By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • March 3, 2008
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If you don't get up and start moving at a Maceo Parker concert, better check your pulse. The former James Brown sideman is one of the funkiest sax players around, and at 65 still sets crowds on fire every time he picks up his horn. An early pioneer of funk, he's gone on to play with artists from Prince to Ani DiFranco, and on Saturday night at the State Theatre in Falls Church he showed the sold-out crowd what this music looks like in the 21st century: grown-up and sophisticated, but still as dirty, sexy and hard-driving as it ever was.

And from the opening tune, "Funky Fiesta," things didn't let up for the next three hours. Drawing from his latest disc, "Roots and Grooves," Parker and his eight-piece band turned in torqued-up versions of songs like "Off the Hook" and "Uptown Up." Some worked better than others (did we really need to hear manager Natasha Maddison recite Hamlet's soliloquy during "To Be or Not to Be"?), but Parker kept the mix interesting by throwing in bluesy ballads and even channeling Ray Charles (perfect down to the Ray-Bans) in "Georgia on My Mind."

Parker's sax playing was the star of the evening; searing, punchy, it wove in and out of the groove with confident ease, never taking no for an answer. But his singing was nearly as good -- he's got a serious, lived-in voice and knows how to use it. And while Parker may not have James Brown's moves (hey -- who does?), he's a natural showman, dancing through the show and tossing in a few of Brown's shouts and yelps and even the occasional, "Good God!"

It was a spectacular performance, and Parker's band -- with turn-on-a-dime playing and searing solos -- deserves a lot of the credit.  Bassist Rodney "Skeet" Curtis and Jamal Thomas on drums laid down unstoppable rhythms, with Will Boulware and Bruno Speight filling things out on keyboards and on guitar. The horn section, featuring Dennis Rollins on trombone (with a quick guest appearance by former Parker trombonist Greg Boyer) and Ron Tooley on trumpet were brilliant, and Parker's son Corey, singing backup, showed he has the chops to build a career that could rival his father's.

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • March 1, 2008
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David KrakauerAny doubts that romanticism still stirs in the modern composer's breast were put to rest at the Library of Congress on Thursday night, when the Orion Quartet and clarinetist David Krakauer turned in a performance of David Del Tredici's "Magyar Madness" that nearly outdid Schubert in lush, sweeping expressiveness.

In fact, the last movement of this engaging new work directly channeled Schubert's own "Divertissement ¿ la Hongroise" and gave Krakauer (for whom it was written) a chance to display the technique he's developed as both a classical player and specialist in klezmer music. It's a tour de force that explores every color of the clarinet and then some, with colorful and often antic writing that builds into what the composer describes as "a goulash of musical frenzy." And while the piece is no stroll in the park -- it clocks in at roughly 40 very intense minutes -- it's so imaginative and unabashedly lyrical that you can't help but be swept up in it: a superb new work, performed with commitment and striking intelligence.

Krakauer and the Orion also shone in Osvaldo Golijov's dark, otherworldly "K'vakarat," exploring its delicate mysteries with a sense of almost religious possession. And although Haydn's String Quartet, Op. 74 No. 1 (which opened the program), just trundled along blandly before clicking into focus in the last movement, the Orion turned in a full-blooded account of Beethoven's String Quartet, Op. 59 No. 3, that was, in a word, stunning. For those who love these "Razumovsky" quartets beyond all sane measure (call me -- let's talk), it was virtually a peak experience.

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • February 26, 2008
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Sir James GalwaySir James Galway may be the most famous flutist on the planet; not only does he have a superb technique and gorgeous tone, but he's personable to a fault -- the lovable Irish imp of classical music. His concerts are equally user-friendly, designed to charm the ears rather than provoke the mind. "People don't bring their heads to a concert," he says on the Kennedy Center's Web site. "They bring their hearts, and they want to be touched."

Well . . . okay; though a few of us do manage to drag our pesky brains along, and sometimes they even enjoy the experience. But true to form, Galway's Monday night performance at the Kennedy Center stayed firmly on the safe side, with half of the evening devoted to yawningly familiar staples of the flute repertoire and the other half to trifles so light and sugary they made your teeth hurt.

Not that any of it was badly played; the evening was full of furious pyrotechnics. And in all fairness, chamber music rarely survives the vastness of the Concert Hall. But rather than exploring the music in any depth, Galway seemed intent on dispatching it with athletic flourish. Poulenc's Sonata for Flute and Piano was full of wit and personality, but Prokofiev's Sonata in D, Op. 94 -- the one truly great work on the program -- was played for effect rather than meaning, its thorns removed and its mysteries glossed over.

The rest of the program was a grab bag of pleasant, late-19th-century bits of nothing that evaporated as soon as they hit the ears; 45 minutes of encore pieces, more or less. But in truth, even though the head was getting a little cranky by the end, the heart was quietly smiling. Probably just a sugar high.

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • February 23, 2008
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Once you've been a Supreme, where do you go from there? Mary Wilson, a founding member of the Motown supergroup, has evolved into everything from ambassador (one of those cultural ones) to actress, author, grandmother (eight times over) and, most recently, political activist, stumping the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton. And on Thursday night at Blues Alley, she put on a show that, she promised, would "tell my life story through songs."

It's a great story, and the show -- titled "Mary Wilson Up Close" -- made for a warm, relentlessly optimistic evening, with the singer in fine voice and clearly having a good time. And yet, as a personal statement, it felt a little cliched, especially from someone who's lived so fully. Opening with that old Shirley Horn standby "Here's to Life," Wilson churned through familiar love songs, ballads and standards from the past half-century, digging into everything from Nat King Cole's "Smile" to Norah Jones' "Don't Know Why."

Things got a bit overcooked at times, and there was a wearying amount of smiling through the tears. But when it worked, it worked beautifully: A heartfelt cover of "I Am Changing," dedicated to her friend and Supremes colleague, the late Florence Ballard, was one of the high points of the set.

Even if the glitz tended to outweigh the depth, Wilson's still a treat to listen to. Looking at least a decade younger than her 63 years, she exudes capital-G glamour from every pore, and her deep, rich voice can reduce a room to adoring silence in a matter of seconds. Her five-piece backup band never really shone, unfortunately -- assembled from bits and pieces, they were playing together for the first time -- but Wilson revved things up with Jorge Ben's "Mas Que Nada" and Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind." Still, it was only when she finally broke out the old Supremes hit "My World Is Empty Without You" that Wilson seemed completely at home -- back where the story of her professional life began.

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Times • February 18, 2008 
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                                                                                             Veronika Lukasova

The fact that "The Doctor of Alcantara" has fallen into obscurity is not, perhaps, one of the great musical mysteries of our time. This frothy little operetta was a smash hit in the 1870s, but to modern ears its melodies are hopelessly banal (there's even an aria called "Oh, Woe is Me!") and its drama thin; fun to listen to, but about as deep and enduring as a Britney Spears marriage.

But context is everything, as they say, and "Alcantara" was revived (in concert form) for the first time in a century on Saturday night at Strathmore, as part of one of the most thoughtful and unusual musical premieres this season. Titled "Free to Sing: The Story of the First African-American Opera Company," the production wove music, photography and narration together to tell the true but long-forgotten story of a heroic group of blacks in Washington in the years around the Civil War. With few resources but their own voices, they formed first a choir, and then the Colored American Opera Company, the first opera group in Washington, and raised $75,000 putting on "Alcantara" to build a church and school.

It's an inspiring piece of local history, and Strathmore brought together some exceptional talent to tell it. Written by Shelley Brown and Michael Rosenberg and narrated by the rich-voiced David Emerson Toney, "Free to Sing" evokes the period more as dramatic sketch than history lecture, illustrated with the kind of spirituals and classical religious music that the original choir would have sung.

Opening with a dramatic processional of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," the Morgan State University Choir turned in solid if rather low-key accounts of five other spirituals, two movements from a simple but lovely Mass written by John Esputa (the original choir's music director), a bit of Haydn and a surprisingly moving "Te Deum" from that master of the march, John Philip Sousa. Through it all you could hear the deep hopes and even deeper fears of the time.

The real excitement came in the second half, which was devoted to the Opera Company's music. The group had an all-too-short life — it only put on seven performances of "The Doctor of Alcantara," written by the emigre Julius Eichberg in 1862 — but was nonetheless able to build St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church with the proceeds. And it's easy to understand its success; "Alcantara" is a light souffle of a work, whipped up from the usual batch of thwarted young lovers, meddlesome parents and lots of free-floating hormones, but it was brought off on Saturday with such ease and relaxed humor that it was impossible to resist.

There was fine comic interplay and often superb singing from Awet Andemicael as Isabella, Kenneth Gayle as Carlos, Carmen Balthrop as Lucrezia and Millicent Scarlett as Inez, as well as an engagingly over-the-top vocal turn by narrator Toney. But much of the evening's pleasure came from the Post-Classical Ensemble and its expressively kinetic conductor, Angel Gil-Ordóñez, who turned in lively, detailed and almost mischievous playing, making this work seem as fresh as it must have more than a century ago — back in the first heady years of freedom.

Petr Spatina is an exceptional glass harp player based in Austria.  Check out a more elegant video at his website.

By Stephen Brookes • The Washington Post • February 13, 2008
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Much promise, little payoff: That's been the story of computer music for most of the past few decades. But the development of immensely powerful laptops is one of the most exciting developments in contemporary music; performers can transform sound in ear-bending ways unimaginable only a few years ago, and do it onstage, in real time. For composers, it's a world exploding with possibilities.

Out on the bleeding edge of the new technology is the Tokyo-based Laptop Orchestra, which brought a minimalist, sometimes difficult but stunningly beautiful work to the Kennedy Center's Theater Lab on Monday night. Composed by the group's director, Philippe Chatelain, "1(000) Breath(s)" takes the sound of a sho -- a traditional Japanese mouth organ, played by Ko Ishikawa -- and transforms it through a network of six laptops into a meta-instrument of extraordinary scope and scale.

It's an intriguing way to ground technology with the human breath, where music (and this piece) began. Playing in almost total darkness and surrounded by huge flat-screen monitors, Ishikawa and the orchestra slowly built sustained tones into a radiant cloud of sound, projected from speakers around the theater. It was severe, demanding music, with the sounds of the sho transformed into a "noise music" palette of clicks, roars and sudden waves of static. Stripped of conventional narrative and drama, even emotion, this was music pared to a Zenlike purity; and by the end, you felt as if you'd been in a strange but beguiling landscape, blown by a godlike wind.