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Show D 0 0 "unlike bands like Guns 'N Roses and other commercial stuff. The only thing they rock is the cash box." Symphony Offers Trio of Works By Calvin L. Harrington The Utah Symphony's concerts April 7 and 8 will Include the Overture to Cost Fan Tuttc and Plano Concerto No. 21, K. 467 by i Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Caprlcclo for Piano and Orchestra by Paul Ben-- I Ialm, and a" 4 Symphony No. 4, "Italian" by Felix Mendelssohn. Christopher Wilkins will be at i i4 the podium and Aric Vardi of Israel will be 9 the guest piano soloist The extent and range of Mozarts i genius arc so vast and so bewildering that any concise summing-u- p of his achievement must risk being trite. He was the most versatile of all composers. Mozart was i equally at home in symphony, concerto, !! chamber music and church music. As an opera composer, he has no superior. Yet all through his life he encountered only frustration and many disappointments. He died in poverty and was buried in an unmarked grave. Cosi Fan Tuttc ("So do all women") is considered by music critics to be .. a "perfect" opera; the symmetrical form of the n opera unites elements of farce, melodrama, The pastoral, myth, and moral lesson. overture to this opera on the Utah Symphony program is exotic, especially in the use of the woodwind and horns. The piano concerto Is Michelle Shocked tells "political stories," says they're open to Interpretation. also up to the highest of his standards, and VA i y 'A r & V f its performance a requires special sensitivity and grace that mediocre pianists do not have. Paul Ben-Hal- m was a Jewish composer, bom in Munich, Germany. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he left Germany for good and settled in Israel. The decisive influence on his work came from the folkloristic musical tradition of the Jews and Arabs in the lands of the Near and Middle East Even before his death in 1984, he was regarded as the most prominent Nationalist 's composer of modem times. Capriccio is a brilliant workout on a haunting theme. Felix Mendelssohn's life was quite different from the lives of Mozart of Austria and Ben-- I laim of Israel. His life was far easier and more luxurious. Mendelssohn was the son of a wealthy German banker. In addition to being bom rich, he was the Robert Redford or Tom Cruise of classical composers. He was so attractive physically and so personable that he inspired admiration easily. He is often criticized because his music, like his life, is singularly free of any struggle, torment, frustration, or passion. He was no revolutionist, no innovator. As a young man, Mendelssohn traveled through Italy. The overwhelmed him; he pouredexperience out his excitement through music, his "Italian" Symphony. Some of the world's most eminent music critics say that history has been unkind to Mendelssohn; that a clearer and fairer view of him reveals a composer whose high level of excellence is undeniable. His Italian" Symphony is lighthearted, but has undercurrents of poetry. Ben-IIaim- Utah Associate Symphony's Conductor, Christopher Wilkins, received his bachelor's degree in music from Harvard in 1978 and his master of music degree from Yale in 1981. He also studied in West Berlin under the auspices of the Harvard Music Department He was principal oboist for the Boston Philharmonic and studied conducting from Maestro Joseph Silverstein. Mr. Wilkins has conducted numerous concerts for the Cleveland Institute of Music Youth Orchestra. He prepared several television programs for young people, Including one that resulted in a nationally aired PBS program that won an award for the best elementary educational television program in the Midwest. He has been a gt lest conductor with most of America's leading symphony orchestras. Israeli-bor- n Arie Vardi became a serious pianist at age 15. After winning the Chopin competition in Palestine and the equally prestigious Georges Enesco piano competition in Bucharest, Rumania, his place as a leading international virtuoso was secure. His concert tours have taken him to six continents. He is also a recording artist with RCA . 4 By Michael Ole eeffe (CPS) -- - Michelle Shocked studied at the University of Texas in Austin, but picked up knowledge that UT professors were not necessarily imparting. "College is a time when you're learning there's a lot more than what they're telling you," said Shocked, the east Texas whose 1988 album "Short Sharp Shocked" is a big hit these days on campuses across the country. "Short Sharp Shocked" may be more than just a popular album, howeveri Along with Tracy Chapman, Shocked Is one of the new, unabashedly leftist folk rock voices that have risen incongruously toward the end of this conservative decade. singer-songwriter-perfor- "College is a time when you're learning there's a lot more than what theyre telling you."- Democratic convention. Nevertheless, these days Shocked finds herself working for Polygram, one of the world's largest record labels. The company, she says, provides her with the resources to reach a large audience and the freedom to convey her message undiluted. "I dont know if I can do anything within the Shocked explained. "But I gotta try."system," In March and April she'll tour the United States, and expects to hit several college towns, though not colleges themselves. She won't play colleges, Shocked said, because collegians too often form "radical ghettoes," impressing each other with their political correctness but not taking their message to places where its seldom heard. "When they leave theyre like Peace Corp volunteers in their own county. I tell 'em to go to rural Arkansas and places like that" she said. "Theres lots of work for them Shocked, who's as much a political activist as she is a musician, says her time at college helped spark her intellectual curiosity but didnt satisfy it. "I had all these hunches, but I didn't have the knowledge to speak articulately about them," she said. That's no problem now for Shocked, who, unlike . the more overtly political Chapman, articulates her hunches and experiences Into songs that for many students soundtracks. have become personal tell stories," Shocked explained. "They're very political. It's Just that conclusions can be drawn in may "I different ways." And although she's only 25, her life has taken so many funky twists that she writes and sings those stories with the authority of someone much older. Her resume includes stints as a squatter, traveller, rape victim, Mormon, psychiatric hospital inmate, expatriate, runaway. Jailbird, and skateboard punk rocker, to name Just a few. She ran away from her strict Mormon mother ("a career-Arm- y real Tammy Bakker type") and her stepfather when she was 16, fathers love inspired by her "hippie-atheisof adventure and music. Shocked moved to Dallas, then Austin, where she graduated from the University of t" Texas, migrated to San Francisco, moved into a squatters commune and immersed herself in that city's homelss culture and hardcore an experience that scene, radicalized her. She returned once again to Austin and took up a wild lifestyle that concerned some of her friends, who let her mother know of their fear that she was going over the edge. "It was the opportunity she was looking for," Shocked said. Her mother committed her to a psychiatric hospital in Dallas. Her release come a few months later when her mom's insurance ran out 1 love that side of it," she said. "You're as crazy long as the insurance is there." She fled to Europe, again settling in with the squatter movement in Amsterdam. love it or leave it So I "They say 'America left" And although she has fond memories of the friends and communities she found, much of the expatriate's romance faded when she was raped in Italy. In 1986, Shocked decided to come home to Texas for a visit and to attend the Kerrville Folk Festival, a laid back Mayfest she'd always loved. - At Kerrvill, Shocked was "discovered" by British music entrepreneur Pete Lawrence in what could best be described as a punk-fol- k fairy tale. Lawrence recorded Shocked and the background crickets at one of the festival's ubiquitous late-nig- ht campfires on his Walkman. He returned to London and released what became known as "The Texas to do there." It became a big Years of living in Europe schooled her Campfire Tapes." to a contract with led and hit, underground in "opposition politics," trying to use the Polygram. most of the songs on the system to point out Its flaws. In Though recent her permanent address is album arent overtly political, except for months, for example, shes played benefits still a Although houseboat "Graffiti Limbo," about a New York in London, Shocked says graffiti for the Christie artist who died in police custody, Shockeds public interestInstitute, a Washington, D.C. she'll spend a lot more time in the United group that has filed suit States performing and onstage patter revolves around claiming contra leaders recording. and their American like I'd come to a dead end," she denunciations of sexism, racism and are connected to supporters drug running said. "And now, without militarism. and terrorism. compromising From there she talks about her myself in any way, I've been given a barrelful She roots her are says in Americas of resources." concern for the environment, and ending counterculture tradition, which includes not This homelessness and poverty. Shocked explained, she can protest-singin- g beatniks but also help peopleway, Even the albums cover photo only Team about what's going on in songwriters like Leadbelly, Guy Clark, their country. Students are establishes her dissident image. It features Townes at a time where Shocked grimacing as San Fransisco police the CircleVan Zandt and hardcore bands like they need to take the time to learn about Jerks and the Dead Kennedys. what s going on and about dissent. Dissent arrested her at a protest during the 1984 "It's real subversive music." she said. can make you more articulate. DID YOU VOTE? ASWC It's Your Duty! Student Elections End Wednesday March 29th Forum March 28. 1989 Issue 20 |