Kimmel Center Blog

Making it New: Reloading Mozart and the Creative Process

On Saturday, January 21, All About Jazz reviewer Vic Schermer came to the MOZART: RELOADED performance and seemed to have the time of his life, as did most everyone there that night from audience to performers. (I personally think Mozart would have loved it!) It caused him to stop me in the lobby and say “Wow, I’ve got to do more with this. Can I write something for you folks in addition to my piece for AAJ.” My response? “Absolutely!” From time to time we’ll have guest bloggers making contributions here, and to that end, here’s contribution #1.

Thank you!

Paul

Making it New: Reloading Mozart and the Creative Process by Vic Schermer

The poet Ezra Pound was an inspiration to many poets and other creative individuals of the twentieth century, not the least of whom were authors James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, and Gertrude Stein, and the renegade composer, George Antheil. London and Paris at the turn of the last century were hotbeds of new trends in the arts, and Pound (who incidentally at the start of his career was a student at the University of Pennsylvania) helped many aspiring individuals to take leaps into new forms and approaches. His advice to all was “Make it new.” By that he meant going against convention and developing fresh means of expression. Composer Antheil, who lived above Sylvia Beach’s legendary Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris, once did a concert inspired by Pound that used strange sound-making devices, such as airplane propellers and electric buzzers (!) in a composition entitled Ballet Mecanique. Those who attended were among the most prominent intellectuals in Paris, and they were blown away to the point of either disgust or frenetic excitement. This gave new meaning to the phrase “the lively arts.”

Philadelphia at the turn of the twenty-first century is fortunate to have a similar figure in our midst. She is composer and musical scholar Andrea Clearfield. For two decades, Andrea has run a European-style musical salon which has brought together musicians and composers of all brands to experiment with new ideas and forms. On January 27th, 2006, she took some of her musicians to Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center to do a concert called “Mozart: Reloaded.” Each was asked to take a theme from Mozart, whose 250th birthday is this year, and elaborate it in a novel way. The result was an eclectic mixture of performances, each of which had an unusual twist. For instance, iconoclastic jazz pianist Uri Caine did a contemporary improvisation on themes from a Mozart Piano Sonata. Joanna Pascale and her backup trio featuring vibraphonist Tony Miceli did a jazzed-up version of two Mozart arias. Gloria Justen spoke and pantomimed an original childhood story entitled “Foxy Lady,” the music for which was a recording of modern violin and synthesizer music. And so on. The evening ended with a performance of “The Overture to the Magic Flute” played on, of all things, steel drums!

The result was a unique combination of experimentation, innovation, evocation of Mozart’s spirit, and, yes, fun! Unlike the “bad boy of music” Antheil, who alienated many of his peers, Ms. Clearfield fully understood the audience’s need to have an experience it could assimilate and enjoy. The rapt attention and delight of those who attended was obvious.

What could get lost in the “lightness of being” of both Mozart and Andrea Clearfield is the crucial importance of such events in the process that keeps music evolving artistically. Most concerts, especially in high-profile venues such as the Kimmel Center, consist of music that – even when ultramodern – has already achieved a measure of critical acceptance. How often do you suppose that those who plan programs for Kimmel, or Carnegie Hall, or Lincoln Center, or Spoleto, or Tanglewood take a chance on un-tested materials? The answer is: hardly ever. (Even world premiers are usually of prominent composers.)

The rationalization for such conservatism is that “we can’t afford to lose money.” The reality is that, by such policies, many a new idea

is born to blush unseen

And waste its sweetness on the desert air

I don’t know what prompted the Kimmel programming department to go ahead with this event, which could have produced an empty house or a chorus of hisses had it not come off well. But they did--even to the point of letting Andrea and Kimmel Director of Programming Tom Warner wear next-to-absurd period costumes to highlight the good humor of the evening. Luckily the evening proved fulfilling and exciting, and it drew a full-house audience, including some folks who usually don’t come to the concerts, thereby turning out to be rewarding for Kimmel and its future. Moreover, it was recorded by WRTI-FM for later playback on the air.

Thanks for all this are due to the the Philadelphia Music Project, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, for sponsoring the Kimmel “Fresh Ink” series of which Mozart: Reloaded was the second event of the 2005-06 season. Certainly, such grant-making, which has become scarcer in recent years, provides an important source of funding for creative endeavors. It is also of interest in this connection that Ms. Clearfield had several local benefactors commission piano works for the occasion, all of which were superbly performed by Charles Abramovic.

I write this only to thank the Kimmel Center for taking a successful gamble on such an unusual concert. Such risks ought to be taken more frequently, for the sake of the music. Kudos to Andrea Clearfield and her cohorts. A suggestion- why not have a yearly event of this kind run by this great lady of the arts? Some day the Kimmel Center might not only be known as one of the nation’s great concert halls, but as a place where original talents were born and nurtured.

Click here for a detailed review by Vic of the “Mozart: Reloaded” concert from the All About Jazz Website.