Modern Sky Festival and its Crowd

Amid the effusion of praise that I have lavished on China's rock scene, I must admit that the Modern Sky Festival fell well short of my expectations.

Granted, my observation was not truly representative, since I was to attend only one of three days of the festival (I reserved tomorrow for hiking and for the rest of the week, I would be in HK), which featured dozens of artists performing at different time slots over those days. Nevertheless, I found my patience running out as I went from stage to stage, only to find artists who severely lacked the kind of punch and energy which one would typically expect from a rock festival, and a lukewarm audience whose apathy seemed to feed right back to the subconsciousness of the artists.

To be sure, there were exceptions to the case. At the stage for new bands, an enthusiastic audience clamored for more after No Name completed their set with a Sum 41-like, whirlwind locomotion infused with well-known Chinese elements. Enthusiastic audience members would also climb over each other and wave their limbs in an absolutely gorgeous, blue-sky day in Haidian Park. At the electric/techno stage, a few ebullient souls showed off their acrobatic dance moves neither caution nor compulsion. There was also the flag-waving, body-thumping, beer-splashing crowd in front of the main stage, a scene reminiscent of Woodstock. Those aside, however, I couldn't help but recognize a wall of expressionless folks, who looked either too tired, too stoned, or just plain too indifferent to physically react to the music. Not even the head nod...not even the lap tap...are we all becoming the disengaged philosopher whose relationship with live music is strictly analytical? Most of the time I just felt that people were just standing there in front of the stage, as if waiting to board an imaginary subway train.

Perhaps it was just me, but while it seems that the organizers did a great job by putting slightly different music on different stages to cater to each and everyone at any given time, the heavy metal on one stage seemed to drown out, for example, Sandee Chen's melancholic, twitter-like ballade on another. Was there not enough insulation mechanism to at least compartmentalize the sound a little better? Of course, nobody would be serious enough to demand concert hall acoustics at a rock festival, but when it got to the point where the sound from another stage became a distraction, the feeling of liveliness and spontaneity instantly became a nuisance.

Would I go back? Sure...only to prove myself wrong. The crowd was perhaps merely recovering of a full day of partying on National Day, but I am sure music fans, and a lot of them, could do better not merely by showing up physically but by being more engaged in circulating (and amplifying) energy to and from the artists --something which I find to be the unique hallmark of live rock music. But I would give the benefit of the doubt, until next time.

Jacky Cheung World Tour '07

It seems ironic that I would go to a canto-pop concert in Beijing, and even more ironic, as my mom would put it, that I would go to a canto-pop concert at all. It is true that my interest in canto-pop has been lukewarm over the years, and that my only real claim to (any) connection with canto-pop was a stint as a member of a drumming consortium that once backed up The Winners (are they really canto-pop?) and a gig as a percussionist at a Hacken Lee concert. Otherwise, you won't see any canto-pop CDs on my rack or see me humming to a canto-pop track.

That said, I wouldn't say I was not fascinated by canto-pop's rise as a major force in Greater China's music scene. Jacky Cheung's music, for starters, transcends any geopolitical barrier by making the hit list at every metropolitan area where Chinese congregates: there used to be a saying that in some communities in and near Vancouver and Toronto, one would hear Jacky Cheung on radio more often than Madonna+Backstreet Boys+Bruce Springsteen+Westlife+(fill in with your favorite non-Asian artists) combined. Beijing folks can sing Jacky's Cantonese songs even though they have little idea whether they are hitting the right 白话 pronunciation, while folks in Hong Kong can lip sync to any of Jacky's Mandarin songs before Mandarin was even considered an indispensable linguistic asset in what was then an English-speaking British colony.

But Jacky today was not the Jacky who won the singing contest that made him famous 23 years ago. His voice is still brilliant by most standards. Yet, it also seems to show its age, as it no longer carries the level of high-octane punch that was the hallmark of his old voice. I also counted at least two occasions where some of his high notes cracked, only to be mercifully drowned out by an dutiful band behind him. As perhaps canto-pop's most consistently successful superhero, he nevertheless represents a star fading into a more contemplative, reflective phase of his career. That said, the concert was supremely organized (other than transportation to and from Feng Tai Stadium, of which, alas, there was none), the stage well-designed, the acoustics quite adequate, and the dancing numbers quite well choreographed. Jacky is the kind of performer that requires neither exquisite dance arrangements nor scantily-clad models/dancers gyrating around him --both of which seem to be the norm today for any Asian male star trying to make it in the Asian music scene. Instead, it seems to me that Jacky naturally, and only relies on emotional appeal and a face of human ingenuity (whether feigned or real) to connect to his audience, and I must say he was very good at those last night.

Perhaps to no importance to most, during the concert I did yell out "got maid?" as an ironic vituperation of his off-stage antics as a sub-par employer, although I doubt anyone who heard that -- he most certainly could not, given the level of noise in the stadium and the position of my nose-bleed seat -- had any inkling of what I meant.

My Pavarotti

For the past few weeks, we have been hearing about Pavarotti undergoing further treatment for his pancreatic cancer. The news has been cautiously optimistic, until yesterday when Pavarotti’s condition was reported to have worsened. Today we finally heard the news that Pavarotti has left us. I am sure that in the next few weeks we shall be hearing a lot about Pavarotti, the hymns eulogizing the passing of the great tenor, his flamboyant style, and his no-nonsense, anti-establishment approach to widen the opera fan base.

He was not as politically savvy as Domingo. Nor was he as sexually appealing and attractive as Bocelli. He was the raw, unrefined lion on stage, and the relentless businessman off stage. If everything written about him was true, then he was at least as shrewd and ruthless as Howard Breslin would describe him to be. If his public behavior was any guidance as to who he really was, then he must savor his moments as opera’s royal paladin, as evidenced by his frequent, last-minute cancellations of public appearances in the twilight of his career. He was the womanizer who would dump his wife of 35 years to hook up with his 26-year-old secretary.

But there is no question that Pavarotti was a talented tenor. In my opinion, he was possibly the most naturally talented tenor in the 20^th century. Beniamino Gigli and Giuseppe Di Stefano, two of the best tenors of our time, often looked strained and tired when trying to sustain high notes. Domingo, perhaps the modern-day tenor most beloved by opera aficionados, is a great interpreter of opera composer’s works and a great master of tonal quality, but always sounds as though he couldn’t reach a level of vocal projections that he would want, especially between A5 and C6. Without implying to put down any other tenors, Pavarotti seems to have a natural ability to punch high notes with not only rhythmic precision but also superior tonal quality. I am not merely talking about the nine C6s that Pavarotti famously belted out with ease in “Ah! Mes amis,” in Donizetti’s “La Fille du Regiment” at the Met in 1972. I am also talking about how he, in his early years, handled Verdi’s requirement of a Bb5 in pianissimo in “Celeste Aida” in Verdi’s “Aida”. To be sure, Pavarotti wasn’t Franco Corelli, who arguably was the best recorded Radames ever, but Pavarotti never had as nimble a voice as Corelli’s, which made rendering of the pianissimo a lot more manageable. I’m sure when I go back to Pavarotti’s earlier recordings, I would rediscover the beauty of Pavarotti’s voice – a bold but agile voice – like a Ferrari creaming a tight corner or Michael Jordan swooshing a turnaround jumper – effortless to the regular eyes, but magical to those who practice such, day in, day out.

In terms of singing, Pavarotti’s public legacy will be linked to his high notes and his handling of the passaggios. In my opinion, however, his flamboyant and raw style made him the ultimate, purest interpreter of canzone napoletana/italiane: the Marechiares, the O Sole Mios, the Torna a Surrientos of the world, providing a standard upon which all future tenors of the napoletana genre shall be judged. He will, in my mind, forever be linked with the genre, and the genre will, in my mind, always be linked with Pavarotti.
It is incredibly sad to see him go. Had he entered the world in the early 19^th century, he would have left us with nothing tangible except a mythical legacy. But he left us with an incredible amount of recorded music that we and future generations will be able to enjoy. Pavarotti the man has left, but Pavarotti the voice will live and grace us forever.

Obituaries: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The AP (via Yahoo! News).

My first classical music concert in China

The China Philharmonic opened its 2007-2008 Season last night with a heavyweight program featuring the world premiere of a composition by Chinese composer Ye Xiaogang, and the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Ye’s new work, The Lofty Kunlun Mountains, is a monumental piece of music commissioned by and written for the China Philharmonic, and was completed barely a month ago. Continuing his ongoing series of scores featuring the customs and cultures of China’s various regions, Ye borrows from Qinghai province’s instrumental and vocal elements to carve out a substantial piece of work with three contrasting symphonic movements. Kunlun Mountains’ orchestral footprint is similar to that of Ye’s other work, Twilight in Tibet, in that Kunlun Mountains weaves through an intricate balance of rapturous Mahlerian moments and delicate pianissimo harmonics to illustrate the imposing and undulating landscapes of the region. The first movement, “The Lofty Kunlun Mountains”, is a testament to Ye’s frequent practice of east-meets-west ideals in which Holstian orchestral frameworks were gorgeously realized through the application of cascading pentatonic scales. The second movement, “The Ode to the Kunlun Mountains”, is an emotional interlude that reminds the audience of the tranquils of Howard Shore’s middle earth. Its baroque, careful string structures also provide perhaps the most poetic and original moment of the three movements. The third movement, “The Chinese March”, is the most symphonically bold, yet also stylistically least interesting, as if the piece tried to gallop to a Khrushchevian closure. In Poly Theatre’s foyer after the concert, I had a brief moment to congratulate Ye on finishing the composition, but I stopped short, for whatever lame reason including, out of deference, of complaining that Kunlun Mountains, while successful in evoking an impressive array of ethnic elements, lacked a fundamentally unique style that I often attribute to the composer's other more satisfying compositions.

Rach 3 was performed by Kun-Woo Paik, a Korean-born pianist most famous for his interpretation of Liszt. Last night’s performance was average, although anyone who knows more than a thing or two about Rach 3 would testify that any pianist who can sprint through the extremely difficult, “finger-breaking” piece without major lapses deserves at least a few rounds of standing ovations. And Paik got his share and more, at least half a dozen of them. Paik’s performance wasn’t necessarily bad –in fact, his rendition of Rachmaninoff’s legato moments in the first movement was as lyrical as any I have ever heard –but, on the overall, Paik’s Rach 3 seems to lack a sense of controlled fragility that seems, at least to me, to be the hallmark of Rachmaninoff’s piece. The third movement was also slow –a tad slower than Ashkenazy’s typical, leisurely pace of 15 minutes and a lot slower than Argerich’s exuberant pace at just over 13 minutes (in the legendary RSO Berlin/Chailly recording). To be sure, nobody will ever accuse a pianist of dragging in a performance, although if Paik had admitted that his performance dragged last night, it would not necessarily have been his fault: there were times when it seems obvious that Paik was trying to race the orchestra to a tempo of his liking, only then to be suppressed by the baton of conductor Long Yu. It was not easy to conclude who dragged and who raced, but there were moments when I had a clear impression that there wasn’t enough communication between the concerto conductor and the concerto performer.

In any case, it was an incredible night not least because it was my first time to listen to classical music in Beijing, but also because I always fancied finding out what kind of crowd I would get at a classical music concert in mainland China. I was quite impressed – other than a slight mishap in which an audience sitting not far behind me felt the need to ruffle his/her plastic bag (whose act was then promptly verbally abused and denounced by other audience members nearby) – the crowd was very courteous, and did not clap, contrary to my earlier expectation, between concerto movements. I went to the concert with Carrie, a smart auditor who often lets her disengaged, emotion-less self spill over to her personal life. So it was only fitting that the highlight of my evening was to see her face light up, and her emotions flow, as she raved about Ye’s sweetness and Rachmaninoff’s genius.

La Bohème

La Bohème is undoubtedly one of my favorite operas. Coincidentally, there are two pieces written about it today: by Tim Page in the Washington Post, and by Mike Greenberg at Express-News. Greenberg’s article was a fairly standard review of the San Antonio Opera at the Lila Cockrell Theatre. While it is mundane and devoid of the flowering descriptions that usually grace a classical music review, it does serve a good, descriptive purpose:

The traditional sets, built for New Orleans Opera, worked well and looked pretty good, though they fell short of the current state of the art. Tim Francis' lighting design was fairly basic. The off-the-rack costumes had that off-the-rack look.

Page’s writing, on the other hand, is nothing but mundane. As he writes a preview of Kennedy Center’s upcoming season, he trumphets the social and romantic values of what may be Puccini’s most famous work:

I wonder if there is another opera that so convincingly bewails the horrors of poverty while making most of the resultant hardships seem so romantic. Cold weather permeates "La Bohème," and yet the impression we take away with us is inevitably that of a suffusion of warmth.

I sincerely hope that when The Egg opens, there will be more opera performances here in Beijing. In the meantime, I will indulge myself in DVDs, and in reviews of performances around the world.

Super Band

Super Band is an American Idol-like competition for rock bands in China. It is jointly produced by media outlets in Guangzhou and Hong Kong to promote original compositions, to discover new talent, and to nurture a crop of Chinese musicians that have the potential to redefine the country’s rock scene in the coming years.

Zhang Peirong, a friend here in Beijing, told me about Super Band while we downed a few Yanjings in Houhai a few weeks ago. Peirong, by all standards, is quite a character. By day, he labors as a film editor in the city. By night, he is a rocker who hounds the Houhai scene. While he is extremely fluent in and deferential to the history and traditions of rock, he is adamant that China as a nation be proactive in developing its own rock sound. He also informed me of a Super Band regional, and implored me to check it out if I ever want to seriously understand China’s pop music and culture.

I have not been extensively exposed to rock and its history, but decided to give it a try anyways, not least because he was dead right about my severe lack of knowledge in China’s pop music but also because I was very interested in the competition format that has swept through China in the past few years.

And boy, what an experience: impeccable on-stage coordination, exquisite fretboard fingering, assertive vocals…those are some of the things that impressed me most. After nearly four hours of music, I came away feeling a little full and a little empty. Full, in a sense that the experience was wholesome, educating, and different from anything I have ever seen. Empty, in a sense that, despite all the classical training that I was fortunate to get when I was young, I have been cloaked away (in some ways by my own doing) from this other world of music in which passion and creativity flow with the freedom of the mind. It is unfortunate that I didn’t discover this world until now, but it is also fortunate that I have, finally, discovered it. Here are some of the highlights:

Band 1: excellent contrast between two entries; male vocalist was superb in creating a soulful, interactive experience with the audience

Band 8: young but very mature, a careful balancing act amongst the players; it first appeared a little thin and weak but soon emerged as this emotional train that charged all the way to the finale

Band 9: pretty sound, but drummer seemed disjointed from the rest of the group

Band 11: well rehearsed with precise control of instrumental and melodic flow; I love its charismatic and pentatonic-heavy sound.

Band 12: a blend of German punk and novel vocal; the ending was crisp and clean

I wished I had written down the bands’ names. Perhaps I’ll one day dig them up from Super Band’s website.