the traveler's resource guide to festivals & films
a FestivalTravelNetwork.com site
part of Insider Media llc.
Connect with us:
Reviews
Film Review: "The Campaign" -- Cheap Shots Hit Too Close To Home
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:31
- Written by Marion DS Dreyfus
The Campaign
Directed by Jay Roach
Starring Will Ferrel, Zach Galifianakis and Jason Sudeikis
“War has rules. Mud wrestling has rules. Politics has no rules.”
-- Presidential Candidate Ross Perot, 1988
This little laugh-fest could not have come at a better time. The Campaign is offered as a satire, with Will Ferrell as Cam Brady, the Dem blowhard with “strong” hair, and Zach Galifianakis as weirdo nudnik Marty Huggins, a tour guide in a city with three tourists who gets shanghaied into being Cam’s Republican opponent.
When you take that into consideration along with those wacked-out trailers plugging this com-dom (dumb comedy; dictionary MDSD, 2012 edition) you really shouldn’t expect Ingmar Bergman.
Director Roach (Meet the Parents, Austin Powers, Recount, Game Change -- all films notable for their impeccable liberal mindsets) says that he thinks “comedy is the best response to politics these days.” Sure. Except that comedy is usually relief, while politics hangs around for four deadly years of unemployment, turmoil, bailouts, spills, unholy debt, and all-around craziness that does not go away after you guzzle your Slurpee.
But despite the fact that this raunchy (with periodic nudity and sewer verbiage; this is by no means a kid’s movie) comedy has you on a hilarity tripwire that goes off every few minutes, the two politicos and their wranglers (an excellent Dylan McDermott as a more feral and arguably more intelligent David Axelrod doppelganger; and SNL’s Jason Sudeikis as Cam Brady’s somewhat ineffectual wingman) are almost not satirical.
Our actual live political ads and theatrics, popping off daily, almost beggar the film. Galifianakis surprises in keeping in character as a mannered, dufus-sy bumpkin with decent instincts and all-American heart. Ferrell is lunatic throughout.
The town of 'Hammond, S. Carolina,' is used to great effect, as the well-meaning schmendrik Marty is dragooned into being a cardboard candidate by Machiavellian makhers played by John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd—these two skullduggish types playing the Motch brothers, a less than subtle parody of the the real-life Koch Brothers. I found this satirization un-funny as the Koch Brothers are undoubtedly successful self-starters and risk-takers.
We are always aware that the dirty tricks and antics in this film are just a skootch over the line, while the mindset is firmly the same as that which informs so many productions, like the new TV series by veteran prize-winning but bilious Aaron Sorkin, Newsroom, gaggingly unwatchable, so nauseatingly and infuriatingly smugly partisan.
Also making solid appearances are Brian Cox, as the mogul Huggins father who can’t stand his prissy, disappointing simpleton of a son. Cox earns his many awards, and was recently named by the UK Film Council as one of the Top 10 powerful British actors in film today.
Sarah Baker is hilarious, as Mitzi, the sweet-as-pie Huggins wife who strays when tempted by the scheming Cam Brady. Katherine LaNasa, as Rose Brady, is a pic-perfect political-statuette candidate wife in camera range only as long as the money is around.
After back to back viewings of The Bourne Legacy, then The Dark Knight Rises, then yummy tummy Colin Farrell with evil but gorgeous Kate Beckinsale in Total Recall--it was a relief to laugh for a couple of hours, even if the underpinnings were not what will put this country to rights come another four months.
Funny that all the grown-up adventurous high-flying flicks have fewer naughty segments than the comedy does. The three barnburners are, pretty much, as chaste as pre-Code TV, while the giggler-howler has offensive language, considerable nudity, and bad taste everywhere your eyes land.
Ironically, funny as this "Campaign" is, it’s almost dull compared to what’s going on in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and the rest of the ‘swing’ set.
Onstage: 'Bring It On' Leaps Off the Screen; 'Into the Woods' in the Park; Irish Rep's "New Girl'
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 13 August 2012 10:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Bring It On
Starring Taylor Louderman, Adrienne Warren, Ryann Redmond, Elle McLemore, Kate Rockwell
Music by Tom Kitt & Lin-Manuel Miranda; lyrics by Miranda & Amanda Green
Book by Chris Whitty; choreographed and directed by Andy Blankenbuehler
Into the Woods
Starring Amy Adams, Jamie Mueller, Donna Murphy, Denis O’Hare, Chip Zien
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; book by James Lupine
Directed by Timothy Sheader, co-directed by Liam Steel
New Girl in Town
Starring Cliff Bemis, Patrick Cummings, Danielle Ferland, Margaret Loesser Robinson
Music and lyrics by Bob Merrill; book by George Abbott
Choreographed by Barry McNabb; directed by Charlotte Moore
 |
| Bring It On (photo: Chris Schwartz) |
Loosely based on the 2000 cheerleading movie, Bring It On is leaps and bounds (and tumbles and backflips) ahead of its cinematic predecessor, and the result is a rare show that thrills its target audience of young women and teens at the same time it’s a fun two-plus hours for everybody else.
Jeff Whitty’s book smartly dispenses with most of the movie’s plot, even if the story still turns on the battle royal between Truman High’s snooty upper-class squad against Jackson High’s inner-city street crew. Whitty has also written clusters of funny lines which happily eschew the rancid campiness that crushed that other recent gymnasium musical, the gimcrack Lysistrata Jones.
The characters are at least lively caricatures, and the unknown youthful cast comes up aces: Taylor Louderman as the gangly, likeable heroine, Campbell; Kate Rockwell, a scintillating find as Skylar, the beautiful, Barbie-perfect cheerleader; Elle McLemore, as the evil Eva, with formidable pipes inside her Kristin Chenoweth-petite frame; Ryann Redmond as the amusingly frumpy wanna-be cheerleader relegated to mascot; Adrienne Warren as the foxy head of the Jackson High crew; and Gregory Haney in a bravura performance as the cross-dressing student named La Cieniega.
The rather schizophrenic score welds Tom Kitt’s standard-issue big ballads and belters to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s more with-it soulful rap tunes; but, coupled to Miranda and Amanda Green’s clever lyrics, the songs mirror how these kids blow up petty issues to tragically Shakespearean heights. David Korins’ fluidly mobile set and Jason Lyons’ flashy lighting abet Andrew Blankenbeuer’s brisk direction and outstanding choreography, which keeps Bring It On moving, onward and upward: the athleticism on display, coupled with the unrivaled artistry, may win him another Tony.
 |
| O'Hare and Adams in Into the Woods (photo: Joan Marcus) |
For this summer’s second Central Park entry, the Public Theater chose another foliage show: Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods, the 1987 musical that’s been on Broadway twice already, which returns in a satisfying staging that takes advantage of the natural beauty of the Delacorte Theater surrounding than As You Like It did.
Into the Woods problematically combines several fairy tales, both on their own terms and as a psychologically “modern” look at characters like Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, the Baker and the Baker’s Wife, among others. If Sondheim’s songs—which are not up to his considerable best—have their bright moments, most notably the final “Children Will Listen,” Lapine’s less-clever-than-it-thinks-it-is book dominates the longish show.
Co-directed by Timothy Sheader and Liam Steel, the visually arresting Central Park staging includes changes (the narrator is a young boy rather than an older man, for instance) that don’t make complete sense. John Lee Beatty and Soutra Gilmour’s set design delightfully complements the park’s real “woods,” while Rachael Canning’s uneven puppetry effects reach their zenith when the splendidly-wrought giantess (voiced menacingly by Glenn Close) suddenly appears. Sondheim’s always elegant score is adroitly performed, in Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations, under Paul Gemignani’s direction.
In a capable cast, only Donna Murphy, who’s having a blast playing the Witch, is totally in her element with a vocally ravishing performance. Amy Adams’s pleasing singing voice and comedic adeptness auger well for a light-touch Baker’s Wife, but Denis O’Hare’s meager vocal resources and dour tone trip up the Baker. Jessie Mueller is a bewitchingly sung Cinderella, Ivan Hernandez and Paris Remillard are a stentorian pair of Princes and Tess Soltau a sweet-voiced Rapunzel. But it’s too bad that Sarah Stiles is mordant to the point of irritation as Little Red Riding Hood—so of course she’s an audience favorite.
 |
| New Girl in Town (photo: Carol Rosegg) |
Turning Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie into a frothy musical took daring by composer-lyricist Bob Merrill and book writer George Abbott, who collaborated on 1957 Broadway hit New Girl in Town. Originally a vehicle for Gwen Vernon—with choreography by an up-and-comer named Bob Fosse—the show has been revived,amiably if undistinguishedly, by the Irish Rep, whose artistic director, Charlotte Moore, directed.
O’Neill’s melodrama—interesting but not the equal of masterworks The Iceman Cometh and Long Day’s Journey into Night—has become a romantic comedy with some of O’Neill’s tragic touches remaining; but in the flimsy context, they make less sense. Luckily for Moore and her cast, the tuneful songs are taken by leads who sing better than they act. Margaret Loesser Robinson’s Anna has a marvelous voice and musical bearing making up for her shortfall in the acting department, while Patrick Cummings’ Matt—more than a handsome face—equals her in the pipes department, but he’s otherwise too robotic.
If New Girl in Town founders in the no-man’s-land between O’Neill’s tragic inclination and Merrill and Abbott’s Broadway sensibility, it’s worth seeing all the same.
Bring It On
Performances began July 12; opened August 1
St. James theatre, 246 West 44th Street, New York, NY
Into the Woods
Performances began July 24; opened August 9; closes September 1
Delacorte Theater, Central Park, New York, NY
New Girl in Town
Performances began July 18; opened July 26; closes September 14
Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22nd Street, New York, NY
August '12 Digital Week II
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 12 August 2012 10:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blue Like Jazz
(Lionsgate)
Based on Donald Miller’s memoir, this intermittently interesting drama dramatizes how a sheltered Texas Southern Baptist deals with attending a Portland liberal college. Although much of what happens is obvious (he sees that everyone’s a hypocrite, even his pious mother), there’s a refreshing candor and lack of condescension and smugness: despite their faults, everyone has redeemable features.
The strong cast, director Steve Taylor and cowriters Miller, Taylor and Ben Pearson don’t hit viewers over the head with their clichés. The hi-def image is very good; extras include a commentary, making-of featurette, deleted scenes and other featurette.
Full Metal Jacket
(Warners)
Stanley Kubrick’s penultimate film—made a dozen years before his death in 1999—is a dense, personal chronicle of young men being transformed into a military fighting machine. With Vietnam as a backdrop, Kubrick shoots many unforgettable images of that disastrous war, like Hue City and the Tet Offensive, but his main interest lies in the philosophical underpinnings of the psychological damage the military apparatus inflicts.
The first half’s clinical, detached look at basic training is exploded by the second half, in which boot camp’s precision degenerates into helter-skelter horrors on the battlefield. The Blu-ray image is excellent; extras include a commentary, featurette and bonus DVD, an hour-long documentary about the master’s voluminous research, Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes.
(Sony)
This sci-fi flick, set in the year 2079, has a space prison colony being overrun by prisoners—and the president’s daughter is a hostage. Enter a gnarly hero who must go in and save her. There’s no wasting time on anything other than action sequences—which are well done—so, by the time one thinks about the silliness of the premise, the movie’s over.
It’s co-directed by Stephen Saint Leger and James Mather (two people were needed to helm this?), both disciples of Luc Besson, the empty-spectacle auteur, who is one of the producers. The movie looks first-rate on Blu; extras include making-of featurettes.
(Magnolia)
Kevin McDonald’s documentary about late, great reggae superstar Bob Marley may have been produced by family and friends of the singer, but this is no hagiography. Instead, over 145 minutes, the measure of the man and artist (who died at age 36 in 1981 of cancer) is taken, through interviews with wife Rita, girlfriend Cindy Breakspeare, members of his band the Wailers and many others who knew him.
With excellent vintage video footage and photographs, along with audio interviews with the man himself, Marley is a hard-hitting, personal bio. The image, while soft at times, has appropriate grain; extras include additional interviews, MacDonald and Ziggy Marley’s commentary.
(Criterion)
The Dardenne brothers have become the darlings of the international festival circuit over the past 15 years, even if their recent films (The Son, The Kid with a Bike) are pale imitations of their earlier gems; their first two features are on Blu-ray thanks to the Criterion Collection.
1996’s La Promesse and 1999’s Rosetta are two sides of the same coin, seen through their teenage protagonists’ eyes: the Dardennes present moral dilemmas in the guise of simply plotted stories that emphasize character over action. Criterion’s impeccable hi-def transfers highlight their gritty handheld camerawork; extras include Dardenne interviews and new interviews with the films’ principal actors.
(Kino)
Derek Jarman’s early films show painfully slow growth. 1976’s Sebastiane, a biopic of the crucified saint, is a first feature (co-directed with Paul Humfress) whose ragged amateurishness shows, spoken Latin notwithstanding, while 1979’s The Tempest is a draggy Shakespeare adaptation with clever moments.
Jarman was still finding his way; it wasn’t until 1986’s Caravaggio that he finally made a fully-formed feature. The 16mm prints of both films, upgraded to Blu-ray, allow a minimal advance in graininess and sharpness; Tempest extras comprise three Jarman short films.
Casa de mi Padre
(Lionsgate)
“From the gringos who brought you Anchorman” is the tagline for this inoffensive but insubstantial spoof that might have worked as a five-minute SNL skit. Will Farrell gamely speaks Spanish, but being Mexican is beyond him; stellar support comes from Gael Garcia Bernal and gorgeous Genesis Rodriguez, who between this and Man on a Ledge starts off her movie career with a bang.
But the movie remains in a sort of suspended animation between amiable parody and Farrell’s usual stoopid shtick. Extras include a commentary, interview, making-of featurette, deleted scenes and music video.
(CJ Entertainment)
These thrillers are examples of Korean hit-or-miss genre flicks. Hindsight is a too-clever evocation of the old “boy meets gal, gal turns out to be hired killer” trope that was done better in Prizzi’s Honor. The performers are game, but they’re sunk by a soggy script.
However, No Mercy is a tautly chilling cop drama with incisively drawn characters that keep one watching, even if it goes on for an overlong two hours. Extras include interviews and featurettes.
(e one)
The distinctive hand-drawn animation of French director Jacques-Remy Girerd highlights this environmentally conscious feature that parallels the great films of Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki.
While not as profound or visually brilliant as Miyazaki’s Ponyo or Spirited Away, Mia has an offhand charm that make it watchable for the entire family. It would have been nice to have the original French language track; extras include a Girerd interview and making-of featurette.
(Cinema Libre)
Brian Malone’s documentary attempts to even-handedly dissect our damaged political system, but like Jon Stewart’s 2010 D.C. rally, it pretends that the right-wing noise machine and less truculent left-wing side are equal, when they obviously aren’t.
Still, there’s valuable info and insight gleaned from talking heads on both sides of the aisle—including former Senator Alan Simpson, who gets directly to the heart of today’s madness—and, looking closely at footage from tea party rallies, it’s obvious that the right is the harbinger of this mess; an impotent left is the reason why there’s a stalemate instead of true progressive policies.
(Acorn)
The Nazi sinking of the British passenger ship Laconia in 1942 is well-known in England but not here: but this superbly scripted and directed thriller about what happened before, during and after one of the most heinous actions of the war by either side should fill in the blanks for interested viewers.
Marvelous physical trappings notwithstanding (and unavoidable soap opera qualities to the various stories), it’s the excellent acting by the likes of Brian Cox, Lindsay Duncan and Franka Potente to bring a human dimension to an epic survival tale. The lone extra is a half-hour doc about actual survivors’ stories.
Jean Francaix: Wind Chamber Music
(BIS)
Belgian composer Jean Francaix may have been a weird stickler about the pronunciation of his name (Fran-SEX, believe it or not), but his attractive and immensely tuneful music belies his offbeat personality.
This disc of four of his wind chamber music works includes two wind quintets, a wind quartet and a Divertissement, all supremely confident and wonderfully beguiling. The Bergen Woodwind Quartet’s performances underscore Francaix’s sonic richness.
(Supraphon)
To most, Czech operas comprise Smetana’s The Bartered Bride and Dvorak’s Rusalka. This 1980 recording of another Smetana opera, this one based on Czech history, displays a wide-ranging musical palette encompassing chorales, marches and Wagner-like heaviness.
This Brno State Opera performance, conducted by Vaclav Smetacek, is appropriately dramatic, and magnificent Czech singers like Vilem Pribyl, Vaclev Zitek and Eva Depoltova powerfully convey its musical might.
August '12 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Sunday, 05 August 2012 05:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
ATM
(IFC)
This thriller’s dumb premise comes courtesy of the writer of Buried, which was about a man trying to break out of a coffin. But that plot was positively Proustian compared to this one about two men and a woman trapped in an ATM by a maniac: even when it’s obvious they can break free, they do something stupid.
Director David Brooks handles the risible premise as well as possible, but that’s small consolation—ATM is for easy-to-please genre fans only. The Blu-ray image is fine; lone extra is a making-of featurette.
(Echo Bridge)
These engaging hi-def travel programs comprise various locations throughout England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, specifically Old Town Bamberg in Germany, Austria’s Schonbrunn Palace, London’s Royal Botanical Gardens, Belgium’s historic city of Bruges and Holland’s famed windmills.
The video footage, while tremendous, has iffy hi-def resolution: it looks somewhat grainy and not as sharp as the best HD does. And there’s also insufferable narration, which doesn’t help matters any.
(PBS)
This informative if overly frivolous PBS Nature program tracks the lives of several koala bears that make their home among the humans living in Australian suburbs.
This informative if overly frivolous PBS Nature program tracks the lives of several koala bears that make their home among the humans living in Australian suburbs.
The superbly detailed camerawork follows the koalas up close and personally, whether they are mating or marking their territory against unwanted interlopers; the scientific explanations for their behavior are fascinating to hear, but the program too often falls into the “aren’t they cute?” rut. The Blu-ray images are excellent.
(Echo Bridge)
Director Robert Rodriguez and writer Kevin Williamson (creator of Scream, a debit of a credit if there ever was one), joined forces for this amusingly hokey 1999 horror spoof about a suburban high school overrun by aliens which are entering the bodies of the faculty members.
The movie, which stars the likes of Jon Stewart, Josh Hartnett, Famke Janssen and Jordana Brewster, ricochets between full-on gory effects and over-the-top silliness. The movie has a decent if unspectacular transfer; surprisingly, considering other Rodriguez DVDs, there are no extras.
Forever Marilyn
(Fox)
Cinema’s ultimate goddess gets her own hi-def boxed set on the 50th anniversary of her death, and the seven films included are. Among Monroe’s most celebrated roles. Marilyn’s best film appearance, in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959), and her disappointing pairing with Clark Gable in John Huston’s The Misfits (1961) were previously released on Blu-ray, but the other five are new to the format.
There’s No Business Like Show Business, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, River of No Return, The Seven Year Itch and How to Marry a Millionaire make this one of the most memorable boxed sets yet to appear on Blu-ray. Each of the films—particularly those shot in Cinemascope, which means all of them except Gentlemen—looks superb, and several of the discs include vintage featurettes, commentaries and deleted scenes.
(Lionsgate)
Jean Renoir’s second best film—after The Rules of the Game—is an all-time masterpiece: his explosive 1937 anti-war tract about French prisoners during WWI remains a grimly realistic but humane psychological study. Stellar acting by Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay and Erich von Stroheim and gritty B&W photography by Christian Matras add to its status as a true classic.
On Blu-ray, the movie looks nearly flawless, which is amazing for a 75-year-old feature; extras include interviews, featurettes and a look at the restoration.
(Criterion)
The important theme of illegal immigration is turned by Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki into something as relevant as last year’s almanac. Kaurismaki’s familiar deadpan style has worn thin and his expressionless actors ruin a potentially powerful premise.
The city of Le Havre, while no cultural French jewel, surely deserves better than this lazy effort; aside from a few ‘90s gems (La Vie de Boheme, Juha, Drifting Clouds), Kaurismaki’s uninspired films have been providing more meager returns. Criterion, of course, gives the film a superior Blu-ray transfer; extras include interviews and bonus footage.
The Beat Hotel
(First Run)
Alan Govenar’s documentary about the little-known and run-down Parisian hotel that was ground zero for the beat generation is an interesting historical glimpse at a fertile period for literature and art that began in the City of Light’s Latin Quarter.
In addition to amusing anecdotes about or interviews with several of its famous players (Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs) and the hotel’s proprietress Madame Rachou, the movie is also visually arresting, thanks to Harold Chapman’s vintage photographs and Elliot Rudie’s drawings. Extras include short films and a deleted scene.
(MGM)
These Burn On Demand releases are nearly forgotten B movies, starting with Caged Fury (1990), starring the beautiful Roxanna Michaels as a tough gal who helps break her friends out of a prison populated with crooked guards.
The Children of Times Square (1986), made by Curtis Hanson long before hitting pay dirt with L.A. Confidential, is a spotty portrait of 42nd Street’s denizens before it was cleaned up and Disneyfied that works better as a time-capsule glimpse than as a compelling drama.
(Highway 61)
This fictional “documentary” pretending to tell the truth about Barack Obama’s real father—he wasn’t Kenyan but an American Commie—fails to connect dots that are unconnectable. Inept director Joel Gilbert even compares photos of Obama and supposed dad, Frank Marshall Davis, neither of whom resembles the other: such patently offensive nonsense is another example of the systematic lowering of America’s collective IQ.
In this latest “Obama Is Not a Legitimate President” screed, there’s not a shred of evidence; instead, crazy-quilt theories are raised and accepted as “fact”: as long as one screams “Marxist,” “Communist” and “Socialist,” some will respond as red meat to rabid dogs.
(Sony)
Director Joseph Cedar ingeniously dissects the competitiveness of father and son Talmudic scholars who find themselves on opposite sides when the important Israel Prize is announced.
Cedar wittily keeps things moving with flashbacks, cross-cutting, onscreen titles and persuasive performances that sympathetically display the continuously shifting father-son dynamics in an unapologetically intellectual milieu. Extras include a Cedar interview and making-of featurette.
(Zeitgeist)
The Quay brothers, cinematic purveyors of fanciful weirdness, made their debut feature in 1994; the quirkiness is encapsulated in its subtitle, Or These Dreams We Call Human Life. This bizarre drama stars Mark Rylance as a man who enrolls in a weird boarding school and becomes involved the owner’s wife (Alice Krige).
The B&W images look stunning on DVD (too bad there’s no Blu-ray release, as there was in England); extras include on-set footage and the brothers’ 2007 short, Eurydice: She So Beloved.
(Acorn)
The first three of John Jakes’ colorful series of American history novels—which I devoured as a teenager—were turned into TV mini-series in 1978 and ’79 that featured fictional characters meeting many historical personages. In The Bastard, young Philippe Charboneau meets Lafayette and Ben Franklin; in The Rebels, Philippe, now Philip Kent, fights alongside George Washington, Sam Adams and Paul Revere against the Redcoats; in The Seekers, son Abraham fights the War of 1812.
Andrew Stevens (Philip), impossibly beautiful Kim Cattrall (wife Anne) and ‘70s relics Tom Bosley (Franklin), William Shatner (Paul Revere), Peter Graves (Washington), Don Johnson, Delta Burke and Olivia Massey co-star, with a scene-stealing William Daniels as Samuel Adams.
Bliss Conducts Bliss
(Heritage)
Sir Arthur Bliss, a truly unsung 20th century British composer, was also an accomplished conductor of his own music, which these recordings triumphantly show.
A Colour Symphony, one of Bliss’s most characteristic orchestral works, begins the disc with its sparkling virtuosity, followed by Music for Strings and Introduction and Allegro; all are brilliantly paced by Bliss, who leads two formidable ensembles, the London Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestras, in these performances from 1955 and 1956.
(Neos)
Alexandre Glazunov’s Saxophone Concerto is the go-to classical sax work that has attracted the likes of Branford Marsalis, so it’s no surprise it leads off John-Edward Kelly’s exploration of 20th century saxophone concertos that was recorded in 2000.
Kelly, who also conducts the Glazunov work, has the style and pacing down, along with playing his own cadenza; contemporary works by Nicola LeFanu (1989) and Krzysztof Meyer (1993) are less impressive musically but contain enough technical challenges for Kelly to make them sound significant. Micha Hamel conducts the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic in the two other works.
More Articles...
Newsletter Sign Up
Upcoming Events
No Calendar Events Found or Calendar not set to Public.