Monthly Archives: December 2018

Choreography Competition: Enter Now!

It is very exciting to announce that the Choreography Competition for the International Dance Festival@Silicon Valley, 2019, is now open. Awardees will perform in the Festival Concert of the International Dance Festival@Silicon Valley, May 19, 2019, 3 p.m., Masonic Hall, Mountain View.

Lively Foundation Artistic Director Leslie Friedman

Please send a video of the work you wish to perform. You may send it on a DVD to The Lively Foundation, 550 Mountain View Avenue, Mountain View, CA, 94041-1941. OR you may send it to us by youtube. Please use this email: livelyfoundation@sbcglobal.net. IF you send it by youtube, you must email us first letting us know you are sending it. Otherwise, we may have to delete it as suspected spam.

The competition is open to ALL KINDS of dance and other forms that feature movement. For example, last year our three awardees each represented a different art form: ballroom dance, contemporary dance, and circus art. These do not represent categories for applications; all entries are considered equally.

The work may not be over 8 minutes long.

Your sound must be performance ready. If you are selected to perform, you will have a brief time to go through your sound cues  with the Technical Director. Do not expect to be able to create your cues at that time or to have the Technical Director search around on your device for a particular sound. If it is not performance ready, it will not be performed.

Participants must be adults at least 18 years old.

Please send us by email or US Mail this information: your full, correct name; street address; email address; name of the presentation; names of performers (include your own if you will perform); a brief resume including training, education. Please let us know if you have technical requirements, stage or floor requirements. There is a $20 entry fee. Please send a check made out to The Lively Foundation to The Lively Foundation, 550 Mountain View Avenue, Mountain View, CA 94041

Deadline: March 31, 2019. Yes, that means that all information, video, and entry fee must be received by then. Entries or items which are part of an entry that are received after the deadline will not be considered.

Videos will be viewed by individuals of the selection committee. Announcement of awardees will be made after all entries have been viewed by the whole committee.

Questions? please contact livelyfoundation@sbcglobal.net

Thank you!!! We look forward to your art.

Thibaudet & Capucon: An Astonishing Performance

Gautier Capucon, ‘cello, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano, presented a duo recital, December 2, 2018, at Davies Symphony Hall, which was in every way great. Each is technically above brilliant. Their musicality opens new experiences of being in the music. The program selections were outstanding, presenting sonatas that reflected the composers’ greatness and differing characters.

Jean-Ives Thibaudet

Gautier Capucon

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)  Claude Debussy’s Sonata No. 1 in D minor (1915) was an eye-opening visit to Debussy’s imagination and boundless invention.  Known as an “Impressionist” composer, a title which gives a false, gauzy idea of his music, this sonata was altogether more modern sounding than most “new” music of our current time. It demanded a wide range of technical mastery from the ‘cellist: vibratos, pizzicato, glissando. Watching the music being made grabbed the attention as much as listening. The pianist also changes technique and mood incredibly quickly. There is no point to guessing what comes next. Debussy changes the colors and the tonal direction of his music. The exhilarating final movement leaves the audience gasping for breath from this rapidly turning dance and also in amazement at the virtuoso music making.

Johannes Brahms(1833-1897) Brahms’ Sonata No. 1 in E minor for Cello and Piano, Opus 38 (1865) is a grand, musical landmark of music for the two instruments. It is fascinating in its combination of play with musical forms and the sense that an overarching meaning arises from what is built out of sound puzzles and structures. Brahms explores how many variations he can make with a five note phrase. In Brahmsian fashion, the music is sweeping, broad, embracing while it is, underneath it all, built so neatly. The second movement, Allegretto quasi menuetto, goes beyond its minuet inspiration. Brahms’ delightful dance opens up the view from the Sonata. Now it overlooks a vast, sunlit garden. It is a lighter and brighter dance than humans in Eighteenth Century clothing could jump into; Thibaudet and Capucon took over as though the music had been written for them. The final Allegro continues to explore the fugues of the first. It is powerful, all encompassing music. Yes, here we are with Brahms. The immense energy and technical power of the performers was astonishing.

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)  

Rachmaninoff’s Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano, Opus 19, is gloriously melodic, far reaching, and generally just gorgeous. It has drama, sadness, charm. The interplay between the ‘cello and piano is balanced as one instrument flies on lyrical wings and the other travels into distant lands created by diversity of sounds. Capucon and Thibaudet shared the world of this music with obvious respect and generosity. There is something about love and something about elegance revealed in the journey from the first movement, Lento-Allegro moderato-Moderato to the closing celebration of Allegro mosso–Moderato–Vivace. The audience did not stand, it levitated on Rachmaninoff’s music.

The artists responded to the cheering audience with three encores (“Oh, look, they’re coming back!”) Again, the musical choices were not only brilliantly performed, they also created a mini-program of stunning music and emotions. First was Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise,” Opus 34, no.14; then, Shostakovich’s Scherzo (3rd movement) from Cello Sonata in D minor, opus 40. The artists sent us all home with Saint-Saens, The Swan, from The Carnival of the Animals. Exquisite.

Look for Mr. Thibaudet in San Francisco, April, 2019, on a program with famed violinist Midori. He and Mr. Capucon continue their partnership in concerts in Australia, Antwerp, and France. Each will perform around the US with symphonies from coast to coast. Don’t miss them.