The rough patch I’m pushing through worsened when my aged Prius didn’t start on Tuesday, January 24. I discovered that jump-starting a hybrid ain’t easy. After overcoming the challenge, I spent much of the day in the waiting room of a car dealership.

An ace in the hole kept me on an even keel. I purchased discounted front-row tickets for a concert by Isata Kanneh-Mason and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Helzberg Hall on Black Friday two months ago.

I caught the eminent talents for what I might have paid for lunch from the dealership’s vending machines had I not packed my own provisions. As long as presenters of classical music price front row tickets like worthless trash, I’ll continue to buy the undervalued treasures.

Sore neck aside, the primary disadvantage to sitting a few feet from the musicians is the distorted sound field. The proximity of RPO’s massive violin section sometimes drowned out the distant harp in the interpretation of Claude Debussy’s “Danse” that opened the concert.

I feared the Steinway piano perilously rolled out for Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 might slip off the stage and fall into my lap. Instead, it helped provide an out of body experience. Accentuated by my extreme vantage point, Kenneh-Mason’s adept handling of the bonkers piece induced delirium.

The hallucinatory quality of the riveting footage of Martha Argerich’s 1977 reading of the composition with the London Symphony Orchestra parallels my extraordinary encounter. The version of Sergei Rachmaninov’s ponderous Symphony No. 2 brought me back to harsh reality. The symphony’s length compelled me to recall last month’s bucket list endurance contest.

I’m not complaining about my position amid approximately 1,000 concertgoers. Counting the beads of sweat streaming down the face of the demonstrative conductor Vasily Petrenko and reading along with the violinists’ sheet music were sensational diversions.

William Brownlee

January 13, 2024

Concert Review: Joyce DiDonato at Helzberg Hall

William Brownlee

January 13, 2024

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

Deanna Ray Eberhart fangirled during her session at a master class conducted by Joyce DiDonato at Helzberg Hall on Thursday, January 11. Rather than responding appropriately to a vocal example provided by DiDonato, Eberhart exclaimed something like “hearing that up close is so cool!”

I completely sympathize with Eberhart. DiDonato, the iconic international star from Prairie Village, Kansas, was my 2022 Artist of the Year. DiDonato’s innovation approach has been a key component of my gradual embrace of operatic music. Her magnificent voice is among my favorite instruments.

I spent $39 for a lousy seat high above the stage during the first of DiDonato’s three concerts with the Kansas City Symphony on Friday, January 12. Yet for a moment I felt something akin to Eberhart’s experience. Due to an odd acoustical effect, the first offstage missive made by DiDonato in her dramatic entrance to Charles Ives’ ethereal “The Unanswered Question” seemed as if it had been whispered directly into my ear.

Nothing else in the lengthy program equaled the Ives, although a rendition of Gustav Mahler’s "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" appeared to be excellent from my dicey location. I also relished DiDonato’s separate encores of Strauss’ “Morgen!” and sappy but heartrending readings of “Danny Boy” and “Shenandoah”.

I won’t include my opinions about the remainder of the program here, other than to note intriguing new pieces by Joel Thompson and Chen Yi and Zhou Long were performed. Rather than splurging on a good seat for the two repeat performances this weekend, I might binge on a few of the hours of previous DiDonato master classes online.

William Brownlee

January 8, 2024

Album Review: Ambrose Akinmusire- Owl Song

William Brownlee

January 8, 2024

Nonesuch Records didn’t do Ambrose Akinmusire any favors by releasing Owl Song on December 15. I didn’t hear the trumpeter’s collaboration with guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley until last week. Serene but never insipid, Owl Song is the finest form of chamber jazz. Akinmusire’s exquisite Beauty Is Enough is #43 on my Top Albums of 2023 list. Given time to fully absorb the recording, Owl Song would likely have placed between #5 and #15 in my rankings.

William Brownlee

January 3, 2024

Indoor Fireworks

William Brownlee

January 3, 2024

Original image of the Altons at Lemonade Park by There Stands the Glass.

I take a break from nightlife in the weeks preceding and following New Year’s Day. It’s a dangerous tradition. I’ll eventually decide that I’m no longer committed to spending more than 100 nights a year in bars, concert halls and arenas. I probably won’t give way in 2024. I’ve already purchased tickets to two of my ten January concert recommendations for KCUR.

William Brownlee

December 30, 2023

Meditations: My Year in Books

William Brownlee

December 30, 2023

I panicked when I discovered I’d mistakenly packed a book I’d already read on a recent trip. Plans on the first day of vacation were altered so I could acquire a hefty volume to tide me over. The essential role books play in my life is reflected in this year’s tally- I consumed 104 volumes in 2023. Though I read Toni Morrison’s 2022 essay Recitatif on New Year’s Day and will finish her 2003 novel Love on New Year’s Eve, my curriculum ranged from ancient Greeks to contemporary fiction. A sampling of my autodidactic syllabus follows.

Favorite: Miguel de Cervantes- Don Quixote (1605)
1.023 pages of hilarity.

Most Impactful: Marcus Aurelius- Meditations (180)
Thoughts on a meaningful life.

Best Spiritual: Saint Augustine- Confessions (400)
A rewarding slog.

Best Music: Jeremy Eichler- Time’s Echo: The Second World War, The Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance (2023)
Strauss, Schoenberg, Britten and Shostakovich.

Most Entertaining: Charles Dickens- David Copperfield (1850)
Rags to riches.

Best Autobiography: Maya Angelou- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)
Captivating.

Best Biography: Richard Koloda- Holy Ghost: The Life & Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler (2022)

Best Romance: Jane Austen- Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Elinor and Marianne.

Best Travel: Bruce Chatwin- What Am I Doing Here (1988)
Motivational.

Third Time’s a Charm: Virginia Woolf- Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
I was finally up to the challenge.

Biggest Disappointment: Bernard Malamud- The Natural (1952)
Strikeout.

Nicest Surprise: Voltaire- Candide (1759)
I didn’t expect rakish vulgarity.

Goriest: Jerzy Kosiński- The Painted Bird (Grove Press 1965)
A catalog of atrocities.

Darkest: Evan S. Connell- Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn (1984)
Shame.

Best Local Interest: John Williams- Stoner (1965)
Misery in Columbia, Missouri.

Last year’s book survey is here. I post every book I read to my Instagram account.

William Brownlee

December 28, 2023

Hilary Hahn: There Stands the Glass’ Artist of the Year

William Brownlee

December 28, 2023

(Screenshot of Hilary Hahn video by There Stands the Glass.)

A confluence of circumstances makes Hilary Hahn There Stands the Glass’ Artist of the Year for 2023. Already immersed in solo interpretations of Johann Sebastian Bach, I was primed for the American violinist’s October concert at the Folly Theater. I’d also developed a passion for Hahn’s new album Ysaÿe: 6 Sonatas for Violin Solo, Op. 27. A recent reading Isaac Stern’s autobiography My First 79 Years further enhanced my appreciation of Hahn’s place in the continuum of classical violinists.

Honorable mention: Danny Brown, Lise Davidsen, Kassa Overall and Morgan Wallen. The previous winners of the Artist of the Year designation are Joyce DiDonato (2022), Pat Metheny (2021) and Bad Bunny (2020).

William Brownlee

December 22, 2023

Book Review: Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music, by David Menconi

William Brownlee

December 22, 2023

Declining a 1994 offer from my employer Rounder Distribution to relocate from Kansas City to Rounder’s home office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is among my biggest regrets. My successful campaign to install a bluegrass section at Walmart led to supplementary sales of hundreds of thousands of Alison Krauss albums in the South and Midwest. Rounder believed I could oversee similar initiatives nationally.

Yet as a new homeowner with an expanding family, the increased pay package in New England still would have meant downgrading my circumstances. I made the wrong decision. Distribution of compact discs and DVDs would be decimated within a dozen years, but attractive opportunities in parallel industries would have presented themselves when the time came to move on.

Reading David Menconi’s Oh, Didn't They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music, consequently, triggered me. The narrative is primarily told from the perspective of the denizens of the label’s headquarters. My story isn’t included in Menconi’s short history. Still, I enjoyed learning about the early lives of Rounder’s founders as well as the events that transpired after I was out of the picture. The work receives my qualified recommendation.

William Brownlee

December 19, 2023

All Music Is For All People

William Brownlee

December 19, 2023

I don’t think of myself as a weirdo. Yet when my friend Chris Haghirian repeatedly insisted my cultural predilections are extremely unusual during a taping of his Eight One Sixty program did I begin to suspect that maybe I am abnormal. Attempting to justify my listening habits, I recall blurting out something like “all music is for all people.” My appearance on Chris’ show will air at 6 p.m. CST Tuesday, December 19, on 90.9 The Bridge and will stream in perpetuity at the station’s site.