Music Now Festival 2007

I'm back from my wonderful weekend full of music. It was definitely a great lesson in modern classical music. That wasn't really something I was necessarily expecting, but nonetheless, it was amazing.


Thursday night, Matt and I headed to the Memorial Hall in Cincinnati. It's a very small place, holding somewhere around 500. It's very ornate...and very patriotic. In a classic way. Who every knew that manliness was next to integrity and equity? There were all sorts of words over the front of the stage that were humorously alluded to all weekend.

For Thursday night, we got the most varied presentation of musical acts that I believe I've ever seen in one setting. To start the evening, we saw the U.S. debut of French flamenco guitarist Pedro Soler. Now I'm certainly not an expert in flamenco guitar, and really not a fan, but gosh, this was absolutely amazing. I don't think I've ever seen anyone play like that. At least not in person. Anyways, that was certainly a treat.

Next up was a marathon of sorts. We saw a classical guitar performance by the curator of the fest, Bryce Dessner. Next, David Cossin, a percussionist who's worked with everyone and anyone played us a piece play with water. It's too hard to explain here, but trust me, you've never seen anything like it.

The festival commissioned a few things for us to hear this weekend. One of which was four selections arranged for string quartet from Sufjan Stevens' album Enjoy Your Rabbit. I have this album, but have never listened to it much, as it is a bit abstract. The arrangements were very nice and spot on. We'd see more of this quartet, as they were featured pretty much all weekend.

The rest of the night was pretty good, featuring a few other selections by the quartet and a short performance by Clogs, who apparently have a large following among the classical music fans. I'd never heard of them before this. But I guess that doesn't mean much...right?

For Friday night, there were performances slated by the Icelandic quartet Amiina and the quirky chantuesse Shara Worden, of My Brightest Diamond. I've seen both acts before, so I was very excited about this. Amiina has long collaborated with Sigur Ros and has just released a fabulous full length that I was lucky enough to pick up before they sold out of the few copies they had on hand. The girls of Amiina perform with such beauty and grace that it's hard to explain. I'll just link you to a video.



After that wonderful performance, Shara Worden performed with a string quartet. She's got a very unique voice that certainly takes some getting used to. Once you do, there's alot of beauty to it. I've come to enjoy it quite a bit. She has a new remix album that's pretty darn good. Here's a performance from sometime last year.



For Saturday night, we experienced probably the best and possibly worst of the festival. To say worst might be too much, but it was still a bit odd. Up first was a couple that had been brought over from the Czech Republic for their first visit to the U.S. Irena and Vojtech Havel have a very experimental, yet classical thing going on. For their performance, they used two instruments I've never seen before. It was like a guitar, slightly bigger, and fretted half way down. For one hour, they played variations of the same notes over and over. While one was playing, the other was making all sorts of crazy noises with their instrument. It's just hard to describe. When one moved over to the piano, we thought it might get better. It really didn't. The performance was unique yet very inaccessible. I think it was the most over-hyped part of the festival. I just didn't get it.

After that bizarre performance, we were treated to the highlight of the festival. Sufjan Stevens' performed for around 90 minutes or so. We heard tracks from Seven Swans, which I believe he doesn't perform much. He also played songs from his popular state albums Michigan and Illnois. The arrangements were unique, featuring the string quartet, guitar, banjo, celeste, pump organ, French horn, and bassoon. Overall, it was a very nice performance and certainly the highlight of the festival.

This past weekend was definitely an experience. If it's this good next year, I'll head back. The festival was a great way to celebrate my 25th birthday. I even saw snow on it...weird. My dad tells me that it snowed the day I was born. I don't remember.