Gateway 19-20 Fall: It Takes Two by Jeff Hudson

SHAPE of Things

The to Come p. 8

TAPROOT

Music Festival p. 23

Compared to What?

Jazz and Politics p. 34

IT TAKES TWO p. 44

gateway ROBERT AND MARGRIT MONDAVI CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS UC DAVIS FALL Issue 2019–20

Mind over Matter: The Psychology of the Stage p. 12

MODERN DUOS

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Pianist and composer Alfredo Rodríguez has the classical training of Havana’s renowned and rigorous conservatories; Pedrito Martinez’s virtuosity emerged in the renowned Old Havana barrio of Cayo Hueso, and was forged in the sacred drumming of Cuban Santería.

Together, these two masters of different Cuban worlds create a passionate conversation of Latin rhythms (in March 2020).

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It Takes Two

BY JEFF HUDSON

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ou’ve heard the phrase: “It takes two to tango.” Pearl Bailey recorded a song with that title in 1952. So did Louis Armstrong. They were both referencing romance.

On the other hand, in 1982, President Ronald Reagan used the phrase in a diplomatic setting, referencing possible cooperation in the anything-butromantic relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union during the late phases of the Cold War. But in music, “it takes two to tango” most often references a duet of some kind. Classical musicians perform in duos all the time, all the way through their careers. But in other branches of the musical tree, a duo is often more of a special occasion, and the goal of the collaboration can sometimes be to pair two musicians from entirely different traditions, hoping to create something new and nifty in the process.

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In the 2019–20 season, the Mondavi Center will present several duos, some of which lean toward traditional duo territory and some that will surprise.

CLASSICAL PAIRINGS

Let’s start with classical artists.

Violinist JOSHUA BELL has worked with several recital partners during the past 20 years. Early on, he played with pianist JEREMY DENK; they appeared together at the Mondavi Center in 2010, in a concert featuring much of the music that ultimately became the 2012 album French Impressions.

Violinist Joshua Bell (top) performed with pianist Jeremy Denk (left) in 2009, eventually turning the collaboration into an album in 2011 (French Impressions). This season, Bell tours with Alessio Bax (right).

In the years that followed, as Denk’s career as a solo artist took off, Bell started working with British pianist SAM HAYWOOD as a recital partner. Haywood played on some tracks of Bell’s 2013 holiday album Musical Gifts. Bell and Haywood appeared together on the Jackson Hall stage in 2017.

During the coming season, Bell returns with Italian pianist ALESSIO BAX (Nov. 2, 2019). The two began doing recital tours as a duo in 2013. Bax told the BBC:

“I honestly don’t see any difference between my work as a soloist and playing with Josh. Music is music; with him I have a constant source of inspiration, which is a real luxury and which I try to bring to all aspects of my music making. We play really wonderful violin/piano duo repertoire and it is some of the most intense and rewarding music making that I have been lucky to be part of. It is a constant back and forth of energy, beauty and inspiration.”

Bell has long been generous in terms of sharing the top billing with his piano partners. Many other duo artists (for instance cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Katharine Stott, who’ve played the Mondavi Center on occasion) now share the billing as well. Ma also shared equal billing with pianist Emanuel Ax in their 1980s recordings of Beethoven’s cello sonatas, which was appropriate, as Beethoven’s cello and piano parts are equally challenging. (In decades past, it was more common to see an accompanist’s name listed in small type as a sort of auxiliary artist; you

“

I honestly don’t see any difference between my work as a soloist and playing with Josh [Bell]. Music is music; with him I have a constant source of inspiration which is a real luxury ... it is some of the most intense and rewarding music making that I have been lucky to be part of. It is a constant back and forth of energy, beauty and inspiration.

CLASSICAL PAIRINGS

—Alessio Bax

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Violinist Cho-Liang Lin and pianist Jon Kimura Parker share a 30-year friendship and the Jackson Hall stage in May, 2020.

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still see the pianist getting this type of billing at many recitals featuring an opera star.)

Bax also has a longtime involvement with an altogether different kind duo with pianist Lucille Chung, performing piano music for four hands. Bax and Chung met in 1997 as competitors at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan (Bax won the top honors).

They took a liking to each other, and, being touring professionals, they began a long-distance courtship.

They eventually married, and a daughter was born in 2014. They continue to pursue their individual careers in addition to their piano four hands concerts.

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When you venture beyond Western classical music, you sometimes encounter a touring duo that features an uncommon pairing of performers coming from different artistic traditions. One such “unusual” duo visiting Mondavi this season is MUSICA NUDA (Nov. 13–16, 2019). This Italian duo features vocalist Petra Magoni and double bass player Ferruccio

When you venture beyond Western classical music, you sometimes encounter a touring duo that features an uncommon pairing of

MODERN DUOS

Another classical duo this season will be Taiwanese-born violinist CHO-LIANG LIN and Canadianborn pianist JON KIMURA PARKER (May 8, 2020). They’ve been friends for more than 30 years, and when their respective schedules permit, they perform together as a duo, including several appearances in the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center series. (A recording of their May 2019 Lincoln Center program is reportedly in the works.) Lin and Parker are also both on the music faculty at Rice University in Texas, so perhaps they can plan new duo programs when they’re both in residence there.

The unexpected pairing of pop vocalist Petra Magoni and jazz bassist Ferruccio Spinetti happened by chance, and they’ve been boldly making beautiful music together since 2003.

performers coming from different artistic traditions.

Spinetti; this makes for lean arrangements—hence the group’s stripped-down name. This musical combination is not unprecedented; old folkies will recall that back in 1960, Odetta released a live album recorded at Carnegie Hall that included that deep-voiced singer (who also strummed an acoustic guitar) supported by Bill Lee on acoustic bass, playing spirituals and labor union songs. Musica Nuda’s repertoire leans more toward arty arrangements of pop tunes the audience will recognize, including everything from The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” to disco diva Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” as well as covers of tunes associated with

Prince and Madonna. (Perhaps they’re borrowing from the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, which plays witty “uke” arrangements of rock anthems, in this regard.)

Another example will feature YUMI KUROSAWA—a Japaneseborn performer (now living in New York) on the koto (a pluckedstring instrument that bears some resemblance to a big zither) and ANUBRATA CHATTERJEE, an Indian-born percussionist whose specialty is the tabla (a traditional Indian percussion instrument consisting of a pair of small drums, played with the fingers and palms of the hand) (May 1–2, 2020).

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EASTERN TRADITIONS

Koto visionary Yumi Kurosawa teams up with tabla player Anubrata Chatterjee for a program that brings together two expressive musical traditions, bridging the cultures of Japan and India.

To some degree, Kurosawa and Chatterjee are following in the footsteps of sitar player Ravi Shankar, who famously partnered with classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin in the late 1960s for a bestselling album titled West Greets East, which won a Grammy award. Two more Shankar/Menuhin albums followed. A side note of interest: in 1978, Shankar and several Japanese musicians, including koto player Susumu Miyashita, played alongside Alla Rakha on tabla on the album East Greets East. The late Alla Rakha was the father of Zakir Hussain, a tabla player who’s performed at Mondavi on several occasions, including this season in a quartet with Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Indian flutist Rakesh Chaurasia. Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain also released an album of father/son tabla duets in 1988.

Two other duos coming to the Mondavi Center this year work more in the “two peas in a pod” mode: MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER and SHAWN COLVIN (Dec. 8, 2019) were both born in the mid-1950s, became recording artists as singer/songwriters in the late 1980s,

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“TWO PEAS ...”

They’ll be playing Kurosawa’s koto arrangement of what is possibly one of the most frequently performed pieces of Baroque music, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, as well as some of Kurosawa’s originals.

Singer-songwriter and country-folk artists Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin share three decades of musical kinship.

and offstage, they’ve been friends for some years. Colvin and Carpenter have each received multiple Grammy awards in country and folk categories. It’s probably safe to assume that Colvin will be playing some tunes from her landmark album Steady On, which was Colvin’s debut in 1989. A 30th anniversary all-acoustic version of Steady On is due for release in September 2019. Carpenter’s most recent album is 2018’s Sometimes Just the Sky, which is likewise a retrospective view of her career.

In closing, we should note that in April 2019, pianist Fred Hersch played four nights of jazz in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre. Hersch played solo on the first night; shared piano duets with Larry Goldings on the second night; duos with vocalist Sara Gazarek on the third night, and finally duets with saxophone/flute player Charles Lloyd on the fourth night. Hersch will be back this coming April with another series of duos; more to come on that in the months ahead.

Jeff Hudson contributes coverage of the performing arts to Capitol Public Radio, The Davis Enterprise and Sacramento News & Review.

LISTEN It Takes Two

spoti.fi/gatewayduos

PROFI L E: Student Staff

ALFREDO RODRÍGUEZ and PEDRITO MARTINEZ (March 21, 2020) were both born in Cuba and now live in the United States. Martinez, born in the early 1970s, is a percussionist. Rodríguez, born in the mid1980s, is a pianist and composer, conservatory trained.

Together, they made an appearance on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series in 2018 and followed up with their album Duologue in 2019. The album—produced

by Martinez, Rodríguez and the esteemed Quincy Jones—includes Latin jazz in the Cuban/Afro-Cuban style, as well as an Latin-flavored instrumental cover of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (which Jones produced back in the early 1980s).

José Espinoza

¿Hablas español? If you’ve been to the Mondavi Center box office recently, you may have interacted with one of our lead ticket agents, UC Davis third year mechanical engineering major José Espinoza, who communicates fluently with patrons who speak either English or Spanish (he also speaks a bit of Mandarin Chinese). Espinoza has also used his multilingual skills to fill another need at the Mondavi Center. When Ballet Folklórico came in 2018, Espinoza was able to step in and translate between the dance company and the stage crew. “It turns out that the technical terms in English and Spanish are quite similar.

For example, ‘the spot’ is ‘el spot,’” he says with a laugh. Serving in this capacity also helped Espinoza learn a new level of professionalism, which he now uses as a ticket agent lead. “I felt like translating between the dancers and our team was customer service in a sense, because I was able to serve our performing artists and my colleagues.” Though he didn’t consider himself an “arts” person prior to this position, he stresses the importance of the arts in his life.

“Non-artistic people shouldn’t be scared away from the arts; the arts can be for everyone, no matter how un-artistic you are! I’m a scientific person, but the arts are very connected to the sciences.” Espinoza also values getting to provide excellent customer service to our patrons. “What I enjoy most is being able to help patrons who have never been to the Mondavi Center before. I love sharing my perspective on how the experience is different depending on which seats you choose. People are always appreciative and it’s nice to be able to give a helping hand in making their experience a great one.”

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