Michael Christie has been instrumental in the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s ability to attract listeners that orchestras across the country are desperate to reach: Music fans who may have never before heard a symphony perform in a concert hall. Though part of his work as the music director of the Brooklyn Phil entails appealing to a relatively youthful crowd, Christie seeks an even broader range of new converts.
“Age aside, we have to find a way that’s creatively populist … which doesn’t always mean Mozart and Beethoven,” Christie says via phone from Phoenix, where he also serves as the music director for the Phoenix Symphony.
Christie’s vision for the Brooklyn Philharmonic since he became the music director in Sept. 2005 has been “to expand the boundaries where possible,” and to that end, he inaugurated the BP Presents series in 2006 in an effort to bring new blood into the audience. He says he could have pursued two vastly different tacks with BP Presents: the nostalgia route (think ABBA and Led Zeppelin tributes) or contemporary non-classical artists who evince a symphonic sensibility. And all the fans of independent music who saw the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s ecstatic performance with the magnetic cabaret-pop group Antony and the Johnsons last year are surely grateful he chose the latter.
For the next installment of BP Presents, the Brooklyn Philharmonic teams up with the bewitching singer and harpist Joanna Newsom. Though the harp has oft been relegated to delicate purposes, Newsom’s singular approach to the instrument—influenced by classical, Celtic and West African techniques, she pulls and pounds on it with amazing force and dexterity—has won over innumerable rock-obsessed doubters.
And she possesses a voice that, like those of many beloved singers throughout pop music history—from Bob Dylan to Bjork, Neil Young and even Antony—may take some getting used to but has often been deemed revelatory. A commanding otherworldly presence, Newsom belts out her extraordinary tales in a bluesy Appalachian folk style that favors high pitches and nasal tones. Mix that voice with the lushly gorgeous arrangements of longtime Brian Wilson collaborator and all-around extraordinaire Van Dyke Parks and you get Ys, Newsom’s 2006 epic fantasia that The Milk-Eyed Mender, her first record, only hints at.
For two nights at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Newsom and her band (Ryan Francesconi on tambura and banjo, Neal Morgan on drums and Lyla Sklar on violin) will first perform Ys in its entirety with members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. In the evening’s second half, Newsom will play on without the orchestra, drawing on The Milk-Eyed Mender and perhaps, if the audience is lucky, share a new song or two. The live performance of Ys will diverge slightly from the recorded version, since Francesconi made changes to the original arrangements to create scores for the orchestra.
“There was a lot of editing … that needed to happen with the scores to reflect changes that were made in the original recording … process, the mixing (where sections were removed) as well [as] some re-notation of certain parts to reflect ... how Joanna plays Ys now,” Francesconi explains via email from Sydney, Australia, where Newsom and her band are doing two nights with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
And after Newsom’s shows are over, the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s season includes the work of two high-profile contemporary American composers. They’re celebrating John Corigliano’s 70th birthday with the 2008 Corigliano Festival, which includes a performance of Pied Piper Fantasy at BAM on Feb. 2 and Mr. Tambourine Man at the Brooklyn Public Library on Feb. 9. Then on March 8 they’ll perform John Adams’s The Dharma at Big Sur with Leila Josefowicz on electric violin. And as for the next event in the BP Presents series, Christie says they’re looking at artists like The Decemberists and Björk.
“We try to be eclectic and fun and approachable,” he explains. He’s hesitant to use the word accessible, saying instead, “We try to make sure there’s a high likelihood of resonance with the audience.”
Jan. 31 & Feb. 1, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave., B’klyn, 718-636-4100; 8, (SOLD OUT).
“Age aside, we have to find a way that’s creatively populist … which doesn’t always mean Mozart and Beethoven,” Christie says via phone from Phoenix, where he also serves as the music director for the Phoenix Symphony.
Christie’s vision for the Brooklyn Philharmonic since he became the music director in Sept. 2005 has been “to expand the boundaries where possible,” and to that end, he inaugurated the BP Presents series in 2006 in an effort to bring new blood into the audience. He says he could have pursued two vastly different tacks with BP Presents: the nostalgia route (think ABBA and Led Zeppelin tributes) or contemporary non-classical artists who evince a symphonic sensibility. And all the fans of independent music who saw the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s ecstatic performance with the magnetic cabaret-pop group Antony and the Johnsons last year are surely grateful he chose the latter.
For the next installment of BP Presents, the Brooklyn Philharmonic teams up with the bewitching singer and harpist Joanna Newsom. Though the harp has oft been relegated to delicate purposes, Newsom’s singular approach to the instrument—influenced by classical, Celtic and West African techniques, she pulls and pounds on it with amazing force and dexterity—has won over innumerable rock-obsessed doubters.
And she possesses a voice that, like those of many beloved singers throughout pop music history—from Bob Dylan to Bjork, Neil Young and even Antony—may take some getting used to but has often been deemed revelatory. A commanding otherworldly presence, Newsom belts out her extraordinary tales in a bluesy Appalachian folk style that favors high pitches and nasal tones. Mix that voice with the lushly gorgeous arrangements of longtime Brian Wilson collaborator and all-around extraordinaire Van Dyke Parks and you get Ys, Newsom’s 2006 epic fantasia that The Milk-Eyed Mender, her first record, only hints at.
For two nights at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Newsom and her band (Ryan Francesconi on tambura and banjo, Neal Morgan on drums and Lyla Sklar on violin) will first perform Ys in its entirety with members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic. In the evening’s second half, Newsom will play on without the orchestra, drawing on The Milk-Eyed Mender and perhaps, if the audience is lucky, share a new song or two. The live performance of Ys will diverge slightly from the recorded version, since Francesconi made changes to the original arrangements to create scores for the orchestra.
“There was a lot of editing … that needed to happen with the scores to reflect changes that were made in the original recording … process, the mixing (where sections were removed) as well [as] some re-notation of certain parts to reflect ... how Joanna plays Ys now,” Francesconi explains via email from Sydney, Australia, where Newsom and her band are doing two nights with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
And after Newsom’s shows are over, the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s season includes the work of two high-profile contemporary American composers. They’re celebrating John Corigliano’s 70th birthday with the 2008 Corigliano Festival, which includes a performance of Pied Piper Fantasy at BAM on Feb. 2 and Mr. Tambourine Man at the Brooklyn Public Library on Feb. 9. Then on March 8 they’ll perform John Adams’s The Dharma at Big Sur with Leila Josefowicz on electric violin. And as for the next event in the BP Presents series, Christie says they’re looking at artists like The Decemberists and Björk.
“We try to be eclectic and fun and approachable,” he explains. He’s hesitant to use the word accessible, saying instead, “We try to make sure there’s a high likelihood of resonance with the audience.”
Jan. 31 & Feb. 1, BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave., B’klyn, 718-636-4100; 8, (SOLD OUT).
