Reprogramming Directive

This is a repost of an old blog entry I made late last year, once I had decided I was going to do something about pursuing my dreams.

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Originally posted on Wed, 23 September 2009 at 01:12 while listening to “At The Beginning”, OST ‘Anastasia’ and feeling Inspired.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to start doing things about my current…situation of not being in the ideal job (promotions and all aside). So this year, during the week of my birthday, I took an afternoon off and got myself was a ticket to the Talent Development Project‘s “Start Me Up” Master Class.

Talent Development Project: Start Me Up – Master Class

Essentially, this was a two-hour Q&A session with a panel of music industry representatives across artists, A&R executives from major recording companies, representatives from copyright/royalties bodies, music publishers and music teachers, with some free musical entertainment thrown in (no, Jessica Mauboy did not perform. Yes, Wes Carr did perform!).

The event was very much targeted towards young performers trying to get into mainstream music, but they did have two members of the panel (Darren Coggan and Jonathon Welch) who are or have been involved in musical theatre. Most of the session consisted of the host, John Foreman, asking the panel a series of pre-determined questions aimed at facilitating discussion, with the last 15 minutes or so reserved for open questions. I wavered for a split second, decided I had nothing to lose and got to sneak in a very specific (and long) question at the very end about how to get into writing musical theatre.

And thank goodness I did. Had I not asked that question, I would not have found out about the…

APRA|AMCOS presents: Songwriter Speaks Evening – With Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty

Yup. Two weeks ago, I managed to get an invitation (courtesy of the generous Milly Petriella from APRA|AMCOS) to an intimate evening with Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, directly as a result of asking that question in the Master Class. One of 21st Century Broadway’s dream teams who have multiple nominations for Grammy Awards, Academy Awards and Golden Globes, and have won multiple greatly coveted Tony Awards. For those who don’t know them, Ahrens and Flaherty are the team behind the music of the animated feature, “Anastasia”, including the theme song “At The Beginning” as sung by Donna Lewis and Richard Marx. The whole evening was an incredible opportunity as they talked about their backgrounds, their early careers, how they got to where they are today and performed a few of their wonderful songs.

It was really inspiring to hear that Lynn Ahrens used to work in a completely unrelated field, then got to a point where she found that she was meant to be writing for musical theatre, gathered her courage and made the jump to abandon her career in advertising to work as a freelance jingle writer. Stephen Flaherty’s story is also tremendously inspiring – having known what he wanted to do from a very young age, he pursued his dream through formal university music studies doggedly despite growing up in a state (state, not just suburb or city, state) where there was very little in the way of a musical theatre community, eventually making his way to Broadway, New York, New York.

And just when I thought the evening couldn’t get any better, I managed to meet both Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty afterwards to ask them for some words of advice (my paraphrasing) and get some pictures:

Education will only get you so far. My studies weren’t related to musical theatre at all and I didn’t find them helpful. Study the greats – like Sondheim, Hammerstein – and learn from them. Musical theatre relies heavily on collaboration; get out there and meet people, get involved in musical theatre clubs and societies, develop and use your network. Don’t be afraid to take your chances when you get them – just remember to find a way to keep paying the bills!
—Lynn Ahrens

I found my formal education studies extremely relevant and valuable – to the extent that they arm you with the technical knowledge and skills to write music. Once you have those basic skills, you can continue to hone them on your own. But musical theatre is all about the art of storytelling; so in fact, I would suggest you study playwriting and drama to develop your storytelling skills and learn to marry them with music.
—Stephen Flaherty

…I know, I know…I’m such a fan girl. Honestly, I was so excited and nervous that I found it really difficult to sound intelligent and form coherent sentences since the words “OMG IT’S LYNN AHRENS AND STEPHEN FLAHERTY!!!” kept buzzing around in circles in my mind.

In summary:

• I’ve always believed it never hurts to ask and it never hurts to try. This past month has definitely confirmed this philosophy for me.
• Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty are awesome and I hope I will get the chance to meet them again in the future and maybe even show them something I’ve written.
• I need more time to go and write stuff and learn and study stuff and join musical theatre groups and keep moving this forward.

This is a repost of an old blog entry I made during my stay in New York City as an exchange student to New York University at the beginning of 2008. That single semester was the most incredible four months and has changed my life more than I could possibly imagine.

Rent is a through-composed musical by Jonathan Larson. Based on Puccini’s La Bohème opera, it took Larson seven years to write and he tragically died the night before the off-Broadway premiere. Set in the early 1990s, Rent deals with a number of controversial issues of that decade, such as homosexuality and HIV/AIDS. It is the eighth longest running Broadway show and closed shortly after my stay in New York.

I grew up listening to the soundtrack of Rent on repeat. I knew all the songs by heart – and consequentially the story – before I ever saw the stage production. Rent is arguably my favourite musical of all time (Wicked and Phantom can give it a good run for its money) because I can identify with it so strongly and it strikes so many personal chords. I am so glad that Sony decided to preserve it forever in the Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway DVD and I strongly recommend you to watch it.

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Originally posted on Fri, 27 March 2009 at 08:44 while listening to “Without You” by the Original Broadway Cast, OST ‘Rent’ and feeling Reminiscent.

Now the rush of busy season is over and I’ve handed in my FIN109 EP, I’m finding more and more that I get home incredibly tired (thanks to a day of doing something I don’t enjoy), totally unable to study for FIN and instead thinking about how awesome my life was this time last year, because I was in New York.

So I figured, what the hell, it’s not like I’m doing anything else. I’m going to indulge and reminisce about how awesome New York was by writing up some waaaay overdue blog entries.

Jan 20, 2008: Times Square, 42nd Street and Rent

The words that come to mind when I think about Times Square will always have to be the immortal lyrics of “Broadway Baby” from Follies, all hopes and dreams, bright dazzling lights and marquees and music and life.

So where was our first stop in Times Square? Why, the M&M store of course! Apparently you can get custom M&Ms made with your name on them or whatever message you want. We walk in and we’re greeted with walls of brightly colored coordinated chocolate…

…and some very distinctive characters.

After we’d bought our front row mezzanine seats for only $54 a piece, Kat and I went to brave the hordes of crazy women mobbing the Victoria’s Secret store at Herald Square while Dewi and Amanda went in search of the best cheesecake, chocolate and pastry shops in New York City.

Australians think the Boxing Day Myers and David Jones sales are savage. They’ve got nothing on the Semi Annual Sale at Victoria’s Secret. The store was so packed there was hardly room to move, with clothing thrown over every available surface as women scrambled around in a frenzy to snatch every last bargain. The lines to go to the change rooms wound all around the second floor of the store and had a minimum wait time of 30 minutes. It was so crowded in there that Kat and I lost track of each other, which resulted in a very frantic couple of hours when Dewi, Amanda and I thought some horrible mishap might have befallen her and were unable reach her since her phone had died.

Anyway, after we grabbed some dinner, we headed out to the Nederlander Theatre at W 41st and 7th Ave. By this time it was freezing cold:

The stage design was stunning. There was this totally stark, utilitarian, industrial looking set, which was convincingly able to convey upstairs, downstairs, apartment, cafe, street, hospital, carpark and more, all in turn. Apart from moving around a few chairs and tables, there was very little moving around of major stage elements.

When the lights dimmed and the show started, I sat right on the edge of my seat and I didn’t move a muscle – didn’t breathe – until intermission. I don’t really have the words to describe how amazing it was. I grew up listening to the soundtrack of Rent, before I ever knew what the musical itself was about and I knew every song of the musical by heart. It was the first musical that I watched while I was in New York and it is a musical that is so intensely New York. It absolutely blew me away.

Laughs

Rent is one of those musicals that do the impossible and combine very serious themes and achingly sad moments and yet have parts which are just bursting with fun and energy and humour. I absolutely loved the voicemails, the “Tango Maureen”, that moment when Mark walks into “Life Support”, and the whole role of Angel. But the key moment that stood out for me was the juxtaposition of Roger’s soul searching (Adam Pascal) in “One Song Glory” which was abruptly interrupted by Mimi asking him to “Light My Candle” (Tamyra Gray). I have to say that Tamyra has been the most convincing Mimi who really took a very difficult role and made it her own.

Showstoppers

Big moments which stood out were “Rent”, the close of Act I with “La Vie Boheme” at the end of Act I, “Seasons of Love”, “Take Me or Leave Me” and “What You Own”. It probably seems very biased but again, Tamyra”s “Out Tonight” totally blew me away with how powerful and dynamic it was.

Tearjerkers

I’m the first to admit I’m a sucker for sappy moments in music/stories; books, movies, TV shows, concerts, Broadway musicals, it makes no difference. “I’ll Cover You (Reprise)”, “Goodbye Love”, the second half of “Finale” when Mimi is dying, “Your Eyes”, I cried in all of those songs. But it was “Without You” that struck the deepest chord.

I had incredibly high expectations for Rent and it surpassed all of them. It completely blew me out of the water. I. Love. Rent. No day but today.

This is a repost of an old blog entry I made after my friend and I went to see Andre Rieu during his tour of Australia in the spring/summer of 2008. While he may not be to everyone’s tastes, I admire him for his showmanship and his ability to make a living doing what he loves. I mean, who else gets to tour the world playing a priceless violin with a life-sized replica of a Viennese castle?

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Originally posted on Sat, 29 November 2008 at 05:12 while listening to “Bolero” by Ravel, performed by Andre Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra and feeling envious.

I love Andre Rieu. Benny and I went to see him in concert last night at ANZ Stadium and it was awesome. Sadly, I found out very late that cameras, photos and videos were actually permitted and all I had on hand was my crappy phone. There were literally hordes of people descending on ANZ Stadium to see Andre in concert.

The first thing you notice as you walk into the stadium is the giant life size replica of the Schonbrunn Palace. My crappy phone just doesn’t do it justice. This is only a tiny part of the set:

You also notice the massive FOUNTAIN:

This fountain was unbelievable. A fountain. I kid you not, he had a fountain travel around with him. Not just one, but TWO (there was one on either side of the stage)! These twin fountains were synchronised with the music, kind of like a mini travel-sized pair of Bellagio fountains.

And then there was the massive stage.

Yup, that’s a replica of a Viennese ballroom, complete with golden chandeliers AND uniformed footmen/doormen (whom you can’t see in this photo), behind the wrought iron railings and street lamp. Not to mention a pair of ice rinks either side of the stage:

I really can’t do this justice, so here are two photos from the official Andre Rieu website showing the most incredible set I have ever seen (not the Sydney concert):

This is where Benny and I were sitting, in section B2, row X, seats 4 and 5. These tickets retailed for $269 each from Ticketek, but we scored them for a sweet $200 a-piece from eBay.

I’ll be honest, I’d been really worried when first we had some communication issues and taking a bit longer to collect our tickets than I expected, and that I was really, really hoping that the tickets wouldn’t be ruled invalid. Even so, these Category 2 tickets only landed us seats this close far away and angled away from the stage. There were a LOT of people there:

Given the distance of our seats made all the performers appear about the size of Tom Thumb to us, most of the time we spent watching the show on one of four massive screens mounted in the wall of the castle:

The Johann Strauss Orchestra and Choir was dressed to the nines in finery no less extravagant and impressive than that of the entire set:

This is seriously like no other classical concert I’ve ever been to. It had champion figure skaters:

…a golden carriage drawn by six white horses…

…dancers from the Vienna State Opera Ballet and 80 Vienna Debutantes…

…great showmanship throughout the entire concert. Andre and all his performers make wisecracks and jokes the whole night, pulling some well-practiced gags. This is a memorable moment where Béla Mavrák, one of the Platinum Tenors, comes onstage singing away happily, bearing an enormous pot of what is presumably goulash for – according to Andre and the orchestra – the umpteenth meal in a month.

Andre, I have a surprise for you…..I made goulash for you and entire orchestra!

I, of course, couldn’t resist getting closer to the stage during the intermission to check out the piano. Too far away to tell who the maker was, but my fingers were definitely itching to play it.

The evening was marred only by the fact that it had been pouring in the late afternoon and consequently all the seats and plastic floorboards protecting the grass of the stadium were wet; and that the stadium is under a direct flight path. Nothing quite like sitting enraptured by divine sounding music only to be rudely shaken out of it by the roar of a 747 flying overhead.

All in all, a fantastic show, with some truly great performances of classics like Ravel’s Bolero, mixed with contemporary pop ballads like “My Heart Will Go On”, musicals (“Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from Phantom) the Australian national anthem and a bunch of classic Australian songs: “Waltzing Matilda”, “Botany Bay” and a medley including themes from “Bananas in Pajamas”, “Home Among the Gum Trees” and “Neighbours”.

I love Andre Rieu. It’s a good thing he doesn’t tour here all that often, otherwise I’m pretty sure I’d go broke. As it is, I’m strictly forbidding myself any more theatre events until next year.

And once again, as always, back to studying for CA. *sigh*

This is a repost of an old blog entry I made during my stay in New York City as an exchange student to New York University at the beginning of 2008. That single semester was the most incredible four months and has changed my life more than I could possibly imagine.

The Phantom of the Opera is a through-composed stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, one of the great masters of twentieth century musical theatre, written for the one and only Sarah Brightman (his then-wife). It is one of the longest-running musicals in history, opening in the West End in 1986 and is still showing as of the date of writing this post. Phantom is one of the earliest musicals I was introduced to; I fell in love with it the first time I heard the music at age of 10 at a New Year’s Eve party held by a family friend.

I saw the 2004 film (also produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber) before I ever saw the stage musical and I loved it. This is my review of the stage production on Broadway.

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Originally posted on Thu, 28 February 2008 at 01:59 while listening to “The Phantom of the Opera”, OST ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and feeling in love.

I love New York.

So I finished up my Corporate Finance case study and sat my Futures & Options mid-term and wondered what I was going to do with a whole evening of lovely free time. Then it hit me. Times Square is only a stone’s throw away. I ate an early dinner, scribbled down the addresses of about four different shows and headed out.

I originally meant to see something else, like Chicago or A Chorus Line, but Phantom was the closest theatre to the subway station and I couldn’t just walk past. I thought it would be less packed on a Wednesday night but incredibly the line of people wound all around the foyer, out the door and onto the sidewalk. I have loved Phantom for so long that I couldn’t resist. Didn’t get my beloved front and dead center mezzanine seats as I did for Rent, but I did get front and center rear mezzanine for $36 USD and it was pretty decent.

I got there at about 7:20 PM or so and there was already a huge line of people queuing up and people trying to sell souvenir programs for $10 each (I love Phantom, but not enough to pay $10 for a program). Doors opened at 7:30 PM sharp and I walked into this absolutely gorgeous theatre, all ornate woodwork with gold leaf, plush carpets and velvet, and chandeliers everywhere. Sadly my camera chose this moment to die so all subsequent pictures are from my phone.

The sets were absolutely fantastic and I wish I had photos. The whole sequence of “Little Lotte/The Mirror” into “I Remember…Stranger Than You Dreamt It” was done brilliantly, with Phantom leading Christine through a trapdoor in the stage then down a tilting walkway from side to side to make it seem like they descended into the bowels of the opera house. Then the lake scene, just wow, there was a lot of dry ice for mist on the lake and the boat and candles gliding around. Other memorable sets were the giant staircase for “Masquerade” which was so lavish and wonderfully done and the roof of the opera house for “All I Ask Of You”, oh and the “Hannibal” scene with the giant elephant!

They made really good use of stage space the whole time, there was a walkway on top of the stage where the Phantom cut down the chandelier, and it was connected to the gargoyle where he hid and did “All I Ask Of You (Reprise)”.

There’s a bunch of miscellaneous comments I had on other stuff about the staging. Costuming and lighting was great for the whole show. There was quite of bit of pyrotechnics used: explosions to signify the flashback in time at the beginning, when the Phantom appears/disappears, then Phantom throwing fireballs in the graveyard scene during “Wandering Child” and there was a point where there were massive gouts of flame going up on stage (I think during Don Juan Triumphant?). Totally. Awesome.

Musically I was so impressed by Howard McGillin. He makes a brilliant Phantom and his voice is so wonderfully expressive. If it were possible to fall in love with a voice, I would be so in love right now. He conveyed such depths of emotion in his singing and then he acted the part of a genius caught between sociopathic violence and a pitiful yearning for unrequited love so perfectly. *swoon* Loved him. Jennifer Hope Wills did pull off a great Christine, but I think my rather subdued praise is due to listening to Sarah Brightman on repeat.

Tim Martin Gleason as Raoul was…good but compared to Phantom and Christine, he just kind of paled beside them. His diction wasn’t as clean and crisp and his delivery didn’t pull on the heartstrings enough. He seemed to sing at two extremes a lot – he’s either “yelling” in a dynamically flat way or a very nice softer, more expressive sound. I wish he had more gradations in his performance, like the other two leads (the ranges in their voices are unbelievable). He’s supposed to be the understudy for Phantom; I’m not sure that would work out so good, just because his Raoul didn’t really grab me. Patricia Phillips did Carlotta very well too, but I kept thinking about Minnie Driver’s version in the film and felt it was a bit too similar and Minnie Driver’s version was stronger.

Final comments on musicality before I sleep – orchestra was really, really good. And diction overall was fantastic. You could hear every single consonant being clipped off and it was done so strongly and cleanly that it would echo a little around the theatre. Except for Gleason. He was kind of slack on a lot of his diction. Blah, and now this is ending on a down note. Well, when all is said and done, it was still a great show and I still loved it. But on an overall basis, I’d have to say Rent left a stronger impression on me. Soooo…I will blog about Rent (which I saw like a month ago)…soon!