Yellowpoint show wraps up this weekend

We’ve just wrapped up the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular’s two-week run in Cedar with 6 sold-out shows. It’s now on to the Port Theatre in Nanaimo for four final performances this weekend. I looked on www.porttheatre.com yesterday and tickets are in very short supply.

Jump on it folks if you want to go. I have the feeling all the remaining shows will soon be sold out.

I couldn’t attend my wife Pat’s final Christmas concert with the Timbre! Choir in Port Alberni last Sunday. Pat always expresses to me shortly before concerts her worries that the choir will not be ready for a particular performance. I habitually chuckle silently to myself. I was between shows at Yellowpoint when I received the expected text on my iPhone from her. “Best ever” the text read.

 FINAL WEEKEND - FRI. DEC 18 (7pm), SAT. DEC 19 (3pm & 7pm), SUN. DEC. 20, (3pm)

My father made this plywood cutout of carolers in 1946. The cutout was mounted that year on the roof of our family home on South Crescent in Port Alberni. I still display the carolers in my front yard at Christmas. The decoration has never been repainted, its vivid colours intact, likely due to the amount of lead allowed in paint at the time. 

 I recently found this black & white photo from 1946 of the plywood cutout mentioned above. The carolers are mounted for the first time on the snowy roof of our family home. 

Some folks in our Nanaimo neighborhood go all out. This close-by neighbor has no less than 12 fan-driven decorations occupying every square foot of their front yard. Seeing them all deflated during the day when the power is shut off is not a pretty sight. However, at night the display is unquestionably a car-stopping spectacle.

Sinatra explored as never before.

The past several weeks I’ve been wading through a 992-page tome called Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan. I also downloaded from iTunes Ultimate Sinatra ($10), a single-disc containing a cross-section of Sinatra's unparalleled recording career. Led by 'All Or Nothing At All' and closed with a previously unreleased alternate version of 'Just In Time,' the collection is stacked with standouts, including 'I'll Never Smile Again' (1940), 'I've Got The World On A String' (1953), 'In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning' (1955), 'I've Got You Under My Skin' (1956), 'Come Fly With Me' (1957), 'The Way You Look Tonight' (1964), 'Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)' (1964), 'Strangers In The Night' (1966), 'My Way' (1968), and 'Theme From New York, New York' (1979), among many more. I decided not to spring for the elaborate 4-disk Centennial Collection at $40.

Sinatra: The Chairman is a riveting read. One reviewer Globe correspondent Julia Klein in my opinion put it best, saying the book is “a juicy, painstakingly researched, excitingly written examination of a brilliant musician, an uneven and temperamental actor, and a charming erratic, deeply flawed man.” Wow, that’s a mouthful.

Having lived in Los Angeles while attending music college in the late 50’s and early 60’s, I most enjoyed the detail to the events surrounding Sinatra’s recording sessions that took place in those years at the new Capitol Studios on Vine Street just a few blocks from where I lived. It gave me a new appreciation of the songs as I listened to them while reading the book.

Regrettably for my taste, at times the music almost seems secondary given Sinatra’s lifestyle which was domineered by dozens of beautiful women, The Mob, politics and booze. Yes, Sinatra had issues and the author describes them in great detail. However, whenever the text became excessively tragic for me to read on, I just punched up the CD and listened. The man’s digressions quickly faded. For me, Sinatra was and always will be the consummate vocalist. Paraphrasing the words of Frank’s mammoth hit from 1968 declare, He did it His Way.

Having a 4-day break from the Yellowpoint show I was able to get in several days aboard my electric bike. Where else except Canada’s West Coast can one ride a bike in December? However, I confess last year around this time I went for a night-time ride on my old 10-speed and didn’t realize the streets were skating rinks of black ice. I ended up sliding across our cul-de-sac on my backside with the bike on top of me. Ever since I make sure the roads are dry before venturing out.

However, there will be no bike ride today. As I write this blog it’s actually snowing outside.

Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular underway

As I write this blog, I’ve just returned from the last dress rehearsal for the upcoming run of the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. It has been a marathon two weeks of rehearsals. It’s always amazing to me how singers and dancers can commit to memory dozens of songs and dance steps for an entire production within a two-week rehearsal schedule. In comparison I feel I have it easy, being able to have the piano score at my fingertips through the entire run.

Yesterday’s final two dress rehearsals went off without a hitch except for a power failure in the morning run’s first act. I’ve always wondered what would happen in such a situation. Although the show suddenly ground to a halt, to our surprise we found out the venue had a backup generator that automatically kicked in. We did have to wait a few minutes to reboot the computers operating the stage lighting, but other than that, the show was quickly back up and running.

You won’t want to miss this year’s version of the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. Take my word for it. It truly is spectacular. The production includes music by the Beach Boys, a Rock of Ages medley, Bobby Darrin songs, tunes from Grease and Moulin Rouge, a special Canadiana set and many more classical hits and Christmas favourites.

Tickets for matinee and evening performances at the Cedar Community Hall (December 4th – 13th) and the Port Theatre in Nanaimo (December 18th, 19th & 20th) can be purchased by phoning 250-754-8550 or online at www.porttheatre.com. There will be two performances (Dec 8th & 9th) at the Sid Williams Theatre in Courtenay – Phone 250-338-2430 or go online to www.sidwilliamstheatre.com.

Rehearsing a scene that features a huge snow globe.

No, the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular doesn’t have a bass playing snowman. Band member Dave Baird found this detached head on a table backstage.

 

 

The Met: Live in HD

Last week I attended a matinee performance at the Metropolitan Opera. To clarify, the performance was one of the series of operas beamed live from New York City via satellite to movie theatres across North America. I have been attending these broadcasts at Nanaimo’s Galaxy Theatre from their very beginnings ten years ago. If my memory is correct, the first opera was The Magic Flute and attracted less than 10 people to the Nanaimo theatre including myself. However, as the season progressed word of mouth got around and audiences quickly built to the point where one has to purchase a ticket well in advance to guarantee a seat. Some performances of well-known operas sold out two of the Galaxy’s 6 auditoriums.

The opera I recently saw was Alban Berg’s Lulu. Most blog readers I speculate would have never heard of it? I hadn’t. I had to go online to bring myself up to speed. The score uses the 12-tone composition technique pioneered by Berg’s teacher Arnold Schoenberg. Mention the term 12-tone music to many classical concertgoers and they will more often than not recoil. To them such music is rudderless and sounds tuneless.

So what is 12-tone music you may ask? I confess my knowledge of the technique is limited to a semester I took at Music College in Los Angeles. Simply put, and I mean very simply, the composer cannot repeat a note used from the chromatic scale until all of the 11 others have been used. The composer chooses the order of notes that is called the prime row. It can become pretty complicated. I can tell you my limited attempts using the technique didn’t produce anything earth shattering.

I confess it was not Berg’s score that motivated me to spend 4-hours at the Galaxy last week. I went because I knew one of the production’s cast members. Tyler Duncan played the trombone in my secondary school band for several years and sang from the age of 10 in my wife Pat’s Junior and Teen Choirs. Tyler moved on to study voice at the University of British Columbia and further study abroad in Germany. Building a successful North American solo career based out of New York, Tyler has recently joined the Metropolitan Opera Company.

I enjoyed my morning at the opera with Lulu immensely. After two acts I was beginning to wonder if I’d missed seeing Tyler as his role, being a new member of the company, was not sizeable. However, at the beginning of Act 3, there he was filling the movie screen performing a short solo as The Correspondent. I wanted to stand and cheer. I settled for ghosting my hand claps. Pat and I are so proud of what Tyler has accomplished.

Tyler Duncan singing with Timbre! during a return visit to the Alberni Valley. Tyler is performing in three Metropolitan Opera productions this season.

 

 

 

Timbre! Choir’s Christmas Card

You need to hurry, tickets are selling fast for Timbre! Choir’s annual Christmas Concert. The popular concert will be presented Sunday, December 13 at 2:30 pm at ADSS Theatre in Port Alberni. Tickets are available at Rollin Art Centre, Echo Centre, Salmonberry’s, Choir Members and at the door if available.