28 T feb ru ary 2 1 . 1997 T ju s t out A A new group for Queer and questioning youth in Beaverton! wrbptfr http//www. StanWiley.com FREE A N D CONFIDENTIAL! JEWEL A. ROBINSON Wednesdays from 3:30-5:00pm Multimillion $ Producer fia OFFICE (503) 281-4040 d u i r 1730 N.E. 10th Avenue Portland, OR 97212 Cedar Park Recreation Center VOICE MAIL (503) 323-2221 (11640 SW Parkw ay in B eaverton) E-MAIL Jewel2U @ teleport.com Food The Way Mother Nature Intended Organic Produce Natural Groceries Delicious Deli From Scratch Cruelty-Free Personal Care Vitamins, Homéopathies, & Herbs Environmentally Safe Cleaning Products C o 2 22 -5 65 8 "The Tuskegee Study" 1932 A top Transitions.. NCllW f Listiafs h tir - 1972 In Alabama, hundreds of black men were deceived, betrayed and denied treatment for syphilis by the U S. Government. Should medical research take precedence over human lives? MISS EVERS' BOYS SEE VOIfiT BY DAVID FELDSHUH THE REP February 22 - March 29 Tickets & Showtimes Call: 224-4491 PO RT1AND REPERTORY THEATRE • 2 W O R L D TRADE CENTER • 25 SW S A LM O N the , C harts Composer John Corigliano whose Symphony No. 1 evokes the anguish of AIDS, makes challenging approachable music , ▼ by Bob R oehr ohn Corigliano is a hot musical property these days. “Of Rage and Remem­ brance,” on RCA Red Seal, is high among the Billboard classical charts as the first recording Leonard Slatkin chose to make with the National Symphony Orchestra in Wash­ ington, D.C. And two other record labels have released CDs of Corigliano’s work in the last six months. "Of Rage and Remembrance” is a serious J work: a cantata for orchestra and chorus on the subject of AIDS. The music is drawn from the third movement of his brooding, anguished and highly regarded Symphony No. 1, also on the CD. The text by William M. Hoffman begins: This is the season o f stone: Dead leaves on a garden wall, Dry berries in bone-cold air, A brittle moon, an ashen sun. Corigliano calls it “my little quilt for friends.” And like the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the work embodies contradictory emotions— melancholy, an edge of bitterness, and also the warm remem­ brance of things that made each friendship so special. “I leave the audience with, ‘All right, you’ve lost all these people. The rage is there, the loss is there, the remembrance is there. What now? How do you face all of that? How do you go on?’ "You have to come to terms with that. All of us in the gay community have to come to terms with what do you do when you have lost hundreds of people, and you get up the next morning. You don’t dismiss it, but if you walk around truly depressed about it you aren’t doing any good either. How do you face life then? “You go on and be true to the ones you love. The way for me was the idea of eternal memory as a way of keeping people alive. I’m not saying it was a new thought. I’m just saying it is how we get through.” Corigliano, at 58, seems in mid morph between boy won­ der and elder statesman. His body is trim and moves with the quick agility and energy of an athlete, while his hair is mutating to the type of thick silver mane one associates with classical eminence. His music is often demand- ing— not likely to replace Vivaldi as background for brunch. But it is not demand­ John Corigliano ing in the academic sense of the 12 tone system which drove audiences from concert halls in the 1960s. No, Corigliano oper­ ates within an accessible melodic tradition: He can write a pleasant tune, but he has something more to say. There is an intensity to what he writes that requires you to listen to it, not merely hear it. “Commercial music is mainly meant to get you to listen to everything the first time,” he says, “but noncommercial music has this layered qual­ ity to it.” The composer has to “entice” the listener at first hearing, but “at the same time hold forth these wonderful things down the line” that en­ courage and reward repeated listening. He says that “every piece is a difficult piece to write.” He works slowly, on but a single project at a time, and builds a rational structure “from the idea of the piece.” The melody “has to develop from the architecture” of the total work. Only as it nears completion does he sort out offers to match up and finalize a commission. Corigliano’s personal intensity is apparent one dreary day in April as "Of Rage and Remem­ brance” is recorded at the Kennedy Center. His entire being seems dedicated to the process. He follows the score through lowered glasses, as eye and ear measure each note pulsing through the maze of the control board. His hands move as if conducting, then dart to make a notation on the page. A jaw muscle flexes with a tic of tension. Pitch, tone, balance, intonation, he absorbs all and makes his suggestions to the recording crew. Sometimes it is to correct a phrasing of the singers or a balance in the microphone, once he pleads “softer, more ethereal” in the phrasing of a sec­ tion. Tension mounts. During a short pause while conductor Leonard Slatkin walks back from the control room to the podium, Corigliano paces to the wall and pushes himself off a couple of times in a standing push-up. Which section should they run through again to lay down yet another, perhaps more perfect, track? They count down the final minutes of recording time; union work rules mean that even a few seconds over will be very expensive. And finally it is done, the session over. Corigliano has endured this process repeat­ edly this past year. The recordings include a string quartet commissioned for the farewell tour of the Cleveland Quartet, recorded by that group and released by Telarc (CD-80415). PHOTO BY TONI Sff an The label also released an all-Corigliano CD (Telarc CD-80421) by I Fiamminghi, The Or­ chestra of Flanders. It brings together a handful of his shorter and generally lighter pieces along with the première recording of “Creations.” The text of “Creations” is drawn from the first chapters of the Bible and is spoken by openly gay actor Sir Ian McKellen. The music is more abstract than many of the composer’s other pieces. Almost all of Corigliano’s work has been recorded now, so don’t look for a flood of new offerings any time soon. But the existing catalog is deep and offers endless hours of repeated, rewarding listening enjoyment.