SOUNDTRACK: LARA ST. JOHN-Tiny Desk Concert #530 (May 9, 2016).
When Lara St. John released her first CD it made ripples because of the way she appeared on it (presumably topless). But if that was a stunt to get people to listen, it was a good one because the music on it was phenomenal (and the disc sold very well). St. John is masterful on the violin and has released a dozen or so CDs of herself playing.
I have never seen her play before and it is a marvel watching her fingers fly (and slide) all over the neck of the violin (including some absurdly high and fast notes).
The first piece is “Czardashian Rhapsody.” It is an amazing mashup of two songs by Martin Kennedy: Czardas, the most familiar Hungarian melody for violin and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, the most familiar Hungarian melody for piano. He merged them into a real barnstormer. It’s 6 minutes of switching back and forth between the familiar melodies and very gypsy-esque sections (and some very long held notes).
The song is 6 minutes of musical acrobatics.
Although this is billed as St. John’s show, much recognition must go to her pianist Matt Herskowitz who is also magnificent.
St. John clearly has a sense of humor since she named her new album Shiksa. She says the album actually has ten different titles because every culture has a word for “big Canadian chicks” like herself.
The second piece is “Sari Siroun Yar” by Serouj Kradjian. She says it was the first song she heard when she went to Armenia in the lat 1980s. It is a bittersweet Armenian troubadour song. While this song is much more mellow than the first, it still showcases some amazing playing on both musicians’ parts. The opening notes she plays high on the fret board which gives the violin a very different sound–almost breathy. And the main melody is quite lovely.
The final song is once again a wild one. “Oltenian Hora” is one that St. John arranged herself. It plays off a catalog of violin tricks, St. John explains, practiced by traditional Romanian gypsy fiddlers: rapid-fire whistles, bird calls and slithery harmonics, all in a variety of off-kilter rhythms. I’ve never seen some of the things she does on the violin (those bird calls are amazing). And by the end she is bowing so hard the bow seems about to break. It is way intense and really awesome.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a violinist get out of breath from playing so hard before, but she deserves all of the applause.
[READ: March 15, 2016] Feynman
This is a graphic novel biography of Richard Feynman. Ottaviani worked as a nuclear engineer, programmer and reference librarian, so you can trust him.
I have respected Richard Feynman for years. I have a few of his books, although I can’t say I have read them intensely. I knew that he was considered an amazing professor–making really intense subjects easier for the layman to understand. And many of his lectures are available as audiobooks.
But there was so much about him that I didn’t know. And this biography (which runs nearly 300 pages and is jam packed with information) covers nearly all of it. Including excerpts from his own publications and attaching a massive bibliography for more works by and about Feynman. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 