There's a stack (well, a digital stack since it's in my computer's hard drive) of backlogged bookmarks about things that I have wanted to share with readers in the past few months, so I'll try to periodically pass those along in the approaching dog days of summer. Here's one example:

The marvelous English pianist Susan Tomes has added radio broadcasting and writing to her many credits. Like me, her career has been largely involved with collaborative work, specifically chamber music. There's no question that a lot of the single-instrument-with-piano repertoire should rightly be considered chamber music in just the same manner as are piano trios, quartets, or quintets. But in the classical marketplace, the pianist often gets short shrift in concerts of this format, both in terms of publicity and remuneration. This is so even though piano parts are just as difficult or more so than the "solo" instrument's part in works such as the Beethoven violin or cello sonatas, the Brahms sonatas for the same instruments, and so on. Last April in the "Guardian," Ms. Tomes wrote a fine article about the plight of the "accompanist" (as she says they are still called in Britain) or "collaborative pianist" (what she says is a more American term).

I'm usually pretty laid-back about these sorts of things myself. But I confess, I got a small knot in my stomach a couple of years ago when, while I was still sweaty backstage after a performance of the rather draining Tchaikovsky Piano Trio, a woman came up to me and very sweetly told me, "You know, you were a really fine accompan-i-est in that piece."

Anyway, check out the article. I knew Ms. Tomes as a fellow student at the Banff Centre in Canada back in the early 1980's, and it's great to see what a fine career she has had (and is having) in the years since. Check out her fine recordings with the Florestan Trio also. Incidentally, I see that she is part of a team-blogging effort over at the Guardian, so check that out as well.

The Herodes Atticus Odeon theater, Athens, Greece, July 4, 2006. This is about six hours before showtime for the Philip Glass Ensemble, and you can see a few mike stands, all the monitors, and a couple of synth stands set up, as well as the scaffolding for the lights that stays up for the entire Athens Festival.

 

The Herodes Atticus theater seen from the top of the Acropolis...I was standing a couple of hundred yards or so from the southwest corner of the Parthenon. Barely visible in the distance, through Athens' haze and 95-degree heat: Piraeus and the Saronic Gulf.

That was Winston Churchill's phrase in the late 1930's to describe what awaited a world that had either ignored or inadequately addressed the gathering storm in Europe. It's quoted to chilling effect by Al Gore in the remarkable documentary "An Inconvenient Truth", which we finally went to see last night here in Columbia. Gore uses the phrase to emphasize that the consequences of global warming may begin to come at us, fast and furious and sooner than we think, unless we as a planet take decisive action, such as major reductions in CO2 emissions worldwide.

Whatever your partisan affiliation, whatever you think of Gore, whatever you think about environmentalists in general, please, please go see this movie with an open mind. It is superbly done, conveying a tremendous amount of information in a concise manner, using visuals effectively to drive home its points. Never have I seen the graph used to such dramatic effect! If the problem is even half as serious as "An Inconvenient Truth" posits, then truly there is no other real issue, in the end. For more on the challenges we face and on what we can accomplish right now as individuals and as communities to address the problem, go to www.climatecrisis.net.

The film is showing (I hope for at least a few more days) here in Columbia at the Columbiana Grande cinemas out by Harbison Boulevard. Go, and bring some skeptical friends. Gore manages for the most part to avoid turning this into a partisan issue or to take easy shots at the Bush adminstration (save for one example that's just too tempting to let pass). I sincerely hope Gore manages to bring on board a prominent Republican to help lead the charge to action on the global warming issue. Otherwise, I fear people will identify the problem too much with Gore the personality, Gore the candidate in the most closely divided election the nation has ever seen.

When you hear people saying that scientists are still strongly divided on this issue (Gore dissects that argument effectively), please consider the source carefully. Chances are that those comments are coming from those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. In the words of Upton Sinclair (again quoted by Gore in the film), "You can't make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it."

Not much going on, musically speaking, in the Capital City during these midsummer days, which is just as well for me, as I have more time to practice after getting back from Europe a few days ago and prior to upcoming trips to Colorado, Atlanta, and France in the weeks ahead. But if you are here in Columbia this week, pop on over to the beautiful Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (just east, across the street, of the State Capitol Building) for their choir's send-off concert previewing their upcoming tour to England. The concert is Wednesday, July 12 at 7:30 PM. Trinity's choir, under the leadership of Jared Johnson, will be in residence at Gloucester Cathedral for about a week right after that. The concert features masterworks of British and American composers, ranging from Renaissance polyphony to Southern spirituals. A suggested donation of $15 will benefit the choirs’ travel fund. Send our musical ambassadors off to the UK in style and enjoy a concert in the process.

I've played gigs in some very old concert halls, but this takes the cake. This is the Herodes Atticus Theatre in Athens, part of the Acropolis complex, and built in 161 (no, I did not leave out a digit) by the Romans during their several-centuries-long occupation of the city. Tonight and tomorrow night the Philip Glass Ensemble will be performing on this stage for the 2006 Athens Festival. Evidently this short trip is our "Roman Theatre" tour, since last Thursday we did a show in the Roman amphitheatre high in the hills above the city of Lyon.

When the Herodus Atticus was built, the Parthenon (at the upper left of the photo) was already several hundred years old. I wonder if any of our current concert venues will still be in use in the year 3800? Only if they're built out of stone, I suppose. [photo: Athens Festival]