Speaker 1 (00:00): Coming up on Art Palace. Speaker 2 (00:02): I so want to go in there. Speaker 1 (00:04): Me too. Speaker 2 (00:04): The lighting inside is like outside. It looks a little cold, but inside, look at those lovely, glowing, glowing lights that just call you in. Speaker 1 (00:24): Welcome to Art Palace, produced by Cincinnati Art Museum. This is your host Russell eig. Here at the Art Palace, we meet cool people and then talk to them about art. Today's cool people are Rebecca Andress and Leanne Lin from the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. So if you don't mind just saying your name, Leanne Lin. I'm the general manager for the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. Speaker 2 (00:59): And I'm Rebecca Andres and I'm the principal flutist of the orchestra and we'll be playing in a wind quintet concert at the end of the month with some of my colleagues here. Speaker 1 (01:10): Nice. So what can we expect to be hearing at that concert? Speaker 2 (01:14): Well, you have this wonderful exhibition of art from Paris in the early 20th century, and we've uncovered a number of works that compliment that time period. A lot of short things, a lot of colorful things, very entertaining program. We hope so. It'll be a variety of French and also people from outside France that spend some time in Paris. Speaker 1 (01:41): So you just said very colorful things, which I love because obviously we're surrounded by color right now we're actually recording this in the Paris 1900 exhibition. If you can hear, it sounds a little more echoy than normal right now. That's probably why, and there's a lot of color. When I say color, I know what I mean. I mean color. When you say color, what do you mean? Speaker 2 (02:04): Well, right around this time actually, WC and Rale were very important composers and they began to use the instruments in really interesting ways for their own sake, for the sake of the sound say of the flute or the oboe. They began to choose the bassoon for its particular quality and the music then becomes sort of a kaleidoscope of special moments in sound that you don't necessarily get with the classical composers. So I'm talking about instrumental color and moods and things that are created by that, which of course you also see in a visual way with the art. Speaker 1 (02:44): Okay. Well I find that actually it's one of my favorite things is the way different arts can use the same vocabulary in how we crossover. So we use a few musical terms a lot too to discuss art rhythm is probably the biggest one. So I'm really fascinated to hear what you've chosen because I think it's so fascinating to look at the art and then hear music and think about how these things were happening simultaneously and how they sort of reflect one another. I just think that's a really fascinating idea. Speaker 2 (03:18): It is. It's also interesting to me the idea of entertainment at this time. There were a lot of really short works rather than, it's not that there weren't symphonies being composed, but there were a lot of specialized kinds of pieces. Pieces about children or events or personalities, short pieces maybe in a larger set. So when you think of entertainment and the kind of atmosphere that was impairments at the time, very entertaining, the brevity of the pieces kind of go along with that. Speaker 1 (04:00): Yeah. We should mention the full title of the exhibition is Paris 1900 City of Entertainment. So this is a pretty big idea in the exhibition and actually the area we're sitting in right now are pieces that are all really directly connected with that sort of performance side of entertainment. So we're kind of surrounded by that idea right now. Why do you think this time period, why do you think the music became shorter at that point? Speaker 2 (04:26): I think there were a lot of influences of, we always discussed that 1889 exhibition where the Eiffel Tower was built and people came from all over the world and there were lots of different kinds of music being heard in Paris and a lot of the composers like WC and Rale were influenced by these exotic sounds, the sounds of the Galon for instance. Or they heard even Russian music, Rimsky and that sort of thing, and they wanted to experiment with the new colors. Now why they chose shorter forms, I don't know, maybe they were just trying new things. I really can't answer that question, but I noticed that a lot of the things come in short sets. Speaker 1 (05:05): What in the big picture would you say is different about the music from this period than the music that came sort of directly before it? Speaker 2 (05:14): I think there was an effort by the composers to find new voices, and I think they experimented with new scales, whole tone scales. In other words, not so much do latte do, but a more vague sound so that they had more flexibility. WC in particular was into the sound of the chord itself, not necessarily how it progressed from one thing to the next. He was criticized for that. He took a lot of heat for that. But in today's retrospective, look at that, we think it's wonderful and very innovative. Revelle is the master orchestrator after he kind of heard what the Russians were doing, heard these exotic sounds, nobody orchestrates it is just amazing. And so I think they were really interested in exploring the possibilities that the instruments could bring in the colors instead of so much about the Sonata form or just the general sound of the orchestra. Speaker 1 (06:19): I think that's so fun to try to hear those things or in the case of the art, to see those things through the eyes of the time you talked about him taking the heat for that and to try to see something as radical and experimental that is sort of just become totally assimilated. That's actually a big thing that I think is really hard for us to do with impressionism because it's just become almost how I think people expect art to look now. It's made such a big splash and it's what is often sort of sold as art to the public and postcards and things. So people are very, they're just really comfortable with the images now and it's really hard to see those things as radical anymore or to hear those things as radical. But to me that makes it so exciting to feel that like no, this was rebellious Speaker 2 (07:15): Was, and some of the composers, for instance, Satit will be playing a piece by Satit. He was told that he had no talent. He took very curious jobs in order to make a living, but he finally found his voice in these little miniature things. He was sort of the original minimalist and avant-garde things, but he made his living, I'm looking over here at the, I'm afraid to say this in French, but Lesat noir poster. It was one of the first cabarets in Paris and their piano player was Eric. He made his living that way to support his composing habit. So he was somebody that was roundly criticized and now we think of him as sort of the bad boy of that time period. But we still enjoy his music. It's very different and very simple, but it's become part of our culture now. Speaker 1 (08:07): Yeah, it's one of those things that, I don't know, maybe I just laugh at it too, because there's so many times where we try to make looking at art or going to symphonies and things like an act of eating your vegetables or something. We treat it. It's this thing that's good for you that you're supposed to do, and I just feel like nothing makes it less fun. Like no, tell people it's dangerous. Tell people that they're going to, we shouldn't be telling children we should be warning children about coming to the museum. This is a dangerous place and your parents don't want you here. Speaker 2 (08:42): Well, I think that's something about the chamber orchestra that's really special because when people come to the chamber orchestra, they never know what they're going to hear. They never know what's going to happen. We particularly try to design our programs to be kind of cross-pollination, different art mediums, different themes so that it is surprising and vital and today and not an archaic duty that you have to go Speaker 1 (09:11): Love Speaker 3 (09:11): To do partnerships and cross collaborations and give you something unexpected. And also that kind of is how we market and promote the events as well as something that is themed. It's an evening out, it's an activity. There's other things going on. There's lobby activities and that helps to kind of create a special atmosphere. Speaker 1 (09:33): And I was lucky enough to get to participate in one of these performances and be a partner with you last summer. And it was a really fun experience to get to bring part of the museum collection. I chose images with you to connect with the artwork and it was a perfect activity for me because it's sort of exactly what I love to do really, and just sort of find those ways to make connections to music. And it was surprising. I definitely, I was excited to hear that. I felt like a lot of the choices that had been made musically, there was a lot of variety and I was excited as somebody who likes maybe more contemporary composers and things to hear that incorporated, I think it was really fun to try to find those things that fit the music and we could all kind of a agree on, yeah, this feels like a good fit. So I'm excited to be a part of that and to also, I'm so glad that you do that and you incorporate, are there any other organizations that you've done sort of similar things with or other ways you've kind of connected with other arts organizations? Speaker 3 (10:42): Yeah, absolutely. We've done this with TAF Museum of Art as well Speaker 1 (10:47): And Speaker 3 (10:47): Done connections with them. We've worked with a lot of different dance companies, which has been fun to work with C C M Modern Dance as well as Exhale Dance Tribe and Mom Loft and Company. So then that brings a whole different element to the stage. Not only them, but also actors through the Shakespeare company. And we've worked with Madcap puppets several times as well as P dancers, and we do a big collaborative production every other year called 'em All in the Night Visitors. So we're kind of known for doing that and thinking outside of the box and doing unique programs that appeal to maybe somebody who doesn't really know that they like classical music and they come and wow, they're surprised by it. Speaker 1 (11:32): So is there anything else you want to let us know about that is coming up with Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra? Speaker 3 (11:39): Absolutely. This is actually our 45th anniversary season of the orchestra and our fifth anniversary of Summer Musique Festival. So we're having a really exciting year. We were excited when you all reached out the possibility of doing something in a musical response to the exhibition, and we were glad that you thought of us as a partner and this is going to give us a great time to be able to announce our season as well. So it's going to be a doubly fun event, not only fabulous music, not only a chance to come and see the art, but also a chance for our music director Eckhart Prey, to come in town and communicate the full 45th anniversary season announcement. So it's going to be a really fun evening since Speaker 1 (12:21): We're talking about the concert. Rebecca, why don't you tell me a little bit more about what we're going to be hearing and who's going to be playing at the concert? Speaker 2 (12:29): Well, my colleagues and I from the chamber orchestra, it'll be a traditional woodwind quintet that means flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon. It's curious because it was a really active woodwind scene in Paris at this time at concert galore, but we don't exactly have that music left to us. But what we have done is found other pieces that from the same time period, a lot of them are transcriptions and arrangements besides Dey and Revelle. We also have RNA who was very big at the time. We have foray, everyone knows something by foray. We have some popular tunes by him, the aforementioned iconoclast, Eric Satie and somebody who's one of my favorites, Lily Boulanger, the name Boulanger, is familiar to people if they have read about the Paris Conservatory because her older sister, Nadia became a very, very famous teacher. She taught Gershwin and countless conductors and so on. Speaker 2 (13:33): But Lily was an extremely talented composer and it's really interesting for us to include a woman. Women were just starting to come into their own at this time. She was the youngest person ever to win a Preda Rome. Unfortunately, her health was very poor and she died at a very young age. She died at the age of 25, but we have found a piece by her that we are including. She was a person of great promise, so I'm excited to include that. We also have some foreigners, Albania and Rimsky Korsakov because they were very influential. Albanians actually lived in Paris even though he was Spanish. And of course we have the kind of grandfather of all French entertainment pieces, the CanCan, and I see you have posters and paintings here by, and of course he captured the Moulin Rouge and the Foley Baer so well. And of course we have to include that in our program. So it's a varied program within the narrow scope of that time period. There's a lot of variety in the music. I love making music with my chamber orchestra colleagues. We've been together for a long time and it's so great to interact with them. We kind of have a sixth sense of what the other person's going to be doing. And it is just all good. It's just so much fun to play with them. Speaker 3 (14:57): And the great thing that you're going to get at a Chamber orchestra event is a little bit of fun knowledge, a little bit of information you didn't know, maybe a fun fact, maybe a piece of history about the composer, maybe something about one of our musicians. Just something fun to take home with you, a little bit of fun learning, Speaker 1 (15:14): And that sounds like it's going to be a really exciting program for people. So since you mentioned the CanCan, maybe we should look at some images of those up close right now, if that's okay with you? Speaker 3 (15:25): Sure. Alright. Speaker 1 (15:39): We are looking at the painting plus Blanche and the Moulin Rouge, and this is the iconic thing that we think of. Probably one of the number one things you think of when it comes to entertainment at this time period is we have the Moulin Rouge and this famous windmill in the background here. I love the way these paintings are set up. It's almost like we're going into the Moulin Rouge and then the next paintings are sort of like, and what will we see inside the Moulin Rouge? What do you think about this painting or what stands out to you when you look at it? Speaker 3 (16:13): I actually, I didn't go in the Moulin Rouge, I'm ashamed to say, but I actually went to the Moulin Rouge and got a picture of it. So maybe I need to see these paintings so I can see what I missed inside. Speaker 1 (16:25): Well, I'm in the same boat. I've been outside the Moul Rouge and I didn't go inside. I think the tickets are incredibly expensive now, and I was just like, yeah, I'm good. Or more. Yeah, I'm cheap. Speaker 3 (16:40): Yes. And that is why I did not go. Speaker 1 (16:43): Yeah, exactly. Speaker 3 (16:44): But it is absolutely beautiful and the area that it's in is so lovely as well in MoMA. So I think that this is just a beautiful night scene. It looks very engaging and exciting. Speaker 2 (16:56): I so want to go in there. Me too. The lighting inside is outside. It looks a little cold, but inside look at those lovely Speaker 3 (17:03): Glowing Speaker 2 (17:05): Lights that just call you in. I Speaker 1 (17:06): Think it's great, the warm reds of the light there. And maybe it's sort of the way these ladies almost look like they're hurrying in. They Speaker 3 (17:14): Do, Speaker 1 (17:15): Which gives that sort of sense of maybe it looks like a wet street too, and the way it's kind of reflecting all that light so it makes it feel kind of drizzly and dreary, maybe a bit out. So yeah, you kind want to get inside there like those ladies. So let's walk on down here. We've got a few paintings here that show the can. The next one is Quadri at the Bine. Sorry to all of Speaker 3 (17:42): Nailed it. Speaker 1 (17:43): I guess maybe. And so here it looks like we're seeing some of the dances here that are so famous. Speaker 3 (17:55): Absolutely. Look at those dresses. Speaker 2 (17:57): I love the hats, the Speaker 3 (17:58): Head pieces. Beautiful. Speaker 1 (17:59): Oh yeah, these Speaker 2 (17:59): Hats are Speaker 1 (18:00): Something, aren't they? Speaker 2 (18:01): Absolutely beautiful. Speaker 1 (18:02): Well, what's interesting too is you said, I love the hats. And the hats are clearly the artist did too, because that's sort of center stage. I mean, obviously the focus is the dancers and the way they are framed by this light and just sort of through placement. Also, the fact that they're bright white, they're the first thing that pops out, and then after that you kind of come back down to the foreground, I feel like. And that's where you have these ladies and the first two ladies, we can't really see their faces, but their hats sort of say almost all we need to know, right? Speaker 3 (18:40): Yes. Speaker 1 (18:40): It's really Speaker 3 (18:41): Very fancy. Speaker 2 (18:42): Really. The crowds too, the standing crowds. That's interesting. They're not Speaker 3 (18:47): Sitting, Speaker 2 (18:47): They're all standing watching the dance in Speaker 1 (18:49): Both of these. Well, it looks like these ladies are probably sitting, Speaker 2 (18:51): They have a table Speaker 1 (18:53): And just what I'm inferring from the painting, but they seem to be like maybe the upper crust who I'm not sure if you could, maybe you had to pay for seats or know somebody to have a seed or something. But they definitely, those hats and their costumes make them seem pretty well to do. Speaker 3 (19:12): Also some champagne there. I see. Speaker 1 (19:14): Yes, yes. That's maybe also making me think that too. I noticed that champagne model as well, and we looks like we have a fur here probably that she was wearing that she's maybe taken off now that she's inside. But I think it's interesting. It does feel like, oh, this is a place to go to see and to be seen too is what I get from this painting as well is like it's sets up this whole sense of the culture of going to this in the same way of, it makes me think of like, oh, this was Studio 54 of its time. Right? This is a place. Speaker 2 (19:50): Exactly. Yeah, Speaker 1 (19:51): Yeah. It's like you're not just going there to experience something and to be a spectator, but you are also part of the spectacle perhaps. Speaker 3 (20:02): I can definitely see that The only thing we're missing at this concert on the 28th is a CanCan dancer. So we'll have to get right on that. Speaker 2 (20:09): Leanne. I'm Speaker 3 (20:10): Not volunteering. Volunteering. I'm not volunteering. Speaker 2 (20:13): I have to play. So don't look Speaker 1 (20:15): At Speaker 2 (20:16): The ladies of the group. We like. Speaker 1 (20:17): I'm busy. I'm busy. Speaker 3 (20:19): Russell you doing anything that evening? What's up? Speaker 1 (20:22): Maybe we'll see if I can rustle up some good bloomers or whatever. Okay. Yeah. So you got some more dancing here. This one by Louis AB and this one is Quadri at the Moulin Rouge. This one is really, feels very, very modern to me, and it's the use of these diagonal lines and the way it uses space in the floor. This floor is a really strange space and it doesn't feel exactly 100% adhering to perspective laws. Speaker 1 (21:03): In fact, it feels actually, it feels like it follows maybe more Japanese laws of perspective where things are sort of just in that sort of isometric viewpoint and they don't actually get smaller in the background. And that was actually a really strong influence from Japan at the time people were around this time in the late 19th century, early 20th century, people were seeing Japanese art for the very first time in Japanese prints, and they made a huge influence on European art at the time. So I mean, I don't know if this was a conscious decision or not, but to me, when I look at it, that's what I say. It's like, oh, this feels very inspired by Japanese art. Speaker 3 (21:52): I feel color blocking kind of a color blocking look and very long brush strokes. It's very different than the last piece, even though the subject matter is very similar. Speaker 1 (22:02): This is actually a print, so this is a lithograph. Speaker 1 (22:06): So it's kind of interesting because it has a super painterly quality for a lithograph, which I'm sure the next few pieces we're looking at all appear to be lithographs. Some of them, we'll maybe skip the next one, which is black and white and just go to the one after that because it's maybe a little easier to see. Oh, this was made in multiple, using multiple stones or plates of where each color is a different plate, a printing plate, so they have to be very well planned out. Now this one, it just uses, it's really hard to tell how many different colors are in here, and I'm guessing it's way fewer than you would expect probably. I'm going to guess. There's definitely, the purple feels very distinct. The red feels very distinct. The black feels very distinct, this gray. So all of the colors of the dress feel very distinct. You could possibly be based around only those colors which are making everything, although it feels like you have to have some kind of yellow in there for that floor too. So there's a lot of different levels here that was built up to make this image. So it's almost it's way crazier when you realize it's a lithograph in the work that had to go into making it. The fact that it does kind of look like a painting makes that even actually a little more impressive to me. Like, wait, how did they do this? It's really hard to figure out, Speaker 2 (23:46): These are all gentlemen here in the malish, almost all in the spectators as it were, top hats all dressed. But over there in the previous painting, it seems like men and women, there are many women in the audience, women's spectators. So I wonder if there's a difference in reputation of the clubs. What's the expectation there? Is one a more women wouldn't go in or what? So it just strikes me the difference there. Speaker 1 (24:20): Yeah, I am not 100% positive of that answer either. There's definitely something that is meant to be sexual about the CanCan that is a part of it. And so the fact that these are women dancers and it is a predominantly male audience watching them is not an accident, I don't think. But we do have a few women over here we see. But yeah, and maybe another one over here just kind of looks like a dress maybe, but it's a little hard to make out with the details. So yeah, that's probably a good observation. Maybe this club was maybe considered a little more risque than this one, and so maybe that Speaker 2 (25:02): I'm wondering about that. Yeah, Speaker 1 (25:03): Yeah. I don't know for sure, but I think those are, again, just I was sort of inferring things about the social structures of these things. I think that's what we can learn from looking at art carefully and thinking about it is like, oh yeah, you might not have noticed that when you first looked at it, but as you look at it longer, you start to go, Hey, there's not a lot of women here. Speaker 2 (25:22): Yes, exactly. That Speaker 1 (25:23): Aren't dancing and aren't dancing, dancing, Speaker 2 (25:25): Exactly Speaker 1 (25:26): What's going on. So I think that that probably does tell us something about both maybe ladies would, we're taking a certain kind of risk by going, or a certain maybe societal risk or their family would disapprove. Who knows what kind of differences. I'm sure there were double standards for men to go to a place like this then for women too. So yeah. So this one is a good one to maybe end on because it is probably by one of the biggest names in the show, Andre de Lare, who I think probably most people have heard of. And it's got this very distinct style of his that looks pretty different than anything we've just looked at too. It immediately stands out. And this is a poster advertising, a club called Speaker 2 (26:19): The di? Yes. The Speaker 1 (26:23): Sort of centerpiece is this woman with red hair who it says her name on there, Jane Ario, who is one of his models he used often. And yeah, I feel like we were talking about the printing process, and this one to me looks a little bit more obvious, like, oh, this is printed. Speaker 2 (26:47): Yes, it's kind of color blocked. Speaker 1 (26:49): Yeah, the big, it's kind of doing what printing is good at and doing it in a way that it, it's easy to see necessarily like, okay, this is where you put down the black, this is where he put down the yellow, this is where he put down the red. It's a lot easier to figure out where the things are, whereas that other lithograph is sort of layering things in a way where the colors get mixed together. So we have that red getting kind of covered up maybe by some gray, so it comes muted and it all gets a little harder to tell. Speaker 3 (27:21): I would say it makes that one even more impressive that the talent and putting together something like that. Speaker 1 (27:28): It seems like certainly to me, somebody who's really well-versed in the skill of printmaking. To me, when I look at that one, I go, oh, wow. And this one though, it is sort of distinctive more for his drawing style and those big blocky areas too. I mean, I think that's very bold and also very new at the time to be able to just say, oh, this woman is all just this big black shape and I'm going to let the audience kind of figure it out. One of my favorite parts here as I'm looking at it is the arm that kind of comes up in the front. He gives us a little bit of gray here to delineate where this arm continues, but he doesn't give us anything on the forearm to show it. And he just kind of knows that he trusts our brains to put it together because well, they've got this hand here that's going to connect and you make the shape in your mind. It's really exciting and it's also, it feels very active to me. I think it's capturing the excitement of the space in a certain kind of way. Speaker 2 (28:44): I love that the more you look at it, the more you can tell about the situation. There's an orchestra conductor, there's string instruments, there's a martini. They're sitting, seem to be sitting in a box. There's so much information that's conveyed in a very few lines. It's amazing. Speaker 1 (29:00): Yeah. Yeah, that's a great note. Even I think the first time I looked at it, I don't think I noticed this woman up here performing because she also just turns into sort of shapes. She just sort of disappears and in the way that she also just turns into one line, right? Her body blends in with the stage floor and just becomes this one line. Well, thank you so much for joining me to talk about this. Is there anything else you wanted to say? Speaker 3 (29:29): So yes, thank you so much for having us. We're really excited. As I mentioned before, it is going to be our fifth summer music festival, and that is August 3rd through the 24th. There are 12 really diverse and interesting events, including one where we're going to return to the art museum and partner with you all again. So definitely come out and be a part of it. And the announcement event on the 28th will be a lot of fun. Thanks to Becky, fabulous music, great art, come be a part of it. Speaker 2 (29:55): Thanks for having us. We're so looking forward to playing this concert on the 28th. Speaker 1 (29:59): Thank you guys. Thank you for listening to Art Palace. We hope you'll be inspired to come visit the Cincinnati Art Museum and have your own conversations about the art. General. Admission to the museum is always free, and we also offer free parking. Special exhibitions right now are Paris 1900, city of Entertainment Art Academy of Cincinnati at one 50, a celebration in drawings and prints and Georgene Lakia. Join us for a walk in Paris, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra concert inspired by Paris 1900 that we discussed in today's episode. The concert is at the Art Museum on Thursday, March 28th at 7:30 PM Purchase tickets@ccocincinnati.org. And be sure to use offer code cam five at checkout for $5 off your order. For program reservations and more information, visit cincinnati art museum.org. You can follow the museum on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and also join our Art Palace Facebook group. Our theme song is Efron Music Al by balala. And as always, please rate and review us. It always helps other people find the show. I'm Russell, and this has been Art Palace produced by the Cincinnati Art Museum.