<\/a>Canadian sax\/flute player Jane Bunnett leads a procession of students through the State Office Building during a lunchtime concert Friday. (Courtesy Photo)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Beyond just another manic Monday<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The official festival schedule began, appropriately enough for Alaska’s capital city, in the State Office Building with a free noontime Brown Bag lunch concert for a crowd of more than 100 composed of a scattering of bureaucrats and a lot of young students.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The concert began in the same manner as official government meetings – and subsequently many other local events – have with an acknowledgment of being on Tlingit land, and how “for more than 10,000 years Alaska Native people have been and continue to be integral to the well-being of our community.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
With that U.S. Pacific Fleet’s Big Wave Brass Band, one of two visiting military ensembles, quickly journeyed to the modern era by whetting the youths’ musical appetites with a few rock\/fusion takes on current radio songs. When they did return to the works some stereotype with a military troupe, band leader Chris Jerome explained they were “proudly bringing a bit of funk” to George Gershwin’s 1934 standard “Summertime” as an anticipatory tribute to the wildly and rapidly changing weather they would experience during the week.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“In Juneau it doesn’t get jazzier than this,” he said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
That musical transformation and the opening acknowledgement expressing thanks in Lingít weren’t the only translations during the show. Janet Olmstead, a longtime resident involved with missionary and education work, interpreted the spoken narratives and the multitude of instruments in sign language for a deaf student from Riverbend Elementary School (which in another trend honoring ancestral traditions taking place at local schools, may soon be renamed Kaxdigoowú Héen Elementary School).<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“She can feel the music on the floor,” Olmstead said, referring to the girl a short distance away.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
An entirely different experience in adapting to natural cultural elements awaited those venturing 20 miles north of downtown to the National Shrine of St. Therese overlooking Lynn Canal — where Olmstead was formerly a caretaker — for two scheduled performances by the The Arianna Quartet.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Did you see the bears coming down here?” a passerby asked listeners walking down from the parking lot toward the 1930s stone chapel. In case they were newcomers, there was also the useful advice “when you see a bunch of cars by the side of the road that’s usually an indicator.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Another surprise awaited inside the chapel, which Bailey found out about at 6:30 a.m., since two members of the quartet were stranded in Seattle due to airline snafus. As such, he opened the first performance alone on stage for what was a hastily rearranged collection of compositions performed with the two musicians who did arrive.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
<\/a>Zuill Bailey performs a pop-up cello concert near the food carts at the intersection of Franklin and Front streets last Wednesday afternoon.<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
“I wanted to bless this place before we started,” Bailey said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
His solo was a piece by Bach, whom he said plays as part of his practice every day, although it was a new experience on this evening since “I’ve never heard the sound of this beautiful place.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“When programming these concerts I really enjoy adding the aspects of something most of you didn’t know, including myself,” he quipped.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The rest of the set became a trio as John McGrosso on violin and Joanna Mendoza on viola took to the stage, while Baldwin’s cello and Julia Sakharova’s violin would need to wait for another day.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“They’re going to be amazed by the scenery here,” Mendoza said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
To keep the changes coming, McGrosso opened the evening’s second performance alone on stage, also expressing a fondness for Bach and how the master fit both into the multi-mood setting and dual classical\/jazz theme of the festival. <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“It’s not exactly jazz, but it is a kind of improvisation,” McGrosso said about his solo opening. “It’s very much like something Bach would make up as he was sitting at the organ.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The same mixture of music and moods continued with a violin sonata by Beethoven, who McGrosso described as “a mountain unto himself” powerful grandeur, playfulness and scope.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“It’s hard to believe he hasn’t been here,” McGrosso said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
School’s in — and out<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The quartet, now in full, continued its lessons at the elementary and graduate levels beginning the following day.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
During the lunchtime performance for an audience again consisting mostly of elementary school students, Baldwin explained how the late Classical-era master Franz Schubert’s compositions are much like Juneau.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“It’s a little bit dark, it’s a little bit brooding, it’s a little bit intense, but it also gives you hope the sun might come out tomorrow,” Baldwin said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
There was also a math lesson, including how many strings in total are on quartet of four-string instruments (18 was the first guess), along with a bit of non-sex-ed human function to describe how the quartet performs as one. <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“It’s a little like a body in that you have bones, you have muscles, you have skin and you have personality, and all these things work together,” Baldwin said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
For many of the youths it was also a literal lesson in the art of music. One class, after devouring their lunches, spent the performance drawing their visual interpretations of what they were hearing, resulting in pictures of everything from offbeat-color musicians to a rainbow of nature scenes.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The audience was sparser, but more appreciative on a mature level, during the quartet’s “Art of Ensemble” workshop that evening at The University of Alaska Southeast. A festival organizer, sharing impressions and photos on the event’s Facebook page describe it as “the perfect place to share…with budding ensembles and even aspiring solo musicians. Their skills are amazing, but their wisdom and heart to impart invaluable lessons was truly special.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The workshops and educational performances ranged well beyond the quartet and local public schools. All of the festival’s artists spent considerable time at locations including the Juneau Pioneer Home, Bridge Adult Day Program, Johnson Youth Center and Juneau Youth Services’ residential facility.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The lessons for performers and audience alike were as varied as the venues and musical genres. At the Youth Services facility the U.S. Pacific Fleet Big Wave Brass Band got initially bashful youths in a dancing mood with horn-heavy renditions of Disney and other tunes, while Bailey during a visit to the Auke Bay Elementary School library delivered a lesson in “the power of sound” of an opposite sort.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“For the sake of experimentation, can you not move?” he asked.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The students gave an initial try, but some shifting and sniffling was still audible. Bailey cited it and again asked them to strive for absolute silence as he launched into four minutes of Bach’s famous “Suite No. 1 for Cello.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The silence was imperfect after the first minute, but Bailey gave them high grades nonetheless.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a better audience than what you just did,” he said. “I was able to play really well because I was in my own vein and didn’t have to think about what was going on over there.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
A perhaps more relatable lesson came when Bailey explained the special all-black cello he brought to this performance — in contrast to the 1693 cello he played at the shrine and other more delicate venues – is made of carbon fiber.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“If you go to a sports car, a Ferrari or Corvette, or even Batman’s car that’s what is made of,” he said. “It’s very hard, very strong.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
That makes it an ideal musical match for the nature of Juneau, Bailey told the students.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Later this afternoon when I’ll be playing downtown for people walking around I don’t have to worry about it raining,” he said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
All the whirled a stage<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t