Thursdav. April 23, 1987
7
Arts/Entertainment Guitarist prefers a classical sound
Bv IERRI NIEBAUM
Staff writer
In 1974, David Tanenbaum was a guitar player for The Vegetables, the first U.S. rock band to the Soviet Union.
Now he's playing classical music and performing at the University of Kansas tonight as a Reader's Digest Affiliate Artist.
"I was hearing classical music as long as I could hear," he said.
Tanenbaum, 30, chairman of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, started playing music when he was 5.
Tanenbaum's father is a trumpet player, composer and director of electronic music, and his mother is a pianist and piano teacher.
My mom says when I was little, used to wear out Mozart records.'
David Tanenbaum
guitarist
"My mom says when I was little, I used to wear out Mozart records," he said.
Tanenbaum has been playing concerts all week at various clubs and schools in Lawrence and will conclude his stay with performances on non today for the Lawrence Kiwianis Club, at 8 p.m. today in Swarthout Recital Hall in Murphy Hall and tomorrow morning at Lawrence High School and at Hallmark Cards Inc., 101 McDonald Drive.
Markie Bieri, membership coordinator for the Swarthout Society, which is presenting Tanenbaum's visit, said the society chose him to play the concerts because of recommendations from affiliate artists.
"We like someone who is very good with the audience." Bieri said.
Tanenbaum said he developed rapport with his audiences by relating to each member individually. He talks about his high school days with high school students and about the guitar business with business people.
"An audience is a heavy mass, and it has to be moved slowly at first," he told.
Like his audiences, Tanenbaum needed to be moved slowly at first. He started his music career playing classical piano and cell, but he tired of the instruments by the time he was about 9.
"They were sort of forcing me to
take lessons," Tanenbaum said of his parents.
So he quit. But he soon grew interested in both electric and classical guitar, and by the time he was in high school, he was practicing up to eight hours a day.
He said the guitar provided him with a way to express himself musically in private.
"I could just sort of lock the door," he said.
He said the cello and the piano had been too loud, so his parents could always listen.
Tanebenau first studied guitar in New York with Rolando Valdes-Blain, a Cuban art dealer. He taught him to play the saxophone for about five hours once a week.
"He would spend his entire afternoon with me." Tanenbaum said.
After high school, Tanenbaum started touring as a guitar soloist with the Joffrey Ballet. His high school days of rock music, and The vegetables ended, and Tanenbaum became a full-time classical guitarist.
"The more structured the music is, the more I like it." he said.
After touring with the Joffrey to the Soviet Union, Tanenbaum cut back on his performance schedule and studied under Aaron Shearer at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, where he said he revamped his classical technique.
Tanenbaum has given recitals throughout the United States, Canada and Europe and has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony.
He said classical guitar was becoming increasingly popular in orchestras, although few symphonies had guitar parts. For most of his performances with orchestra, Tanenbaum plays "Concierto de Aranjuez," by Jujaquin Rodrigo. He said that this was because Spanish music traditionally used the guitar and that few other old classical styles did.
Tanenbaum said one of his life's goals was to encourage composers to write guitar parts for classical music. He now spends many hours arranging traditional classical compositions so they can be played on the guitar, although he doesn't write his own music.
Tanenbaum plans to do more playing and less teaching in the future, and he hopes to tour Asia someday.
"I feel very lucky that I do what I do," he said.
Tanenbaum will give a free performance at 8 p.m. today in Swarthout Recital Hall in Murphy Hall.
Classical guitarist David Tanenbaum will give a free performance at 8 p.m. today in Swarthout Recital Hall in Murphy Hall.
Pot-Pourri plays offer variety
Bv JERRI NIEBAUM
Staff writer
Pot-Pourri Productions offers audiences a choice of seven plays this week as student directors experiment with theater at the Inge Theatre in Murphy Hall.
"It's like a sglamborg of theater," said Jack Wright, artistic director and professor of theatre and media arts.
Wright chose the seven directors from a group of students who shared with him ideas they had for directing.
"It gives us an opportunity to work on plays or projects that might not otherwise get shown," said Joe Brande斯基, Lawrence graduate student.
Brandesky is directing "Lunin," which will be performed tonight. The three-hour play is about a political prisoner in 19th-century Russia who is in a Siberian prison cell, awaiting execution. The play was written by Edward Radzinsky, a Soviet playwright who visited the University of Kansas several weeks ago.
Brandyks directed "The Suicide" at the I inge Theatre in 1986.
"Every time you direct a play, it's a learning experience," Brandesky said.
"Beyond Therapy," directed by Neil LaBute, Lawrence graduate student, will be performed tomorrow night. Written by U.S. playwright Christopher Durang, the play is a "nervous romance" about a trio of lovers, including a bisexual attorney, a homosexual and a neurotic woman magazine writer.
LaBute said "love, or something like it, conquers all," was the theme of the play.
LaBate said that directing the show taught him about working under time constraints and working with a variety of actors.
"It's been thoroughly degrading, and I love it." he said.
"Finders Keepers," directed by James Claflin, Lawrence graduate student, will be performed Saturday, and "The Misunderstanding," directed by Masoud Delkah, Iran graduate student, will be performed Sunday.
Pot-Pouri Productions will be performed at 8 p.m. today, tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday at the Inge Theatre in Murphy Hall. All performances are sold out.
Monkey business in "Project X" isn't worth watching
"Project X" is a children's movie for infantile adults. This laughable film's only merit is a fine performance by a chimpanzee.
Gil Chavez
Columnist
Never mind what the ads say. Matthew Broderick, the star of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," is not the star of "Project X." Broderick plays a supporting role to the real star, Willie, a chimpanzee who plays a budding aviator named Virgil.
Virgil gets all the glory when he foils a secret Air Force project. The experimental program trains chimps
to fly flight simulators and then zap them with radiation to test how far they can fly before dying. Somehow, this demonstrates the usefulness of bombers in nuclear war.
We first meet Virgil in Africa, but soon he's off to the University of Wisconsin. While he's there he wears toddler clothes and charms a psychology student named Teri (Helen Hunt). Teri is doing some sort of Dr. Doolittle graduate work that involves teaching Virgil sign language.
Virgil's education takes an abrupt turn and he ends up at an Air Force base in Florida, where Jimmy Garrett (Broderick) trains him to fly a flight simulator.
Jimmy discovers that his star student is a Wisconsin grad. With
Virgil's help, Jimmy shows he has the right stuff by whipping his raw recruits into a top-notch squadron of simulator pilots.
But Virgil uncovers the terrible truth about the program and, in a scene reminiscent of "Gremlins," proves any ape can be a Top Gun.
The chimpms have all the good lines and do better acting than the humans. They even act like humans, engaging in such self-destructive human activities as smoking cigarettes, eating Twinkies, and messing with nuclear power. The most human gesture is saved for Virgil's sweetheart, Goofy (Okko). She gives the Air Force a one-finger salute.
It's hard to believe this screenplay, written by Lawrence Lasker and Stanley Weisser, was "inspired" by
anything, let alone actual experiments conducted by the Air Force
This movie is full of things that are hard to believe, particularly Broderick's acting. His character is supposed to be an undisciplined maverick pilot. But Broderick, despite smoking cigarettes and sporting a faint five o' clock shadow, still looks and acts like he's playing hooky from high school.
At one point the soundtrack betrays Broderick. When he says, "Let's get the hell out of here," the "hell" appears to have been dubbed over a much harsher word.
You can't even believe the chimps when they say anthing. In a phone, hokey effort at simian vocalization, the hoots of a half dozen actors are dubbed in.
Within this context, it is surprising that director Jonathan Kaplan would like us to believe he's made a movie that entertains while addressing serious subjects. There seems to be some hope that this will be a variation of "War Games," but there isn't enough here for that to be true.
There are hints that Kaplan may have thought about science and technology that concerns cruel experiments on animals or an obsession with "winning" a nuclear war that has deprived us of our humanity, but that's as far as it goes.
Kaplan seems to want the luxury of being taken seriously without making anyone feel uncomfortable. He wants to keep everyone happy. He certainly doesn't want anyone wearing furs or elephant boots to feel
guilty about animals. The chimps are worth saving for their humanly ways, not for any intrinsic value of their own, which shows Kaplan has a long way to go in his own appreciation of animals.
I doubt that "Project X" ever will make it to cult status, as other silly science fiction films have done. But that's its only hope.
Willie, on the other hand, has the potential to be a matinee movie idol. He's the brightest chimp Hollywood has seen since the golden age of Cheetah and Tarzan, Bonzo and Reagan.
As for Broderick, Hunt and Kaplan, they have injured their careers. Broderick's character put it best when he said, "I feel like an idiot." Really, it's no wonder why.
Folk musician takes solo tour of Midwest
Rv IENNIFFER FORKER
Staff writer
Although Thompson usually tours with a full rock band, he is performing solo during this 10-city tour through the Midwest.
Richard Thompson, described by Spin magazine as "the most interesting white guitar player of his generation," will perform at 8 p.m. today at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St.
Thompson is a British folk singer, songwriter and guitarist who has enjoyed little commercial success during the past 20 years. However, he continues to make albums.
His highest album, "Daring Adventures," was released in 1986 and was hailed by music and entertainment magazines as his best work yet. Rolling Stone magazine described the song "Nearly in Love" as "a hilarious declaration of romantic indecision. It also has a good beat, and you can dance to it."
Spin magazine said, "Richard Thompson on a bad day is better than most any other guitarist, or songwriter, for that matter, on his
Rick Friedman and his brother, John, formed a production company this semester called "Ethnic Cowboy." Thompson is the fourth
performer that they have scheduled to appear in Lawrence.
Local singers Lance Burr and Patty Boyer will open the show with five or six songs, and Charlie Mead and Mike Janas, members of a Lawrence band called The Homestead Greys, also will perform.
Friedman said that tonight's hour and a half performance would be Thompson's first in Lawrence, although he played at Parody Hall in Kansas City, Mo., in the fall.
"He can really appeal to a lot of different people," Friedman said. "I see his music as a synthesis of small ballads with a lot of history in his music."
Friedman said that Thompson played a variety of music, from rock 'n' roll to updated versions of British and Irish folk tunes.
Thompson blends other ethnic music into his songs. Friedman said Thompson knew dozens of local musicians and the sound into his music.
"He's able to take different rhythms from different cultures and synthesize them with rock 'n roll," Friedman said.
Joe Frankel, Chicago junior, has seen Thompson in concert twice.
"Those were two of the best shows I've ever seen," Frankel said. "He's really an electrifying
"He can take you on a trip with the music and bring you right back. He seems to have so much control over his music."
performer.
Brad Schwartz, Chicago junior, said Thompson was one of the best guitarists alive today.
'He's not with his band, but from what I've seen, he can't put on a bad show.'
Joe Frankel Chicago junior
Schwartz said, "Richard does things no other man can do. He has these fingers that look like they're six inches long each.
“He hasn't received much popularity. It's a secret. I’m glad the mainstream hasn’t accepted that. He’s more exciting for me.”
Thompson began his musical career in 1967 with Fairport Convention, a folkish rock 'n' roll
band. After releasing four albums with the band, "Fairport Convention," "Unhalfbricking," "Liege and Lief" and "Full House." Thompson left in 1971.
His first solo album, "Henry the Human Fly," was released in 1972. His wife, Linda, sang backup on the album. Their first album together, "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight," appeared in 1974.
The two released seven other albums until they divorced in 1982. Thompson released "Hand Of Kindness," in 1983, followed by "Small Town Romance," and "Across a Crowded Room."
Although the couple broke up five years ago, songs on Thompson's latest album still reflect the split. Frankel said.
"His music really, really reflects that relationship." Frankel said. "They broke up on bad terms."
Although Thompson will be performing solo tonight, Frankel said the show would not be a disappointment.
"It's the kind of show that gets you into a good mood." Frankel said. "He's not with his band, but from what I've seen, he can't put on a bad show."
Courtesy of Dennis Keeley
Richard Thompson will perform at 8 p.m. today at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St. Thompson is a British folk singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is on a 10-city tour of the Midwest.