Concert Review: Yujia Shen at Diastole Scholars' Center

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

Relying solely on a speculative hunch, I attended Yujia Shen’s doctoral recital at Diastole Scholars' Center on Saturday, May 6.  I was rewarded for my intuition.  An appreciative party crasher, I joined a small coterie of Shen’s friends, family and representatives of the UMKC Conservatory in the magnificent facility that closely resembles my dream home.

I struggled to maintain my composure during the first and third movements of Jean-Marie Leclair’s Sonata in D Major.  The profound playing of Shen and pianist Hyunah Noh provoked an outpouring of emotions I’d bottled up during a busy week.  Shen and Noh balanced Leclair’s romanticism with the modernity of Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2 in D Major in the first set.  

Belatedly aware of the presence of cameras, I managed not to break down during renditions of compositions by Arvo Pärt and Robert Schumann performed by Shen and pianist Jenessa LeMmon the recital’s second half.  I fear my ridiculous hysterics may have marred footage of the otherwise transcendent event.

Album Review: Sault- Air

The infuriating baptism sequence in “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” is among my favorite scenes in Terence Blanchard’s heart-rending 2019 opera.  I’m haunted by the Metropolitan Opera’s staging broadcast by PBS on April 1.

Neither have I stopped thinking about the Latin vespers presented by the Kansas City choral group Te Deum in a drafty Episcopal church last July.  And just last week I discovered Claude Debussy’s proses lyriques and attended a Joyce DiDonato and Il Pomo d’Oro concert.  

All of which is to say I was unwittingly primed for Sault’s new album Air.  Far removed from the previous output of the anonymous collective, Air is a symphonic choral suite that synthesizes much of my recent listening.

In addition to the music cited above, Air’s expanse nods to Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” the holy minimalism of Arvo Pärt, Brian Wilson’s pop orchestrations and Kanye West’s Sunday Service celebrations. Sing it, my nameless brothers and sisters!

Album Review: Gretchen Parlato- Flor

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

On March 7, 2020, I picked my life partner up at Kansas City International Airport and drove to the Folly Theater for a Luciana Souza concert.  The Brazilian bandleader’s performance with Chico Pinheiro and Scott Colley was so good my wife didn’t even mention jet lag at the end of her business trip.  Aside from a few parking lot buskers, I haven’t heard live music since.

The lingering echoes of Souza’s concert through the subsequent lost months may explain my unlikely affinity for Gretchen Parlato’s new album Flor.   I ordinarily don’t fall for sophisticated adult pop that seems tailor made for international jetsetters.

Like Souza, Parlato blends Música Popular Brasileira with the varied styles associated with artists ranging from Sade to Édith Piaf.  Much of Flor is undeniably precious, but the calming nature of the refined album is helping me avoid the temptation to inappropriately jump the vaccination line.

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Pat Metheny plays Arvo Pärt? Sold! I review Metheny’s new album Road to the Sun at Plastic Sax.