Anderson & Roe at LaSells Center in Corvallis, Oregon

Anderson & Roe talking about
the music they would play.
Anderson & Roe energized LaSells Stewart Center in Corvallis, Oregon Sunday, April 6, 2014, with their piano duo. Their performance vibrated the very souls of those in attendance. When I attend concerts like the one Anderson & Roe performed last night, my soul longs to be musically inclined. I listen and enjoy but don't understand music the way I sometimes wish I did. I rarely recognize tunes from the notes being played. I can never explain to someone else why certain music resonates with me in anything coming close sounding musically talented. I have friends who can compare performances and give you nuanced reasons why something works and something else doesn't. Music like Anderson & Roe's makes my heart ache for such a connection to music. They play with such an effortless ease and energy the listener, the listener
can't help but feel inspired. 

They introduced the pieces they played and described a bit about their interpretations of each. 

Anderson reading a poem.
Roe preparing to play
They even read poetry before each set in their opening performance of Rachmaninoff, which they played on separate pianos facing one another. They moved into a portion of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which they played on the same piano sharing space and reaching over and around one another. They finished out the first half of the performance playing Libertango by Astor Piazolla/Anderson & Roe on the same piano. I loved that they described this piece as being like a dancing a tango, and even invited the audience to dance the tango in the aisles. I smiled wondering if anyone ever has taken them up on that offer. The music certainly had my foot tapping, but I wasn't tempted to jump up and start dancing...

When they came back from intermission, they had changed clothes. The audience reacted to this unexpected occurrence with applause, which I found amusing. Still, it's not often you see a clothes change during a piano concert.

They started the second half of the performance with an interpretation of Mozart's work.They played these three pieces starting on one piano and moving to separate pianos for the second two pieces. They moved on to a an interpretation of a the Christoph Willibald Gluck ballet, Orphee et Eurydice, that grabbed the imagination and held on tight. They played this piece on the same piano again. For the final piece, they played an interpretation of the opera, Carmen, that condensed all the emotion of Carmen into thirteen roller coaster ride minutes.

Anderson & Roe meeting with fans.
Two encores held the audience enthralled as the second one ended the performance with Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.

After the two hour performance, they met with fans in the lobby for a while.

The energy of this performance made me want to seek out more of their work. Luckily, they have a website and a YouTube channel!

I hope Anderson & Roe continue to bring their vibrance and talent to the musical scene for many more years to come. Their interpretations of classical music invigorate and inspire as did their performance at LaSells Stewart Center.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Image
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert grabbed my attention from the first page. Kolbert illustrates the future of extinction by illuminating the history of extinction. She tells a story of the Earth we inhabit in both scientific and historical terms related to the myriad species of animals that have and do inhabit the Earth. She travels to myriad places on the Earth to talk to scientists and historians. I felt like she took me along on her journey to places I would never go on my own. She discussed the effects of natural processes as well as unnatural processes affecting the extinction of species and how those extinctions lead to other extinctions. Her references to previous mass extinctions were always linked to the story of our Earth and present-day extinctions. She talked about frogs, bats, auks, coral, and trees among other things. The Sixth Extinction doesn't shy away from pointing out how each species is a part of an ecosystem and how all our eco...
Read more

A Snitch in Time by Sunny Frazier

Image
Sunny Frazier always delights, and A Snitch in Time is no exception. She writes the Christy Bristol series in a way that feels lighthearted even in its darkest moments. When Bristol goes on vacation to visit her friend, Lennie, she never expects to get drafted into working for a different department doing her job. Bristol is intrigued enough by the crime at hand that her protestations seem half-hearted at times though her annoyance is very real. When she and Lennie get into a fight, she's left with nothing but the work the department expects her to do. Frazier drops the reader in the Sierra Nevada Foothills creating a sense of isolation that makes the reader cheer for Bristol to stand up to her superiors and get out of there while simultaneously wanting to her to solve the crime. When a witness contacts Bristol via phone she doesn't take her seriously at first only to discover she might have vital information. With suspicion cast in multiple directions, Bristol isn't sur...
Read more

Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat

Image
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat approaches the Palestinian struggle for freedom by delving into how legal maneuvers are used to manipulate politics and political maneuvers are used to manipulate the law to justify the oppression of the Palestinian people. Erakat's explanations had me repeatedly wondering how people can be so cruel and why they choose to be. Erakat demonstrates and examines how the wording in multiple documents including the Oslo accords left loopholes and contributed to the subjugation of the Palestinian people while leaving room to make vague claims of a mirage of progress that falls apart with the smallest amount of investigation. An undercurrent throughout Justice for Some is that oppressors make laws the oppressed are expected to live by keeping the oppressors in power and the oppressed under control. Justice for Some explains much of the law that often gets cited in media and other analysis used to justify the dehumanizat...
Read more