Copious Notes

Diane Earle performs with the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra for "Kentucky Muse" on KET. Photos by Steve Shaffer | KET.

We tend to blow out the anniversaries of composers. Can anyone forget all the Mozart 250th hoo-ha a few years ago?

But what about the instrument many of those icons have composed on.

The piano, at least from this vantage point, has had a fairly quiet 300th birthday. Kentucky Wesleyan College music professor Diane Earle is celebrating, however, and KET’s Kentucky Muse takes viewers on a tour of the instrument from her perspective at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The moment Earle appears on the screen leaning in and talking about her instrument, it is obvious producer Tom Bickel came up with the perfect advocate for the piano.

By the time she says, “Since I was 6 years old and my fingers first touched the keys, I have been absolutely in love with the piano,” that’s obvious. It’s no surprise the vanity plate on her little red sports car is “KEYS 88.”

Earle’s world revolves around those keys as a teacher, performer and even in hobbies such as collecting piano memorabilia.

She says the piano is her best friend. It has been a great relationship: Earle has played in seven countries and 27 states at venues including Carnegie Hall in New York and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The Owensboro professor’s story is a nice basis for the larger story of the piano, which she appreciates for its wide range of expressive possibilities. It was originally named a pianoforte, “Italian for soft loud,” she points out, in recognition of that dynamic range.

In a quick half hour, Earle talks us through the instrument’s history in interviews and classroom sessions.

Most importantly, she plays through some of the great works for those 88 keys, sometimes accompanied by the Owensboro Symphony Orchestra. The works from W.A. Mozart to Claude Debussy to Henry Cowell remind us why the piano’s 300th should be celebrated.

Jack Parrish (right) discusses a scene with actor Walter May during rehearsals for Actors Guild of Lexington's 2004 production of Yasmina Reza's "Art." Herald-Leader file photo by David Stephenson.

Click here to sign an online guest book for Mr. Parrish.

Jack Parrish, a mostly Richmond, Va.-based actor and director who spent the last few years of his life enriching the Central Kentucky theater scene, died Thursday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 56.

Mr. Parrish was born in Richmond and got into theater while he was in high school. His theater and film career included the roles of Brad Garrick on Another World and Brian Collier on All My Children, as well as stage work in New York and regional stages around the country, reported the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

In 2004, Actors Guild of Lexington’s then-new artistic director Richard St. Peter hired Mr. Parrish to direct the first production under his watch: Yasmina Reza’s play Art.

Mr. Parrish eventually moved to Central Kentucky, where he directed the drama department at Kentucky State University in Frankfort and continued to be active in area theater.

“Watching him act was like watching a master class in the craft,” said Tim X. Davis, Mr. Parrish’s predecessor at KSU and one of the actors in that 2004 production of Art. “I was proud to have Jack take my place at Kentucky State and continue to improve upon the program we had built there. His colleagues and students from KSU, many of whom I’m still in contact with, have nothing but the most positive things to say about him and his work. His work onstage here in Lexington, brief though it was, was simply stunning.”

Mr. Parrish’s roles in Lexington included Polonius and the Gravedigger in Actors Guild’s 2007 production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He was set to take center stage as Falstaff in Actors Guild’s summer 2008 production of The Merry Wives of Windsor for Shakespeare at Equus Run but had to bow out because of his cancer treatments.

“It breaks my heart that the community never got to see his Falstaff … as it would have blown people out of their seats,” said Davis, who now directs the theater and film program at Bluegrass Community and Technical College.

Mr. Parrish eventually returned to Richmond with his wife, Kathy Ann Parrish. He was in hospice care when he died.

“I feel like I have lost a family member and one of my best friends all rolled into one,” said St. Peter, who resigned his post at Actors Guild in August. “He was an extraordinary actor, a brilliant interpreter of Shakespeare, a terrific director and a true ‘man of the theater.’”

The arrest of ­Roman ­Polanski has revived ­memories of a really gross crime and the flogging of a favorite mid-American ­target: Hollywood liberals.

You know who they are. They’re the ones who are dragging America into the toilet with their filthy entertainment and socialist politics.

Just tuning in to a few ­minutes of talk radio this week brought an offhand comment about all the ­“Hollywood libs sticking up for Roman Polanski.”

Roman Polanski. Photo by Roberto Pfeil | AP.

The comment stems from petitions signed by some noteworthy filmmakers, including Martin ­Scorsese, demanding that the ­government of Switzerland release Polanski.

Polanski was arrested there last month and is fighting extradition to the United States, where he faces sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Polanski was 43 at the time. He pleaded guilty but fled before sentencing in and has lived in France since then.

By any measure, what Polanski did was reprehensible. His victim, whom he plied with drugs and alcohol, was a girl — a seventh- or eighth-grader at best. Why anyone sticks up for him is hard for most of us to grasp.

But using the case and petitions to beat up ­Hollywood as a bunch of degenerates doesn’t square with reality, and neither does the idea that Hollywood is dragging the country into the gutter.

The thing is, facing ­reality makes the country face some uncomfortable truths about itself.

Read the rest of this entry »

George Foreman, director of the Norton Center for the Arts, shown standing in the middle of Newlin Hall in August, as the theater was undergoing a rennovation, including replacing all the seats. Photo by Rich Copley | staff.

George Foreman, the impresario who made the Norton Center for the Arts an unlikely cultural hotspot, will leave at the end of this year to become the new director of the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center.

“I’m really excited, flattered and honored,” Foreman said, when reached at his office. “They have some wonderful things going on down there and I hope to build on that.”

The University of Georgia’s president is former Centre College President Michael F. Adams.

“It is a nice set of circumstances,” Foreman said of the prospect of working for Adams again. “I welcome the opportunity to renew that association.”

Foreman said Adams did not pursue him for the position but that Adams’ presence did pique his interest in the opportunity at a time when, “I wasn’t looking for a job.”

At Georgia, Foreman will oversee a concert hall, which is often featured on the public radio program Performance Today, recital hall, fine arts theater and the university chapel.

“I always think the best thing I have done in my career I haven’t done yet,” Foreman said, “and the best thing to happen for the Norton Center hasn’t happened yet.”

If that’s the case, over the last 26 years, Foreman has given himself and his successor tough acts to follow.

Since arriving at the Norton Center in 1983, Foreman brought a who’s who of classical music and popular entertainment stars – from Mikhail Baryshnikov to Dolly Parton – to the cultural complex at Centre College, a school with around 1,200 students in Danville, a town with a population of just over 15,000. For many acts that rolled through the Norton Center’s Newlin Hall and Weisiger Theatre, Danville was the smallest town they played.

In addition to entertainers, the Norton Center hosted the Vice-presidential candidates debate between Republican Dick Cheney and Democrat Joe Lieberman in 2000.

Reflecting on his tenure, Foreman zeroed in on the March performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the March 2001 performance of Morton Feldman’s 6-hour-long Second String Quartet by The Flux Quartet as highlights.

“I remember reading about that being done in New York, and I thought, the next place that should happen is Centre College,” said Foreman, who recalled students bringing a couch from the theater’s props department and plopping it in front of the stage for the quarter day performance. Similarly, he delighted that 500 Centre students – “nearly half the student population” – saw the New York Philharmonic.

“My first few years, I got to know the woman this center was named after,” Foreman said of Jane Morton Norton, a Louisville philanthropist. “I hope I have in some way been able to realize her vision of what she wanted this place to be.”

Most recently, Foreman oversaw a $3 million renovation of the Norton Center that will debut later this week with a season-opening presentation of a touring production of Camelot.

Foreman is also the founder of the Great American Brass Band Festival, an event that draws tens-of-thousands of visitors to Danville each year, and the Chamber Music Festival of the Bluegrass, which brings members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill Memorial Day weekend.

A press release from Centre said a national search for a new director for the Norton Center will commence immediately. Milton Reigelman, who has held many posts at Centre, including acting president, will serve as acting director of the center and Debra Hoskins will be the assistant director.

Usually Mariano Rivera is the one getting saves this time of year in New York City.

But Saturday night, with an American League East Championship already sewn up for the Yankees, it was Lady Ga Ga who was pulling out a last minute victory for Saturday Night Live.

And this was a screecher.

It was like one of those saves in a bad game where Mariano gets a few on base and has us Yankee faithful nibbling our nails before he gets the final out.

Now let’s be honest: two episodes into the season, Saturday Night Live has been terrible, like the Yankees starting a season 3-22. Three may be the most laughs I uttered last week, one being when I realized Jenny Slate uttered the F-word during a skit that set her up to do it.

This week started with an op-ed piece masquerading as an opener that had Fred Armisen’s doing his effortless — and I don’t mean that in a good way — Obama impression with the President saying he has not done anything since he got in office. Then, host Ryan Reynolds wasn’t as funny as expected, we got a pointless Family Feud sketch, another lame SNL Digital Short and even Ga Ga’s first appearance was a dud.

In a bit that’s already gotten a lot of bytes, she and Madonna staged a cat fight and nearly kissed during Kenan Thompson’s (inexplicably) recurring Deep House Dish sketch. Really, why did Madonna waste her time with this bit? There should be more to an SNL skit than showing up.

And Ga Ga’s first number, Paparazzi, was pretty routine, maybe most notable because she put the show on a two-week streak of airing words you’re not supposed to say on TV.

Really, it was not until the eighth inning, when Ga Ga came back, that she brought the episode into the win column. It was a shaky start as she appeared in a dress that looked like several conjoined silver hula hoops to sing Love Game. She went through a mechanical verse, then became human. She sat down, making no pretense that this was easy with the hoops. Taking off her sun glasses and popping her hands in the air, she greeted the audience, “Hello SNL” — somewhat unheard of from musical guests on SNL – and proceeded to get all Billy Joel playing a ballad/medley of Poker Face and Bad Romance injected with some personal reflections on New York, the Yankees, and simpler music than what we’ve been hearing from her all summer.

Then, she came back for the next and last skit mocking her outrageous outfits as both she and Andy Samberg showed up in bubble dresses — “I spent $20,000 on this dress,” she said, and he replied, “I made this  out of garbage.” She also gamely attempted to kiss Samberg several times in their ridiculous outfits.

Ga Ga showed she has some chops beyond crazy fashion and naughty songs that make Madonna’s catalog sound like Amy Grant, and she had a sense of humor about herself.

Saturday Night Live showed it doesn’t have much going for itself this year without a suprisingly good guest performer. And unlike Mo Rivera with the Yankees, Ga Ga isn’t in the lineup for SNL every night.

House (Hugh Laurie, right) meets his roommate Alvie (guest star Lin-Manuel Miranda, left) when he arrives at the psychiatric hospital in the "House" season premiere episode "Broken." Photo by Mike Yarish | Fox.

First: Brilliant!

Monday night’s House season premier was well worth the nearly four months we had to wait for it.

It went in places we did not expect, it did not go in places we were afraid it might and definitely stretched Hugh Laurie and his character in a few ways that will make it harder to deny him one of those trophies they handed out Sunday night.

There were moments that felt like homages to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – including a basketball game and House leading an uprising for more privileges, ping-pong paddles instead of watching a baseball game — as House was admitted to a psychiatric hospital after his breakdown at the end of last season. You also had this fear that the script might navigate toward some predictable moments of realization, but it didn’t, though there were a few predictable twists at the end.

But one thing we did get was House finding some trust and empathy, which makes you wonder where we go from here.

House with a bedside manner almost feels like Sam and Diane hooking up on Cheers. The good doctor discovering he can trust other people seems like Agent Cooper finding out who killed Laura Palmer on Twin Peaks. This House could seem as unreal as that dream season on Dallas where J.R. was nice.

It’s a change that removes central tensions from the show that make it work.

What last night’s episode didn’t provide was real clues as to how profoundly House’s newfound humanity will play out when he gets back to his colleagues Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. This 2-hour season premier took place entirely away from the show’s regular setting and supporting cast, save for one scene well before House’s come-to-Jesus moments.

So, as interesting as it was to see House kick his Vicodin addication and come to terms with some of his demons, it will probably be even more interesting to see how far he has actually come and how that will play out in the coming season.

Click the play button to hear our chat with Kevin Skinner:

Copious Notes podcasts are available on iTunes.

When I first heard about the singing chicken catcher from Mayfield, Ky., I said, “Oh, no.”

My fears had nothing to do with cultural stereotyping, or anything like that. It was that Kevin Skinner was starting his run on America’s Got Talent hot on the heels of two spectacular reality show flameouts.

There was Susan Boyle, the frumpy Scottish woman whose first appearance on AGT’s sister show across the pond, Britain’s Got Talent, became a YouTube sensation. And then there was Adam Lambert, the enormously talented American Idol contestant whose performances put him in a class by himself.

Both looked like shoo-in’s to win their reality/competition series, and both did not.

Not to take anything away from Boyle and Lambert’s worthy competitors, but it felt from Internet chatter and general commentary that their losses were due in part to voter fatigue with them — with Boyle’s come-from-nowhere story and with Lambert’s boundless talent. In competitions like this, viewers don’t like to be told whose going to win (or who should win, in the case of Simon Cowell’s Lambert endorsement) and they can turn on frontrunners.

Skinner’s debut on America’s Got Talent (that’s the clip, above) was somewhat Boyle-esque. He came from exceedingly humble roots, had judges and the audience cackling over his accent and his accounts of chicken catching, and then blew viewers away with his rendition of Garth Brooks’ heartbreaking ballad If Tomorrow Never Comes. Right away, his clip was being singled out on morning talk shows that referred to him as an American Susan Boyle.

But fortunately for him, that didn’t happen — not that Boyle’s done bad for herself since BGT.

Now, I didn’t keep up with AGT religiously. It’s been a crazy summer. Skinner buzz sort of subsided, and there was even a moment I wondered if he was still in the running. Other acts caught the public’s attention, from opera singers to 75-year-old comedians, most of them very talented people in their own respects.

Skinner, like a humble guy from Mayfield, kept his head down and played his music, and ultimately still had the most viewer-voters on his side at the end of the competition. He avoided a trap of overexposure that had swallowed two talent show darlings earlier this year and came out a $1 million winner.

Jerry Seinfeld was the life of The Jay Leno Show's opening night party. Photo by Justin Lubin | NBC.

Almost half-way through the first episode of The Jay Leno Show, Jerry Seinfeld sat down and cracked a joke about how in the 1990s, when Seinfeld went off the air, people actually retired. But now, in the Brett Favre ’00s, people retire, take a three-day weekend and come back.

It didn’t feel quite like a compliment.

After all, though Favre had a good first game as a Minnesota Viking yesterday, he hasn’t exactly come out of retirement and won Super Bowls.

And really, the initial episode of The Jay Leno Show felt more like the product of a three-day weekend than a three-month break. At half time of Sunday Night Football, Leno joked that NBC was throwing a big Hail Mary pass with his new prime time comedy/variety/talk show that will run at 10 p.m. five-nights a week.

Even if it fails to achieve, Law & Order- or ER-like ratings, the Leno show reportedly could be a success because a whole week of the show costs less than an hour of a scripted drama.

But the debut episode felt like a pass that went through the receiver’s hands and fell to the ground. And despite all the chatter about this being different from The Tonight Show, Leno’s gig until May, the only things that seemed to differentiate The Jay Leno Show were changing the order of some Tonight Show staples and taking away Leno’s desk.

The show opened with a title sequence that looked like something out of the first few years of Saturday Night Live. Then Leno emerged on a set that looked smaller than his old Tonight Show digs — or Conan O’Brien’s new Tonight Show digs, for that matter — though it is reportedly a bigger studio.

Leno came out and delivered a mildly amusing, topical monologue which led into two taped bits. In the big spotlight piece, Hangover actor Dan Finnerty sang to a car wash customer who seemed as uncomfortable experiencing this as it was to watch it.

Seinfeld finally sparked the show to life, including a short Oprah Winfrey interview in which he asked all the questions before a faux flummoxed Leno.

The most compelling moment of the show wasn’t humor, but actually Kanye West coming out to discuss his classless hijacking of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech on Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards. Leno clearly hit a nerve with West by asking what his late mother would have thought of his behavior. Then West joined Jay-Z and Rhianna for a solid performance of Run This Town.

But Leno’s first show was far from solid — a routine Tonight Show at best. Of course, Leno’s Tonight Show is proof you can’t count the man with the anvil chin out early. He struggled early, only to dominate his time slot for most of his 17-year late night run.

But there, he was facing news and other talk shows. At 10, he’ll contend with scripted dramas and other standard network fare. And it’s first night out, The Jay Leno Show was a not ready for prime time player.

Note: 35-minutes later, on The Tonight Show, O’Brien welcomed viewers to NBC’s “night of a thousand monologues,” and proceeded to deliver a much funnier one than Leno’s, covering many of the same topics.

Some other views:

• Newark Star-Ledger’s Alan Sepinwall.
• Atlanta Constitution’s Rodney Ho.
• Ed Bark of Uncle Barky’s Bytes.
• Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times.
• Time Magazine’s James Poniewozik. (Interesting here that several commenters seem to be people who never stayed awake for the musical guests on The Tonight Show.)

Your reaction to the choice of Ellen DeGeneres as the new judge on American Idol may depend on how seriously you take American Idol judging.

It’s been hard to take the judging seriously for a long time, at least when they get to the live broadcasts.

Ellen DeGeneres. AP Photo/Matt Sayles.

Simon Cowell is there to be nasty, Paula Abdul was supposed to be sweet, and Randy, while maybe being the most substantive of the original trio, still seemed to be caught up in spinning phrases like, “those vocals were jumpin’ off, Dawg.” Huh?

New judge Kara DioGuardi took a few shots at constructive criticism this past season, but usually found herself shut down by Simon and a crowd that had little patience for it.

So, while I can see the argument that Ellen-for-Paula was trading a real recording artist for a comedian and talk show host, I cannot say I think the talent evaluation will take a substantive dive without Paula at the desk. This was not like Robert De Niro judging an acting competition or Tom Wolfe evaluating writers. Project Runway judging looks downright egg-headed next to the AI panel, which is essentially judging as entertainment.

The verdict was delivered a long time ago: Ellen is entertaining.

And she’s a music fan. When AI gets to the live rounds, it has turned the decision over to the fans anyway. So, if a fan is on the panel, and she’s entertaining, the audience wins.

If you don’t like Ellen, there’s probably no way you’ll like the decision. But debating her credentials to be a judge is taking American Idol judging too seriously.

The Jonas Brothers take the stage at Rupp Arena Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009. Photos by Jason Sankovitch.

I got a lot of sympathy yesterday.

It was all in good fun, as I posted on my Facebook page and Twitter that I was reviewing the Jonas Brothers show at Rupp Arena last night.

“Ummm…sorry?” one local musician wrote, and my sister concurred.

Another friend wrote, “Some people will do ANYTHING for a buck…..hahaha ;-}”

Oh, when it comes to doing things for a buck, I have to say this is a pretty good gig. And if you have this gig, being the critic covering the biggest concert of the summer is where you want to be, so you will never hear me complain about having to go to see the Jonas Brothers or any other act.

The Jonas Brothers fans were thrilled to see the dreamy trio on stage.

Of course, it is usually Walter Tunis covering the big Rupp concerts with a sharp critical eye and years of experience. This one happened to fall to me because I have a daughter who just passed out of the the Jonas generation, so the Disney Channel tween culture is very familiar to me. I’ve watched the Jonas Brothers grow from guests on Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus’ show and tour to a marquee act in their own right, and was even vaguely familiar with their initial foray into Christian rock.

As a critic part of your job is to step back and see and appreciate things for what they are. The Jonas Brothers are the latest teen heartthrobs, backed by the entertainment empire of Disney, and they brought a show that pulled out all of the stops. I sat next to a 43-year-old musician and dad from Louisville and our jaws were dropped a few times by what the JoBros — or, to be acurate, their technical directors and designers — put on stage. I would have liked some more spontaneity and soul. There was little room here for the surprises or improvisations I have treasured in concerts by some of my favorite artists. But no doubt, many a teen and pre-teen girl walked out of Rupp last night thinking they had seen the greatest thing ever.

And there is the point here where the critic needs to remind cynical adults that every generation has its teen idols, and some of them were even the Chairman of the Board, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Fab Four. Am I saying the Jonas Brothers are going to be the next Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley or Beatles? Hardly. The jury is still very early in deliberations on that, and in the long run, the fraternal trio will do well to be as enduring as The Monkees or Duran Duran. Time and the Jonas Brothers talent and public taste will tell the tale of how far they go. I do think they have musical and songwriting talent, and fairly winning stage presences. But the stigma of being someone’s favorite when they were 10 can be a tough thing to overcome. The daughter who familiarized me with the Jonas Brothers world has already moved on, had no interest in last night’s show, but really wants tickets to the Kings of Leon in October.

This is why any artist that makes most of his or her cash off the delirious excitement of girls who are too young to drive would be well advised to invest that money wisely, because the trip from arena stages to the where-are-they now category can be as quick as fashions change and those shoes become so five minutes ago.

And adults will always look at the flavor of the moment with some disdain. As one friend wrote, “If you can’t poke a little fun at teenage millionaires, who can you pick on…? : )”