THE ELEGANT SAVAGES ORCHESTRA IN CONCERT: "THE 1942 ANTI-FASCIST CASABLANCA BAND”
TTU Celtic Ensemble / The Elegant Savages Orchestra
Wednesday April 26 | 8PM | Hemmle Recital Hall | FREE & open to the public!
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About this Program
Dances, listening tunes, and songs from England, France, Ireland, Eastern Europe, and Bassanda, with original choreographies and social dances, and tales of love & work. Tonight, we particularly emphasize the diverse talents of the ESO’s membership, with a wide range of chamber songs and instrumentals. This is a program about courage.
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About the Music
The Elegant Savages Orchestra is a “folk chamber orchestra” of winds, brass, strings, percussion, folkloric instruments, voices, and dancers, focusing upon the dance music and song of northern and western Europe and of the mysterious country of Bassanda.
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About Bassanda and the Elegant Savages Orchestra
Major inspiration for the Elegant Savages Orchestra, the “big band” version of the TTU Celtic Ensemble, comes from the fictional country of “Bassanda”; a creation of Taos-based musicians and VMC partners Chipper Thompson (chipperthompson.com) and Roger Landes (rogerlandes.com). We imagined the fictional “Elegant Savages Orchestra”; in which, as part of an “alternate-history” frame, it’s alleged that a Soviet satellite’s official state folkloric ensemble (the “Bassanda National Radio Orchestra”) mutates, after the fall of Communism, into a free-lance ensemble engaged in a Never-Ending Tour. The BNRO/ESO has thus been heard in many permutations, including “The Classic 1952 Band”; “The 1962 ‘Beatnik’ Band”; “The 1965 Newport Folk Festival Band”; “The 1885 Victorian “Steampunk” Band”; the Post-Apocalyptic ‘Desert Pirates’ Band”; “The 1912 New Orleans Creole “Voodoo” Band”; the “1928 ‘Carnivale Incognito’ Band”; the 1934 “Intergalactic Pandemic Popular Front Band”; and “The 1936 International Brigade Libertarias Band.” Now: “The 1942 ‘Casablanca’ Band”:
In 1937, as fascist forces tightened their sieges at Bilbao and Madrid, both Spanish Republicans and their allies in the International Brigades fought desperately to delay the inevitable defeat. Members of the BNRO had served in combat, but in the Civil War’s chaotic aftermath, escaped to Paris or to New York, and to Tangier, Martinique, and Los Angeles. In the same period, the young American playwright Murray Burnett, having witnessed Nazism first-hand in Vienna, hacked-out a play featuring a mysterious American club owner called Rick, and the woman who he loves. By 1941 Jack Warner had snapped up an option on the story, and, through a lengthy, unpredictable combination of rewrites, headlines, the studio system, and pure chance, the studio pulled together a production, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, slated to commence filming in the new year.
And then came the December 7 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: “A day that will live in infamy.” American Isolationists were shunted aside, and the nation readied for war. Casablanca was suddenly timely, despite its unfinished script. Among the cast were numerous real-life refugees and anti-fascists, including villain Conrad Veidt and hero Paul Henreid, as well as Marcel Dalio, Peter Lorre, S.Z. Sakall, Leonid Kinskey, and Madeline Lebeau, who had escaped with Dalio just a few months before, and who bursts into real tears at the singing of “Le Marseillaise.” When production began in May 1942, there were, likewise, Bassandans among the crew—and in even more shadowy, even more crucial anti-fascist roles, which linked the film’s fictions and its participants’ real-life experiences, in a world torn by war.
Viva la democracie.
Websites:
- http://ttucelticensemble.com
- http://elegantsavagesorchestra.com
- https://www.facebook.com/elegantsavagesorchestra/
- http://vernacularmusiccenter.org
- https://www.instagram.com/vernacularmusiccenter/
- https://twitter.com/MusicVernacular
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPF44Ca2LY11FBz2xszI0vQ
- http://www.depts.ttu.edu/music/
- https://www.instagram.com/ttuschoolofmusic/
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Can I participate?
Yes! If you are interested in participating in one of the VMC ensembles or partners (Celtic Ensemble, Early Music Ensemble, Balkan Ensemble, Elegant Savages, and/or Balfolk Lubbock, feel free to contact their respective directors (see vernacularmusiccenter.com/ensembles.html). Auditions typically occur in the first weeks of each academic semester.
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The Vernacular Music Center at the TTU School of Music
The mission of the Vernacular Music Center is to provide a center for in-depth and comparative research, study, teaching and advocacy on behalf of the world's vernacular musics and dance—their construction, history, and role in defining cultural life in human communities—in all cultures and historical periods. The VMC is dedicated to the study of the process by which music is taught and passed on within a community, as well as assisting in the ongoing cultivation of arts on the South Plains. The VMC partners with its 501c3 partner, the Roots Music Institute (rootsmusicinstitute.com)
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Become a Friend of the VMC!
Visit us at vernacularmusiccenter.org for more information!
Donations: http://www.give2Tech.com/, search “Celtic Ensemble VMC Gifts”