Is Phoenix ready for The Grateful Dead?
By Matthew Heil
Public Relations Manager
It may well be where The Phoenix Symphony has never gone before: a Pops concert of Grateful Dead songs. The Russian National Orchestra just released a CD of work based on the rock group's counter-culture music. The Phoenix Symphony isn't a stranger to adaptations of contemporary rockers, though not perhaps to this degree. Just this past season alone the orchestra performed with a Beatles tribute band, and turned out to rock with Live Nation's presentation of Led Zeppelin music. But is Jerry Garcia's artistic styling interesting to a classical audience? I guess we'll see how the new recording is received! For more about the new enterprise in genre-blending, see the San Francisco Chronicle article.
Public Relations Manager
It may well be where The Phoenix Symphony has never gone before: a Pops concert of Grateful Dead songs. The Russian National Orchestra just released a CD of work based on the rock group's counter-culture music. The Phoenix Symphony isn't a stranger to adaptations of contemporary rockers, though not perhaps to this degree. Just this past season alone the orchestra performed with a Beatles tribute band, and turned out to rock with Live Nation's presentation of Led Zeppelin music. But is Jerry Garcia's artistic styling interesting to a classical audience? I guess we'll see how the new recording is received! For more about the new enterprise in genre-blending, see the San Francisco Chronicle article.
5 Comments:
The PSO has done some "socially" insignificant "sellout" (I don't mean the number of seats sold!)
gigs before. The "Lord of the Rings" concert comes to mind.
The "Grateful Dead" was a socially recognized phenomenon, both culturally and musically.
Or so I gather from everything I've read throughout my many years.
I am and never have been a "Dead Head. Not even curious enough to buy a CD or DVD. The closest I've gotten to Jerry Garcia was buying one of his endorsed neckties for artistic value.
But, I understand that "Dead Symphony" is not just a popsy arrangement for backup orchestra.
Lee Johnson, who has one CD to his credit on amazon.com, has purportedly "composed" this
large orchestral work,using "Dead" material as his starting point.
Now, this reminds me of what Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Shostakovich, Copland, just to name a few,did in may of their orchestral works. Today, we refer to them a "folk" material.
So, I'm willing to give the "Dead Symphony" a chance. As soon as a CD is released, I will buy it and give it a "critical" listen. Then, I will give my recommendations to Maestro Christie. Who knows? He might have already scheduled it with his Brooklyn "Hip" Philharmonic.
I liked the Lord of the Rings not for the music (I personally didn't enjoy that aspect), but for the fact that it brought a whole new group of people to hear the symphony. Same thing would happen if The Phoenix Symphony would do the John Williams package. Star Wars geeks would flood the box office and I'd be first in line.
I'm not so keen on the Grateful Dead, but would be up for Frank Zappa or Led Zepplin.
Lee Johnson’s “Dead Symphony No. 6” reviewed.
This composition is better described as a suite of 12 very lush orchestrated songs. No overall “symphonic” structure can be deciphered. Each “movement” can be listened to separately as a work of art. There is always a theme that is developed in a span of three to six minutes, using various instrumental colors and moods. This is much more than a typical Boston Pops’ Richard Hayman arrangement of pop tunes by Simon and Garfunkel.
Surprisingly, the music does not “rock.” No drum set! Is it because the Russian National Orchestra is playing it? Some of it is very “serious” and “dark” in texture. The most bipolar piece is “Blues for Allah.” The next piece “Sugar Magnolia” does, in fact, sound like a bouncy S & G song “Feelin’ Groovy,” but with some interesting contrabassoon writing. “If I Had the World to Give” reminds me of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby – Father McKenzie” with its low string staccatos.
I still have no idea what the original Grateful Dead tunes sounded like, but I can listen to this album as a purely orchestral product and not a transcription. I hear Claude Debussy. I hear Howard Hanson. I hear Charles Ives. I hear J.S. Bach’s “Come Sweet Death” and Ravel’s “Dead Princess.” Lee Johnson knows how to write good music. It’s too bad that he didn’t fully expand on any of the 10 songs. Perhaps a 4-movement symphony could have been created but for his need to please The Dead Heads.
The “Dead Symphony” is not appropriate for a Pops Concert. Should the Phoenix Symphony, Musica Nova Orchestra, or the ASU Symphony choose to present the Arizona premiere, it should be treated like a legitimate classical work that is more accessible to the audience than, lets say, Christopher Rouse.
You can't judge a composer by one composition.
So, I will purchase LEE JOHNSON's "Trail of Tears: A World Symphony" (No. 3) with the London Session Orchestra, Cherokee Choir, Tommy Wildcat,Rhonda Larson (from the Paul Winter Consort).
Does Mr. Johnson change his style based on the commission and the subject matter? Expect a review soon.
Dear Friends of New Music,
This is composer, Lee Johnson. You can listen to all of my symphonies - except for the complete Dead Symphony no. 6 - for free at my website.
www.leejohnsonmusic.com
I don't fear exploration and I love the genre of the symphony enough to make sure that it doesn't perish in my generation. It is in danger of becoming the sole property of those who already own all of the symphonies that they believe should have been written anyway. You know who they are.
The world is overstaffed with critical/harmful commentary on new music now. We get it. We know to write music that isn't "anti-human" anymore.
So give us some room to see what else is out there. I prefer to think of the symphonic genre as it was in the early days of Haydn. Several dozen early Haydn symphonies were nothing like the mature genre that he later developed.
Others continued his quest. It is time to experiment again.
Alfred Schnittke rebirthed the symphony with his Symphony no. 1. It isn't dead. In my case it's just being further evolved by a cultural and musical movement that beautifully represents a dynamic generation of American life; The Grateful Dead. They weren't invented or supported with NEA funds. 200 years from now that might be necessary, but not now.
If you think Dead Symphony no. 6 is a suite. Then consider that I embedded the actual encores into the symphony itself. I'll let you decide which movements are the encores for now. What other rules did I break? What does the score say? Are some movements optional?
Need more development, more length, more whatever? Then you're not ready for Lee Johnson symphonies no. 7 and 8. I found some more old plaster musicological molds that couldn't support artistic life anymore and broke them too.
Peace to you all and thanks for taking new music seriously.
www.deadsymphony.com
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