Don’t expect upscale on Paulista, no matter what the guidebooks say. Instead, expect a street festival with crowsds, music, and the same kinds of vendors you will find in Liberdade.
Like punk bands.
And crews practicing for Rio.
Dress accordingly.
Do note that there may well be 50,000 people in the street protesting! Actually this is rare according to our local friends who say, “They are protesting against a law which would protect members of the parliament and senate against prosecution (to an even greater extent than they are already protected).”
In any case, getting into MASP was non-trivial. And then we were stuck in the new building since the rain caused the museum to shut down its doors and we could not switch buildings.
When we were looking for a concert to attend Saturday night in the São Paulo Spring, we were surprised by the pickings. Not much going on even though the city is huge. A conversation in Brazil with a young show producer told the tale of why, the gist of it being that a post COVID explosion of creativity is drawing to a close and the performers are exhausted. But the constraints led us directly to an exceptional treat—Esperanza Spalding in Brazil.
Magical.
We did require some help from our new friend Christian (a USP fresh out Ph.D.) who was able to use the local shotgun app to get tickets. I tried that earlier from the US with no luck since the app required a Brazilian citizen ID number.
In a small world phenomenon, we ran into Fabio Kon and his wife while waiting in line to get into the venue.
It was nice to spend some time with the locals. LOL. Here are some pictures and videos of the show.
There was some waiting around to do from 8pm to 10pm, but it was all worth it.
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We were, in fact, in Brazil…as you can hear.
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A commentary in AI and jazz. Computer speed and human speed compared.
When we got back to the rosewood after the show, we had a late night snack at 1:30am.
How cool is this? Across the street in the middle of nowhere (in the main house of the 311 acre farm over there) there’s a new concert series budding. So incredible to have world class musicians perform just up the hill! Don’t tell anyone that we drove over both times since it was 94 degrees outside.
The Riverside Parlor Series is a dream of Barbara and Adam’s involving the beautifully renovated River House. The house has only had four owners since 1790.
We went to both performances, the first flute and piano and the second, two flutes.
The music was excellent.
Friday 8.15: Barbara O’Brien and Rodrigo Ojeda
Your host Adam Foster.
I particularly love the Poulenc. Here is an unretouched rough recording.
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The piano plays the Moonlight Sonata by itself.
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Sunday 8.17: Barbara O’Brien and Julie McGough
Fine Lines was composed by a then 9 year old Natalie Joachim (and honestly you can kind of discern that) who later became a member of Eighth Blackbird
We are looking forward to the next Castleman Concert.
Allan James and I have played together a few times late night at a soltice party or during jam sessions at the cabin, but we had never performed together until this July 25th. On a steaming hot day, clocking in at 94 degrees in the shade, we played a couple of sets to an appreciative audience in the park at Rose Hill in Berryville.
We had a blast. Here’s how that went.
We played 20 original songs all written and performed by Allan. After just a handful of practice sessions, we were ready…
Lonely Little Bird
Low Down Dirty
The music was just as hot as the evening. You can find many of the songs we performed on Allan’s CDs.
What a treat. A Chicago-level show in our tiny hamlet (in fact well outside the hamlet way up on the mountain). Danny Hobert and his partner in crime, performing as the Toy Atlas Theater, put on a magical captivating multi-media extravaganza—twice. (This entry combines photos and videos from both shows. To keep you on your toes, the interleaving is imperfect and a bit faded around the edges.)
Clark Hansbarger and I opened for the first show with a bit of Bitter Liberals music. Which of course requires actual Liberals.
The scene. A barn on the blue ridge converted into a portal to other dimensions.
The audience was captivated.
This kind of magical experience is all too rare in modern American adulthood. Calvino’s work is an excellent vehicle for considering the contradiction and confusion of modern life, exposing its inner absurdity from a view at the sharpest edge of a very small razor.
