Walking to class in midtown, I come across an ad that stops me in my tracks. It’s for the European Wax Center, a self-described “hair removal franchise.” I’ve never set foot in one of the Center’s many outposts, nor honestly given much thought to waxing.
But here I am, mesmerized by the ad: Why does the bass look so small? Why is her endpin so long? Is it to emphasize her extra-smooth legs? Why is she holding the bow like that? Is she wearing anything besides those sleeves?
A quick Google search tells me that the ad is part of a campaign titled “Don’t Hesitate” that asks such platitudinal questions as, “What happens when you’re unapologetically you? What happens when you feel so confident in your own beautiful skin?”
This particular “vignette titled Bass features a woman who doesn't hesitate to ‘steal the limelight’ and play the bass in front of the famous Prague Municipal House, where Mozart once played, because she believes the world is a stage.”
I’m not sure how the Mozart part is possible, as the Prague Municipal House was built in 1905. Maybe they’re thinking of the Estates Theater? Anyway, I digress.
My brain is bombarded with more questions: Was the photographer aware about the lack of female double bassists in orchestras? Isn’t this ad just reinforcing unrealistic beauty standards? Is there something phallic about that endpin?
I spend far too much time trying to make sense of it. I’m doing precisely what the ad is telling me not to do: Hesitating. I’m nearly late to class.
Where am I going with this? My point is that I think too much. This past awful week has me endlessly reevaluating. Why am I doing this? Why does it matter?
I could argue for the importance of queer/trans stories. (See my most recent review for Brooklyn Rail.) I could also argue for the importance of critical and informed thought, especially in a time when that appears to be lacking. But the simple answer to why I am doing this is that I love it. Truly, I do.
So, without further hesitation, here are a couple things I heard recently.
On Oct. 29, I saw a presentation of Ken Burns’s new Leonardo da Vinci documentary at The Town Hall. (Full disclosure: Burns is a distant cousin, though we’ve never met). The score, by Caroline Shaw, though hyper-competent, was perhaps less successful in a concert setting.
With the Attacca Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, and Sö Percussion (surprisingly their first time all together), the score evoked, at times, string quartets by Philip Glass and Ravel, with Renaissance-inflected vocals and sfumato gradations in sound.
Though the portion of the documentary screened did mention that “marvelous instrument” the human heart, it surprisingly didn’t include Leonard’s organological inventions. It was left to Shaw et al. to channel Leonardo’s musicality (and queerness).
Then on Oct. 30, I heard the American Composer’s Orchestra’s “Borders” as part of “The New Virtuoso” series. Michael Abels’s opening Borders with guitarist Mak Grgić was actually the least interesting to me. More original was Paul Novak’s Forest Migrations, a piece about “the great debt that musicians owe to trees,” in which I could hear the woody thwack of the bowstick on the strings.
I had high hopes for Kebra-Seyoun Charles’s Nightlife Concerto, with movements titled “in the streets” and “in the club.” Playing on a newly donated lion’s head bass, Kebra shredded up the stage (and proverbial dance floor). It was clearly technically demanding, written by and for Kebra, with Flight of the Bumblebee-like sprints.
But Nightlife Concerto didn’t sound much like any club or streetcorner I’ve been to. It sounded more like a R&B musician playing Stravinsky channeling the Baroque. Totally unpredictable, it lacked shape and cohesion. The best part was when the orchestra started whooping and hollering. But it was one of those pieces that is perhaps more fun to play than to listen to.
On a whole other level was Ukrainian composer Victoria Polevá’s The Bell with cellist Inbal Segev. This was more than virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake. This anti-war requiem’s third movement, rising and rising while still maintaining a sense of stasis, was almost like an auditory illusion. I’ve made comparisons to Gorecki before, but this time I really mean it. I wanted to listen over and over.
The best part of violinist Curtis Stewart’s closing Embrace, a piece about his mother, was a quote from a young student: “I named the cello and the bow and the rosin and pegs,” she says. “When it lost a string, I started crying.”
Last night, I planned to go to the premiere of Nico Muhly’s “To the Body” at the Guggenheim as part of Works & Process. This new commission, created for artist Yu Hong’s Another One Bites the Dust on view at the Venice Biennale, consists of disembodied fragments from Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri. Very up my alley.
But instead, I spent a couple more hours curled up in a bar with a smokey cocktail, my arm around my partner as we chatted about who-knows-what. “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate,” writes Mary Oliver. “Give in to it. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”
