The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is presenting another "Virtual Recital," by one of their members today at 7 PM Chicago time, or 5 PM here in Los Angles.  (8 PM on the East Coast.)

The Virtual Recital is with CSO Principal Percussion Cynthia Yeh.  It was pre-recorded.

According to the CSO, "Yeh performs selections from Robert Honstein’s 2016 An Economy of Means, a work of dazzling virtuosity and ethereal soundscapes. 'With a few simple preparations—tin foil, a manila folder—and judicious usage of the vibraphone’s natural properties, I tried to build something vast and varied,' wrote the composer.

She follows this with Elden “Buster” Bailey’s effervescent Two Sticks in Search of a Waltz for xylophone and a vibraphone transcription of an arrangement of Antônio Carlos Jobim’s Brazilian bossa nova classic Chega de Saudade.  

You can watch the concert at this link here on the CSO YouTube Channel  However, it may stream on this player below.

A few weeks back, I posted a video from the Art Institute of Chicago in which they give the public short "virtual tours" of exhibits, now that the museum is temporarily closed.  That first one here was on their display of the works of El Greco.

They've also now started doing short video studies of some of the more famous paintings in their collection.  And so, for today, we have a 2-1/2 minute look into the renowned "Sunday on La Grande Jatte," which is especially well-known to lovers of musical theater as the inspiration of Stephen Sondheim's show, Sunday in the Park with George, with a book by James Lapine..

So now, we return to the Culture Corner as part of our Home Education effort to provide some refinement to these pages...
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While the museum is shut down and people are shuttered at home, the Art Institute of Chicago is creating short "video tours" of some of their exhibits. As a member, I get their email updates, and figured that I should pass them along. This first is a brief, 2-minute exploration of the exhibition El Greco: Ambition and Defiance, led by curator Rebecca Long and research associate Jena Carvana. "Follow along as they lead you through the galleries and share some of the reasons El Greco and his work continue to fascinate us."

I've written here in the past about what a terrific artist my cousin Diana Leviton Gondek is, who works out of the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago, where she's an artist-in-residence.  I'm biased, of course, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.  (Among other things, she was commissioned to make life-size fiberglass horses to honor fallen Chicago police officers, of which one work was displayed at Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's office.  And she was commissioned to do the artiwork for the 50th anniversary of the Special Olympics, which got its start in Chicago.)  You can see much of her work here, in case you want to see some actual visual evidence.

It was therefore a treat to read an absolutely wonderful article about Diana -- described as "Famed American artist" (which admittedly may come as a surprise to Jackson Pollock, though it allowed her to write me back, addressed as "Dear Cousin of Famed Artist") -- for an international women's magazine, eShe Magazine, published out of New Delhi, India. 

The article is detailed, but not terribly long, and I heartily recommend it -- biased as I am -- for the stories she tells about how she got from there to here.  What stood out most to me was talking about her mother, my Aunt Iris, who was an inspiration and so supportive of her.  It couldn't have been otherwise, since Aunt Iris was as close to being the living incarnation of 'Auntie Mame' as anyone I've ever come across -- though in fairness, that's help by her being my actual aunt.  Something not even Diana can claim.

You can read the full article here.

Unrelated to the article, but part of the whole "This is Diana" picture, she mentioned to me a wonderful-sounding workshop she's putting together for an Art of Epilepsy Exhibition, done with young artists who have epilepsy. After they finish their paintings on what life story they wish to tell, Diana will then create a sort of montage, "our version of the Chagall’s American Windows," is how she puts it, with the hope being to have it all come together at the Epilepsy Conference this fall.  The Neurologist in charge of the overall project, Dr. Julie Thompson-Dobkin, said she wants to use Diana's idea in other states where the exhibition is shown.

(If you don't know the Chagall American Windows, they're a mosaic he did for the Chicago Art Institute.  Here's a photo I took of it, which is three large panels together.)

And just so we end on Diana, and not that Chagall fellow -- who, great and famed as he is, he is not American, nor Diana, here is one of her horses, this the one outside then-Mayor Emmanuel's office. 

(Side note:  After I took the photo at City Hall, I spent a while there typing away on my cell phone.  As this whole process took a while -- including quite a few attempts trying to find the best angle to get the horse, door and Mayor's sign in the frame. with the cordoned-off area in the way -- it eventually caught the attention of some official people there who politely but pointedly asked me, "Er, sir, what are you doing??"  I explained that my cousin designed the horses and I was trying to write an email to her, tapping letter-by-letter with my thumbs, not one of my top skills, and figuring out how to send the picture.  That satisfied their concern, and since they all expressed how much they liked the horse, I even got bonus points for being Cousin of Famed Artist, a title I am now considering putting on my business cards)

Classical musical station KUSC in Los Angeles has done some weird things over the years, mostly during the last five or so.  This concerns one of my bugaboos.  It's not anything major, just personal.  But then, that's the point of a bugaboo. The underlying theme behind all of them at KUSC is that the station has been dumbing down its programming. It's still quite respectable.  Just less so than before.  And if such things are needed to keep classical music on the radio dial, I get it.   I know we're lucky to have a classical musical station in Los Angeles unlike many cities.  Though I've heard classical music stations in some of the other cities that still do have theirs, and the level of weirdness is less.  Then again, in fairness, this is Los Angeles.  Though in equal fairness, because this is Los Angeles, the entertainment center of the U.S., if you're going to do shtick, you'd better do it really well because the competition is strong.

Anyway, back to the show.  And what follows is nothing especially substation -- just another one of my occasional personal bugaboo tales --

​Between 7-8 in the morning, which is generally when I get up, the station started two features about 10-15 years ago.  The first of these features, which comes on at 7:15 is the "Off to School" request selection.  I wrote about it here at great length, so I will spare you and not repeat it all again. The very short version is that it's a perfectly fine idea in theory -- letting kids request a classical music selection in the morning -- but is dismal in practice. Not only because they eventually realized that not enough kids were requesting classical music, so they've had to expand the "Off to School" concept to the point of meaningless, by now allowing requests from just about anyone in the world who has children regardless of age or has grandchildren or students, or who knows someone who may have once been a child -- but also because when an actual child does request something, it's almost always a movie theme (which isn't classical music) and usually the theme from Harry Potter.

The other feature comes along around 7:45 in the morning, the Great Composer Quiz.  Again, in theory it's a perfectly nice idea.  The host who created the idea at least put in the time to come up with thoughtful clues before playing a piece of music by the Great Composer who you were supposed to guess.  He was a bit overly-pedantic in presenting the quiz, making it seem Oh-So-Important ("...and so...who IS...today's -- GREAT...COMPOSER??!") but it was handled fine, and an okay guessing game.  

When a new host came in, though, his heart was never in it.  And worse, he didn't want to risk any listening not possibly missing the right answer, so it came across like he didn't try to come up with clues until five minutes before, and his clues would be things like, "Okay, today's Great Composer was German, and famous for writing operas like The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, and a movie was made about his life that won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and he was considered a child prodigy who had a rival name Antonio Salieri and his name rhymed with "oat-zart."  And here's a piece of music he wrote -- and would then play "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."  But what made it worst of all is that after all these clues, he'd say, "Okay, I think after all of that you should really be able to get it now!!" which not only is not the point of a quiz, but it only served to make listeners feel really terrible if after all those easy clues they couldn't guess it.

I only bring this up today because this morning they went from the ridiculous to the sublime  There was a new host today -- I don't know if this is temporary or permanent, though she did a nice job -- and it doesn't seem like she has quite grasped the best way to handle the Great Composer Quiz yet.  It was actually sort of funny.  From "You will probably be able to guess this even if you have never listened to classical music in your life and accidentally just landed on this station today", we now are at "You probably won't be able to guess this unless you have a PhD in musical composition and a Ouija board."

I am not exaggerating today's Great Composer Quiz.  The clues were basically -- "Today's composer was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.  He only ate fish.  He was a bachelor.  And he was part of a group known as 'The Five.'  So, who is today's Great Composer?"  Okay, on three, all together, one -- two...wait, the looks on your faces suggest that those clues didn't help much.  Not to worry, I'm not too big to admit I didn't have a clue either.  But then I thought, well, maybe, the piece of music will ring a bell with me.  No, it didn't.  Not the slightest idea.

So, I waited to hear who the Great Composer was.  I know there are a lot of well-regarded classical composers whose names I recognize, but don't know all that well.  People like Scriabin, Monteverdi, Purcell, Donizetti, Messiaen, and such, composers I've heard of but know very little about and would have a hard time recognizing their music.  Though I know that experts would know them well.

And so, who was today's Great Composer who likes fish, is a bachelor and was born in Nizhny Novgorod?  It was none other than -- Mily Balakirev!!

And I hear the collective "Ahhhhhhhhh, of course!!  It was Balakirev!" from all of you.

I suppose that KUSC will continue to run these features for a while -- probably a long while.  And that's okay.  At heart, the idea behind them is fine.  And I am certain that there are many many who loooove the.  Fair enough. (And fair enough, too, that there are those who don't.)  It is just my fondest wish that if the station is going to have Fun Features that they actually figure out how to make them fun.  And make them work properly.  And not just be time fillers to seem clever and audience-involving when instead they handle them like afterthoughts.

Handel.  Now, if that was the Great Composer, I might have been able to guess it...

Though I'm a member of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, I'm not a big fan of the place.  I find the collection and presentation a bit stale and pedestrian, more "folk art" and artifacts than I personally care for.  (In fairness, LACMA is under a major renovation, so it seems likely that the presentation will change, and we'll see if there is any addition to the core collection.)  However, it's certainly an important organization, has a respectable foundation of works, and often they have very good traveling exhibitions.

I went there a few weeks back, and the day was a combination of both.  On the one hand, they had two exhibitions that did little for me.  One was one the Art of Korean Writing, which was largely big displays of calligraphy in Korean.  Another was a photography exhibition by Thomas Joshua Cooper.  For me, I love good photography and have some framed in my home, but when presented in an exhibition, or at an art museum what I want is for it to be at another level, using the camera not just for making beautiful pictures, but to create imagery that brings insight to the human condition or natural world that we wouldn't see otherwise.  

This what I mean.  I can't do what Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Chagall and other painters do.  They operate on another level from most people.  Even artists who work at a more accessible style, they bring their own sensibility to their work -- the perspective they choose, the materials they use, the use of their brush, the twisting of reality or the pointed observation.  But most people can take a good photograph, even lucking out with something special if the light and perspective are just right totally by chance.  I have some really nice photos that I've taken.  They aren't remotely as good or artistic as what a professional photographer does, taking and manipulating the image, but even just being point-and-shoot they're in the range of where you can compare them.  You can't, however, compare my stick-figure drawings to Renoir or even "dogs playing poker."  To be clear, when a photographer like Ansel Adams or Gordon Parks or Richard Avedon transcend beautiful pictures and bring out visions of humanity, then (to me) those reach the level where artistry is their core.  But for my personal taste, you need that, not just taking beautiful, interesting images.  I can take beautiful, interesting images-- not nearly as well, but I can do it.  Most people can do it.  And sometimes, yes, even as well. 

Really.

Here are two color photos in the Cooper exhibit from his visit to Antarctica.  The one on the left is "Whiteout."  The picture on the right is titled "South Pole Winter Solstice."
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I can do that.  Both of them.  I can do it by accident, screwing up.  I just have to leave to cap on the lens.  Or simply accidentally overexpose the shot as much as possible.  Or take a picture of the sun.

My point isn't that these are bad or good.  Some people may love them.  Fair enough.  My point is just that I can do that.  I can't do what Salvador Dali did.  (Yes, I know there is some modern art like these two photos.  Forgetting for the moment that I don't care for that in paintings either, at least those have texture in the brush work and the choice of oils or water color.  These are just white and black.  I got up close and looked.  There was no texture.  It's just a white photograph.  And a black one.  And again, maybe he did it in a technique that make these work in a way that I couldn't.  But -- I could take two pictures like this and come close.  I can't come close to Michelangelo.)

To be fair, not all of Cooper's photos were like this.  Some were extremely nice.  But even at that -- and again, this is just personal taste -- I want more than "extremely nice photographs" when I'm taking my time to visit a museum.  I want Henri-Cartier Bresson and Annie Liebowitz.  I want Dorthea Lange's faces of the Great Depression.

On the other hand, there was a very interesting exhibit called "The Allure of Matter:  Material Art from China."  It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but eventually I did -- all the art work used material other than the traditional sources we expect of paintings.  No oil, no water color.  Instead, they all used everyday objects to create their art.  It worked on two levels:  they were rich and interesting as standalone pieces, whatever the material, but they were also fascinating to view up close for how the everyday world was manipulated into art.

Here are two examples.

The first by Zhang Huan is hard to do justice because there is a dimensional texture to painting (especially one using a the kind of material Zhang works with), and any online graphic will flatten them out.  But this was his, I guess you'd call it, painting.

I found it very rich, moody and textured with interesting detail.  Only when I walked closer, read the description and looked at it up close did I realize that that was made entirely with ashes.  With his assistants, he separated piles of ash into different piles depending on their shade.  And from that, he created the work.  This below is a close-up of one of the people shoveling, so you can perhaps get a hint of what I'm describing.
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And then there's one other that struck my fancy.  When I walked into the large room, I again didn't know what the work was, just that it seemed like a very effective piece of impressionism.  Perhaps a big rug.  But again, when I got close up to it, on my knees, in fact, that's where I saw how it was made.  And almost burst out laughing.  Why the artist Xu Bing chose the material, who knows?  But he got a wonderful result.  A photo won't get any of this across, so I took a video.  Watch it all the way through -- it's only about a half-minute.  

It's not just that this was a clever use of material, but even if it was made of wool or some fabric it was an interesting design on its own merits.

But made with cigarettes??  By the way, when I walked in the room, there was an odd aroma permeating the place.  I couldn't quite place it, but then realized that there must have been people in there smoking, which was contrary to being in an art museum and likely against all the rules.  Of course, I eventually figured out it was the overwhelming smell of tobacco.

One last tale.

Another exhibit was called "Sound Stories" by Christian Marclay.  It was a collection of dark rooms that each used sound in a different way.  I won't say whether I found it good or bad, but it was at least interesting and sort of fun to wander through.  I say "sort of" for the reason of the tale.  As I said, the area was all dark, with only the exhibits offering some light, along with exit signs.  There also was a low bench -- painted (for some reason, perhaps because they wanted it to blend in) black.  And I have a condition that's called night blindness.  So, as you might imagine, a low black bench in a darkened room is not the ideal situation for folks, especially thems with night blindness.  The good news is that I didn't have to go to the gift shop because I still have a memento of the visit with me on my shin, three weeks later.  Additionally good news is that I am no longer hobbling...