Tchaikovsky Spectacular!

It is the time of year for the “Tchaikovsky Spectacular,” which means the end of the summer outdoor concert season with the 1812 Overture with cannons and fireworks. Here in Southern California that means The Hollywood Bowl and many other regional outdoor concerts and festivals.

 But it signals much more than that. The fact is that good Russian music is being played more and more in concert halls and on the classical music radio stations all over the country. I love it. Even if I was raised on the desert near El Paso, Texas,  I loved Russian music from an early age. Rimsky-Korsakov of course (our kids were raised on “Peter and the Wolf.”) As I write this, Prokofiev’s “Love for Three Oranges,” is being played on our great classical music station here, KUSC. There is so much to enjoy: Rachmaninoff, Borodin, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Mussorgsky – the list goes on and on. So many greats. Such romance, such stories in song and melody. I lived in Russia for six years and what a treat in the evenings.

 So fireworks may end the summer outdoor concerts, the stirring and romantic music from the great Russian composers is heard all over all the time. A KUSC announcer once said, “Russian music, like Russian literature, is always excited about something.” Maybe that is why we like it so much. Nothing boring there.

You can find me at www.en.rian.ru. Go to “Features and Opinions” then “Columnists.” Read the others, too.

And don’t forget “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman is Russia.”

“Dos Gringos” heads for El Paso (Uno Gringo, anyway,)

This week I will be in El Paso, Texas, my home town, to speak and sell and sign books at a number of places as part of the centenary of the Mexican Revolution there.  Talks are scheduled for the El Paso Museum of History, Barnes & Noble, and the Central Library. I hear all this is well advertised so I expect reasonably good audiences. I will be talking about the story behind my book, “Dos Gringos,” and about my father and grandfather’s part in all of that. I look forward to this as I have myself learned from giving the talks. I realize how much is into the story that comes from within. Underneath my father’s actual story, are known historical stories and some implied intuitive behavior. I am sometimes surprised at what is there, having come out from under the blankets of the past.

I will also be meeting old friends and making new ones. Coming “back home” after 50 years is a real experience. On my first trip back there three years ago I found so much had changed and so much was the same. This will be especially so in El Paso this time, rated the 2^nd safest city in America, and across the Rio Grande is Juarez, Mexico,  the most dangerous city in North America due to the drug cartels and the murders. So discussing the revolution of a hundred years ago within the present bloody atmosphere across the border will be interesting. I will have something for this space on that when I come back for sure.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Hooray for El Paso

 This summer, El Paso, Texas was named a 2010 All-America City.  The All-America City Award, given to ten communities each year by the National Civic League, is considered the “Nobel Prize” of city awards. El Paso is my hometown and the beginning and ending settings of my historical novel, “Dos Gringos,” set during the Mexican Revolution.

You wouldn’t guess that with Juarez, Mexico, a city of 1.7 million, and one of the deadliest cities in the world, that El Paso across the Rio Grande is the 2nd safest city in the United States for cities over 500,000 in population. (Honolulu is first safest.)

The violence in Juarez has been ongoing for nearly three years, with killings averaging between 200 and 300 a month, while crime in the City of El Paso continues to decrease. The 2nd safest city ranking is based on Uniformed Crime Report data compiled by CQ express numbers from 2008. El Paso’s 2009 numbers were lower than 2008, and 2010 numbers are currently lower than 2009. El Paso is a safe city, full of life and culture.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Dancers are the athletes of God:
Ulyana Lopatkina as Odette/Odile in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake

Dancers are the athletes of God.

-Albert Einstein-

It is hard to explain why I like classical ballet so much. I was introduced to it as a teenager, when my mother took me to watch The Ballet Russe as they stopped in dusty El Paso, Texas on their way to more cultured cities. I don’t remember the program, probably Swan Lake. But I loved it for some reason and thus always have. It is, to me, the natural coming together of music and human expression. Martha Graham said it well, “Dance is the loftiest, most moving, most beautiful of the arts, because it is not a mere translation or abstraction of life; it is life itself!”

It is not only the Russian ballet but also the music of American Aaron Copland and his great folk ballet scores, “Rodeo.” “Billy the Kid,” “Appalachian Spring” and others with the choreography of Agnes DeMille and Martha Graham. I love those stories and dance art.

But it is Russia where ballet reached it height as a performance art. In my opinion, it remains there. With the dedication and determination so typical in Russia, they took the dance from France and made it their own. Today still the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, known during Soviet times as the Kirov, is, for me, the world standard in classical ballet. My favorite ballet is “Romeo and Juliet” by Prokofiev. Their dancers, including the Corps de Ballet, are the best. My favorite dancer is Ulyana Lopatkina who as Odette/Odile in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake cannot be matched. She is The Swan.

I have been fortunate to see the Mariinsky (Kirov) in St. Petersburg many times, and in Moscow, London, the US. The ballet is another one of those art forms in which Russia has simply excelled. The immortal Anna Pavlova said it best, “No one can arrive from being talented alone. God gives talent; work transforms talent into genius.” And the Russians work very hard at it. That is why they are the best.