We concluded our run of the Barber of Bridgetown at the Scottish Rite on July 25th and closed out a successful weekend.  Our first fully-staged production went wonderfully and was well received by audiences and media.  Thank you to everyone who contributed towards making the Barber of Bridgetown a success!  The full list of Thank Yous from the program is in the below post.  This show couldn’t have happened without all of your help.

A special BIG thank you and apology is due to our Vocal Coach: Judith Montgomery, whom we absent-mindlessly omitted from the program!  Judith helped this cast of singers find ways to maintain good vocal technique while exploring the concept of adding a bit more “rock” to the voice.  Thank you for your guidance Judith, and our deepest apologies for the omission!

Below are some wonderful pictures of the show taken by Director Emily Zahniser Sinclair:

Watch out for EOC this coming school year as we take our educational show to local schools, and in the community with more concerts this fall and winter.  There’s always something new and exciting around the corner for EOC, so keep it here over the next few months to see what classical masterpieces we’ll be tackling next!

It’s June 10th already??? My goodness where does the time go?  I guess when you’re knee deep in the production of your first professional opera, time can tend to slip away from you!

That’s precisely where we are now: knee-deep in Barber of Bridgetown.  Both the cast and orchestra have been in rehearsal for close to a month, but the production crew has been hard at work since February. We’re starting to see the show develop as a whole and it’s really something exciting.  This show is going to be a lot of fun and guaranteed to be like nothing you’ve ever seen before.  Tickets go on sale this weekend, and with only three shows, it will be important to snap up your seats early!

In other news, EOC had a wonderful trip up to Seattle in which we played two wonderful educational performances at Nisqually Middle School, and Einstein Elementary.  The trip culminated with a spot at the Commons in the shadow of the Space Needle at the NW Folklife festival.  Thanks to everyone who supported us on the trip!  And especially those of you who withstood the rain at Folklife!! Here’s a few pics from the Folklife Festival.

Must be Mozart, nothing else makes your face do that

What a cool place to play!

Last December, the Oregonian ran a wonderful article on our group by David Stabler.  In response to the question “Why Classical?”, I was accurately quoted as saying “”I think [classical music is] better music than rock music.  The notes, rests, harmony and dynamics are better. There’s a reason Mozart is still popular.”

Ever since the article was released, this quote has haunted me because it makes it seem like I don’t value rock as good music.  Which could not be farther from the truth!  If only I could have phrased this sentiment more accurately.  Well, now I’m gonna try and straighten things out!

First off – This was a blanket statement and of course there are going to be exceptions.  There will be bands like Pink Floyd who use dynamics incredibly well in their music or groups like the Beatles who use surprisingly exotic chords (mostly 7′s) to spice up their tunes.  I believe I was trying to make a more general statement about the state of rock n’ roll.  Pop-Rock has gotten to a point where the commercialism of it has eclipsed the actual quality of music.  And moreover, the accepted formula for a popular rock song is absolutely done to death in this day and age!  Sadly, what has gotten lost amidst this never-changing soundscape is some of the best music our species has ever written! This is the real answer to “Why Classical”:  Because it’s not represented well enough in modern popular culture!

Rock bands are everywhere, and there’s a reason they’re so popular:  People like how they sound!  A simple glance at the music scene of any town USA will show you how many people are going to the symphony every night, and how many are going to a bar to rock out.  Classical audiences are dwindling globally.  It’s a huge problem facing every opera and philharmonic around the world.  A large part of this problem is that older generations are typically the patrons of classical arts.  In order to survive over the long term, a performing group needs to reach out to younger and younger fans to ensure that their audience base will be large in the future.  Electric Opera Company is trying to bridge this gap.  We want to bring the wonderful quality and joy of classical music to generations that aren’t getting exposed to it!  How do we do it?  We bring it into the bar and let them rock out to it!!!

There are a lot of truly great pop/rock songs.  I could name a huge list, but I’m sure you can do that yourself!  But for every truly great rock song you can think of, I’m sure you can think of about 20 that you’d rather never hear again.  The beauty of the classical repertoire is that those 20 have been weeded out by time.  The classical repertoire that has survived in the 21st century is all Killer, no Filler! (to quote a Sum 41 album title…except it’s actually true about the classical repertoire, unlike Sum 41′s offering).

I love Metallica.  I love Zeppelin.  Hell, I love Journey.  There’s a reason about half of my wardrobe consists of rock band t-shirts!  Despite my immense love for each of these bands (and the fact that I know most of their songs on the guitar), I still champion the point that Mozart’s compositions sit on a higher plane of musical existence.  You would have to combine songs from all of those bands to equal the amount of musical quality in just one movement of a Mozart string quartet.

For an example, let’s look at one of Mozart’s most famous pieces and one of EOC’s staple songs:  The Allegro first movement of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A little bit of Night Music).  In only the first 15 seconds of music we can see some of the breadth of Mozart’s compositional toolkit.  The apparently simple opening line of a rising and falling arpeggio leaves us in a bit of ambiguity.  If you pause the music right after the initial arpeggios, you could make a case for the song being in D major, a minor, or C Major.  However Mozart then takes off in the home key of G, thundering away with that familiar melody that I remember from my days watching Nickelodeon as a child.  The tone is fast and aggressive, matching the Allegro moniker given to the movement.  Mozart employs subtle counterpoint to the melody in the Viola (bars 6 and 8 ) and Violin 2 (bars 9 and 10).  All throughout, painstakingly notated staccato marks, rests, and dynamic markings indicate phrasing to ensure a spectacularly unified orchestra.  Before we know it, bar 11 takes us to a new place all together!  This second subject establishes a second theme for us to listen for later in the piece.  But unlike the standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus of modern pop/rock, Mozart will bring these themes back using the standard tenants of the Sonata form – by modulating through all sorts of crazy keys and presenting each of these themes in new and surprising lights.  Indeed Mozart eventually changes keys upwards of 10 times throughout just this first movement of the piece.  Not to mention the countless tempo changes, allargandos, rubatos, crescendos and diminuendos throughout.

It’s this kind of academic depth that has rightfully placed Mozart on a pedestal.  This doesn’t mean we couldn’t do something similar with Stairway to Heaven, but I would argue that we could go much much much more in depth on any piece of Mozart’s…except maybe the first symphony he wrote (when he was 8).

So there it is in super long-winded form:  I love rock music.  I might love classical music more.  But boy do I love the result when you smash their heads together!

Bobby Ray

PS – I’d love to discuss this and related topics further!  Feel free to leave comments below or to slip us an email on the Contact Us page!