Opera Chic

OAE's Gaffer Tape Freestyle Chic

(Above: The OAE's cellist Vladimir Waltham)

Not like they had to seduce us already -- that happened last summer when we heard them play with Robin Ticciati at NYC's Mostly Mozart Summer concert -- but the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's blog really rawks. For the past couple weeks, we've been following the concept art for their forthcoming 2010/11 season brochure as they've been releasing photos. After last year's Southern Gothic program, they've gone in a more playful direction -- outsider art meets Home Depot, spawned by designer Chris Harrison.

(Above: Sally Jackson, OAE bassoonist)

(Above: Nick Logie, Viola and Anthony Bailey, Clarinet)

(Above: Lisa Beznosiuk, flute)

 OAE's blog has the rest of the photos...

Because We Can't Wait for Caterday: The OAE's Purry Mascot

We've always had a weak spot for the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and even more so lately with their very awesome Southern Gothic, WPA-inspired 2009/10 program and their Mostly Mozart Summer concert with Robin Ticciati, which was easily one of the top three live concerts Opera Chic has heard this past year. 

Even better -- they're lovers of all things purry! Last night while rehearsing Haydn at the Cecil Sharpe House, a local cat ingratiated itself to the orchestra. Read about it here, photo below courtesy of the OAE blog.

 

OAE (I, U, and Sometimes Y)

(Above: Members of the OAE from their 2009-10 program -- Oh, the dog? He plays the triangle.)

A couple weekends past, while OC was giddily enchanted by Robin Ticciati & the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment caressing Mozart in their Baroque glow, little did she know that wee hours earlier, the disciplined members of the OAE were pining to revive a makeshift cricket match in Central Park ("using period timp legs for stumps – it has been done!"). They're like the MacGyvers of the orchestra world.

No insider scoops here: The 20-something-year-old OAE, a United Kingdom period instrument orchestra lighthandedly blogs it in a collective journal penned by assorted musicians & administration. Less than a year old, the blog posts all-access photos and anecdotes of working with some of Britain's finest conductors (Sir Simon Rattle & Robin Ticciati) as they travel through Europe & and the USA.

The photos above & below are of the OAE musicians taken from their 2009-2010 catalog [pdf file found here]. It was inspired by the stark, black & white portraits of American rural, working-class families in the 1920s-1940s (like the ones seen on Disfarmer). We've always had a weak spot for Berenice Abbott, Dorothea Lange, & Walker Evans' New Deal projects with FDR's Works Progress Administration, and Southern Gothic seems to translate well to the OAE. Especially the guy with the horn below...

~*~

Floats like a Butterfly, Stings like a Bee: Robin Ticciati Inflames Mostly Mozart in his United States Debut

 

(photo: Sussie Ahlburg)

Coming from this chic-lette who spends her summers in the USA and the other-odd months in Europe, OC knows how insular the two worlds can be when it comes down to classical music, trapped between scary Atlantic Ocean sea monsters, long flights, and booked schedules -- and let's face it, a saucy heaping of bureaucracy and politics, bad taste arbiters and plain ignorance. Great directors, singers, conductors and orchestras remain elusive and vacuumed -- like how if we stand still in Italy, you'll never run into James Levine...although if you hang out in your American cave, you'll never have hte opportunity to hear Daniel Harding.

I mean, how many operas did Claudio Abbado ever conduct in New York?

One.

In 1968.

Carlo Maria Giulini?

None.

And Riccardo Muti will enjoy his Met debut next year at the ripe age of 68.

Which is why OC knew how cool it was for New Yorkers to catch Maestrino Robin Ticciati in his USA premiere, which happened over the weekend in the streamlined & elegant Alice Tully Hall. Never before has this kid (or his Rick James hair, by0tch!) touched-down on USA soil to play a public performance. Ticciati -- MD of Sweden's Gävle Symphony Orchestra and Glyndebourne on Tour, and soon-to-be Principal Conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra -- is part of that insanely sweet new wave of young conductors that has taken hostage of your podiums and smashed your batons to splinters (while simultaneously powering-up Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart on their iPhones).

But when OC reads concert reviews like this from NYC's most prestigious newspaper, she can see why a stunning crop of prodigies who aren't inside of NYC's radar just don't care about breaking in. Why bother when once-in-a-lifetime premieres are omitted from mention, and their performances are mere afterthoughts, relegated to the last paragraphs of critic write-ups? [Ed: Edited for wisdom, word is born: Peter Dobrin at The Philadelphia Inquirer gets it!]

No worries. OC was in attendance for Ticciati's Sunday afternoon's concert at Alice Tully Hall, so she can relay that the British conductor's USA premiere with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was a rousing success, and we can only hope that he and his Rick James curls make it back to the USA again post haste. And a big thanks to the Mostly Mozart Festival for hosting the young conductor's USA premiere.