Richard Tognetti on the Washington Trip

Washington D.C. in 4 nights: 2 radio performances, 3 interviews, 2 evening concerts in the Kennedy Center and 48 hours of travel.

Writing this sitting on the plane going home, up the front (NO! NOT FANCY CLASS). Squashed like sardines - at least sardines all smell the same, do they to other sardines? On that line of thought do anchovies smell like anchovies to other anchovies? Can’t believe how many people they squeeze into these U.S. airlines to get us from the East to the West coast, with no food, and depriving us even of wine through prohibitive costs. Can’t help comparing this most unfavourably to our own Perth to Sydney “red-eye” special. Considering it’s only 4 hours less than a trip to Singapore it’s pretty low standard considering we’re in the self-proclaimed “service” capital of the world.

Once on the international sector we enter into a zombie land. I am jealous of those zombies around me who can fall asleep; but then I get to watch a year’s worth of T.V. and movies in one stretch.

In the Loop is a deliciously vicious, biting satire of a movie focusing on political advisers in the lead up to the Bush/Cheney war. Made by Androo Iannucci, a well-known figure in the U.K. and almost unheard of here in Oz.

Then followed a documentary on cross dressing husbands complete with a lovely corpulent normal Norm with a Scottish accent who loves to discover his inner being by dressing up as a woman. There was nothing particularly new in this - but tender and affecting.

That pales into the perfectly understandable compared with Men who love dolls. A doco on men who commission life size dolls with whom they live and love - emotionally and physically!

The funniest was also the most thought provoking - The WI And The Search For The Perfect Brothel.

Prostitution in England is still illegal in 2009! Some want this changed including two prim, elderly ladies who are members of the W.I.(Women's Institute), boasting 205,000 members. These two classic, mature ladies (if they were cars, think old Rovers) took it upon themselves to better the conditions for working ladies in their home country through hands on investigative reporting. They travelled to Amsterdam and posed in the glass booths (to get a view from the inside), they went to Nevada to meet some legal hookers at the Bunny Ranch whorehouse and finished up in N.Z. to speak with some self-employed ladies in the land of the long white cloud. On their return home they rented a mini-bus and set up a mobile brothel and armed with a petition they delivered it and their persuasive argument to parliament. Exceptional viewing. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1039152/Not-quite-jam-Jerusalem-Womens-Institute-ladies-toured-world-search-perfect-brothel.html#ixzz0VNN95E2A

Next up was Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void sequel The Beckoning Silence, whereby he retraces the ascent and shocking descent of one of the pioneer mountain climbers of the infamous and dreaded north face of the Eiger mountain in the Berner Oberland in Switzerland. You may remember Joe Simpson as the climber who fell into a Peruvian crevasse in Touching the Void (book and movie).

Before cramming on-plane entertainment, we presented two concerts, one “regular” including Bartok’s Divertimento, Handel, Vine etc. The second was our Travellers program with Joseph and James Tawadros. These concerts were our contribution to the mini Oz Festival “Australia Presents” (thanks to Ambassador Denis Richardson and his team). Incidentally, the Ambassador’s wife Betty comes from Wollongong.

We collated a distinctive mixture of music with a focus on Joseph’s music. It deserves to be heard around the world. Why? It spectacularly represents the modern world of derivative-cultural expression. Joe was born in Egypt and emigrated to Australia aged 2.

We were worried about keeping Joseph’s, shall we say, verbal entertainment to a minimum, for a crowd unfamiliar with Oz/Arabic humour. He is a comedic collaborator with Akmal Saleh (Akmal.com.au) after all.

Joseph is a Coptic Christian. What defines a Coptic Christian? Academically, the Copts are part of the “communion of Eastern Christian Churches that recognize only three ecumenical councils”. Ethnically, they comprise the largest collection of Christians in the Arabic world.

It comes as little surprise to learn that not all is well between the Christian Arabs of Egypt and the dominant Muslims. This is from the Christian Solidarity Worldwide Website:

Government Positions and Employment 

Egypt’s Coptic community is poorly represented in the higher levels of government, in the military and in senior teaching positions. Out of 28 Egyptian governors, none are Christian and there are no Christian ambassadors, heads of universities or deans. The country’s People’s Assembly contains just seven Copts, only three of whom are elected — a gross under-representation.
Education
Coptic Christians are not able to attend the famous Al-Azhar University in Cairo. The Coptic language is not taught at Universities and the Coptic era in Egyptian history has been omitted in school history lessons, until this year, where it has been taught in state schools for the first time. The Koran is often used to teach the Arabic language to students, including Christians, and Arabic language teachers are Muslim. Every school has a mosque, but no similar places of prayer exist for Christians.
Naturally, Joseph identifies with Oz-Arabs (Islamic) and hence his humour can fall foul of politically correct society. In his solo gig in the Festival Maribor last year, he told the audience he hoped they would come to his orchestral concert, which would fall on 9.11. He assured them it would be an explosive gig! JOE!!! Bad taste, Joe. The Governor of NSW who was in attendance was not impressed. It’s just irrepressible Joe I assured her. I suffered a similar response when he explained to a packed hall in Brisbane that the listener during the Tarab (the improvised section in his compositions) is meant to enter into a state of ecstasy. He followed with “I know you think that’s what I sell”. Bad taste, Joe.

This is the man of the non-stop pickup line. To one of our new recruits Maddie Boud: We’re made for each, what with ‘oud in your name. And to another a txt: Dinner, movie? The Sultan!

So we kept him verbally silent (until the encore). But he couldn’t help telling ridiculous jokes before going on stage. What do you call a bee that expresses milk? A boobee.

But ha, that’s just all on the surface. As soon as he starts playing, all humour is wiped away and a powerful and overwhelmingly strong musical presence is revealed.

How does it work with an orchestra?

Joe wrote the solo oud part and then we worked together to formulate these arrangements for strings. We had loosely in mind the notion of an Egyptian string orchestra, whereby the strings are part of the call and response, often with a tutti section offering an improvised response. Our arrangements don’t allow for tutti improvisations, which begs for a type of chaos that might simply be too much for a classical ear. But we do always have an impro section before the reprise of the main theme, featuring Max on bass, Joe, RT on violin and James on Req. It is in this section that we try to enter into a state of Tarab.

Joseph’s themes are always sturdy, both rhythmically and melodically and they provide a fecund environment for embellishment, development and arrangement. He’s a truly gifted composer and once he starts playing I have a feeling a lot of girls acquiesce to this implausible and preposterous character (we all so love and respect).

As for brother James on Req (tambourine), just think the opposite to the curved outlandish Joseph. James is taciturn, intellectual (studying medical science) respectful and verging on shy. The aggregate of the two are a Laurel and Hardy archetype of opposites creating a complementary whole. James’ playing defies category. All I can say is that percussionists have been known to sit in the front row with gaped jaw wondering how the hell he produces what he does with a few fingers on a tambourine. Both of them bring a warmth and musicianship rarely felt on the concert hall platform and I wish we could get more currency presenting them on the world stage.

We have produced a CD of ACO and the Tawadros bro’s but as yet haven’t found a distributor. Any ideas are welcome. Perhaps we should just release it on iTunes.

Photos from Washington

Washingon Post Review

When the Australian Chamber Orchestra plays in unison, it sounds like what it is: a lot of instruments playing together. Not for this group the polish, or masquerade, of many voices sounding as one. Instead, you get many voices sounding like many: an energetic chorus, with a slight burr and warmth, conveying a visceral thrill every time they plunge together into a work after the downbeat from its violinist-leader, Richard Tognetti.

Indeed, the ACO, which on Tuesday opened the season of the Kennedy Center's Fortas Chamber Music Concerts, offers some of the energy and vibe of a rock band with the ability of a crack classical chamber group. Its freshness is remarkable. The young players all perform standing (except, of course, for the cellists), which seems to allow a greater physical connection to the music -- although it's hard to imagine that even seating this bunch would do much to rein them in. To look at the ensemble, you would never suspect it had been formed in 1975; Tognetti, himself a youthful-seeming elder statesman, took over as artistic director in 1990 at the age of 25, and appears to be the oldest person onstage.

Young energy doesn't have to mean in-your-face rebellion against the classical music status quo. It's true that the ensemble's second program this week, scheduled for Wednesday night, includes an arrangement of "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond" from Pink Floyd's 1975 album, "Wish You Were Here." But Tuesday's program was straight-ahead classical; the only twist was the quality of energy that came through in the playing. Indeed, the program was downright conservative if measured against Pink Floyd standards.

Conservative, however, is not the best way to describe an evening that juxtaposes bracing Handel, Elgar (one of the rare times in performance history when "bracing Elgar" was not an oxymoron) and Bart?k with a string-quartet arrangement by the 54-year-old Australian composer Carl Vine, and a couple of brief concerto-like pieces for solo violin (Tognetti's own arrangement of Ravel's "Deux M?lodies H?braiques") thrown in for good measure. Tognetti seems to come up with consistently vital, interesting programming.

The very first piece, the seventh Concerto Grosso of the 12 that make up Handel's Op. 6, showed a thoughtful match of players and work. The repeated bow strokes that marked the start of the canon, in each voice, underlined the particular rough, taut energy of this group's sound and the no-frills brand of musical gutsiness that was to characterize the concert as a whole.
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That's not to say the players aren't capable of delicacy as well, such as in the string solos that dominated the slow central movement of Vine's piece, called "Smith's Alchemy." This was a muscular and wide-ranging piece of pleasing if slightly ingratiating solidity, with more than a few overtones of Prokofiev in the roughly dancing tunes above bitter sawing rhythms in the first movement.

The weak spot on the program was a bonbon: Tognetti's arrangement of the fifth Paganini Caprice, which he prefaced with a few remarks that placed it in the same aesthetic territory as the avant-garde cuisine of restaurants like El Bulli or the Fat Duck: an unexpected transformation, like egg-and-bacon ice cream. The result was both fiendish and pleasant, but -- as played by Tognetti and Satu Vanska, backed by the remaining players -- not quite clean or in tune enough to feel like the virtuosic showpiece it represents.

The Paganini was perhaps a nod to a notable absence on the program: There was no featured soloist, apart from Tognetti. The group has often toured in the past with big-name artists. On Tuesday, the group itself was sufficient highlight -- as it abundantly demonstrated in Bart?k's Divertimento for Strings, a powerful and moving finish.

Washington Review

The Australian Chamber Orchestra came to the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater last night, as the season opener of the Fortas Chamber Music Series. The visit was made possible in part with the help of the Australian Embassy, which also brought along a large representation to fill the audience and mingle before the concert and at a subsequent reception. Those who are familiar with the ACO from their recordings or from their 2007 concert at the Clarice Smith Center know that one can count on the group to provide unusual programming, uncanny unity of ensemble, clear attack, and cogent musical ideas. None of those things was lacking in this daringly played and musically incisive concert. Read full review.