From Andy Piper:
“Each month when the Ann Arbor Observer hits my mailbox, I like to sit down with my blue fine tip pen and mark the events I want to attend. This month, I found several events that are one-of-a-kind, powerful, cutting-edge performances presented in some of the area’s finest concert venues, both large and small. These are not for everybody but represent the depth and uniqueness of what is available in our great community!
What will you be attending? Take out your Ann Arbor Observer http://annarborobserver.com/eventbody.html and find and attend a few events that are exciting to you.
Here’s my top 5 for the month. I hope to see you around town!”
1. Betroffenheit
March 17th and 18th | Power Center
The Power Center. Photo courtesy of http://viewsfrombackstage.blogspot.com
This is a boundary-stretching hybrid of theatre and dance. Betroffenheit is a dark, physical, musical memoir. Through a powerful performance that combines dance and theatre, choreographer Crystal Pite and writer and performer Jonathon Young bring the audience along for a powerful ride.
Young wrote the show after he lost his teenaged daughter to a cabin fire in 2009. The show opens on Young (as himself) struggling in the aftermath, though the specific trauma is never mentioned. Carrying such a tragedy to stage is a delicate undertaking
Brace yourself for this one. Sure to be deeply impactful visually compelling and emotionally powerful performance.
Watch a short YouTube video to get a little more background.
Hill Auditorium. Photo courtesy of pinterest.com
2. Steve Reich @ 80: Music for 18 Musicians
Saturday, March 18th, 8pm | Hill Auditorium
The acoustics at Hill Auditorium are superb, bringing even the smallest sounds to life. It was designed by the Detroit firm of Albert Kahn and Associates, and it’s my favorite place to hear music.
Reich, whom the New Yorker magazine called “the most original musical thinker of our time,” celebrates his 80th birthday in 2016; the year also marks the 40th anniversary of the premiere of Music for 18 Musicians, considered by many to be his greatest composition. Two of Chicago’s world-class ensembles, Eighth Blackbird and Third Coast Percussion (recent “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance” Grammy winners) team up to perform this seminal piece. Reich’s Sextet rounds out the program.
3. Bach/Brahms Project Cycle #2 feat. Joel Schoenhals on Piano
Friday, March 24, 8pm | Pease Auditorium, EMU
Schoenhals will perform piano pieces Op. 76 and Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79 by Johannes Brahms followed by Johann Sebastian Bach’s keyboard Partitas 3 and 5.
Brahms dedicated the two Rhapsodies Op. 79 to his trusted friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, who enthusiastically declared them “beautiful beyond measure.” The playful, Dvorak-like eccentricity of Brahms’ op. 76 no. 2 feels surprisingly modern and could almost be mistaken for an entr’acte by Shostakovich.
Schoenhals speaks of the bracing contrast when the richness of Brahms is followed by the transparency of Bach: “One experiences the huge range of expression that the piano is capable of.” Brahms’ thick, dark, rich textures call for lots of pedal, he explains, while Bach’s partitas, originally composed for harpsichord, use no pedal at all and are “more speechlike, with a lightness that is almost radiant.”
4. Movses Pogossian, violin: J.S. Bach’s Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin
Monday, March 20, 8pm | Kerrytown Concert House
The most intimate concert venue you will ever find. It’s like having a concert in your living room. Add world-class musicians and it is absolutely entrancing.
Armenian-born violinist Movses Pogossian made his American debut with the Boston Pops in 1990, about which Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe wrote: “There is freedom in his playing, but also taste and discipline. It was a fiery, centered, and highly musical performance…” He is a Prizewinner of the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Competition, and the youngest-ever First Prize winner of the 1985 USSR National Violin Competition, previous winners of which included David Oistrakh and Gidon Kremer. He has extensively performed as soloist and recitalist in Europe, Northern America, and Asia, with orchestras such as Moscow Philharmonic, Armenian Philharmonic, Toronto Sinfonia, and Brandenburger Symphoniker, among others.
Movses Pogossian is Professor of Violin at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. He participates in the Music for Food project, which raises awareness of the hunger problem faced by a large percent of the populations, and gives the opportunity to experience the powerful role music can play as a catalyst for change.
5. The Encounter: Complicite
Power Center
THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2017 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MARCH 31, 2017 8:00 PM
SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 2017 8:00 PM
“This production from the genre-bending Complicite company is one of the most fully immersive theater pieces ever created.” (New York Times) The Encounter comes to Ann Arbor following a three-month Broadway run this fall. Click here to watch the trailer.
Simon McBurney transports us into the humid depths of the Amazon, his storytelling served by the enveloping presence of binaural technology.
In 1969, National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre became hopelessly lost in a remote part of the Brazilian rainforest while searching for the Mayoruna people. His encounter was to test his perception of the world, bringing the limits of human consciousness into startling focus.
Threading scenes of his own life with details of McIntyre’s journey, McBurney incorporates objects and sound effects into this solo performance to evoke a rainforest landscape. Transmitted direct to the audience through provided headphones, the show’s ground-breaking sound design plugs into the power of the imagination, questioning our perceptions of time, communication and our own consciousness.
Headphones will be provided and must be worn throughout the performance.
Bonus event!
6. Piano Circus- An Anti-Piano Recital feat. Stephen Rush
Tuesday, March 21, 8:00 pm | UofM School of Music, Theatre & Dance
Earl V. Moore Building – Chip Davis Technology Studio
Professor Rush will attempt to re-define or destroy the idea of the piano recital through an event he calls “Piano Circus.”
The concert consists of a wide variety of music, including classic European avant-garde “hits” Evryali by Xenakis, Klavierstücke XI by Stockhausen, and Catalogue of the Birds (Book V) by Messiaen. Additional music by American composers Stevie Wonder, John Coltrane, Meredith Monk, John Cage, Tom Waits, Charles Ives, and Rush. The audience will experience the concert twice (or more), through 8-channel audio diffusion, with chopped-up playback of each piece, played over the actual performance by Rush himself. In other words, the music will be digitally parsed and played randomly (in small gestures) against the performance of the recital itself.
Also, the audience gets to select the order of the recital/circus by polling here: myumi.ch/aXwnp
The concert is under an hour, suitable for all ages, and seating is limited to 80.
