Prelude

Hi everyone, this is just a little piece that I wrote for solo piano. It's also the one that I am submitting to the Kiwanis Music Festival for composition. Here's the short blurb I had to write about it:

"Prelude is a short piece for solo piano. The theme is introduced in the opening bar, modified and developed, and then finally recapitulated near the end. It is largely inspired by the works of Scriabin and Rachmaninoff and should be taken at a moderate, very free tempo, using lots of rubato to convey the dark, mysterious feel."

Hope you enjoy it. By the way, if you can think of a more creative title for it, I would be forever grateful! Post them in the comments. :)

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland is the movie this year that I've been most anticipating. It came out on March 5, and for the first time for me, I actually saw it in theatres the day it came opened. I had been excitedly watching each trailer, and each clip as soon as they came out, and as Tim Burton is one of my favourite filmmakers, I was getting pretty excited! It has a crazy awesome cast too- Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Michael Sheen, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, and Johnny Depp to name a few. The film also stars Mia Wasikowska as Alice.

Overall, I loved it. Tim Burton's style of directing is so interesting. It's very artistic, stylized, quirky, and dark. Alice in Wonderland didn't disappoint. The acting especially is brilliant. Helena Bonham Carter was probably my favourite character, as the Red Queen. Johnny Depp's performance of the Mad Hatter is amazing, quirky, layered and subtle. Every cast member is strong, and all the supporting roles are interesting and memorable.

The biggest flaw, in my opinion is the script. Instead of following the story of the Louis Carroll's original Alice in Wonderland, Burton decided to make a sequel, set thirteen years after Alice's original trip to Wonderland. Its a great idea that could have been interesting and innovative, but unfortunately, I didn't find the plot or the script to be anything special. Without Tim Burton's directing, it could have easily been another predictable Disney movie. Personally, I don't think it's a masterpiece, but it's sure pretty good, and definitely worth seeing!

Accidental Art

Often, when I’m bored, I go for an Accidental Art Walk. Basically, all you have to do is go for a walk and look at stuff! You have to look carefully, but if you look, it’s neat what you’ll find. I always take my camera along, and it’s fun to see the photos I can get. There is only one rule: You can’t arrange what you see. It has to be completely “accidental”. So you can’t arrange some sticks to make your name or whatever. But then again, anything goes, so I suppose you could. It’s a great lesson in looking closely at the world around us. Below are some photos I took. Nothing phenomenal, but it was fun!

And yeah, I messed with some of them in Picasa. :)

What does it mean to be an artist? This is something that I’ve been thinking about for quite a long time. It's important to me because I've always been attracted to the arts and I'm not sure why. Is it actually important to have artists in society? If so. what is their purpose? And by the "artist", I mean the very broad term describing actors, painters, dancers, writers, musicians, sculptors, directors, composers, etc.

I think that an artist is anyone who creates. In my opinion, artists should constantly be challenging our perceptions and ways of seeing things. If we aren't constantly challenged, we'll fall into one way of thinking, but forget why we actually think that. I think it's good to be offended every now and then. If we aren't offended every now and then, how will we know what we like of not? I think that artists are so important to society. Wars destruct, artists create. As long as there is war and people destroying ideas, we need artists to recreate. I think that art is a way of expressing ideas and challenging perceptions.

What do you think? Do you think society needs artists? Why? Comment!

Sweeney Todd

Okay, so I promised a post about Sweeney Todd, so here it is. I thought that I should address exactly why I love such a morbid, macabre musical.

Sweeney Todd started out as a character in a story called The String of Pearls, was made into a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, and was recently made into a major motion picture directed by Tim Burton. You can read the Wikipedia article about it HERE.

The story is about Sweeney Todd, a barber who returns from prison to find his wife dead, and his daughter taken by the nasty Judge Turpin. He swears revenge, opens a barber shop above the meat pie shop of Mrs. Lovett and proceeds to slit the throats of his innocent customers. It gets nastier. Mrs. Lovett, being short of meat for her pies, makes a plan with him. Sweeney cuts the throats, sends the bodies downstairs, where she uses the meat for pies. Her customers, unknowingly gobble up the meat pies. Her shop is a success.
Not pleasant. It is so far from my normal taste (no pun intended), that you are probably wondering why I love this musical/movie so much.

For me, the main reason is the music. All the music is by Stephen Sondheim and it's absolutely breathtaking. The harmonies are so cool, often dissonant (depending on the mood of the piece) and are so much more interesting than the normal pop harmonies often found in musicals. His use of language is brilliant also. For example, in the song, "My Friends", the way he uses consonants in his music is incredible.

The following video is fascinating to watch. It's Stephen Sondheim himself teaching a masterclass on "My Friends". Its about 9:00 long, but worth watching if you are at all interested. What Sondheim says at 0:30 shows his genius. He doesn't just write songs to sound good, he really thinks them through, and every rhythm in the music and consonant in the lyric is important to the mood of the song.
Here is the video.

At 2:25, Sondheim offers another fascinating insight. He says "The reason that there are so many Ss in the beginning of this lyric is because it has a whispered quality When you get to "my friend" which has no Ss, I want to feel a swelling, so thats where you start to come out in a way, it starts to get passionate..."

Interesting eh? And brilliant. (By the way, I don't think the actor singing Sweeney is a particularly good actor in this video, but he has a good voice. The young woman singing Mrs. Lovett is brilliant though.)

Here is a clip from the movie with Johnny Depp (Sweeney) and Helena Bonham Carter (Mrs. Lovett) singing "My Friends". There is nothing scary or violent in this clip (I would rate it G). The song starts at 1:30.


Thats all that I'm going to write concerning the music, but I think think it's absolutely brilliant. One of the best musicals out there. Another thing about it is that you almost don't even notice when the characters break into song because the music is so beautifully woven into the characters and the plot that it just seems so natural.

Now I'd like to write a bit concerning the movie, which came out in December of 2007.
Tim Burton directed it and the cast is headed by Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd, Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, and Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin.
A lot of people really don't like the movie at all. Of course, it's incredibly difficult taking a Broadway musical and turning into a blockbuster film, but I think Tim Burton did a wonderful job of it.
None of the lead actors are professional singers, and that was one of the things that the film was criticized for. Personally, I think Johnny Depp has a great voice in the movie, and the bit of roughness in his voice only adds to the character. Same with Bonham Carter's voice. Sure, the singing isn't perfect, but I think that it would only take away from the characters if they had perfect, pure voices.
Artistically, the film is amazing. In typical Tim Burton style, he creates something that is very visually appealing. The costumes and set is very dark and dreary, almost making it seem like a black and white movie, of course until the blood comes. But even the blood is theatrical and heightened, a bright, fake red that contrasts against the dreary setting. Visually, it's really quite stunning. In fact, it won the Acheivement in Art Direction award at the Oscars. It was also nominated for Best Costume Design.
And of course, the acting is amazing (Depp was nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars).

Just a note: no matter how artistic it is, it is still very graphically violent, so if you are at all sensitive about that sort of thing, you should be warned. There is a lot of blood and violence. It is rated R after all. Just...be warned, and it would probably be a good idea to read the Screenit review before deciding if it is something you want to watch.

The character of Sweeney is very interesting to think about also. Most consider him a villain (he slits the throats of innocent people!), but a lot consider him a tragic, victim character. We see a man who, hurt and treated unjustly, swears revenge on the world (he says "They all deserve to die", a line from one of the songs, "Epiphany").

All in all though, it's an incredible masterpiece of musical theatre, and brings up some good questions about revenge, and some interesting insights on humanity. Oh yeah, and the music is incredible. Have I said that already? If you ever get a chance to see it on stage, or on film, I highly recommend it. But again, I have to stress that it is very violent, and isn't really for the faint of heart. If you feel you don't want to see the movie or the play though (and I can understand that!), definitely check out the music and read a synopsis. The music is really good stuff.

So that's why I like Sweeney Todd. For me, it's not about the violence and the murder, it's about the fascinating plot and and how it is told through some clever writing, and stunning music.

Thanks for reading!

Art etc...

I've been thinking a lot about art recently. I'm going to be directing a one act play this spring, and I've really been thinking about how I can make it different, how I can make it really touch people and be more than just a play, how it can become a piece of art.

I've become pretty obsessed with Cirque Du Soleil recently, for many reasons. Firstly, because its amazing, secondly, they're Canadian (okay, thats not a reason), but especially because what they do is so beautiful. They are not just a circus. They really tell stories and create beauty. Obviously, my small theatre company does not have the budget, nor the acrobats to create anything like what they do, nor do we want to. But I really do want to create art that is beautiful, and can touch people.

So thats my current project/dilemma: How can I make a small unassuming play really mean something, touch people and be artistic...