Daily Archives: February 6, 2017

Music, we all know, can change moods. But can it change minds as well? Just how crazy is it to expect a single violin to coax us toward utopia?

That is the mission of Luigi Nonos 45-minute masterpiece, La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura: Madrigale per piu Caminantes con Gidon Kremer. The work for solo violin, eight channels of violin-irradiated electronic music and, importantly, eight to 10 music stands was given a rare and wonderfully convincing performance by Mark Menzies on Friday night at Art Share L.A. downtown.

There is a lot to unpack here. La Lontananza was written in 1989, the year before the avant-garde Italian composer died. Also dying at the time was communism, a movement to which the politically intent Nono was devoted. Nostalgic Distant Utopian Future suggests that through distance the hope of the future might be found in the past, or something like that. Nono then calls the score a madrigal for many travelers with Gidon Kremer.

Kremer was the violinist not only for whom La Lontananza was written but with whose sound the piece is infused. Nono devised the eight-channel tape, operated live during performances, from recordings he made of Kremer improvising. The actual score leaves room for a soloist to find his or her own solutions, which means that each new violinist who takes on La Lontananza offers a new utopian vision applied to what went before in Kremers.

The music stands are spread around the performance space, and the violinist moves from one to the next. Six of the stands hold the music for the six sections of the work. The additional two to four have dummy scores. The performers journey is not linear. Menzies lingered between sections. He zigzagged around the space, sometimes stopping at the dummy stands before reaching his destination. No one said Utopia is just around the corner.

The music itself is like an anatomical, physiological and spiritual examination of the violin: what the instrument can do and what it can do to a listener. An imaginative virtuoso is required. The dynamic range is from what is only audible to a dog to the loudest sounds the instrument can humanly make. Everything Nono could think of doing to a violin with a bow, he has the violinist do.

The result is complex and ever changing. There can be the effect of a sweet singing voice and the effect of horror. Pitches that are familiar contend with microtones that are not. The violin is caressed and attacked with every inch of the bow.Parts of the score are skittish. The second section ended with crunching effects.

For the third, Menzies stood directly behind me, playing ghostly calm drones of sustained harmonics that felt as they entered the mind as vibrations bypassing earand auditory nerve. The room itself was suffused by waves of wondrous violin effects on the surround-sound loudspeakers. Rather than rely on the banality of virtual reality, Menzies and Nono produced virtualunreality, the feeling of levitation.

What is past and what is future, what is utopian and what is dystopian in this political theater of the violin and of the mind? Nono doesnt provide the answers. He shows us not where to go but how to go. Instead of being a destination, utopia is a process of opening up to experiencing the unfamiliar.

As to whether music can change minds, it can. John Cage happened to be at the London premiere of La Lontananza in 1990. Three decades earlier he had had a falling out with Nono, but Cage (who famously disavowed music as emotional expression) said after the London concert, I no longer hold a grudge against Luigi.

After 17 years on the faculty of CalArts and a mainstay in the L.A. new music scene, Menzies has returned to his native New Zealand. But he is back in town celebrating his 47th birthday with the ambitious series four in the time of seven, four solo violin and viola recitals of new and old music in seven days.

He had played La Lontananza here in 2003 at a Southwest Chamber Music concert. This time it was in collaboration with the new music collective wasteLAnd, and Menzies had the advantage of a room ideally reverberant and flexible. The executive director of wasteLAnd, composer Scott Worthington, handledthe electronics with alluring flair.

The program began with two short pieces. Ching-Wen Chaos robustly enigmatic violin solo Elegy in Flight, evoking the Buddhist recitation for the dead, and the premiere of a winningly lyrical viola solo, Elegy, written for Menzies by Erik Ulman.

Menzies seven-day odyssey takes him to REDCAT Monday for a mixed program of New Zealand, European and American solo pieces and to Monk Space in Koreatown on Tuesday for three of Bachs solo sonatas and partitas, an early example of the violins penchant for utopian thought.

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Mark Menzies

When: 8:30 p.m.Monday atREDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., L.A. Also at 7 p.m.Tuesday at Monk Space, 4414 W. 2nd St., L.A.

Tickets: $10-$20

Info: (213) 237-2800 or http://www.redcat.org; (213) 925-8562 or http://www.monkspace.com

mark.swed@latimes.com

Read the original here:

With violin in hand, Mark Menzies finds hope for the future in the past - Los Angeles Times

Jon Baker TimesReporter.com staff writer @jbakerTRStaff Reporter

NEW PHILADELPHIA The start of construction of the 215-mile Utopia Pipeline through Tuscarawas, Harrison and Carroll counties will bring more than 300 temporary jobs to the New Philadelphia area.

Kinder Morgan, the company spearheading the project, and its contractor, Minnesota Ltd., will begin Wednesday with the process of removing trees from the pipeline right-of-way.

While work is being done, Minnesota Ltd. will operate a contractor yard in New Philadelphia on 16th Street SW, between the Eagle Truck Stop and the Tuscarawas County Job & Family Services building. It will be located behind Cardinal Fleet Service.

"This is going to be a big project for Ohio," said Allen Fore, vice president of public affairs for Kinder Morgan. "New Philadelphia has a particular significance to the project because we're also going to be locating one of our contractor yards here. Minnesota Ltd. is our contractor for the project. It's a union contractor. It's going to be utilizing union labor, so a lot of local workforce will be part of this.

"We anticipate, once we get up and running, we'll have over 300 workers working out of that construction yard for several months."

He predicted that those workers who come from outside the area will be patronizing local restaurants and hotels and purchasing items at local stores.

"These folks work very hard, but they're also paid well, and they're going to be living in the area temporarily or already residents here, so a it will be a good boon to the economy over the next several months," he said.

Kinder Morgan and Minnesota Ltd. employees gathered Tuesday at the Schoenbrunn Inn and Conference Center for an orientation session, where they were greeted by New Philadelphia Mayor Joel Day.

"I encouraged them to explore New Philadelphia, to come downtown and go to the east side, take in the restaurants and the Performing Arts Center," the mayor said following the meeting. "I asked them to explore New Philadelphia and told them I'm sure you'll be pleased with what you discover."

Day said the contractor yard will mean a boost in revenue for the city through income tax collections and the bed tax. "It gives us more revenue to do things for the city, and it exposes New Philadelphia to more people, which is a good thing. Some of them might move here."

He said he didn't know the exact amount of revenue the project would bring in. "We won't know until they start working and paying. They are well-paid workers, so it'll give us a nice bump."

The Utopia Pipeline will carry ethane gas from the MarkWest processing facility in Cadiz to an existing Kinder Morgan pipeline in northwest Ohio. From there, the ethane will be taken to the Nova Chemicals plant in Windsor, Ontario, where it will be turned into plastics.

Fore expects construction on the pipeline to begin in April or May and it will go into service on Jan. 1, 2018.

The company has already secured 90 percent of the right-of-way from properties owners that is needed for construction, and Fore said the company will reach 100 percent in the next couple of months. Kinder Morgan will have a 50-foot right-of-way for the pipeline and a 50-foot temporary right-of-way for construction.

Fore said Kinder Morgan works closely with property owners, sometimes making adjustments to the route to accommodate their wishes. The company also works with counties and townships on road use agreements and on how to repair roads after the work is done.

"This is a partnership that could potentially last generations," he said. "These pipelines are going to be in service for a very long time, so starting off correctly is in the best interest of the company because these landowner relationships, these relationships with elected officials are going to last a long time."

The pipeline will be buried a minimum of 3 feet underground. It will go to depths of 8 to 10 feet under roads and 30 feet when going under waterways, such as the Tuscarawas River.

Fore said maintenance of the pipeline will be a top priority after it is completed.

"Our pipelines are built to last a very long time," he said. "The reason that they do is because, first of all, you get good quality pipe. This is American-made pipe, good quality pipe. You test it. You make sure it's built to last.

"We also then coat the pipe with an epoxy that avoids corrosion, because if something is going to happen to a pipe, it will be corrosion or an external impact. We also use a highly-trained workforce to build it, to put it together, to weld it. And then we monitor it."

The pipeline will be viewed regularly from the air and the ground. In addition, Kinder Morgan has an internal inspection tool, called a pig, that is able to go through the line periodically to determine if something is not right.

"So there are lots of protections built into these systems that make sure that these things are built to operate safely and are built to last," Fore said.

See more here:

Utopia Pipeline project to bring 300 temporary jobs to New Philadelphia - New Philadelphia Times Reporter

The first teaser trailer for a new Stellaris expansion debuted on Thursday, confirming a new wave of content will soon be headed to the beloved 4X title, but there sure isnt much hard information in the Stellaris: Utopia trailer that Paradox Interactive published this week.

According to Paradox, Utopia offers the most significant changes to Stellaris core gameplay since the game was released in May 2016. In fact, the publisher calls it the games first major expansion and has already outlined much grander changes than weve seen in previous Stellaris add-ons, like the Leviathans story DLC or the Plantoids species pack. The biggest change (both literally and figuratively) will be the players newfound ability to assemble truly enormous space stations, called megastructures, including Dyson spheres and ring worlds.

The next Stellaris expansion also introduces a new set of perks, called Traditions, that Paradox says will ease your species expansion across the stars. Traditions will be enabled/adopted through the use of Unity points; however, we dont currently have any information on how that particularly currency will be collected. Players will also be given more microscopic control over how the rights and policies of their empire are applied across its populace.

For a sneak peek at Stellaris upcoming Utopia DLC, take a minute to watch the first teaser from Paradox Interactive. Head down to the comments and let us know if youre still playing Stellaris with any regularity and/or what youd like to see in Utopia.

Stellaris is currently available on PC, Mac and Linux. The games next expansion, Utopia, does not yet have a release date.

Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes and follow Scott on Twitter for more Stellaris news throughout 2017 and however long Paradox Interactive supports Stellaris in the years ahead.

Read more:

'Stellaris' Utopia DLC Gets First Trailer; Will Introduce New Buildings And Perks - iDigitalTimes.com

Between plantoids, Leviathans, and Alexis Kennedy-inspired Horizon Signals, Stellaris' post-launch updates have grown the space-flung 4x-meets-grand strategy game quite considerably since its May release last year. It's now announced its first major update, Utopia, which encourages players to develop their interstellar empires further still.

With a choice of following a biological path, a psionic path, or a synthetic path"with various options within these broad categories"players will determine how their species evolves and advances by way of 'Ascension Perks'. "Body, Mind or Machinehow will your species challenge the future," asks developer Paradox.

Building new types of space stations and constructions will further aid your domination of the universe, such as Habitat Stations which house larger populations for smaller planets within your increasingly confined empires. New Rights and Privileges keep your populace in check and allow players to choose "an egalitarian paradise or a caste system" and everything in between.

Perhaps the most exciting feature of Utopia, though, is the addition of megastructureswhereby players can build "wondrous" constructs such as Dyson Spheres and ringworlds, both of which add near-impenetrable levels of defence to your worlds.

More information on Stellaris: Utopia can be found this way, including details on the game's free Update 1.5 Banks which ships alongside the new expansion. Utopia is without a concrete launch date and price, however Paradox says both will be revealed at a "later date".

Continue reading here:

Stellaris: Utopia expansion lets you craft megastructural ringworlds - PC Gamer