New Week, Good Concert

Skirt: Target...Tee: UO...Belt: Target...Scarf: Liberty of London via Buffalo Exchange...Shoes: Calvin Klein via Buffalo Exchange...Bag: D&B via Buffalo Exchange...Shades: Coach via TJ Maxx

A recipe for easy ohmygoshwhyisitstillhot dressing? Or just lazy? Don't know, don't care. After last week, I'm pretty sure brain-rot and lazy are my reasons. Aaaand, like I mentioned yesterday, Marion is hosting a Trend of the Month Challenge with Animal Print... so started the week off with easy leopard flats, today I move up to stylized leopard kitten heels. Tomorrow, we're going for the gold, and I have some plans to continue the trend for the rest of the week... Will you join me, just for fun?

Last night, we went to a University of Houston Percussion Ensamble special concert to pay homage to John Cage. If you're a New Music geek of any sort, you probably know what an impact Cage made on the music community. His best known piece 4'33"is a work that highlights the ambient sounds in a performance space as the musical element for three sections of time that equal 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Sound is music. Music is in everything. Combinations of sounds can come about by chance mechanisms. A percussion piece doesn't necessarily need to be played solely on traditional percussion instruments. Our dear friend, who is a musicology professor at the school, played several small prepared piano pieces on the concert (this means an extraordinary collection of items are inserted into the piano body to alter the sound, like bolts, rubber balls, pint glasses... piano and percussion all in one.

But, here's the highlight: Isabel Ganz, who knew Cage well, sang his amazingly lighthearted Aria. It is written out with basic voice inflections drawn out and color-coded to coordinate with an effect or voice style. She bounced around the stage, sang her heart out, did a cartwheel during the improv sections.... and she's over 70. Amazing woman, brilliant and fascinating. And she is an absolute legend. I can't believe I got to see her perform, what an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime treat that was.

Sorry to geek out on you all, but I think this stuff is fascinating. And I'm SO glad my guy is done with 18th century opera studying... You can't get much further from "classical music" and dive into a breath of fresh air than you can with Cage.