A Bowl of Potatoes and More Old Shoes

The Kröller-Müller Museum’s website comments on van Gogh’s Still Life with Potatoes (1889) that “In Arles, Van Gogh is far away from the artistic milieu in Paris. He embarks, once and for all, on a quest for his own style and is unbound by realism. Thus, the colours in this still life are not ‘after nature.” I might say, rather, “van Gogh captures the essence of potatoes” or “van Gogh could make art out of anything.” Whatever the case, I couldn’t let well enough alone, so set the bowl of potatoes against a backdrop of the moon rising over a field of wheat sheaves.

Contemporaneous performs Brian Petuch’s Portrait and a Dream

Jackson Pollack, Portrait and a Dream (1953)

Contemporaneous is in top form, the singers are stupendous, and Petuch’s opera is outstanding, with his text choices as brilliant as his compositional approach. Watching this made my day, and I hope it may do the same for you.

“Portrait and a Dream [is] an opera about Jackson Pollock told through the lens of Lee Krasner and archival recordings of the people who surrounded his life.” [cite]

Contemporaneous performs Sunshowers, by Yasmin Williams

“Sunshowers (2021) – Yasmin Williams, arr. Zachary Ritter (world premiere arrangement), rehearsal footage from After the Storm 2021. Yasmin Williams is an acoustic fingerstyle guitarist who has invented her own way of playing, which NPR Music says ‘transcends the standard idea of what a guitarist should do,’ and whose most recent album reached #1 on iTunes’ Folk Music chart.” [cite]

Bringing in Spring with Shawn Jaeger’s The Cold Pane

Shawn Jaeger, photo by Arthur Moeller

Shawn Jaeger‘s The Cold Pane is an exquisite summoning of spring. Jaeger’s composition sets five texts by Wendell Berry. They can be found here, together with the score. The piece is scored for soprano and chamber ensemble (clarinet in B-flat, mandolin, violin, double bass). The performers are Contemporaneous members Lucy Dhegrae, Vicente Alexim (clarinet), Colin Davin (mandolin), Josh Henderson (violin), and Pat Swoboda (double bass). David Bloom conducts.

July Miscellany, with music by Jaeger, Mattingly & Trapani & performances by Dhegrae & Contemporaneous

That’s Robert Louis Stevenson contemplating the proceedings, courtesy John Singer Sargent. The proceedings include, among other things, El café by Joaquín Torres-García and the Cabinet of Geology and Mineralogy from the announcement of a project by Mark Dion at Vassar College.