiful as the photos I've seen of her from before.  She still plays barefoot.  She still has an evening gown that shows a lot of back and leg.

I also found out that she smokes -- and went out for frequent cigarette breaks.  I guess that's not as bad for an instrumentalist as for a vocalist; however I do happen to have seen YouTube videos where Lucia was definitely singing.  She didn't attempt that at this concert; actually they had a couple of other singers with spectacular belts.  The singers did not come on for as many pieces as Lucia. Lucia's singing is low, quiet and bluesy -- not one of those spectacular belts.  It's a sweet voice, but not to the level of her violin.  In any case, she didn't sing at this concert.

I was just absolutely spellbound by Aurora/Kashmir and Emmanuel.  I've seen them so often in video format.  Seeing them live, and just as good as the videos was just astounding, breathtaking, incredible.  Her other performances were equally extraordinary, but did not rivet me quite as much, because I had not been watching them as often.

Now I'm not as consistently overwhelmed with Chris.  Sometimes his pieces are quite loud and agitating, which I don't do well with.  Sometimes he did play other songs with that quiet sweet tone that he used in Emmanuel.  I like that aspect of his playing and find his trumpet tone almost as spell-binding as Lucia's violin. Still, I don't find him as riveting as she -- yet he's the one with a tour that bears his name.

I firmly believe that the fact that he has had a 12 year tour is due to his being self-confident and out there promoting himself.  I suspect that Lucia not having her own tour is a Mars/Venus issue.  Women tend not to have the same self-confidence and bluster as men.  We are sometimes our own worst enemies.

The Blue Note does produce its own records.  I don't think they had the intention of doing a record for this concert, but I wish they would.

I also hope that Lucia will have a solo show in NYC soon.  As I understand it, she's originally from Queens, so I would think NYC would be a logical destination for her.

I also wish she would keep fans better updated with her performance plans.  I don't even see a place on her website where I could add my e-mail address to be kept informed of her tour dates.