In our usual fashion, we finally got to the Edmund Yaghjian show at the South Carolina State Museum in its stretch run; it closes Sept. 16. It is a blockbuster, a huge showcase for a painter of enormous gifts whose career choice to leave New York City for the "wilds" of Columbia in the 1940's resulted in a legacy that's evident from the percolating visual arts scene of the city today, even if it also may have denied him the greater fame and fortune that might have been had he stayed in the thick of things.

It doesn't seem as though there has previously been a retrospective of this magnitude for Yaghjian's work. Already the State Museum's show, with some 50 works displayed, may set the table for a wider appreciation of his work, beyond the state where he lived for the last several decades of his life: Jeffrey Day reported recently in the State that ACA Gallery in New York will mount a Yaghjian show this fall. That show will feature mostly the works from his New York period (mostly 1930's) of which quite a few major examples are on display at the State Museum's show. "Gritty urban realism" is the phrase I read in several sources, but for me there is almost a kind of youthful idealism in many of these. Perspectives are somewhat bird's-eye, but kind of squished together with all that elements that might have appeared at one time in a given scene coming together all at once. I would call it "heightened realism." The massed taxis and the crowds at 42nd Street or Times Square are orderly and beautiful like a Busby Berkeley dance number; far less ragged than in real life, even if one supposes a more civilized 1930's:


The East River is not just criss-crossed with bridges and dotted with barges; to Yaghjian's eye it is those very spans and boats; the water is an afterthought.


So much about Edmund Yaghjian's style changed when he entered middle age and settled into his career as head of the art department at USC from 1945-66, and then teaching on at the university until his retirement in 1972. But echoes of this "heightened realism" recur even late in his career, when Columbia was the subject matter. Did the state fair in Columbia ever really look this magical, except maybe to a wide-eyed young boy...or a much older artist still very much in touch with that magic?


But this seems to be an exception among Yaghjian's Columbia paintings; judging from this exhibition, the emphasis turned to individuals, and especially individual buildings and houses. The ramshackle was his subject matter, along with the hardscrabble lives especially of African-Americans in this town, sometimes in the very shadow of the State Capitol building in which so many of the instruments of oppression were codified. Rarely is any railing or post ever quite straight in any Yaghjian painting from 1950 on, but there is a quiet dignity to most of these ragged homes and small shops as he saw them:



The upshot of all this: do not miss this exhibition. This is a remarkable body of work. Get to the State Museum by September 16th and if you are in New York, look for the ACA show in Chelsea sometime next month. For more on Edmund Yaghjian and this exhibition, go to this article on Yaghjian, this one specifically on the State Museum's show, and this slide show with commentary, all by Jeffrey Day, the arts writer at the State newspaper here in Columbia...without whose trenchant critical perspectives (especially on visual art) this city would be a vastly drearier place. (You hear that, McClatchy executives?) [photos: South Carolina State Museum]

I knew that blog entries would be few and far between this summer, given the demands of a new baby and also my responsibilities in my first season as Music Director at the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East, in Bennington, Vermont...but I didn't think I'd go this long without posting. Anyway, I'm ready to get back in the cyberswing of things.

The Composers' Forum aspect of Bennington has been terrific...much of that is co-ordinated under the leadership of the Senior Composer-in-Residence, Donald Crockett. The first week at Bennington, Gabriela Frank's new piano quintet, "Tres Homenajes: Compadrazgo" had its world premiere, with Ms. Frank at the piano, along with Calvin Wiersma and Judith Eissenberg, violins; Joseph Gottesman, viola; and Maxine Neuman, cello. Commissioned by the CMC, it is a real and I think lasting contribution to a fairly small but august repertoire. It was given a thrilling performance by all concerned. This week, the third of the CMC season, Ms. Frank returns to play the work again with four different faculty members.

In the intervening week, Derek Bermel was in residence. He had two works performed on the faculty concert, "Mulatash Stomp" for violin, clarinet, piano and "Oct Up" for string octet. "Stomp" is an early work of Bermel's and carries some echoes of "L'Histoire" in the trio version for the same instruments. "Oct Up" is a rhythmic tour-de-force, mostly exploring different divisions of a constant pulse within deliberately restricted harmonic materials. Both got really fine performances, especially remarkable given the limited rehearsal time which at the Bennington program has to be tucked around the main focus of the program, the coaching of amateur players on chamber literature.

Every Friday at Bennington there is a "Lunch with the Composer" with some discussion and some playing of recordings of their other works. At the lunch with Bermel, he played a performance tape of eighth blackbird doing his "Tied Shifts." It was a scintillating rendition, and reminded me of both times I've seen them do it live, at Ripon College in Wisconsin and a year or so ago at the Peace Center in Greenville. Even if they were not playing by memory and moving around, you'd still have to say they play the hell out of that piece, and it's a really fine work, too. Derek mentioned that there is a YouTube clip of them doing it, so...for your dog days of August entertainment, here it is:

Hat tip to CultureGrrl for this one: in Monday night's Presidential debate, Bill Richardson actually brought up the topic of the arts in our schools. In response to a question about "No Child Left Behind" Richardson endorsed "a major federal program of art in the schools...music, dancing, sculpture, and the arts." Naturally, he invoked it as a means to improve science and math scores for American students, rather than for its own sake, but I suppose one can't expect too much after all. It's astonishing to hear the phrase "the arts" mentioned at all in any positive context in politics today.

Those of you who already have children know all about this, but as a new father it was news to me how much the superficially-absorbed message "classical music is good for your child's brain" has been (sort of) embraced with a vengeance by the infant-gizmo industry. There are CDs galore with all sorts of inoffensive and neutered "classics" that you can buy at Babies-R-Us, as though parents should be unable to choose already-existing recordings and works for themselves. Meanwhile, our Graco Pack-'N-Play travel bassinet comes with a little battery-operated sound module that plays repeating loops on some kind of chip. The selections include Debussy's "Clair de Lune" and the obligatory Mozart excerpt or two, but with such crappy unpleasant synthesized sound and imbalanced voicing that I could barely recognize them. That ain't gonna do nuthin' for my Spencer's brain, except maybe make him hate music altogether. You could have put any sounds at all from any kind of music on that device and it would be just as beneficial for your baby's mental development. But by offering "classical sounds" to your baby boy or girl Graco knows that sales of said gizmo will increase. (Actually, the "nature sounds," crickets chirping, etc., are much better and at least make Spencer's parents more relaxed in those all-too-short periods of sleep between nighttime feedings.)

Spencer, of course, has heard a lot of music already in the womb. He seemed to first begin kicking around and dancing during an April performance of Steve Reich's "Drumming" that we attended here in Columbia. He's certainly familiar with some opera, especially Domenick Argento's "Postcard from Morocco," from my wife's work with her students at USC. But I've been looking forward to introducing Big Spence to some piano music that I thought would not overload his fairly new auditory nerves but just might begin to kickstart a nascent conception of time and space in all those newly firing synapses, experienced sonically.

Anyway, he does seem to like it all as far as I can tell, mostly listens with eyes wide open, rare quiet calm (while awake, that is), and a questing look in his eyes that seems to want to traverse a whole universe:

Jo Kondo: "Sight Rhythmics" and "High Window" for piano; Satoko Inoue, piano; hat(now)ART 135

Morton Feldman: Two Pianos (1957); Double Edge (Edmund Niemann, Nurit Tilles, pianists) NWCR 637

Martin Arnold: Herl (2003); Eve Egoyan, piano; available via Canadian Music Centre Boutique

Jurg Frey: Sam Lazaro Bros (1984); John McAlpine, piano

...arrived in the form of a 21-and-a-half-inch-long, 8 lb. 13 oz. human being last Monday, June 25 at 8:12 AM. Here he is, our son Spencer Samuel Bush:


Spencer is doing just great as he enters his third day...his mom Lynn is also doing wonderfully as well, as is ecstatic Dad.

Needless to say, blogging is one of many things that is going to have to take a backseat to the immediate needs of the little guy, certainly in the few weeks ahead, so entries may be a bit sparse here for awhile. But I'll try to get to a post now and then when I can...so stay tuned.