Miley Cyrus Disappoints

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Bangerz Tour, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Bruno Mars, catalogue, circus, Disney Channel, Dolly Parton, Flaming Lips, Fleetwood Mac, Fourth of July, Hannah Montana, Hey Ya!, hot dog, Icona Pop, Jim Harrington, Jolene, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Landslide, Lincoln, Madonna, marijuana, medallion, Miley Cyrus, Mount Rushmore, Oakland, OutKast, Person of the Year, popular music, Rihanna, Shakira, Sky Ferreira, time, Vallejo Times Herald, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1

Miley Cyrus

Miley Cyrus wasn’t going to conquer the world with music alone. That much was abundantly clear from her records, which combine to make Britney Spears‘s catalogue seem like the collected works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

She’s had to travel other avenues to get to the top. She’s had to court controversy and generate hype, in a fashion that might make Madonna blush. She’s had to twerk and tease, shock and surprise, disrobe and dismay – with nothing less than complete abandon.

How’s that emphasis working for her? Well, let’s just say that she didn’t become a finalist for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” based on the strength of her songbook alone. Cyrus seems to understand this, perhaps better than anyone.

Her current “Bangerz Tour,” which supports last year’s chart-topping album of the same name, is all about embracing her new role as pop culture’s premier wild child. It completely slams the door on her kiddie-pop past – the career-making stint on the Disney Channel‘s Hannah Montana – and attempts to position her in the same league with Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars and other titans of the pop music world.

The big-budget tour mirrors its star. It’s full-on razzle-dazzle, pulsating with equal amounts of energy, ambition, personality and mediocre music. It’s also curiously complicated, with an air of desperation and a sense of compensation hovering over nearly every move.

Recently, in Oakland, the show offered up two fairly strong opening acts. The first was promising indie-rocker Sky Ferreira, who was also referenced by this crowd as “I have no idea who this person is.” Icona Pop was up next, and did a better job connecting with the audience. Yes, the duo really only has one song that we wanted to hear – and it’s one that we’ve all heard dozens of times before.

I don’t care. I love it.

Once the table had been set, it was time for the main course. The house lights dimmed and a huge headshot of Cyrus appeared, floating about on a video screen in back of the stage. Her eyes circled round and round, then her mouth opened, revealing a long tongue, which stretched to the floor. Out came Cyrus, sliding down the tongue and onto the stage. She raced toward the crowd, dropping an F-bomb in her first sentence, and we were off and running.

The 21-year-old star hit us first with SMS (Bangerz) and then quickly followed with another new album track, 4×4, while chaos reigned supreme onstage. The music was completely overshadowed by the swirling visuals – which, given the quality of the tunes, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was like a circus had set up shop at a lingerie store on the Fourth of July.

Cyrus wore some absurd outfits, such as a marijuana-themed green bodysuit and matching leaf medallion, most of which left very little to the imagination. The wardrobe was definitely risqué, perhaps even raunchy, underscoring the concerns that many parents reportedly had about their young ones seeing this show.

Ironically, this was not a sexy show – at least not in the same sense that one routinely gets from the likes of Rihanna, Beyonce and Shakira. Yet, Cyrus isn’t Rihanna, Beyonce or Shakira. She shoots for crude, and often hits the mark, but anything beyond that just feels fake and forced.

The best part of the night was when Cyrus and her band moved to a small stage erected at the back of the arena floor for a five-song acoustic set, which featured covers of Dolly Parton‘s Jolene, the Flaming Lips‘ Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1, Fleetwood Mac‘s Landslide and OutKast‘s Hey Ya!

Yet, that brief interlude – the rare moment when the music actually seemed to matter – was soon followed by more ridiculous high jinks. Cyrus returned to the main stage to boogie with a purple shark, a magenta monkey and other furry creatures, later high-stepping it with Abe Lincoln, Mount Rushmore and other American icons.

The main set ended as Cyrus flew off into the night, riding on a giant hot dog.

No, I didn’t make that last line up. But I wish I had.

Jim Harrington – Vallejo Times Herald

Violinist Charles Yang Crosses Over

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American Ballet Theatre, Bach Partita, ballet, CDZA, Charles Yang, choreography, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, dance, Eminem, From the Top at Carnegie Hall, Glenn Dicterow, Jascha Heifetz, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Marcelo Gomes, New York Philharmonic, Ormsby Wilkins, Partita in D minor, Peoria Symphony Orchestra, Pia Catton, popular music, star-maker, Susan Jones, The Juilliard School, The Wall Street Journal, Twyla Tharp, violin, YouTube Music Awards

Marcelo Gomes and Charles Yang in Paganini

After American Ballet Theatre presented the revival of Twyla Tharp‘s Bach Partita this past weekend, its violin soloist, Charles Yang, had to run off to another gig: the YouTube Music Awards, where he was a performer, as was Lady Gaga and Eminem. It is an unusual mix for a classical-music career, but it is working for this 25-year-old Juilliard graduate. The ballet company needed a virtuoso to accompany Bach Partita [with music selected from Partita in D minor (BWV 1004)], a densely packed but little-seen work that had its premiere with Ballet Theatre in 1983.

Among the reasons the work hasn’t been performed since 1985 was the difficulty in finding the right violinist. During rehearsals, Ms. Tharp used a recording by Jascha Heifetz, a violinist known for his technical prowess. “He could play at this furious tempo,” said Ormsby Wilkins, Ballet Theatre’s music director. “That’s what drew Twyla to it.”

For the stage, however, that presents a problem – most professional soloists want to play Bach their way, not Heifetz’s. Simply slowing down the music doesn’t work because movements and phrases in dance are built to match the music, said Susan Jones, who reconstructed the ballet from grainy old videos. “It needs a good deal of drama and theatricality,” she said. “For a half-hour ballet, it has a lot of content.”

So the company faced a quandary: It needed someone who could handle the technical demands of Bach Partita and was willing to subsume his style in favor of another’s. Mr. Wilkins remembered a young violinist, Mr. Yang, who had worked on Paganini, a new piece with principal dancer Marcelo Gomes.

In Paganini, Mr. Gomes danced while Mr. Yang played onstage and moved, too, as part of the choreography. “I like to do these oddball kind of things that break down the barriers between genres,” said Mr. Yang.

Mr. Wilkins contacted the musician, still in Juilliard’s graduate program at the time, to see if he might be a fit with Ms. Tharp and her choreography. Mr. Yang listened carefully to the parameters. “She needs me to play like Heifetz. She knows what she wants,” he said. “I heard that, and I was like, ‘OK, I might as well give it a shot.’ ”

That meant a private audition for Ms. Tharp. To prepare, he practiced Bach Partita with Glenn Dicterow, the New York Philharmonic’s concertmaster and a former Heifetz student. “My Bach is very different from Heifetz’s Bach, so I had to modify my playing,” said Mr. Yang. Heifetz’s rendition of the piece is “quick and raw sounding,” Mr. Yang added. “He doesn’t overuse delicate styles. He goes for it.”

Taking pains to emulate the virtuoso, Mr. Yang won over Ms. Tharp and got the job. “We really bonded,” he said of the choreographer, who didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Yang has performed with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra and on PBS’s From the Top at Carnegie Hall. At the YouTube awards, he played with the group CDZA, which bills itself as creating “musical video experiments.”

His versatility nearly took him out of classical music altogether. While he was an undergraduate at Juilliard, his youthful good looks, vocal ability and guitar skill attracted a team of corporate star-makers from Asia who, he said, “wanted me to be pretty much an Asian Justin Timberlake.” Mr. Yang, who is from Texas, balked at the five-year contract as well as what struck him as glitzy but less fulfilling work. “The Asian pop scene is unique in and of itself. I wanted to pursue my classical dreams. And now I work with people like Twyla.”

Pia Catton – The Wall Street Journal

Petula Clark Reflects

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Civil Rights Movement, Claude Wolff, Dalida, Downtown, Finian's Rainbow, Fred Astaire, French, George VI, German, Give Peace a Chance, Harry Belafonte, Here Come the Huggetts, Italian, Julie Andrews, Lady Gaga, Lost in You, National Broadasting Company, Norma Desmond, ohn Lennon, Paris, Petula Clark, Polygon Records, radio, Reflections, Royal Albert Hall, Shirley Temple, Spanish, Sunset Boulevard, television, Tony Hatch, Trevor Nunn, Vogue Records, Welsh, Winston Churchill, Yoko Ono

Petula Clark

On Petula Clark‘s latest album Lost in You is a track called Reflections. The music is by Bach [BWV 208] and the lyrics by Petula herself. They hark back to a time when she roamed barefoot in the Welsh mountains near the home of her grandparents with whom she spoke Welsh. They were the years before she was famous, before the British public claimed her as “our Pet” – which means they are very distant indeed.

Fame came to Petula at the tender age of nine when she was “discovered” singing during an air raid on a wartime Forces broadcast in 1942. At eleven she was singing at the Royal Albert Hall and by her teens she was a radio star. Nicknamed the “singing sweetheart,” she performed for King George VI, General Montgomery and Churchill. It was, in her words, a “weird” childhood. “But I wasn’t unhappy. I loved singing because when I sang I didn’t feel so shy. My life wasn’t all showbiz. My sister and I stayed for months at a time with our grandparents in their stone cottage [in Abercanaid, near Merthyr Tydfil] with no electricity and I just loved it. What’s a normal childhood anyway? And let’s not forget, it started me on a very good career.”

Indeed so. Hers has spanned more than seventy years, four continents and just about every performance medium – radio, television, film, recording and stage. She has sold seventy million records and is the most successful female artist the United Kingdom has ever produced. A month off her eighty-first birthday she has just embarked on a ten-date British tour.

After seven decades at the top she has very firm ideas about how she wishes to present herself. The one subject guaranteed to incur her wrath is age. Even over a bad phone line the frostiness is palpable.

“It’s offensive and it’s rude and people keep ramming it down your throat,” she says. “I said to my agent the other day, ‘Is this how it’s going to be now – age becomes the reason for an interview?’ I don’t think about my age and I don’t care about anyone else’s. It’s about doing what you do well and about learning and progressing. I’m still learning. I don’t ever think I know how to do this.

“When I was a child I had no nerves at all. That certainly isn’t true nowadays because more is expected of me. But every time I go on stage I think ‘tonight I’m going to get found out.'”

Point taken. But isn’t a performer still working and at the top of her game at eighty something to be celebrated? After all, touring is arduous for anyone.

“I don’t find it arduous. Things are taken care of and you have a lot of laughs. I’m seeing parts of the country I haven’t seen for years. I really love touring and it’s not as if I’m doing a world tour like a rock band.” Oohhkaay.

Her career divides easily into chapters. In the Forties she was Britain’s answer to Shirley Temple, singing in her own TV shows and acting in films such as Here Come the Huggetts. In the Fifties her father Leslie – whose own showbiz dreams had been scotched by his parents – formed record label Polygon Records to manage Petula’s burgeoning recording career.

She was doing well in Britain when a French promoter invited her to perform at the Olympia in Paris in 1957. After much persuasion she agreed and her life changed for ever.

“I wasn’t keen to go. I couldn’t even say hello in French and I thought France smelled of garlic. I was so English. But they kept calling me, saying there was this French performer called Dalida who was copying my records and I must come over to ‘defend’ my songs. They nagged me into it. I did one performance – not very well because I had a cold – and they went crazy.”

As a result Vogue Records in Paris wanted to discuss her recording for them. During the meeting the next day the lights went out and someone came in to change the bulb. When the light came back on the bulb-changer was revealed to be Claude Wolff, the company’s very good-looking PR man. It was a coup de foudre, love at first sight.

“That was it,” says Petula. “I didn’t care about having a career in France. He was my motivation.” And was it the same for him? “Well he had a girlfriend at the time which made things a bit complicated but yes, apparently it was.”

Neither spoke the other’s language – “We had rather halting conversations” – but in 1961 Claude and Petula married. They lived in France because it was easier for her to work there than for him to work here. Moving to France also enabled her to break away from her father. She had found fame and fortune as a child and he wanted her to remain one, whereas to the French she was a sexy young woman.

Her fame soon spread beyond France to other French-speaking territories and throughout Europe. As well as French, she recorded in German, Italian and Spanish.

Everything changed again in 1964 when songwriter Tony Hatch played her a few bars of a song inspired by his first trip to New York. It was still unfinished but Petula liked it. The song was Downtown. It became a worldwide hit (it is still her best known song) and launched her into what was arguably her golden age. America couldn’t get enough of her and she made TV history there.

During a duet with Harry Belafonte for her own “special” for NBC, she took hold of his arm. The sponsors were horrified by this inter-racial affection and demanded a retake. Petula and Claude not only refused, they also ensured all other takes were destroyed, leaving only the touching take. “This was 1968. The Civil Rights Movement was in full flow and they were worried about selling cars!” she says, still exasperated.

In the same year she became the last woman to dance on screen with Fred Astaire when they starred in Finian’s Rainbow and in 1969 she hung around with John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their “Bed-in” and sang on Give Peace a Chance.

By then Petula also had two young daughters – Barbara and Kate – who stayed in Europe with their father while their mother was working in America. Recently she spoke of the guilt she still feels at having left them so much.

“I tried hard to be the perfect mother, the perfect wife and a great performer. I thought I could do it all but it can’t be done. I had a good stab at it but being a parent and married is a full-time job. And you married is a full-time job. And you don’t turn your back on America.” For their part her children assured her there is nothing to forgive.

Nonetheless she scaled down her workload in the mid-Seventies after the birth of her son Patrick. But she and Claude had drifted apart. They separated in the Eighties but have never divorced and remain close. She admits to having “someone special” in her life now but declines to elaborate.

The next chapter of her career surprised even Petula when Trevor Nunn asked her to play Norma Desmond in the stage production of Sunset Boulevard.

“At first I said ‘no way’. Then I asked ‘What do you think I can bring to it?’ and he said, ‘Vulnerability and humor.’ He broke me down.” She has now played Norma longer than anyone else. “I’ve always played nice people so it was great fun to play a bitch!” Whom does she admire among today’s artists? “There are many great women out there but I’m certainly not in the same business as Lady Gaga.”

Unlike many of her pedigree she is not dismissive of X Factor and its wannabes. Then again her own success came more or less overnight. The difference is that hers has never stopped.

Unlike fellow child star Julie Andrews she has yet to be made a dame. “I don’t think I care. What’s important is doing your job well. When I go out on stage I still ask myself ‘do I really know how to do this?'”

Anna Pukas – Daily Express

Iskandar Widjaja, Indonesian Sensation

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Addie MS, Aula Simfonia Jakarta, Bali, Berlin, Beyoncé, Chaconne in D minor, emotions, Franz Geissenhof, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Iskandar Widjaja, Kindra Cooper, Konzerthaus, Lady Gaga, Midori, popular music, Rheingau Music Festival, Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, soundtrack, Tanglewood Music Center, Tel Aviv, The Dharmawangsa Hotel, The Jakarta Post, Twilite Orchestra, violin

“Issi”

Award-winning violinist Iskandar Widjaja speaks of music as being on the cusp of science and art, describing Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions as having “the most complex mathematical structure.” Yet, he concedes, the interpretation of a classical music piece hinges on the artist’s ability to become emotionally permeable – before hundreds of spectators. “[Classical music] is so difficult to play and it doesn’t scream as loud as pop for attention. It is a finer language that you need to focus on to appreciate it. . . . It certainly takes time to get used to a new language, but this journey is worth it,” he says.

With his schedule booked solid until June next year, the young sparkplug – who will be awarded the LOTTO Förderprize of €15,000 by the committee of the Rheingau Music Festival, Germany’s largest music festival, during his 23 July concert – looks set to light many of the world’s most eminent stages for years to come – or at least those he hasn’t already graced.

The Konzerthaus Berlin and Tel Aviv Opera already have a checkmark; likewise, Spain, Brazil, Croatia and Indonesia have played host to his evocative performances.

This year will see Iskandar crack Hong Kong, where he will make his debut with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta in October, and release his second album, Clear as Bach, a homage to the composer that he declares as “the one, the greatest of all!” who is indeed the founding father of the sonatas and partitas that have formed templates for the study of the solo violin until today. He believes such passion and enthusiasm toward classical music can develop in Indonesia with the help of key figures with young minds. “In Jakarta, we already have wonderful venues like Aula Simfonia Jakarta and orchestras like Twilite under Addie MS – these certainly help,” he says.

Unlike what one might assume of a classical musician, “Issi,” as the violinist is better known, is not contemptuous of mainstream pop music, conferring praise where it is due on artists who perform with the rawness and verve to which he aspires every time he picks up his seventeenth-century F. Geissenhof.  The musician cited American R&B star Beyoncé Knowles and pop singer Lady Gaga as two such artists who command his respect.

“I recently went to Beyoncé’s live concert in Berlin and was blown away by her utmost perfection. She was the definition of a superhuman, and to imagine all the money that went into that production was just staggering,” he says. “Yet, Lady Gaga’s concert had a somewhat more personal touch and displayed more of her inner self. Doesn’t an audience want to see ‘soul striptease?'”

In July, the musician, who readily replied with “The Chaconne” [from Partita in D minor (BWV 1004)] when asked what soundtrack he would like to be played at his funeral, will be working with equally illustrious violinist Midori, whose legendary Tanglewood performance during which she broke two E strings resulted in the headline “Girl, 14, Conquers Tanglewood with Three Violins” on the front page of a major US newspaper the next day.

On 19 September, Issi will grace Indonesia’s stages at The Dharmawangsa, playing alongside Addie MS’ Twilite Orchestra.

Although he spends forty percent of his time in Berlin and the rest traveling and touring, he concedes that his favorite pastime when coming home to Indonesia is eating. “I love rendang [beef stew], kue dadar [pancake], kenari nuts and also to dress up and go to events, partying in Bali.”

Kindra Cooper – The Jakarta Post

Flying Bach in Bangkok

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b-boy, B-girl, Bachfest Leipzig, ballet, Bangkok, Benny Kimoto, breakdancers, dance, Eurovision Song Contest, Flying Steps, hip-hop, jam culture, Kadir Memis, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Michael Jackson, popular music, reality dance contest, Red Bull, Rihanna, television, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Vartan Bassil, VHS

Flying Steps

For the past twenty years, the Flying Steps crew has been at the forefront of breakdancing culture. Respected worldwide and even more so in their native Germany, the entire gang of this award-winning B-boy collective was recently in Bangkok to perform as a part of a Red Bull launch. “It’s our first time here. It’s really special. We’ve been working with Red Bull for thirteen years now. We’re here to represent breakdancing,” said Vartan Bassil, one of Flying Steps’ founders.

The crew’s latest major project, Flying Bach, has been touring the world, selling more than 200,000 tickets so far, and shown at the likes of the Eurovision Song Contest and the Bachfest Leipzig. Flying Bach sees the Flying Steps choreographing and performing breakdance and contemporary dance to Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I (BWV 846-851). “We want to show how artful breakdancing is, and we chose classical music to get the sense of high culture. It’s one of the biggest things we’ve ever done. People have told us that it’s unbelievable how nicely breakdancing works with classical music,” Bassil said.

Bassil, the team’s choreographer, started the Flying Steps in 1993 with Kadir Memis, after he fell in love with Michael Jackson‘s fluid movements, which had him rewinding his VHS tapes over and over to mimic the late King of Pop’s steps. “He was my big inspiration. Back then, there were no hip hop dance classes, so you had to learn everything from the TV by yourself. Then hip hop style came, and I saw a movie about breakdancing. I started to practice every day. Then I decided to become a professional dancer. I told myself it was what I wanted to do with my life,” he said.

Flying Steps was born out of love for breaking and a strong sense of community. The absence of technology might have derailed the growth, but a tight-knit bond was forged since its formation, something that the Flying Steps still strongly retains even with the ongoing success. ”Back in the day, there was no internet. You just had your TV and VHS tapes. So it was important for us to travel in order to see things that kids now can see on YouTube. For us, it was traveling around Europe to be a part of big jams and dance parties, learning new moves. Then you got inspired when you got back home, you started to be more creative with your dancing. Now it’s more than easy, as young people can see everything on the internet, and they can start copying,” said Bassil. ”Sadly, the jam culture is over now. But there are more competitions now.”

”Today, everybody can learn new things very fast, but you need to develop your individual character in your dancing also. There are many good dancers now, but not enough characters,” added Benny Kimoto, a core member of Flying Steps.

To say that the Flying Steps have come a long way would be an understatement. They’re not just your regular breakdancing crew who perform when needed. They run a company which handles a dance academy, show production, talent scouts, workshops and mentorship programs in addition to their repeated wins in the world’s best breaking battles.

Bassil said he’s witnessed how breaking had grown over the span of twenty years, and appreciates how the public is more familiar with breakdancing, which started on the streets, but has now moved into the mainstream dance domain. “It’s now certainly more accepted than it once was. Breakdancing is featured everywhere. Now people understand that what we do is also an art form as well as a sport. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of work and a lot of heart. Breakdancing is definitely here to stay,” said Bassil.

The seasoned dancer’s words ring true especially in the popular music world. Stars of the biggest wattage such as Madonna, Lady Gaga and Rihanna have been using B-boys and B-girls prominently in their shows, a practice that Bassil and Kimoto take in their stride. ”Two of Flying Steps’ dancers were on tour with Madonna. People understand what we do is high level. The big stars will always be interested in working with all kinds of the best dancers, and also as dancers, you’re interested to see the world and how the big stars operate. But in the end, you come back home after the world tour, and you have to find new challenges for yourself. You can’t just stop,” said Bassil.

Besides being part of the lucrative kingdoms of various pop stars, breakdancers have become more visible in reality dance contests where they are always thrown in the mix. ”I don’t feel that it’s really real. They are not really concentrating on the dancing, but more on life stories. There are always background stories in this kind of show,” he said. ”Yeah, it’s more about selling dramas to get more viewers, and most of the time the judges don’t know much about dancing, but they are famous,” said Kimoto. ”In the end, the quality of the dancing is not as high as it should be. People who go on TV shows, sometimes they do it to get fame, they don’t do it from the heart. For me, the best thing for an artist is to get to the high level by your ability, and then people will want to have you on TV. On the other hand, reality dancing contests are a good thing because they make the dance scene bigger and more commercial. But I’d like to see real judges who know about dancing on the shows, and the dancers should be judged on their skills not their stories or how good looking they are. It should always be about dancing.”

As old hands on the breakdancing scene, Bassil and Kimoto have done plenty of judging themselves, and they both agree that they don’t often look for one particularly strong criterion. In their opinion, Asian B-boys are the most technical and have the most discipline, the Americans are more creative and fun, while their European counterparts mix both aspects together. ”There are so many things we look at when we judge competitions. For me, I look for complete, well-rounded dancers, and for musicality, foundations, techniques and creativity among other aspects. You can’t just do the acrobatic stuff,” said Kimoto. ”It’s not so easy to judge, but we’re lucky that we’ve been around for a long time so we have an eye for it,” Bassil said.

Still, for the Flying Steps, breakdancing is not just about competitiveness. As a cardinal rule, Bassil will never encourage anyone under his mentorship to give up dancing, even with limited skills. ”The first thing is that if they have fun dancing, then there’s no need to change them, or tell them to stop. We try to help and support them as much as we can. I think everybody knows his/her limit. We always tell our kids that it’s important to concentrate on school first, and when they finish school, then they can start thinking about becoming professional dancers. It’s a long, long way. You know, there are some talented people, and they don’t want to be professional dancers. You can’t force them to become one,” he said. Bassil and Kimoto insist that the Flying Steps crew is still pushing the boundaries of breakdancing in the hope that their art is perceived with the same prestige as, say, ballet. It’s their life-long mission.

”A lot of people used to ask why I wanted to dance for a living. All I can say to the aspiring dancers out there is believe in yourself and your dreams. Focus on your goal,” said Bassil. ”And work harder than anyone else,” said Kimoto. ”Ten times harder.”

– Bangkok Post