BALSE NEWSLETTER 012

Charles A. Balse July 30, 2023

sonder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

video: sonder: everyone has a story

Two weeks, at Balse.

Big event, with the advice from ClassicAsobi NYC, the securing of the 2023-24 LA Phil, Disney Concert Hall subscription, is the start of our update. The subscription is for nine concerts with Front Orchestra second row, dead center seat. Made four concert exchanges and constructed an optimal schedule.

***Hank Willis Thomas - I've Known Rivers***
July 24, 2023
***PACE GALLERY*** ***Los Angeles***
***Jul 15 – Aug 26, 2023***

The Blaze - DREAMER (Official Video)

Alex Andre introduced and really want to see this film - EO (Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022), next on my list. In music, I have been kind of obsessed with METTE - Mama's Eyes (Official Video), great song, wonderful video work. Also the remix work is awesome. For DJ mixes, a very solid techno by David Vunk, fun, reliable. This Anetha is also very fun, absolutely love the transy vibe.

***The Flower Show***
July 28, 2023
*LA LOUVER*
***7 Jun - 1 Sep 2023***

On the classical front, ClassicAsobi proposed a challenge to check out three different conducting and recording of Shostakovich Symphony no. 5 Scythian Suite. Been listening to all of them several times, to continue next week.

Decided to take one-on-one Italian lesson with Linda, from Italy. Met her at the farmers market about a year ago. Balse is going to Venezia, IT, in May 2024 to research the Venezia Biennale Arte 2024, and staying with the architect friends, Tea and Lomberto, I need to seriously up my Italian skills with the aim to have a decent level of basic casual conversation with them.

Allora,

Gotta have cats in the mix, and rock, as spice. Some philosophy with Žižek.

Contemporary art photography with Richard Mosse.

‘If you take one square inch of the rain forest, it’s just, it’s tripping with life. Just the amount of species is extraordinary.“
“so, it’s everywhere. It’s all around us, but how do we implicate the viewer? This is the real problem and the one that we wanted to do. “

More spicey musik.

And more nice techno. And some more.

The magnificent Mette, all about Mette the last week.

Wishing you a good one, will see you back in two weeks .

Charles Balse

Words of Wisdom

“To know nature, the soul, god, love … These are known by the heart, not the mind.” Dostoevskey argues that thought cannot unriddle the mystery of creation because “mind is a material faculty,” and as such is not in touch with transcendental truth. “Mind is an instrument, a machine, moved by the fire of the soul.” It is the soul that is the true medium for attaining the highest knowledge, for ”if the goal of knowledge is love and nature, this opens up a clear field for the heart.” Poetry is thus just as much a medium of knowledge as philosophy because “ the pet in the transport of inspiration, unriddles god.” - Dostoevsky, A Writer in HIs Time, Joseph Frank page 57, Zettel 136
Thus what abstract artists contend - and abstract art itself bears out - is that an impression, a sensory stimulation of the retina, is merely a spark for associative recall. The abstract painter does not attempt to provide pictorial detail, but rather to create conditions that enable the viewer to complete the picture based on his or her own unique experience. Legend has it that upon viewing a sunset painted by Turner, a young woman remarked, “I never saw a sunset like that, Mr. Turner,” to which Turner replied, “Don’t you wish you could, madam?” - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science” by Erick Kandel, page 115, Zettel 123
Rothko saw such reductionism as necessary: “The familiar identity of things has to be pulverized in order to destroy the finite associations with which our society increasingly enshrouds every aspect of our environment” (ROss 1991). Only by pushing the limits of color, abstraction, and reduction, he argued, can the artist create an image that librates us from conventional associations with color and form and allows our brain to form new ideas, associations, and relationships - and new emotional responses to them. - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, by Erick Kandel, page 126, Zettel 124
…Instead of the staged explorations of artifice delivered by Cindy Sherman, he delivers the results of a heartfelt improvised dance between photographer and sitter where landscape comes projected through clothing and time is revealed in every blemish and fold of skin….Together, the photographer and his subjects had succeeded in delivering piercing looks at the wear of life’s struggles. - John Rohrbach, preface of “In the American West” Richard Avedon, Zettel 125
Help others by focusing on the most pressing social problems rather than those you stumble into - those that are big in scale, neglected and solvable. To make the largest contribution to those problems, consider earning to give, research and advocacy, as well as direct work. - 80,000 hours, Benjamin Todd, Zettel 127
In focusing on color, Rothko was searching for a new style of abstraction that would link modern art forms that reach out to the infinite. To achieve this, he abandoned figuration and focused exclusively on the expressive power of large fields of color. His experiments inspired a number of artists to follow his lead, to free color from objective contexts, inhibit access to figurative associations, and make it a subject of its own. In a way, Rothko succeeded in achieving what biologists, including biologists of perception and memory, try to do with reductionist science. - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, by Erick Kandel page 130, Zettel 128
As (Agnes) Martin put it, Rothko “reached zero so that nothing could stand in the way of truth.”....As Rothko was to say about these later works, “A painting is not a picture of an experience. It is an experience.” - Reduction in Art and Brain Science, by Erick Kandel, page 130, Zettel 129

Main Studies

Other Studies

***Perpetual Portrait***
July 30, 2023
***Vielmetter*** ***Los Angeles***
***July 8 – August 18, 2023***
***Gallery I & II & III***

ClassicAsobi recommends

Prokofiev Symphony No.5 Scythian Suite. Listen and comparing the following three recordings.

Prokofiev Symphony No.5

Philharmonia Orchestra
Santtu-Mathias Rouvali

Prokofiev Symphony No.5

Deutschesymphonie Orchester Berlin
Tugan Sokhiev

Prokofiev Symphony No.5

Marinsky Orchestra
Vallery Gergiev

2023/24 Walt Disney Concert Hall Season Ticket purchase

Yohei Abe July 30, 2023

23-24 Sunday SU2

LA PHIL, Walt Disney Concert Hall

With ClassicAsobi’s advice, I secured a well constructed 2023-24 LA Phil, Walt Disney Concert Hall season subscription.

Went with the Sunday Matinees 2 (SU2), and made four exchanges.

Number of Tickets: 9

Total: $1,547.00

Front orchestra, second row, dead center.

SU2 comes with these programs >> link

Immediately replaced four concerts with others that we preferred. The big benefit of subscribing is the fact that subscribers have an exclusive window of purchasing other concerts, and exchanging, without fee, with subscribed concerts. It is very easy to make exchanges on the laphil.com site. No need to call the subscription service. This is something I learned as the nice LA Phil subscriber service representative walked me through how the subscription level is valuable. I used to construct my program using the Create Your Own (CYO) program, and you can create the same program this way, but you will not have the subscription status, which means you do not have access to the early window to purchase other tickets. Early access means that the best seats are available. Also, if you are a subscriber, there are no fees to make exchanges. CYO members, or normal ticket purchasers for that matter, pay a $15 fee every time for exchanges.

At the end, this is the program created for Balse at the LA PHIL 2023-24 season:

Gershwin and Rachmaninoff

SUN, OCT 15

2:00PM

Jessie MONTGOMERY — Coincident Dances

GERSHWIN — Piano Concerto in F

Intermission

RACHMANINOFF — Symphonic Dances

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Elim Chan, conductor

Igor Levit, piano

Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony

SUN, JAN 7

2:00PM

STRAVINSKY — Danses concertantes

Veronika KRAUSAS — Sphinx, Concerto Grosso for two double bass and harpsichord (world premiere, LA Phil commission with generous support from the MaddocksBrown Fund for New Music)

Intermission

MOZART — Symphony No. 38, K. 504, "Prague"

Gemma New, conductor

Joanne Pearce Martin, harpsichord

Christopher Hanulik, bass

David Allen Moore, bass

Dudamel Leads Das Rheingold

Celebrating Frank Gehry

SUN, JAN 21

2:00PM

WAGNER — Das Rheingold

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Frank Gehry, scenic design

Alberto Arvelo, director

Cindy Figueroa, costume designer

Ryan Speedo Green, Wotan

Raehann Bryce-Davis, Fricka

Simon O’Neill, Loge

Barry Banks, Mime

Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Alberich

Morris Robinson, Fasolt

Peixin Chen, Fafner

Jessica Faselt, Freia

Ann Toomey, Woglinde

Alexandria Shiner, Wellgunde

Taylor Raven, Flosshilde

Tamara Mumford, Erda

John Matthew Myers, Froh

Kyle Albertson, Donner

Ravel and Adès

SUN, FEB 11

2:00PM

Thomas ADÈS — The Tempest Symphony

RAVEL — Piano Concerto for the Left Hand

Intermission

Thomas ADÈS — Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

RAVEL — La valse

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Thomas Adès, conductor

Kirill Gerstein, piano

Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff

SUN, MAR 10

2:00PM

Sofia GUBAIDULINA — Poema-Skazka ("Fairy-Tale Poem")

RACHMANINOFF — Piano Concerto No. 2

Intermission

PROKOFIEV — Symphony No. 5

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Domingo Hindoyan, conductor

Mao Fujita, piano

Elgar and Vaughan Williams

SUN, APR 7

2:00PM

Arvo PÄRT — Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten

ELGAR — Cello Concerto

Intermission

Vaughan WILLIAMS — Symphony No. 8

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Simone Young, conductor

Gautier Capuçon, cello

Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony

SUN, APR 14

2:00PM

Jonathan Bailey HOLLAND — Symphony (world premiere, LA Phil commission)

RAVEL — Tzigane

Intermission

SAINT-SAËNS — Symphony No. 3, "Organ"

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Louis Langrée, conductor

Martin Chalifour, violin

Dudamel Leads Mozart and Strauss

SUN, MAY 5

2:00PM

Andreia PINTO CORREIA — new work (world premiere, LA Phil commission with generous support from the Esa-Pekka Salonen Commissions Fund)

MOZART — Piano Concerto No. 9, “Jeunehomme”

Intermission

STRAUSS — Don Quixote

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Maria João Pires, piano

Robert deMaine, cello

Teng Li, viola

Dvořák and Ortiz with Dudamel

SUN, MAY 12

2:00PM

John WILLIAMS — Olympic Fanfare and Theme

Gabriela ORTIZ — Altar de cuerda (LA Phil commission with generous support from the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund)

Intermission

DVOŘÁK — Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

María Dueñas, violin

***SARAH MISKA***
***High Stakes***
***JULY 8 - SEPTEMBER 9, 2023***

BALSE NEWSLETTER 011

Charles A. Balse July 16, 2023

MILAN KUNDERA: From the Joke to Insignificance (2021) Trailer ENG

Trying to make this better.

Since I can’t let go.

Give me a chance.

So the song goes

POPFUJI and Prosecco.

Kundera.

Bougainvillea.

4:09 pm,

time to dance

we should dance more

Wishing you a good one, see you back in two weeks -Charles Balse

***MPA***
***Series Collapsed***
***JULY 8 - SEPTEMBER 9, 2023***

Words of Wisdom

Mr. Kundera told The Paris Review in 1983: “My lifetime ambition has been to unite the utmost seriousness of question with utmost lightness of form. The combination of a frivolous form and a serious subject immediately unmasks the truth about our dramas (those that occur in our beds as well as those that we play out on the great stage of History) and their awful insignificance. We experience the unbearable lightness of being. “ - Daniel Lewis, The New York Times, Thursday, July 2023 on MILAN KUNDERA, 1929 - 2023
Milan Kundera was born on April 1, 1929, in Brno, in what is now the Czech Republic, the son of Milada Janosikova and Ludvik Kundera. His father, a noted concert pianist and and musicologist, taught him piano, and he considered a career in music before his interests shifted to literature, particularly French.
“From an early age ,” he told an interviewer for the literary journal Salmagundi in 1987, “I read Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Breton, Cocteau, Bataille, Ionesco, and admired French surrealism.” - Daniel Lewis, The New York Times, Thursday, July 2023 on MILAN KUNDERA, 1929 - 2023
The art critic Clement Greenberg divided the abstract Expressionist Painters into two groups (1961,1962): the gestural painters de Kooning and Pollock, and the color-filed painter Rothko, Morris Louis, and Barnett Newman. However, as the art historian Robert Rosenblum points out, this distinction is less important than the artist’s common pursuit of the sublime (1961) - Reductionism in Art and Brina Science, Eric Kandel, pg 87, Zettel 116
Two of de Kooning’s paintings were of seminal importance in this period: Excavation and Woman I. Excavation, painted in 1950, is generally considered one of the most important paintings of the twentieth century….In Excavation, de Kooning achieved a magical synthesis of these two modern claims of truth. His powerful, poised style integrated the rigorous detachment of Cubist structure with the personal drive and spontaneity of the moment. - Reductionism in Art and Brina Science, Eric Kandel, pg 90 & 91, Zettel 117
Despite the abstract nature of these paintings, de Kooning later insisted that he was not interested in “abstracting” - taking things out and reducing his paintings to form line, or color. Rather he often painted in what appeared to others to be an abstract form because the reduction of figuration allowed him to put more emotional and conceptual components into the painting: anger, pain, love, his ideas about space. - Reductionism in Art and Brina Science, Eric Kandel, pg 99, Zettel 118
..it was Pollock who, according to even to de Kooning, “really broke the ice.” Pollock proved to be by far, the strongest personality of his generation. As de Kooning put it: “Every so often, a painter has to destroy painting. Cezanne dd it. Picasso did it with Cubism. Then Pollock did it. He busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new paintings again. (Galenson 2009) - Reductionism in Art and Brina Science, Eric Kandel, pg 101, Zettel 120
IN his essay “American Action Painters”, Rosenberg write that Pollock, by turning painting into a series of actions, had “eliminated the separation between art and life.” - Reductionism in Art and Brina Science, Eric Kandel, pg 108, Zettel 121
“Each day I am a better friend to myself.” - Seneca, to the question “how do you know that you’re doing it right? - Ryan Holiday, Interview Youtube, Stoicism’s lessons for a disciplined life - Ryan Holiday Modern Wisdom Podcast 541

***YOOYUN YANG***
***Stranger***
***JULY 8 - SEPTEMBER 9, 2023***

Main Studies

Other Studies

Dover Beach Pt. 2
Lola Young - Stream Of Consciousness (Lyric Video)
- coming back to this one weekly, atmospheric
Page 3 feat. K15 Steven Julien - Topic
- wonderful, beautiful, stylish track, perfect Sunday afternoon in the shade
- 5 stars
Karenn - Happy Birthday [VOAM011]
- trippy, dancy, in your own worldly pleasure, type of tune
- 5 stars, for sure
Expressionism in 8 Minutes: The Most Disturbing Art Ever?
Joachim Spieth - Luciferin (Original Mix)
- techno - ride, universe, mindset
Rebekah // Daria Kolosova // Marcel Fengler - TXL Berlin Recordings Chapter 6 - ARTE Concert
- techno live DJ mix, hard, solid, magnificent
Drum & Bass On The Bike - LONDON
- lovely, just simply fun and happiness
Flora and Fauna : Documentary
This Underground Economy Exists in a Secret Fungi Kingdom
Vincenzo Agnetti, Tempo e Memoria
OUER | Stingray Nebula | Dirt Crew Recordings
Lessons In Good Taste | MR PORTER
Why Fashion Brands Are Doubling Down on Sustainability | The Business of Fashion Show
- documentary
How De Petrillo Perfected The Recipe Of The Suit | MR PORTER
H&M and Zara: Can fast fashion be eco-friendly?
- more documentary
Inside radical architect-designer Paola Navone’s rooftop Milan home and collector’s instinct
Stoicism's Lessons For A Disciplined Life - Ryan Holiday | Modern Wisdom Podcast 541
Tycho - Time To Run (Official Video)
Give Me a Chance
Hiroko Yamamura | Boiler Room x Slingshot Festival

ClassicAsobi recommends

***STERLING WELLS***
***A New Flood***
***JULY 8 - SEPTEMBER 9, 2023***

BALSE NEWSLETTER 010

Charles A. Balse July 2, 2023

For most of us, knowledge of our world comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind. One way to open your eyes to unnoticed beauty is to ask yourself, “What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?” - THE SENSE OF WONDER by RACHEL CARSON

Sense of wonder

Serendipity

listen

smell

see

touch

Wishing you a good one, see you back in two weeks -Charles Balse

***Immaculate Heart of Margaritaville***
July 2, 2023
*NICODIM, Los Angeles*

Words of Wisdom

Best use of imagination is creativity. Creativity is a disruption in the algorithm. It’s a discontinuity. Fundamental creativity. Creativity is death and resurrection. It’s a death of context, meaning, relationship, and story. And a new meaning, relationship, and story. That’s fundamental creativity. Einstein coming up with the Theory of Relativity…or a great piece of art. Beethoven’s 5th. These are original creativity as a disruption to the algorithm. - Deepak Chopra, interview by The Diary of a CEO
If you’re not joyful you are wasting your life. The fact that I exist is a perpetual surprise for me. What’s the healthiest emotion? Not love, not compassion, not even joy. It’s All. It’s wonder. Why do we exist? Perpetually surprised, full of wonder and joy. You return to innocence. And what we lost today in this world is the loss of innocence - Deepak Chopra, interview by The Diary of a CEO
What is so wonderful - indeed, almost magical - about our brain is that we can perceive an object based on incomplete information, and we can perceive it as being the same under strikingly different conditions of lighting and context - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Eric R. Kandel Page 25
In us, learning has led to the establishment of a completely new kind of evolution - cultural evolution - which has largely supplanted biological evolution as a means of transmitting knowledge and adaptations across generations. Our capacity for learning is so remarkably developed that human societies change almost exclusively by cultural evolution. In fact there is no strong evidence of any biological change in the size or structures of the human brain since Homo Sapiens appeared in the fossil record some 50,000 years go. All human accomplishments, from antiquity to modern times to modern times, are the product of cultural evolution, and therefore memory. - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Eric R. Kandel Page 44
On November 12, 1918, the day after the day after the armistice ending World War I was signed, Monet committed to giving the French government a set of large paintings as a monument to peace. Shortly after his death in 1926 at the age of eighty-six the French government constructed two oval galleries at the Musée de l'Orangerie, …as a permanent home for eight water lily murals…most of the murals do not show the sky; only the infinity of the lily pond. These remarkable works are filled with ambiguity and beauty. We see in them the beginnings of a change from a dialogue between the artist and his subject to a dialogue between the artist and the canvas. - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Eric R. Kandel Page 69
As artists started to move toward abstraction, they began to see analogies between their art and music. Although music has no content and uses abstract elements of sound and division of time, it moves us powerfully. Why, then, does pictorial art have to have content? This question was addressed by the French Poet Charles Baudelaire, who pioneered a new style of prose-poetry and wrote the famous volume of poetry Les Fleurs du mal (The flowers of Evil), in which he described the changing nature of beauty in modern life. Baudelaire argued that even though each of our sense responds to a restricted range of stimuli, all of the senses are connected at a deeper aesthetic level. It is therefore particularly interesting that the earlierst truly abstract painting was achieve by the pioneer of abstract music, Arnold Schoenberg. - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Eric R. Kandel Page 71

Main Studies

***Kwesi Botchway There’s More Than What the Eye Witnesses***
July 2, 2023
*Vielmetter, Los Angeles*
***May 13 – June 24, 2023***

Other Studies

The Mystical Artist Whose Paintings Kickstarted The Dutch Renaissance | Great Artists | Perspective
The Morning After I Killed Myself
oma totem - Topic - ER1
- delicious sound bites
Grauspecht (Acid Pauli Remix) by Dominik Eulberg
- lovely tune
Free Your Mind Eden Burns - Topic
- utter coolness - free your mind free your soul
Cold Air Kölsch Official
- epic, dramatic, nice for this Sunday afternoon
Luigi Tozzi - Spiral (Rrose Remix) [NON055]
- solid
Anthony Linell - Illusion Self [NE93]
- drumbing, stomping, marching, powerful
Anthony Linell - Sky Crash Over Me [NE93]
- precise hit, grounded, hint of lemon and spice, light wave at top, trancy
Priori - Hazard [MDG021]
- we are on a march, 5 stars, chorus, bells, hint of acid
Ich Bin Ready (X-Coast Version)
- party, house, sky, just simply fun, and utterly cool
All That Matters (Artbat Remix) Kölsch Official
- life drama, journey, celebration
Anfisa Letyago at Saluting Battery, in Malta for Cercle
whiteflower - MRD
- a surprisingly colorful, stomping dance
Diane Arbus: In The Beginning, Photography | Met Exhibitions
How fungi shaped our world and could save it | Merlin Sheldrake
How fungi shaped our world and could save it | Merlin Sheldrake
- hugely exciting, important
Johannes Heil - Gospel One
- much sky, universe, structure, all that is
Lusine - Parallel (Original Mix) [Cocoon Recordings]
- coolness, woody, earthy, mid-layer digitized, shining, floating object, that is
Why do some artists become famous? | Albert-László Barabási
Ben Klock // Fadi Mohem // Nathalie Seres - TXL Berlin Recordings Chapter 4 - ARTE Concert
- proper, solid, to dance for
Flora and Fauna : Documentary
Vincenzo Agnetti, Tempo e Memoria
This Underground Economy Exists in a Secret Fungi Kingdom
Versace Fall Winter 2023
Paradis - Garde Le Pour Toi
- such beauty

ClassicAsobi recommends

***Violon Sonata in G Minor, H. 542.5: I. [...]***
***Rachel Podger - Topic***

***Symphony No. 4 in C Minor, D. 417 "Tragic": I. Adagio molto - Allegro vivace***
***B'Rock Orchestra***

***Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Op. 93: II. Allegro***
***Berlin Philharmonic Orch**estra***

BALSE NEWSLETTER 009

Yohei Abe June 15, 2023

Back from the Brooklyn Film Festival 2023. World Premiere of our great friend Alex Andre’s feature film PRATFALL. Awards were announced and the film won the Spirit Award for Narrative Feature! Lovely afterparty, and less than 24 hours later, back in LA. Memorable moments in life.

The Trees by Philip Larkin

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Saw a lovely film on the Delta 332 flight to JFK called Empire of Light.

Another world.

To be able to fly. Illusion of life.

One of the wonderful people that I met at the PRATFALL after party had just arrived back from a music event in Tbilisi, Georgia that afternoon. He was there to DJ at an event called 4GB, which I did not know. Tbilisi has always been on our radar at Balse, after reading an article by Resident Advisor a number of years ago. It is now on top of the list of events to attend. link>>>4GB official site. See you there.

“it was just very touching, to see how these group of friends turned a very very sad thing that happened there, with his accident, into something powerful and beautiful and positive. It’s really, one of a kind” - Michael Mayer, KOMPAKT

Added a study of Don McCullin, British photo journalist. Inspiring. Do check it out.

The camera was a key to open up my life. It was like opening a huge window to the world. It gave me education. It gave me travel… It gave me hope. - Don McCullin

Have been digging through the vinyl records the past two weeks. Listening. Timeless beautiful tracks. See below in the Other Studies section for some sound bits like this one.

Hammer museum’s major exhibition of their collections since 2005. Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection is a must see. Going on till August 20, 2023.

Hauser & Wirth’s Thomas J Price exhibition is also an experience that should not be passed.

Enjoying the The Danish Japanese singer song writer Mina Okabe. Pondering over the philosophy of Deleuze.

“Deleuze’s philosophy is builds upon Spinoza’s Monism. That’s everything is connected. In fact the world is so complicated, so connected, so mysterious, there are potentially an infinite number of possibilities in the world. “

And some Alison Goldfrapp to finish.

Wishing you a good one, see you back in two weeks -Charles Balse

***Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection***

Words of wisdom

A hero goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and returns to the ordinary world, changed or transformed, and shares that gift with their community. Before any of this can happen, the hero must answer the call to that adventure. The hero is reluctant at first refusing the call. A mentor appears, and helps them to cross threshold leaving the ordinary world for the new one. In real life it can be hard to recognize the call for adventure, it is almost always something that you are afraid to do, but know inside that you need to do. It appears as an obstacle. To be the hero of your story, you must answer the call, and the obstacle is the way. - Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces
I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things that already have an existence - Man Ray
What I perceive are not the crude and ambiguous cues that impinge from the outside world onto my eyes and my ears and my fingers. I perceive something much richer - a picture that combines all these crude signals with the wealth of past experience ... Our perception of the world is a fantasy that coincides with reality. - Chris Frith 2007, cognitive psychologist.
In us, learning has led to the establishment of a completely new kind of evolution - cultural evolution - which has largely supplanted biological evolution as a means of transmitting knowledge and adaptations across generations. Our capacity for learning is so remarkably developed that human societies change almost exclusively by cultural evolution. In fact, there is no strong evidence of any biological change in the size or structures of the human brain since Homo Sapiens appeared in the fossil record some 50,000 years ago. All human accomplishments from antiquity to modern times, are the product of cultural evolution, and therefore MEMORY. - Reductionism in Art and Brain Sciense, ERic Kandel, page 44.
These biological findings confirm Kris and Gombrich's inference that visual perception is not a simple window on the world, but truly a creation of the brain. - Reduction in Art and Brain Science, Eric Kandel page 30
"We do not have direct access to the physical world. It may feel as if we have direct access, but this is an illusion created by our own brain." - Frith 2007, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Eric Kandel page 23
...we do not see material objects, but rather the light reflected off them (Berkely, 1709). As a result, no two-dimensional image projected onto our retina can ever directly specify all three dimensions of an object. This fact, and the difficulty it raises for understanding our perception of any image, is referred to as the INVERSE OPTICS PROBLEM. (Purves and Lotto 2010; Kandel 2012; Albright 2013)... any three dimensional object is inherently uncertain. Gombrich fully appreciated this problem and cited Berkley's observation that "the world as we see it is a construct slowly built up by every one of us in years of experimentation." - Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, Eric Kandel, page 21

Main Studies

Other Studies

**THOMAS J PRICE - HAUSER & WIRTH Los Angeles**

***David Zwirner Gallery LA - Njideka Akunyili Crosby***

BALSE NEWSLETTER 008

Charles A. Balse May 31, 2023

First, we would like to congratulate Alex Andre, a long time Balse project friend and contributor, for his directorial debut with his feature film PRATFALL at the Brooklyn Film Festival.

Balse is going to Brooklyn to attend the world premier this Saturday, June 3rd, documenting the scene and the crew through photography.

Pratfall will make its world premiere at Brooklyn Film Festival 2023 this Saturday, June 3 at 8:00 p.m. at Windmill Studios in Brooklyn, with director Alex Andre and stars Joshua Burge and Chloé Groussard in person.

Wonderful art exhibits openings in LA, including the David Zwirner Gallery near Korea town. I read the NY Times article about the Nigerian artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby, thrilled to visit the gallery, not knowing that they newly opened in LA. Pleasantly surprised with the exhibition, I told the staff that I have been completely missing out by not visiting the gallery in past, and the answer was that they had just opened a few days ago…. no wonder. The Canadian photographer Stand Douglas was the other exhibit. I actually saw his work at the Venezia Biennale in 2022 and it left a strong impression. Wonderful to experience his work in LA again. Definitely recommended. One of my recent favorite paintings must be Denielle Mckinney. The works at the Night Gallery was a gem. Must see. The show is on until June 24th.

Been revisiting the great Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. I read his The Book of Disquiet a few years ago on Audible, now re-reading. Check out this Youtuber and his impression of the book, and I guarantee that it will spark your interest.

Also, going down the rabbit hole of philosophy, on Youtube again. Digging this channel called Plastic Pills. Brilliant guy. Recommend checking his clips. Some of his works on Lacan, Zizek,

Was learning and preparing for the Mitsuko Uchida and Dudamel, LA Phil, Mozart concert, but due to the Brooklyn Film Festival attendance, the concert must be skipped… but I must say this BBC doc on Mozart is well made. Entertaining and educational.

Continuing to listening to JFDR.

Next time will be an update from the Brooklyn Film Festival.

Wishing you a good one, see you back in two weeks -Charles Balse

Words of wisdom

I was in Monument Valley for a few days and went all over it. I rented a helicopter, I made several side swipes by the fingers and took pictures. And of course it couldn’t help but be somewhat blurred. It’s bigger than just being out of focus. It was really emotional landscape. - words of Annie Leibovitz from Master Class
if we want to understand the way in which northern art developed, we must appreciate this infinite care and patience of Jan van Eyck. The southern artists of his generation; the Florentine masters of Brunelleschi’s circle, had developed a method by which, nature could be represented in a picture with almost scientific accuracy. They began with the framework of perspective lines, and they built up the human body through their knowledge of anatomy and of the laws of foreshortenning. Van Eyck took the opposite way. He achieved the illusion of nature by patiently adding detail till his whole picture became like a mirror of the visible world. The difference between northern and Italian art remained important for many years. It is a fair guess to say that any work which excels in the representation of the beautiful surface of things, of flowers, jewels or fabric, will be by a northern artist, most probably by an artist from the Netherlands; while a painting with bold outlines, clear perspective and a sure mastery of the beautiful human body, will be Italian. - The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich pg 239
To carry out his intention of holding up a mirror to reality in all its details, van Eyck had to improve the technique of painting. He was the inventor of oil-painting…If he used oil instead of egg (tempera), he could work much more slowly and accurately. - The History of Art, E.H. Gombrich pg 240
Riegl emphasized an obvious but previously ignored psychological aspect of art: that art is incomplete without the perceptual and emotional involvement of the viewer. Not only do we collaborate with the artist in tranforming a two-dimensional figurative image on canvas into a three dimensional dipiction of the visual world, we interpret what we see on the canvas in personal terms, thereby adding meaning to the picture. Riegl called this phenomenon “the beholder’s involvement.” Based on ideas derived from Riegl’s work and on insights that began to emerge from cognitive psychology, the biology of visual perception, and psychoanalysis, Kris and Gombrich went on to develop a new view of this concept, which Gombrich referred to as the beholder’s share. - REDUCTIONISM IN ART AND BRAIN SCIENCE, Eric R. Kandel

Main Studies

Other Studies

Modernism Motion Sequence

a solid, nice techno track, perfect on a Memorial Day afternoon. Must admit.

Rødhåd // Dasha Rush // MARRØN - TXL Berlin Recordings - Chapter 1 - ARTE Concert

solid, techno

Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians Colin Currie • Colin Currie Group • Synergy Vocals Composer: Steve Reich
Troy - Zenith [KW36]

another solid techno track

JFDR - Taking A Part Of Me

lovely sound, lovely work, love JFDR

Alison Goldfrapp - Gatto Gelato (Visualiser)

nice, more Goldfrapp

The Genius of W. Eugene Smith

obsessed with the photographer, studying further

The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa - Book Review

The great Portuguese poet, writer. Continuing the research
Professor David Jackson: Adverse Genres in Fernando Pessoa YaleUniversity

The End of Art: Arthur Danto's Influential Art Theory | AmorSciendi
Lacan - Mirror Stage, Desire, Imaginary and Symbolic "I"

very fascinated by Lacan. Been watching a lot of this philosopher. Love Plastic Pills.

Lola Young - Stream Of Consciousness (Lyric Video)

really cool pop music, UK?

BBC The Genius of Mozart

been studying Mozart because of the LA Phil concert that was coming up, but a slight change of plans, I am going to the Brooklyn Film Festival to support my good friend Alex Andre and attend his first feature film premiere.

Been doing a lot of philosophy this past few weeks

ClassicAsobi Recommends

**Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9**

Berliner Philharmoniker • Kirill Petrenko
Composer: Dimitri Chostakovitch

**Schubert: Complete Works for Violin & Piano**

Julia Fischer • Martin Helmchen
Composer: Franz Schubert

**Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8**

Berliner Philharmoniker • Kirill Petrenko
Composer: Dimitri Chostakovitch

Next Up

Brooklyn Film Festival 2023
Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection - at the UCLA Hammer - MAR 26 – AUG 20, 2023
Reductionism in Art and Brain Science - Eric R. Kandel
Broad Collection works by Keith Haring & his contemporaries - THE BROAD

Tim Walker Wonderful Things - Getty Center

BALSE NEWSLETTER 007

Charles A. Balse May 15, 2023

What we consume, the choices we make, everyday, shapes us and the world around us.

The Getty Tim Walker photography exhibit (above) and the LA Phil Beethoven and Strauss were the highlights of the past few weeks. Getting to know the photo journalist Eugene Smith in depth, continues, but has already been life changing. The documentary Minamata was moving. Several good Youtube videos found to get to know him better. Icelandic musician JFDR is magnificent. Check out her song Orchid. ClassicAsobi is now working on a project and will be on leave for a few more weeks. Hoping to get back to scanning the world of contemporary classical music scene very soon.

Wishing you a good one, see you back in two weeks -Charles Balse

Words of wisdom

Let us state it in the following way: At your birth a seed is planted. That seed is your uniqueness. It wants to grow, transform itself, and flower to its full potential. It has a natural assertive energy to it. Your life’s task is to have a destiny to fulfill. The stronger you feel and maintain it - as a force , a voice, or in whatever form - the greater your chance for fulfilling this Life’s Task and achieving mastery. - Mastery, Robert Greene, page 84
Thinking and creativity can flourish under restricted conditions and there are plenty of studies to back that claim (cf. stokes 2021; Rheinberger 1997). The scientific revolution started with the standardization and controlling of experiments which made them comparable and repeatable. Or think of poetry: It imposes restrictions in terms of rhythm, syllables or rhymes. Haikus give the poet very little room for formal variations but that doesn’t mean they are equally limited in term of poetic expressiveness. On the contrary: It is the strict formalism that allows them to transcend time and culture. - How to Take Smart Notes, Sonke Ahrens page 128
Brunelleschi was not only the initiator of Renaissance architecture. To him, it seems, is due another momentous discovery in the field of art, which also dominated the art of subsequent centuries - that of perspective. We have seen that even the Greeks, who understood foreshadowing, and the Hellenistic painters, who were skilled in creating the illusion of depth, did not know the mathematical laws by which objects appear to diminish in size as they recede from us. We remember that no artist could have drawn the famous avenue of trees leading back into the picture until it vanishes into the horizon. It was Brunelleschi who gave artists mathematical means of solving this problem; and the excitement which this caused among his painter-friends must have been immense. - The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich pg 229
The future is fixed, but we move around in infinite space - Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

LA Phil - **BEETHOVEN** — Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
**Intermission**
**Anna THORVALDSDÓTTIR** — ARCHORA (U.S. premiere, LA Phil commission with generous support from Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting)
**STRAUSS** — *Der Rosenkavalier* Suite
**Los Angeles Philharmonic**
**Eva Ollikainen**, *conductor*
**Pierre-Laurent Aimard**, *piano*

Main Studies

Other Studies

MINAMATA Official Trailer (2021) Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy, Drama Movie
- photo journalism, Eugine Smith
《BBC Great Composers》：Beethoven
- preparing for the LA Phil performance
  - LA Phil, Beethoven, Piano Concerto #4 & Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier
    Artists
JFDR
- Really digging this Icelandic singer, songwriter.
  - JFDR - The Orchid - beautiful track, on heavy rotation the past two weeks
  - JFDR - Life Man
  - Air Unfolding
  - JFDR - ARTE Concert Festival 2022
FILMMAKER - ARTILLERY MATERIAL [Full EP]
- hardcore, electro? Techno? Apparently from Antioquia, Colombia. Friend up in Seattle sent this link over last Friday night. Great stuff
- https://filmmaker.bandcamp.com/
Daya - New Romantics
- fresh pop
Men I Trust - Billie Toppy
- the always lovely voice of the Canadian Indie band Men I Trust
Rex The Dog - Moto
- some KOMPAKT. Haven’t heard Rex The Dog in a while.
Sterac - Teknitron (dsr-stc5) (2023 Remaster)
- The original track is from 1990s, pretty retro by this time, wonderful flow. Love it.
How To Chase Light Like Trent Parke
- Interesting study video on how the Magnum Photographer Trent Parke took some of his most iconic photos that is mind-bending.

Next Up

HOT GLUE - NIGHT GALLERY
Shagha Ariannia, Reginald Armstrong, Sarah Awad, Samara Golden, Conrad Guevara, Julia Haft-Candell, Khari Johnson-Ricks, Libby Rosen, Magnus Maxine, Alex Andrew Sanchez, Elaine Stocki, Sterling Wells, and Rikkí Wright
MAY 12 – JUNE 17, 2023
Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection - at the UCLA Hammer - MAR 26 – AUG 20, 2023
Dudamel conducts Mozart
Sun / June 4, 2023 - 2:00PM
One of the world’s great Mozart pianists joins Dudamel for a sublime program.
- Program
  - MOZARTOverture to The Magic Flute
  - MOZART Piano Concerto No. 27, K. 595
  - Intermission
  - MOZART Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter"
- Artists

BALSE NEWSLETTER 006

Yohei Abe May 1, 2023

Ready to succeed. Ready to receive.

Flourish with handmade. That bird that chirp, soar, and make you smile.

Spring to Summer.

CARL CRAIG:PARTY/AFTER-PARTY - MOCA LA

Dawoud Bey & Carrie Mae Weems - Getty Center

Gallery VIELMETTER LOS ANGELES

“Goodnight Prometheus,” our first solo exhibition with Robert Pruitt
Esther Pearl Watson, “A Luminous Vision”
Dave McKenzie, And sometimes y
Jared McGriff’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, “On Being a Wild Dream,”

Other research items:

Modulations - History of Electronic Music | Documentary

(hoshikuma minami) - TOKYO 神 VIRTUAL (Official Music Video)

Everything But The Girl - Each and Every One

Caroline Polachek - Smoke

TWO LANES - Live Performance (Piano Set)

Hania Rani – On Giacometti: A live performance at Atelier in Stampa

Royel Otis - Razor Teeth (Official Music Video)

BBC - The Birth of British Music: Haydn The Celebrity

Adam Curtis | The Problem of Our Time

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed - Official Trailer (2022) Nan Goldin

Absurdism: Life is Meaningless

Peter Doig - In the Studio

Postmodernism is Good Actually: Baudrillard vs. Marxism | Plastic Pills

Learning photography with Dorothea Lange.

La Strada, the STREET PHOTOGRAPHY you need to know.

Giulietta Palumbo: Photojournalism Workshop

Art and Capitalism

Nabihah Iqbal - 'Gentle Heart' (Official Audio)

The Genius of W. Eugene Smith

Nabihah Iqbal - 'Dreamer' (Official Video)

From ClassicAsobi:

Next up:

LA Phil, Beethoven, Piano Concerto #4 & Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier
Artists
Together in Time: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection - at the UCLA Hammer - MAR 26 – AUG 20, 2023

Ultimate Selector

Yohei Abe April 20, 2023

Select, experience, transform.

To be present, or not to be.

Every hour and day: discarding and focusing.

Consciousness. Open mind.

Courage, and gut feeling.

A constant process.

At Balse, we will share our selection process and what we learned.

We will visualize our transformation.

And for some, we hope, will be a valuable source of inspiration.

We are ultimate selectors.

Record

Welcome

start with

Flow

BALSE NEWSLETTER 0005

Yohei Abe April 18, 2023

Been updating the ‘About’ page. Here is the current iteration:

What to make of this?

How to live?

Our eternal questions.

No body can advise you and help you, nobody. There is only one way. Go into yourself. Examine the reason that bids you to write; check whether it reaches its roots into the deepest region of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would die if it should be denied you to write. - Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

In a way, Balse is a research institute. In another, simply an experience of life, the NOW.

How I feel. My journey. Real human drama through photography and words.

Things are not all as graspable and sayable as on the whole we are led to believe; most events are unsayable, occur in a place that no word has ever penetrated, and most unsayable of all are works of art, mysterious existences whose life endures alongside ours, which passes away. - Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Key areas of research are:

Art, Music, and History
Philosophy
Environment

From ancient to contemporary.

What we consume, how we spend time, shapes us. Consume less, consume consciously.

A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. The verdict on it lies in this nature of its origin: there is no other.

Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Follow the fun. Experience the world - LIFE.

With your needle, feel the groove - Focus.

Signal - seek with heart - Phono stage.

Find your message, expand with light - amplification.

Energy, vibration, form, harmony, emotion, being, breath in, and breathe out - Sound.

Now - DANCE.

Life.

Other research items:

ClassicAsobi Selects:

Re-writing, editing - existence

Charles A. Balse April 14, 2023

Been a few weeks since coming back from New York. Working on photo edits and all.

Also revisiting the meaning of Balse. The existence. Been re-writing the About page.

Here are some of the latest edits.

What to make of this?

How to live?

Our eternal questions.

In a way, Balse is a research institute. In another, simply an experience of life, the NOW.

How I feel. My journey. Real human drama through photography and words.

Key areas of research are:

Art, Music, and History
Philosophy
Environment

From ancient to contemporary.

What we consume, how we spend time, shapes us. Consume less, consume consciously.

A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. The verdict on it lies in this nature of its origin: there is no other.

Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Follow the fun. Experience the world - LIFE.

With your needle, feel the groove - Focus.

Signal - seek with heart - Phono stage.

Find your message, expand with light - amplification.

Energy, vibration, form, harmony, emotion, being, breath in, and breathe out - Sound.

Now - DANCE.

Life.

success/failure

Charles A. Balse April 8, 2023

Feeling notes - life, worry of success/failure

Rilke had a sense of the land to which his gifts might lead him, but he was also anxious that he might never get there. He lived in fear of two false fates: either that he might end up as lost as the ragged poor who had surrounded him in Paris or else that he might succumb to the safe but numbing comforts of convention.

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, Intro, by Lewis Hyde 2011

Narrative

Charles A. Balse April 7, 2023

Head spinning

What is it you are searching for?

Meaning.

but there is no meaning, you know that right?

as she might say.

I understand that.

I am creating Story

: meaning

My grand narrative

Belini & Handel

Charles A. Balse April 6, 2023

Morning. Added Belini’s Norma at Metropolitan Opera 2023 to the Belini page.

Moving on to Handel. Saw Jeanine De Bique and Concerto Köln at Carnegie during the NYC trip in March and discovered how I like Handel. Now let’s dive into researching about the composer. BBC always have the best documentaries, found this one - BBC - The Birth of British Music: Handel The Conquering

Belini's Norma & our next goal

Charles A. Balse April 5, 2023

Back from NY. Catching up on research. Now on Belini’s Norma.

What is it that we can learn from Opera?

What are we seeking?

How can music and art influence our life?

How will it transform you?

These are the questions that is constantly on my mind.

I have no classical training in art or music, but I want to learn and be able to purely enjoy and be inspired. By studying important music pieces, we will learn history, philosophy, physiology, story telling, life, desperation, love, and hope. Drive to change, and better live.

Same for visual and contemporary art, but it may be more so with some of these major music pieces.

This is why Balse is increasingly focusing on Opera at this time.

What if we researched the 20 most important Operas and summarized them in our own ways, for us to be educated and truly studied the context and messages. I think it will have an impact on our lives.

BALSE NEWSLETTER 0004

Charles A. Balse April 2, 2023

That the unconscious is not simply a realm of hidden wishes, but a peculiar mode of thinking is of philosophical significance. - FREUD, jonathan lear, second edition

Balse team meet up in New York City, late March. Jam packed six days.

DAY 1 - LAX - EWR, arrived 4:30pm, taxi to Central Park south, check-in at hotel, change, Ken (ClassicAsobi) food take out and meetup at the hotel to have a quick dinner. 7pm, arrive at Met Opera for Verdi’s Opera Falstaff. Parterre Center seat (box 26, front row seat 3). Sound was well balanced and a view of the orchestra pit as well as the whole stage. First time I was well prepared to see a full opera. Meaningful breakthrough. Great start.
DAY 2 - Met up with Ken 10:30am and picked up Dress rehearsal tickets from the Met Opera Orchestra second Flutist, Maron, to see Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. Four hour performance. Row S, center left. My first dress rehearsal.
DAY 3 - Noon, Met Opera matinee performance of Bellini’s Norma (I still need to create a study of this piece on the site TBD). Rain rain rain. Beer at P.J. Clarke's Lincoln Square. 7:30pm Carnegie Zankel Hall, Ensemble Intercontemporarain concert. Front center seat. Magnificent. One of the highlight experiences.
DAY 4 - 11am MoMA, exhibit ‘Signals - how video transformed the world’, plus the amazing AI art, a huge screen setup by the window looking out into the courtyard. Stimulating, thought provoking. Dinner in East Village, Shanghainese restaurant, Cheli, highly recommended. Evening 8:30 pm, Carnegie Hall Dallas Symphony Orchestra, an impromptu buy. Was great to experience the Carnegie main hall sound, back orchestra center left.
DAY 5 - 1:30pm Metropolitan Museum of Art - Richard Avedon photo exhibits, Beyond the Light - 19th century Danish paintings exhibit, the usual stroll through the ancient art and modern contemporary sections as well. Evening, 7:30pm, back at the Met Opera for Der Rosenkavalier performance.
DAY6 - shopping at the Paris fashion brand Officine Geneale SoHo shop. Found out that they opened two stores in LA this year, wonderful news. Evening 7:30pm back at Carnegie Zankel Hall for Jeanine De Bique and Concerto Köln performance. Mostly Hendel. Gorgeous. I am finding that I really like Hendel.

More on the detail through a photo essay later.

Other research items:

Questions are the new answers
- Interesting perspective to consider for life
Tigerhead | Boiler Room x Adroit Zuric
- Love Tigerhead, once a week, techno sets
Mexico City: the most beautiful art galleries, my favorite places to eat, shop and more...
- Mexico City is one of the places that has long been on our list to research and visit.
Mareux - The Perfect Girl video series
- some cool original and adapted video mixes
Yves Tumor - Lifetime (Official Video)
- mind blowing, great band
Richard Strauss and his Heroines - the great composer's relationship to women | Music Documentary
- Still in the progress of researching Strauss. More to come on this front.
AI Art: How artists are using and confronting machine learning | HOW TO SEE LIKE A MACHINE
- This is a must see short doc by MoMA. About the AI art that is currently on exhit.
Top 10 Best Contemporary Art Magazines
Ayn Rand's Genius Philosophy - Selfishness is a virtue
- A friend told me about Ayn Rand late last year. Recently stumbled upon this clip. Would like to research and learn more.
7 Philosophical Science Fiction Novels
Olafur Eliasson in "Berlin" - Season 9 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21
Isolde Lasoen feat. Bertrand Burgalat - Douce Mélancolie
- some French pop? Yes

ClassicAsobi Selects:

Concert Posts:

Vienna Philharmonic, Christian Thielemann at Carnegie Hall 3.3-5

Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Mitsuko Uchida, Concert at Carnegie Hall 3.9.2023

Giuseppe Verdi, Falstaff at Met

Vincenzo Bellini, Norma at Met 3.2023

Verdi’s La Traviata at Met, the inexhaustible vocal and dramatic possibilities.

Der Rosenkavalier - act I

Charles A. Balse March 22, 2023

Going through the full recording now.

Der Rosenkavalier day 2

Charles A. Balse March 21, 2023

More research on Der Rosenkavalier.

Found an interview with Robert Carsen.

Starting on Der Rosenkavalier

Charles A. Balse March 18, 2023

Finished an overview of Falstaff. Will come back to it to review it in more detail, but now onto an overview of Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. Seems to be a good number of Youtube content around this, so will be going into these in the next few days.

Verdi Falstaff - continued

Yohei Abe March 17, 2023

Yesterday, I posted the method of having the libretto, Italian and English side by side to go over. Great in theory, but for me, I first need to understand the story. So, I have decided to go through this Youtube clip, which has the English caption, with a production that is easier to follow.

Once I get the overall story, I may have time to get back to the libretto.

I also need to get onto Der Rosenkavalier and Norma, both coming up in a week… a lot to study.

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solid. very solid, techno

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