Tag Archives: NAC

NAC Pops – All Night Long (Music of the 80s)

The PolyBlog
January 16 2017

My wife and I have purchased season tickets in the past to the NAC Pops series, and it can get a tad expensive once you add in 6 shows, babysitter, sometimes dinner, sometimes parking, etc. Plus, honestly, it’s a heavy commitment at times. You don’t “pop” out for quick listen, it’s a full evening, requires planning etc. Fun, but not like going to a movie on the spur of the moment.

This year we opted for a smaller subscription, just four shows, and we aren’t in the same seats for every show. Which may turn out to be fun since we’ll get to try all different kinds of seating across the newly renovated NAC.

Saturday night was our first outing, and it was an 80s night. Basically the orchestra plus two singers working their way through the hits. It sometimes seems odd, since if you love the orchestra, you miss out on some of the performance because the singers are over-riding it. To compensate, the orchestra does some of the numbers as pure instrumental.

The two singers this time were Nicole Parker (MadTV) and Aaron Finley (Broadway, including Kinky Boots). I didn’t know either one before the show, but I know Finley’s “type”. Many of these shows pluck a singer from a series of Broadway shows, hire them for the run, and they sing the various songs. They mix and match men and women, throw them together, great, there’s a show. But unlike a Broadway show where the singer gets to “live the part” and therefore “inhabit” or “own” the song, many of the songs come across as high-end karaoke…they can sing, but they are not great at embodying the lyrics. Add in that they are all Broadway-trained for that earnest, belt it out to the back of the theatre, projection voice rather than say a band singer who often relies on the speaker system to do that. It is good, don’t get me wrong, but often seems like they are just “missing” the song, not quite nailing it.

Aaron’s opening number was Bryan Adams’ Summer of 69. If you know the song, you know that Adams infused it with a bit of edge. Not hard-core, but a bit of regret, a bit of blue-collar rock, some grit. Finlay sang it like it was glee club day and shucks he was just happy to sing. I’m exaggerating slightly, but it wasn’t awesome. Perhaps because I like the original.

However, when Nicole Parker started singing Elton John songs, it was world-class. She was flat out awesome. The two of them worked their way through Sad Songs, I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues, and I’m Still Standing, and the benefit of having professional singers in an NAC-level performance hall becomes literally crystal clear…every word is totally understandable. I swear they would have a chance at making Wooly Bully understandable.

Take Boys of Summer. It’s a decent song by Henley, easy to get lost in. Finlay made every word, every lyric crystal clear. It was like hearing the words for the first time. Parker did the same for Lauper’s True Colors, introduced with obligatory reference to being American and having to deal with Trump. Parker is also a comedienne (hence the MadTV experience) and she kept a lot of the light entertainment going during the night.

The orchestra’s three big pieces were a medley of movie soundtracks in the first half, kicked off the second half with David Foster’s Winter Games, and followed it up later with E.T.’s Adventures on Earth. While the last was clearly a John Williams score, it really didn’t fit with the rest of the evening.

I felt like filing an official protest when I saw there would be a double offering of Toto — Rosanna and Africa, but I have to admit it is the first time in years that I didn’t want to go running the other way. An opening part of Rosanna with the violins made it almost sound like the violins were saying the word “Rosanna” in the chorus. Michael Jackson’s Human Nature was also decent, but not overly well-received (many were talking quietly during the performance)…perhaps reflecting that it is one of the few songs on the Thriller album that didn’t chart well. Sting’s Every Breath You Take was decently performed, but as Finlay noted at the start, there is a creep factor to it too which always leaps out at me.

I was really looking forward to the last piece, as it was three from Lionel Richie…You Are (zzzz), Stuck on You (zzzz), and All Night Long. I thought ANL would be AWESOME. It is one of my favorite songs of the early 80s, and along with a couple of others in that era, it always puts me in a good mood and I love the rhythm and backbeat. It’s just infectious. Plus there’s a couple of horn sections that are really strong transitions. I’m no musician, clearly, but I like the song. I was really looking forward to the orchestra blasting it out, with the singers along for the ride. Particularly as I said, there are a couple of horn sections, plus some slightly more muted but still recognizable string sections.

It was good, it wasn’t great. I don’t know if the conductor was going for his own interpretation, but a couple of the transitions which should have given free rein to the trumpets came out almost muted in comparison. Singing was good, but I got the feeling I was watching two hosts of a low-rated NYE special trying to get the crowd going to ring in a soggy new year.

The encore was a question mark…I wondered if maybe Queen, lots of bands to choose from. Andrea noted that none of the artists were people who had died in the last year, so no tributes going on. Turned out it would be Prince — 1999.

Unlike All Night Long, the orchestra finally got to let loose a bit. A really good encore, but again, the hosts were doing their best to act like they were rocking out with an Ottawa crowd who are mostly sitting and likely to remain sitting no matter what they do. Not everyone, but it makes some of the festivals who complain about everyone sitting in their lawn chairs look downright peppy.

Overall a good night, and Nicole Parker was awesome. There were some good songs, but not as good overall as some of the shows we’ve seen.

We’ll see how the next show goes — Casablanca (the orchestra plays the music along to the movie). While the movie is undoubtedly a classic, there are some sections of it that were in dire need of an editor, and the middle act has some reaalllly slooowwww parts. Still, it will be nice to hear the live orchestra doing the accompaniment.

NAC Pops – Hollywood: The Epics

The PolyBlog
November 15 2015

Do you know the classic cliché that says, “I don’t know art but I know what I like”? That’s me attending an orchestra performance. I have never taken music (except things like ukelele or the recorder in school), I play no instruments, I can’t read sheet music. I’m not even well versed in Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, and if truth be told, my favorite classical piece is Beethoven’s 5th, which dooms me to the dustbin of the pop-version of classical music, not “real” classical according to the experts. For me, it has to be accessible, and so my wife and I have tickets to the Canadian National Arts Centre orchestra “Pops” series.

It’s not a cheap investment, generally running about $65 a ticket for six shows for two people (I’ll let you do the math). Add in a babysitter, and it makes for six date night outings that we plan for and generally use as our formal outings for the year i.e. we don’t plan too many other ones. We found that if we didn’t subscribe, we wouldn’t bother getting individual tickets and would just forget about it; so we go since we have the tickets, and we have the tickets so that we’ll go.

Even though I enjoy the Pops events, I generally prefer faster tempo pieces, more lively pieces over long slow string sections. Honestly, those can literally put me to sleep and I feel like they are almost lullabies-for-adults. Yes, I know, some of them were written that way intentionally, but I want to close my eyes and let my mind drift with the music. I tend not to do that with the Pops series, it just holds my attention better. I mention this as you need to know where the following review comes from, as it is not your typical review perhaps of an orchestral performance. I won’t debate in detail, for instance, the conductor’s choices in the third movement, or how the violinists seemed a tad too slow on a refrain portion.

Last night was the first outing of the year, entitled “Hollywood: The Epics”. Let me first get out of the way that, as always, the NAC orchestra performed brilliantly. If something was off in anyone’s performance, I would have little chance of noticing, and didn’t find anything offputting anywhere. It’s always crystal-clear sound, fantastic acoustics, although perhaps a bit biased by the fact that we sit near the orchestra and in the centre (sixth row last night).

The program was designed with eight items in the first half and nine in the second, but they did an opening impromptu playing of the French national anthem (while standing) in honour of the citizens of France dealing with the tragedies of the day before. It was a nice tribute, although a bit odd when the very next item was “Hurray for Hollywood” (Whiting). The opening number was a harbinger for me. They do something a couple of times a year with the orchestra, which is bring in a large choir to sing with them…in this case, two large choirs. About 75-80 people in total. If you like choral music, good on you, mate. If they were singing clear words of well-known songs, like Christmas hymns or songs, I’d be okay with it; for this item, about the only words I could make out were in the refrain of “Hurray for Hollywood”. Their voices are beautiful, but for me, it is a lot like spices in cooking…throw too many in, might as well be salt. So the choir adds nothing for me. I’d prefer one or two singers at the front, if at all. Nothing memorable in the opening.

As an aside, the NAC has ramped up their bilingualism in recent years, and while the conductor Jack Everly is not bilingual, they have a co-host/animatrice named Manon St-Jules who does a great job giving some info about the pieces in french, and then throwing it back to Jack. I have heard a few grumblings from other patrons about it, mostly from those who don’t understand what she’s saying, but I love her little bits (partly as I can follow most of it until she hits warp speed) and she brings passion and zest to her little spiels. Jack, by contrast, is all about background and trivia about the pieces, who worked with whom, what else they did, or in last night’s case, how certain scenes were filmed that the music was attached to during production.

Overall, I think the evening was a fair to middling set of pieces, and I’ll run through the list quickly for the “also-ran” items:

  • Main title from “Gone with the Wind” (Steiner) — interesting trivia about the King Kong set being repainted to look like Atlanta for the initial burning scene, but the song was sweeping but ho-hum;
  • Suite from “Titanic” (James Horner) — there was a nice slow build, but it was way too long, and not very exciting (hmm, kind of like the remake version of the movie!);
  • The Exodus song from “Exodus” (Gold) — meh, not sure how this fits into a “Pops” repertoire for anything other than the source, it was slow, boring and unremarkable;
  • “How the West Was Won” (Newman and Darby) — The trivia was interesting (Cinerama) and almost as long as the piece;
  • “It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad, world” (Gold) — This was very short, with lyrics I don’t remember from the movie (but it’s been a long time since I saw it), and completely worthless for posterity; and,
  • The Lord’s Prayer from “King of Kings” (Rozsa) — Classic, but unremarkable, even with (or because of?) the too large choir.

The second group includes those where it wasn’t particularly memorable, but where there were some interesting sub-elements:

  • Overture from “Hawaii” (Bernstein) — Introduced as representing four themes in the movie, it had a lively middle and concluded with a decent set of elements combined to represent a big storm, kind of cool development;
  • Prelude from “Ben Hur” remake (Rozsa) — I found the start quite strong, and seemed almost Asian interestingly enough, not sure why;
  • Overture from “Around the World in Eighty Days” (Young) — This had a great violin section at the start, sounded reminiscent of the start of a hot air balloon ride (continuing the movie metaphor) but it was slow, and didn’t really progress from there;
  • Main title from “Lawrence of Arabia” (Jarre) — The large drum work was good, and there was something going on in the middle with double bass or the trombone (as my wife identified) that was interesting, definitely not the flute or the piccolo, deeper and gave a different sound and feel to it, but it didn’t last long enough to be truly memorable; and,
  • Lara’s Theme from “Dr. Zhivago” (Jarre) — So quintessentially the sound used to represent Russia, it’s hard to imagine anything else.

The last group includes the stand-outs of the evening, and in increasing order of quality:

  • “El Cid” (Rozsa) — One of three pieces from Rozsa during the night (mostly Biblical style), and this one was in line with the other two except for one major element repeated throughout where the first violins play a small section that is then “answered” by the second violin section, almost like “dueling” or “arguing” violins… I don’t know how much of this is the original arrangement or a conductor’s choice, but it was really cool to see the conversation ripple across the stage as different elements answered the earlier pieces;
  • Danse des Enfants from “Napoleon” (Honegger) — this piece was short, but completely different from the rest of the night…where the others were dark, ambitious, ominous, serious, this one was light, playful, and a strong focus on the flute and piccolo, almost like a palate cleanser after a heavy meal, quite delightful;
  • Symphonic Suite from “The Magnificent Seven” (Bernstein) — This piece kicked off the second half of the night, and it is awesome — bold, definitive, a clear statement that resonates throughout the entire piece; and,
  • Symphonic Suite from “The Lord of the Rings” (Howard Shore) — This piece soared, bringing about easy images of flying, sweeping mountains, battles and more. I haven’t even seen all of the movies, and I loved it, so not sure if I’m doomed to pablum pieces or not, but it was truly “epic” music to match the theme of the night, and the only truly remarkable piece from the first half.

Any credibility I could ever attempt to claim on music is completely lost with my choice of best piece for the evening. I mentioned that Jack Everly is self-described as “steeped in trivia” and he did a fabulous little bit of trivia showing the music that accompanied the 20th Century Fox logo and the extended version of the logo music to also play while the Cinema scope logo appeared. The reason he played them was that it was about how they defined a lifetime of the studio, and the logos still often appear accompanied by the same music. It was the rampart that called people’s attention to the fact that this was a 20th Century production about to follow.

George Lucas wanted the same “hallmark”, and John Williams gave it to him, as exemplified by the last piece of the night, the main title from “Star Wars”. Maybe it’s the geek in me, maybe it’s the fact that Empire Strikes Back was one of the first movies I ever saw on my own with friends, and even one of the first five I ever saw in a theatre (rather than on TV or at the Drive-In). But John Williams piece is, and will always be, one of the iconic moments of Star Wars. So many scenes throughout the series use pieces of that opening as they transition from one scene to another, whether it be from space to Tatooine, Cloud City to Dagobah, or space battles to Endor. It combines the harsh overlord style of the Empire with the softer peaceful areas of some planets with the rebel uprising, with just a dash of old swashbuckling music thrown in to keep it lively and not quite so serious. I loved it, and it was awesome hearing a professional orchestra play the notes that a generation lived and breathed as they realized what a combination of effects and music could do, the places it could take you unlike any effort previously.

The same goal that all “Epic” music should aspire to, and few in the ensemble tonight delivered. Overall, the three way split between yawn, interesting bits, and really engaging left the evening being rather ho hum. But as ho hum nights go, there are worse ways than listening to a fantastic orchestra do its bit.