What a mess a thaw makes! We have risen above freezing for the first time in what seems like months (and may be!) and now the huge accumulation is becoming one big slushy mess. And its going to be warm for the next two weeks at least. Phew!
This afternoon we were at River North Dance at the Harris. Wonderful dancing, completely intolerable volume of noise, anti-musical and anti-art. And probably anti-safe! What is it with sound engineers that they think it amusing to blast out decibels at a level undoubtedly above a safe level, and with complete disregard for the musical requirements, or indeed without any discernable musical sensibility whatsoever?
I sat there with my fingers in my ears for a good deal of the time, and that brought the volume down to a tolerable level. And this was such a shame. There was amongst a good many other items, a marvellous tango sequence - Al Sur del Sur - choreographed by Sabrina and Rubén Veliz. But the gorgeous music was played (from a CD or tape I presume) at such a high volume level that it completely wrecked the show for me. The dynamic range appeared to be from around 85dB to 130dB. I have no idea whether anyone in the theater measures these things. But maybe they should. It is a public health issue!
I have to confess that I find that much the same happens in the movie houses these days. Maybe everyone is deaf thanks to years of Walkman and iPod use.........well they now going to get deafer still!
Otherwise I have had a lovely Sunday!
Anyone down town at 12:15 tomorrow should try to get to the Cultural Center to hear some of the current crop of COT young artists in recital. You can hear three of them tomorrow - soprano Leila Bowie, tenor Matthew Newlin, and baritone Darik Knutsen. A nice lunch hour interlude.
On Tuesday I will be in New York for the Juilliard/Lindemann Bartered Bride at Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater. This be an event of great quality I have no doubt - here we should see the collaboration of Juilliard and the Lindemann program at its best.
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