Concerts & Performances 2010-2011

This is a partial list of the many concerts that I've seen between 2010-2011. 

Many of them were Handel and Hayden Society performances that I was lucky enough to view while I was interning with the organization, or more recently as a volunteer to support their efforts. 

•  H&H Passion in Vienna - Symphony Hall - 18th century Vienna - Harry Christophers conducts Mozart, Caldara, and Gluck.
• I saw Luciana Souza at Harvard's Sanders Theater this January. She played music from her most recent album the tide and she performed with several unbelievable percussionists. Check out: http://www.lucianasouza.com/
• BSO Carter, Berlioz and Ravel, Symphony Hall, Levine - Open Rehearsal, Jan 29
• H&H Zest for Love - Sander's Theater - Romantic vocal music, & readings from Shakespeare Conducted by Laurence Cummings
• H&H A Musical Salon - 19th-century English salon atmosphere, music from Mozart and Schubert
• Dropkick Murphys - St. Patty's Day Show, House of Blues
• BSO Mendelssohn and Rossini - Symphony Hall, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, March 19
• BSO Sibelius, Lieberson and Schubert - Symphony Hall, Conducted by Jayce Ogren, March 25
• New England Philharmonic w/ H&H Young Chorus & Simmons College Concert Choir
• H&H Beethoven Pastoral - Conducted by Sir Roger Norrington. Beethoven: Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral" & Symphony No. 4
• H&H Bach Portrait - Harry Christophers conducts the Brandenburg Concerto no. 5, plus Bach cantatas and motets.
• Rossini's Armida, with Renee Flemming, live broadcasted in HD from the Metropolitan Opera, NYC, in an AMC theater, MA
• Lady Gaga's Monster Ball at TD Banknorth Garden. June 2010.   

• Andrea Bocelli - Christmas in Boston, TD Banknorth Garden. December 2010
• H & H The Messiah - Symphony Hall. Deember 2010
• H & H Handel's Israel in Egypt. February 20, 2011. Symphony Hall
• H & H The Society Ball - Gala Event - Valentine's Day - 2011
• H & H Harry's Vocal Voyage.  Harvard Memorial Church. April 1, 2011
• Boston Bruins - Game 4 Playoffs V. Tampa @ Garden, May 23rd.
• Boston Bruins - Game 4 V. Kanuks @ Garden, June 8th.

Bollywood Obsession - SRK is #1

I've become borderline obsessed with Hindi/ film. I've decided to comment on each film that I see.

Dostana - Very funny, romantic, sweet, popular music. Took a very LIBERAL approach to film and discussed some of the major disparities in conventional India life/tradition. The music made the movie.

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi - My favorite so far. Shahrukh Khan can play ANY role SO convincingly! This movie was so creative and the music was phenomenal.

Jab We Met Took me awhile to get into it, but once I did, I was hooked. Super acting and wonderful music.

Billu Barber - Shahrukh Khan plays an actor, how difficult for him! :p Great story with a good lesson, great acting, good music.

Welcome - very humorous, good dancing, lame plot. That's all.

Taare Zameen Par Meaning "Every Child is Special" - Aamir Khan produced and directed. So sad, so well made. Examined the problems with the Indian school systems and how they can be changed to make a huge difference in the lives of many children. Cried throughout the whole film.

Bride & Prejudice - Hollywood's attempt at Bollywood, terrible music/choreography.

Hollywood/Bollywood A pretty decent movie that connects the finer points of a bollywood film to an American chick-flick. The music was generally pretty bad, ok, terrible, but I enjoyed the larger lessons from the movie.

Hera Pheri This is a HYSTERICAL film that is essentially a comedy of errors. It looked like it was made in the 80's although I heard it was recently made, but it seems pretty timeless because it talks about age old issues like poverty and it encapsulates the current global unemployment pandemic.

Veer-Zaara This is the best SRK film that I've seen, it's plot is the most beautiful tale of love and courage with Preity Zinta and Rani Mukerji

Chak De! India Another amazing Shahrukh Khan film. In this he must make up for his incredible, unjust mistake of losing the Hindustani-Pakistani Men's World Cup Field Hockey Match - by coaching the Women's Team 7 years later and changing the widespread opinion that women cannot play hockey and are inferior to men. Touching and inspiring film. I give a 5/10 for the music as there was really only 1 great song.

Salaam Namaste Another Yash Chopra film with Preity Zinta and Saif Ali Khan who have a crazy mix up of love and marriage and pregnancy. This was the first film that took a decently realistic view of modern Indian life.

Jaan-E-Mann Starring Akshay Kumar, Salman Khan and Preity Zinta. Eh....not very exciting. But I love Preity. <3

Hum-Tum Another Yash Chopra film, so so great. Starring Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji - it's witty, romantic and pretty decent music. Animated scenes, but mostly a beautiful story of people who keep re-meeting and fall in love. At least 3times I wanted to jump out of my seat with emotion so I give it a good rating.

Om Shanti Om featuring Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone. This told a story which continued into another that would make a non believer be convinced by reincarnation. I was impressed with the plot, the acting, the music the dancing the whole thing really.

Chalte Chalte With Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukerji in a story within a story. So romantic in a very non traditional, modernist way. <3 it. 

Bachna Ae Haseeno Ranbir Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, and Minissha Lamba. Such Fantastic music! Sweet.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai This was the most beautiful story with a young SRK and Kojol and Rani...they are fresh and cute and the romance was painful and I criiiiiiied but what a classic!

Chance Pe Dance Shahid Kapoor, Genelia D' Souza, Mohnish Behl. All that we need to know about the life of the Bollywood struggler. Great, although the music was lacking. 

Rocket Singh

Pyaar Impossible

Read more at: http://movies.ndtv.com/movie_review.aspx?id=471&albumname=Chance%20Pe%20Dance&cp

Read more at: http://movies.ndtv.com/movie_review.aspx?id=471&albumname=Chance%20Pe%20Dance&cp

Music Education

Yesterday I sat with a brilliant man at a picnic.
We discussed music teaching methods and some of the most enormous questions.

Do music educators teach using methods that will reach everyone, but that is limited in its ability to offer a higher level of understanding for those who could learn and thus leave everyone at a level of mediocrity?

OR

Do educators teach using a method that some students will most certainly be unable to excel with, while it offers more capable students an opportunity for massive understanding and musical growth, leaving a large disparity of knowledge between students on the educational spectrum?

I was able to discuss this with the gentlemen music director because I am reasonably informed on the subject, having spent my childhood following my mom to Orff classes, master classes, conductors seminars, choral lectures, music educators seminars, master of Ed graduate courses, etc etc.

He was shocked at the end of the discussion and said:

"And YOU got your DEGREE in Business Management??!"
I nodded at this, unable to say much.
He said then: "Well, as long as you have music in your life, it's ok that you chose the path to a bigger paycheck".

All I could do was think of the hard working music educators that receive the smallest of paychecks, many of whom are underpaid, undervalued, underutilized and live day to day, constantly trying to be the best educator they can.

Alas, I give the utmost respect to these individuals who make it their life work to inspire creativity, musical intelligence and most importantly to inspire greatness in all those that they teach.