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San Francisco Chronicle
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Symphony presents ‘Blackstar Symphony,' Bowie's final masterpiece reimagined
When David Bowie released 'Blackstar' on Jan. 8, 2016, his 69th birthday, it was instantly hailed as a bold genre-defying achievement for the rock 'n' roll legend. Infused with experimental jazz, poetic lyrics and an emotional bareness, it became one of the most critically acclaimed albums of his career. Then just two days later, Bowie died of liver cancer, which he had secretly been battling for 18 months. His death suddenly turned 'Blackstar' into a swan song, lending tracks like 'Lazarus' — a reference to the biblical figure resurrected by Jesus — added poignancy. John Cameron Mitchell, star and creator of the Bowie-referencing hit rock musical 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch,' called the album Bowie's 'mausoleum.' 'There's a gorgeousness, but there's a darkness,' said Mitchell. 'When he gets emotional, you feel like it's raw sentiment. It's kind of shocking when it comes from him because he's so unsentimental.' While some of the album's songs were incorporated into Bowie's 2015 off-Broadway musical 'Lazarus,' starring Michael C. Hall, Bowie never had a chance to perform the 'Blackstar' material live. But nearly a decade later, the album has found a life onstage. Coming to the San Francisco Symphony on Thursday-Friday, June 26-27, 'Blackstar Symphony' transforms Bowie's final album into a live performance by a 65-piece orchestra and members of the original 'Blackstar' band. In addition to the seven tracks on 'Blackstar,' the evening — timed to LGBTQ Pride weekend — will also include songs from the queer cultural icon's catalog like 'Space Oddity,' 'Life on Mars,' 'Heroes' and 'Life on Mars?' Mitchell, Bowie's longtime bassist and singer Gail Ann Dorsey and singer-songwriter David Poe take Bowie's place on lead vocals. 'I know this project is something that he would have liked,' said Dorsey, who began working with Bowie in 1995 during his Outside Tour. 'When I first heard the orchestrations, I could just see him smiling.' 'Blackstar Symphony,' which premiered at the Charlotte International Arts Festival in 2022, was conceived by Santa Clara-born musician and bandleader Donny McCaslin, who played saxophone on 'Blackstar.' (He noted the band working on the album knew Bowie was in treatment for cancer, 'but that was the extent of it.') After Bowie died, McCaslin said the band had offers to perform over the years, but declined out of respect. It wasn't until a conversation with conductor Jules Buckley that he began to imagine 'Blackstar' with a full orchestra. 'It was really the idea of the record being like the DNA and the blueprint for the orchestra project, but that the orchestra is really intentionally included in the writing,' said McCaslin, who serves as the artistic director of 'Blackstar Symphony,' with the work orchestrated by Buckley, orchestra leader and composer Maria Schneider, and longtime Bowie producer Tony Visconti, among others. 'When it's at its zenith, you hear the orchestra, the band and the singers all commingling.' Nearly everyone McCaslin tapped for 'Blackstar Symphony' has deep connections to Bowie. Dorsey, for instance, performed on his albums 'Earthling' (1997), 'Heathen' (2002), 'Reality' (2003) and 'The Next Day' (2013). She also famously sang Freddie Mercury's part on the duet 'Under Pressure' with Bowie on tour. Though she's collaborated with Boy George, the Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco and Lenny Kravitz, among other musicians, Dorsey said nothing in her career compares to her two-decade partnership with Bowie. Working with Bowie, she said, was like 'going to school, in the best possible way.' In her years touring with him, Dorsey also recalled that Bowie had a specific ritual on his days off: 'If there was a historic bookstore — something that wasn't just a Barnes & Noble — we would go.' 'Every time I came to San Francisco with David, we went to City Lights,' Dorsey added, referring to the storied shop in North Beach. For Mitchell, his first memory of Bowie was seeing him on television in Scotland singing 'Jean Genie' on the BBC show 'Top of the Pops' in the early 1970s 'It was very intense and scary,' Mitchell recalled. 'He was so masculine and feminine and lizard-like and everything all at once without any winks or jokes. Some of the other glam (rock) people were kind of like, 'I'm in makeup, but I'm a straight guy.' And this was like, 'No, I'm an alien.'' Years later, after the 2001 release of the film adaptation of 'Hedwig,' Mitchell said Bowie asked him if he was interested in adapting his 1972 concept album 'Ziggy Stardust' into a stage show. 'But I was just burned out on rock 'n' roll,' Mitchell said. 'I do regret not looking into that now because, obviously, it's too late.' For some Bowie fans, 'Blackstar' remains a difficult album to revisit as it's so closely tied to the artist's death. McCaslin admits it was true for him for several years. But now that time has passed, he believes audiences are ready to engage with the music again in a new light. 'There's a real attention to honoring the spirit that he led with when we do this, a humility that we approach this with and a deep and abiding love for him,' said McCaslin. But 'I think he would have been into this direction, where we try to create a new piece of art with 'Blackstar.''
Miami Herald
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Student musicians at festival celebrate the power of music to inspire and uplift everyone
It was a joyous event when more than 600 students took to the stage to perform at the fourth annual Miami Gardens Youth Music Festival. Celebrating with them were 2,000 attendees including city officials, music education leaders and industry professionals. Held at the Betty T. Ferguson Recreational Complex, the festival showed how music can transform lives and open doors to careers in performance, sound engineering and the music business. 'Music shaped my journey — from my first piano notes to a lifelong appreciation for the arts,' Councilwoman Linda Julien said in her opening speech. 'The Miami Gardens Youth Music Festival is more than an event; it's a stage for young artists to find their voice and build their future. I'm honored to support this celebration of talent and opportunity.' While the festival showcased the immense talent of Miami's youth, it also spotlighted key challenges in music education. Many schools and communities here still lack funding, resources and the infrastructure needed to provide high-quality music education, especially in underserved communities. 'The Miami Gardens Youth Music Festival shows the power of music and the arts to inspire, connect and uplift everyone. It is a celebration of creativity and community, proving what is possible when we invest in our youth,' said Alan Valladares, Arts Access Miami Manager. The event was organized by Arts Access Miami and Young Musicians Unite in a partnership with Julien. YMU is a key program within Arts Access and plays a vital role in expanding students' musical horizons beyond traditional classroom settings. As Miami-Dade County continues to grow as a hub for arts and culture, Arts Access and YMU are committed to ensuring that music education is not a privilege, but a right for all students. Arts Access Miami is 'powered by philanthropist Daniel R. Lewis, managed by Young Musicians Unite, and incubated at the Miami Foundation in cooperation with the Miami-Dade County Public School System., Valladares said. You can help by becoming a mentor, or donating to the Arts Access Fund at LOCUST PROJECTS CELEBRATES BOWIE Get ready to channel your favorite David Bowie look at the upcoming Spring Fling Space Oddity fundraiser hosted by Locust Projects. The annual benefit dinner is 7-10 p.m. April 26, at 297 NE 67th St., Miami. The event also serves as a celebration of the premiere of Tomas Vu's 'Blackstar' exhibition, an immersive installation focused on Bowie's contributions to contemporary culture. Central to the exhibit is a geodesic dome inspired by the work of futurist architect Buckminster Fuller. The dome is a recurrent motif in Vu's practice and serves as a platform for projection mapping and a site for continuous immersive visitor engagement. This fun-filled evening will feature a silent art auction, live music and lip sync performances. Tickets start at $200 at JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT SEEKS VOLUNTEERS Something that has always been extremely important is teaching school kids early on about money: how to earn it; save it; spend it; share it. Young professionals who want to mentor Miami-Dade and Monroe County public school students in developing financial literacy are invited to join the nonprofit Junior Achievement of Greater Miami's Young Professionals Network. The group also provides work, career and college prep as well as hands-on programs in high schools in which students start their own small businesses. Programs are free, interactive and organized through the school systems. To better position the organization for greater outcomes in graduation rates and decreasing absenteeism, the nonprofit recently added new team members and expanded to new offices in Coral Gables. Learn more and get involved at MERRICK HOUSE TALK APRIL 6 The next gathering at the historic Merrick House in Coral Gables will feature Miami native June Thomson Morris speaking about 'Fortunes Gained and Lost: Miami's Visionaries and Their Fatal Passion to Create.' The event is part of the '100 Voices: Yesteryear Stories of Coral Gables' to celebrate the city's centennial. The Merrick House is at 907 Coral Way, and tickets for the April 6 event are $5 at Thomson Morris will also tell the story of her grandparents that inspired her play 'Greetings from Paradise,' which premieres at Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre April 29 and runs through May 3. Write to ChristinaMMayo@ with news for this column.
The Guardian
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Michael Wollny Trio: Living Ghosts review
More than a century ago, jazz's early improvisers rarely strayed far from the secure consensus of a tune. That is, until the bebop revolutionaries of the 1940s started blowing impromptu ideas that often sounded better than the pop songs whose chords they borrowed. Post-1960s, free improvisation took themes and variations on epic, extemporised journeys that sometimes never returned to their starting point. Michael Wollny, the 46-year-old German pianist/composer, has long been familiar with the implications of that rapid evolution, and his powerful decade-old trio with David Bowie's Blackstar bassist Tim Lefebvre and punk-to-postbop drummer Eric Schaefer has become one of the world's most skilfully free-thinking contemporary jazz groups. Now comes the exceptional Living Ghosts, a live recording of one night on tour in Germany in 2024 that shows just why Wollny refers to the group's recent concerts as 'seances where the ghosts of the trio's songbook visit us at their will'. There's no setlist, no agreed arrangements or forethought about which tunes might be made to segue into each other or for how long. Two night-themed miniatures by Alban Berg and Paul Hindemith are recast in racing solo piano streams, bowed-bass sweeps, a tramping rock-drums pulse, and then flat-out postbop over Lefebvre's fast bass-walk. The harmonic implications (though only barely the tune) of Duke Ellington's In a Sentimental Mood give way to the lovely pop-song melody of Jon Brion's ballad Little Person. A warp-speed treatment of Nick Cave's Hand of God ascends to a tumult of mercurial piano runs over a marching drum pulse before hymnal harmonies turn it into Guillaume de Machaut's Lasse! A one-off rammed with surprises, but of the kind that bear plenty of repeated listening on what already sounds like a 2025 standout. Listen on Apple Music or on Spotify This article includes content hosted on We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as the provider may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Tunisian oud star and composer Anouar Brahem is rejoined by old associates Dave Holland (bass) and Django Bates (piano) with eclectic cello luminary Anja Lechner on the all-original After the Last Sky (ECM). Lechner's rapturous long tones and Holland's darting counterpoint against Brahem's nimble urgency and Bates's attentive piano figures create a restlessly beautiful soundscape – deeply affected, as Brahem stresses, by the disaster of Gaza. The unique German/Afghan singer Simin Tander's The Wind (Jazzland Recordings), a mix of originals and Pashto and European traditionals, draws on her tender ballad delivery, wild, wordless improv and percussive exhalations, while Norwegian-Indian violinist Harpreet Bansal and electric bass and drums often kick up hard-grooving storms. And that idiosyncratically inventive UK pianist/composer Elliot Galvin is joined by bassist Ruth Goller, drummer Seb Rochford, Shabaka Hutchings and strings on The Ruin (Gearbox Records), a cyclical electro-acoustic work inspired by his early recordings on an old family piano, and morphed into a trip of typically quirky revelations.
