Stop. Look. Listen.

A terrifying drive on a California freeway, set to appropriate music. (Thank you to Mind the Gap.)

Wendy Edsall-Kerwin at Hammermarks considers the importance of community. (And now you’re in the blogroll!)

Pecha Kucha is back at Creative House of Lancaster; details here.

Sunshine and samba: If you missed the article on Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes in the New York Times, here’s a link. She’s one of the artists associated with Durham Press fine art prints in Bucks County. (Durham Press was the subject of an exhibition at PCA&D five years ago.)

Grace Hartigan, 1922-2008.

It’s time for the annual fall pottery sale at Millersville University, in the ceramics studio in the basement of Breidenstine Hall, Nov. 20-22. Hours are 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. For more information call 872-3298, or contact associate professor of art Debbie Sigel at 872-3301.

The sales are held twice and year and have been going on for about 10 years, Sigel said. Both student and alumni work will be for sale, with prices ranging from $5 to a “couple hundred” for a few of the larger works. There’ll be lots to choose from: “The room is full,” Sigel says. The funds raised from the sale are used to send students to the National conference of ceramics educators in Phoenix, Arizona.

Or maybe we should call it “Doggleworks”. The Kennel Club of Philadelphia will be holding its 2008 dog shows at the Reading Expo Center Nov. 22-23, and the Goggleworks Center for the Arts joins in the fun with ”Paws for Art: A Canine Collection.” Your dog is invited, too! Read more here. 

I have actually heard, I forget where, the complaint that classical music “isn’t loud enough.” Friday’s Lancaster Symphony Orchestra concert at the Fulton Opera House was more than loud enough, with a program that was full both musically and emotionally. And not only was the orchestra expanded for the occasion but the concert marked the debut of the newest version of the Lancaster Symphony Chorus and its new chorusmaster, William Wright.

You want hits? Here was Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” in all its cosmic, terrifying glory. You want popular, accessible, upbeat music? Take noted film composer John Williams’ “Call of the Champions,” composed for the opening ceremonies of  the 2002 Winter Olympics and just as rallying and forceful as you would expectof tension (not without lighthearted moments). As the strings slid up and down, a storm built up in the brass section and the chorus entered, singing on the wordless syllable “ah.” As the strings ran wild, the brass returned with a stern theme and the whole movement came to a sudden and unresolved end.

The second movement, “Ignacio’s Dream,” featured the chorus, against a background of violins, singing the words of Ignatio calling out to his love: “Marcelina can you hear me? … Was it a dream?” Marcelina and Ignacio, the soldier who killed Marcelina’s father and whom she must learn to forgive, are the central characters of the opera. The movement also includes a lovely solo for the flute. Lively Latin rhythms and a cheerful, upbeat mood pervade the third movement, “Rhythm of a City” as the chorus, entering on a long-held “Oh,” sings “Can you hear it coming? Can you hear it humming? Can you hear the rhythm?” The mood changes radically in the solemn “Ave Maria,” in which high, hushed strings and harp accompany the chorus, which enters on the notes of the tritone, a dissonant interval which establishes a mood of quiet pleading. (According to the program notes, this is sung as the townspeople of Barelas watch the silent fallout from the White Sands nuclear test in 1945.)

Tenor Blake Smith shone in the fifth movement, in which Ignatio, now homeless, laments his loneliness amid the drug dealers and street people of the present day. He brought the character to life (hinting at what the full opera would be like) as he sang of his seemingly hopeless love for Marcelina. In this movement, consoling and lovely moments — moments for piano and harp, the chorus singing a reprise of “Ave Maria” alternate with dramatic and terrifying passages. It all ended in a violent chord as a dying woman who plays a prominent role in the opera calls for the curse on Ignatio to be lifted. In the final movement, “Sunrise,” the brass plays fanfares and chorus and orchestra join in a song of triumph, in a percussive and pounding finale ending in a series of shouts from the chorus. It was colorful, breathtaking and LOUD. The man next to me observed “It may not have legs, but it certainly has lungs!”

In accepting the Composer’s Award, del Aguila called the list of composers who have received the award since it was instituted in 1959 “truly a who’s who of American composers” and noted that “I am the first Spanish-sounding name” on the list. Del Aguila also speculated that, being on the same program as “The Planets,” he had been recruited to supply the movement for the Earth that is missing from that work. “I humbly accepted, to represent all humanity,” he said wryly, adding that “I put my foot down” when informed that there were also “a few pages missing from Uranus.” (An LSO first, at least on stage.) More seriously, del Aguila told the audience that “the most important thing for me is the emotion; to be able to talk to you in the voice that is my voice that is music.” And the audience got the message, to judge from the shouts and cheers that erupted at the conclusion of the work.

“The Planets” is a very familiar piece of music and it got a pulse-pounding performance Friday night. The warlike “Mars” section was suitably overwhelming, the “Jupiter” section was as “positive and joyous” as one could wish. “Mercury” was fleet, “Uranus” was humorously scary and the launch into the unknown with “Neptune, the Mystic,” contained all the mystery one could wish. On the other hand, the “Venus” section went by a little too quickly.

The flute section shone in this performance, as did the two harps and the trombones. There were some problems with the French horns, however, which had a detrimental effect on the Venus and Neptune movements. And, in this case, the particular acoustic quality of the Fulton Opera House really worked against the music. Most of the time one can ignore the space’s dry sound, but in this case, for the moments in which the flutes and harps join and most especially when the offstage women’s chorus fades into nothingness at the end, the lack of reverb was something of a disadvantage.

On the other hand, I’ve heard so many muddy recordings of this work that I’d take this performance, horn goofs and all, over quite a number of others. The Mars movement, in particular, is worth it all by itself. The del Aguila piece is a can’t-miss work, and as for the Williams, it’s another highlight. From an Orff-like beginning from the chorus crying out “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (higher, faster, stronger), the Olympic motto, through brass fanfares, stirring string melodies and all the positive spirit one could want from such a work, it was given a sparkling performance (thanks in part to the glockenspiel).

I should also note that the performance also saw the debut of a new associate concertmaster, Netanel Draiblate, from Israel by way of Baltimore, who revealed a rich and romantic manner in his solos. Looking forward to hearing more from him, as well as from the chorus, who displayed fine enunciation when it was called for.

This is the only concert I’ve been to (as far as I recall) that had an art show associated with it: Kathleen Abel’s shallow-relief paper sculptures of the seven planets (and their symbols) represented in the Holst work. The colorful works are displayed on the second-floor lobby.

The performances continue today and Sunday (Nov. 15 and 16). Check here for details.

This weekend’s Lancaster Symphony Orchestra program features Gustav Holst’s The Planets, Miguel del Aguila’s Choral Suite No. 2 (read more about the composer here)and John Williams’ “Call of the Champions,” composed for the 2002 Winter Olympics. All this and art, too!

Following your dreams is one of the main threads running through the work of Connie De Alva Higgins, now on display through Nov. 30 at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center’s first-ever art exhibit, “Latin Soul/Alma Latina,” at its 150 S. Prince St. building. I stopped by on First Friday, Nov. 7, and spoke briefly with the artist. A native of Monterrey, Mexico and a graphic designer, she has been living in the U.S. for two years and had her first show in July in York. A painter since she was a child, she owned a print shop in Mexico for 18 years before getting married and moving to York two years ago. “I wasn’t working and I had to do something,” she comments. She had her first area show at the Moondancer Winery in Wrightsville in July, and has also shown her work at the York Art Association and other locations. She uses a lot of different textures in her acrylic paintings, using materials like paper and sand, and, in one painting, finely-ground cedar chips. In another painting, “Running” (shown at right), she has incorporated bits of sea glass, smoothed by sand and waves. The figure plays an important role, as in “Manten tu Cara al Sol, y Nunca Veras las Sombres” (shown at above left with Higgins) and in “Mother Nature,” a double image of trees that form the torso of a woman. “I love nature; I love the changing trees up here,” she comments. Her work is also on display at the Lancaster Red Rose Credit Union’s newest branch on S. Prince St, right next door to the Cultural Center. Other works shown here are “Agave” (left) and “Flor Roja” (right). More information is available at the center, (717) 397-8597.

A snapshot or two from November’s First Friday in downtown Lancaster: Matthew Lester’s “Champ’s: A Photographic Project,” Champ’s Barber School, 54 W. King St.

Tapestry, a four-woman singing group that sprang from Boston’s lively early-music scene in 1995, sang of heaven and its inhabitants, beauty and light — and darkness, too – at Elizabethtown College’s Leffler Chapel and Performance Center Sunday evening in a program titled “In the Company of Angels.” Soprano Cristi Catt and mezzo-sopranos Laurie Monahan, Daniela Tošić and Carolann Buff (who joined the group in 2001) wove a near-seamless bridge leaping from medieval plainchant to present-day interpretations of ancient musical practice. Singing in various configurations (accompanied by Monahan on a small harp in two selections), the four women brought the music to life. Catt occasionally soared into the stratosphere like a bird let loose, Tošić and Buff provided a rock-solid lower line and Monahan bringing a lyrical, rich tone to the performance, which ebbed and flowed, surging forward with energy, then pooling into unisons, the breathing in-breathing out rhythm of life.

 They sang 13th century works, comprising two anonymous selections from the composers who were part of the creative flowering of polyphony at Notre Dame Cathedral and one from Pérotin, the Notre Dame school’s finest composer and one of only two whose name we know, and a single selection from the Las Huelgas Codex, associated with a community of nuns in Spain. Jumping back a century or so, they performed two works by Hildegard of Bingen, the 12th-century abbess whose plainsong compositions seem to leap up to heaven.

Serving as weft to the warp of these hundreds-of-years-old works were compositions by two women of the present day: Joan Szymko and Patricia Van Ness. Szymko, a conductor, composer, performer and educator based in the Pacific Northwest, was represented by “Nada te Turbe,” a setting of words by the 16th century St. Teresa of Avila, sung in Spanish and English. The work used a rich and contemporary harmonic language, echoing medieval practice in its use of lively repeated rhythmic cells. 

The entire second half of the program was given over to sections of New England-based composer Van Ness’s “The Nine Orders of the Angels.” (Two of her shorter works were performed during the first part of the program, as well) Van Ness wrote the texts as well as composed the music, and her words invoke the mysteries of the unknown, sudden revelations and the intersection of the spiritual and the mundane, as when the Angel of the Thrones declares “My arms hold the knowledge of the/Material World …” She sees the Archangel Gabriel, messenger to Mary, (II) as a “bearer of divine secrets,” visiting the world at twilight: “In the sapphire night you whirl/ Dancing the great dance.” The Angels of Power bring creative energy, but can turn into angels of death “Like great cats with bloody fangs/ whose claws are filled with darkness.” To set these mystical words, Van Ness uses the techniques of the medieval composers, including organum: florid melodies sung above long-held notes. But the melodies blossom from the turmoil of the 20th century and bring hints of tumult and dissonance — in other words, it sounds ancient and modern all at once. A strong thread running through the performance was the contribution of women: Hildegard and Teresa, both of whom defied convention and opposition, and the contemporary composers, both female, both engaging with tradition in different but related ways.

In the interests of full disclosure, I must admit that I was late for the performance and missed the first two pieces on the program (well, I heard a tiny chunk of Van Ness’s “Ego sum custos angela”). A pity: one doesn’t want to miss any part of a program as good as this. I have one quibble, however. There were texts and performer biographies in the program, but no music notes, and no information on the composers. This was the second concert I went to in two days that didn’t have program notes. I hope this isn’t a trend.

The next Gretna Music concert is Guitarnival, coming up Nov. 21. More information is available here.