Today’s question is from Joseph in Phoenix, Arizona. He writes, “I was watching a handbell choir on television and I was wondering how they split up the melody.”

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I had to start this one with a little handbell music.

First, let me mention that handbells weren’t originally meant to play tunes. They came about in connection with European bell towers. The ringers sounded those bells by pulling on ropes and creating patterns of notes rather than melodies. It’s called “change ringing.”

It seems that handbells were developed so ringers could practice their patterns away from the bell tower. Eventually, the handbells became a medium for melodies and special arrangements.

In a handbell ensemble, each ringer has anywhere from two to six bells and the music is simply divided among all the ringers, which means they better all be there for the rehearsals and performances.

Handbells came to America from England in the nineteenth century. And it may have been thanks to P.T. Barnum, who engaged a group of English ringers for an American tour, provided that they grow mustaches, wear colorful clothing and allow themselves to be billed as “Swiss bell ringers.”

Here’s a more intricate handbell arrangement:

That’s today’s Chapman Challenge. Is there a question you’d like to have answered in 60 seconds? Send it to us at challenge@kusc.org.

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Today’s question is from Angela in Westminster who wants to know “What makes a Christmas concerto a Christmas concerto?”

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Well, thank you for an interesting and seasonally appropriate question.

A Christmas concerto is a special type of concerto grosso, the “grand concerto” of the Baroque period. A concerto grosso combines a small group of soloists with a larger accompanying orchestra. These groups can play individually or together.

The essential ingredient of a Christmas concerto is a Pastorale, a gentle pastoral movement that represents the shepherds who kept watch over their flocks.

This is the Pastorale from Francesco Manfredini’s Christmas Concerto.

And here’s the Pastorale from what is probably the most famous Christmas Concerto, the one by Arcangelo Corelli.

And that’s what makes a Christmas Concerto a Christmas Concerto.

That’s today’s Chapman Challenge. Is there a question you’d like to have answered in 60 seconds? Send it to us at challenge@kusc.org

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There are things that are certain in life. Taxes are due April 15. Going to the DMV is never a good time. And at Christmas, you will always hear “Jingle Bells”. The first Christmas song you learned to sing in school. Sung by carolers (and cats) worldwide. Favorite holiday tune of the Joker – because he gets away. You know it as well as Happy Birthday – perhaps better. But how much do you know about “Jingle Bells?”

Legend says that the song made its debut in 1850 in Medford, Massachusetts, composed by James Lord Pierpont. Pierpont was a native of the town and wanted to write something to commemorate the town’s annual sleigh races around Thanksgiving. Historians have cast some doubt on that date since it’s recorded that Pierpont had relocated to Savannah, Georgia by that time. Nevertheless, there’s a plaque in the Medford town square saluting Pierpont’s songwriting achievement.

He published the song in 1857 under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh.” It had three verses in addition to the one we typically sing today and details a young couple who go riding and tip their sleigh in a snowdrift. As its popularity increased, the song became simply known as “Jingle Bells,” referring to the jolly refrain.

It was first recorded in 1889 on an Edison cylinder. While that recording no longer exists, the second one from 1898 can still be found online.

Since then, artists such as Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, Benny Goodman, (and more recently Gwen Stefani and Lauren Daigle) have all put their signature spins on the ubiquitous tune. In 1965, “Jingle Bells” became the first song broadcast from space when the astronauts aboard Gemini 6 decided to play a prank on Mission Control and performed the song on a harmonica and actual jingle bells they had smuggled on board.

It’s a song with a colorful and storied past. So the next time the carolers come to your door, there’s no need to roll your eyes when they burst out into “Jingle Bells.” In fact, ask them for a second verse.

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Today’s question is in honor of Halloween. And the question is what is the spookiest instrument?

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I think a very good candidate would be an electronic instrument invented in the 1920s by a Russian named Leon Theremin, who named the instrument after himself. This is what a theremin sounds like:

That’s not spooky but listen to this: Bernard Herrmann using two theremins to create an unearthly sound in the 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Now, if by “spooky” you mean “scary,” I’ll go to Bernard Herrmann again. He showed us that you can make violins sound scary if you know what to with them, as he does in a famous scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Happy Halloween!

That’s today’s Chapman Challenge. Is there a question you’d like to have answered in 60 seconds? Send it to us at challenge@kusc.org.

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Austrian composer Alban Berg (1885 – 1935) has a relatively small oeuvre, writing only a dozen or so major compositions in his life. However, each piece captures an entire world of emotion and structure and has a fascinating backstory, including one piece that has a secret love affair embedded in the music.

Berg’s Lyric Suite is a highly expressive string quartet that was written in 1926. It wasn’t until 50 years later, that musicologists discovered that the piece actually contained a secret dedication and a hidden narrative of Berg’s love affair with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin. I spoke to with musicologist Charlotte Erwin

This secret narrative begins with the suggestive movement titles: amoroso (lovingly), appassionato (passionately), estatico (ecstatic), and delirando (delirious). The music then has covert, and not so covert, musical references to the love affair including the composer using his initials (‘AB,’ the German notation for A and B-flat) and Hanna Fuchs-Robettin’s initials (‘HF,’ the German notation for the notes B and F) into the piece. Berg also quotes the famous “Tristan chord” from Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, an opera about the tragic the adulterous love of Tristan, the nobleman, and Isolde, the Irish princess.

As a final hidden message, Berg uses numerology as a secret code in the piece too. He uses the number 23 to represent himself and assigns Hanna Fuchs-Robettin the number 10. Berg then structured sections of the string quartet in increments and divisions of these two numbers.

Alban Berg by Charlotte Erwin and Bryan R. Simms was recently released as part of Oxford University Press’s Master and Musicians Series.

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Today’s question is from Laura in Costa Mesa. She writes, “It’s the big season for Handel’s Messiah. What can you tell me about Handel’s oratorios in sixty seconds?”

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When Handel got to England, he wrote a work based on the biblical story of Esther. It was different from the Italian oratorios because it included choruses. And this work, from 1718, would be the first English oratorio.

By the 1730s, Handel’s oratorios had become quite profitable and that was very fortunate for him. The vogue for Italian operas in London had diminished and throughout the decade Handel used his oratorio income to subsidize his opera losses.

Finally, in 1741, Handel decided to call it quits as far as Italian opera was concerned. And it was in the summer of that same year that Handel was presented with a new libretto for an oratorio called Messiah.

That’s today’s Chapman Challenge. Is there a question you’d like to have answered in 60 seconds? Send it to us at challenge@kusc.org.

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Audiences are going to have to wait a little longer to see the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra stage a Mexican wrestling match.

The piece, Lucha Libre!, is the work of Juan Pablo Contreras, a native of Mexico now living in Los Angeles, who is LACO’s Sound Investment composer for the current orchestral season. The piece was to have been unveiled March 28 and 29 but will be rescheduled.

The Sound Investment project allows LACO patrons the opportunity to watch the compositional process as it evolves, attending several workshop performances and rehearsals, and even giving feedback to the composer before the piece is done. For Contreras, still a doctoral student at the USC Thornton School of Music, the commission is quite a coup; past Sound Investment composers include Ellen Reid, Donald Crockett, Julia Adolphe, Sarah Gibson, Ted Hearne, and many other luminaries.

Here’s an introduction to Contreras’s personal perspective as a Sound Investment composer:

In his works, Contreras banks on a wide-ranging musical background. In younger years, he played everything from classical violin to electric bass in heavy metal bands. He was recently nominated for a Latin Grammy for his debut orchestral album Mariachitlán. So, it’s no big stretch for him to meld the sounds of a symphony orchestra with the world of Lucha Libre, the highly dramatic-style of Mexican wrestling popular since the early 20th century. When the piece is premiered, you’ll see orchestra players wearing masks, taking sides. Not a typical night at the symphony!

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s world premiere of Lucha Libre by Juan Pablo Contreras will be rescheduled for a future date. Check LACO’s website for updates.

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Pixar films are famous for their tear-jerking powers, and the studio’s latest is no exception. Onward may have a high-concept fantasy premise—a modernized, suburban version of a land of dragons, wizards, and unicorns—but the emotional core is very true-to-life.

Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna aren’t the only pair of brothers who score Hollywood movies, believe it or not. But when director Dan Scanlon invited the Dannas to score Onward, it felt like they might be the only pair of brother composers for the job.

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Onward, with an original score by Mychael Danna and Jeff Danna, is in theaters now.

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Today’s question is from Lee in San Diego who writes, “I recently attended a concert where the violinist was playing a Stradivarius that was on loan. How does that work?”

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This answer calls for some musical accompaniment. Here’s Ray Chen playing a Stradivarius on loan.

Given the rarity and desirability of Antonio Stradivari’s instruments, it was inevitable that prices would escalate greatly. In 2011 one of his violins sold for $16 million. Many are owned by foundations. Individuals who have the resources to buy them are not necessarily musicians, but they appreciate the fact that they should be played and heard. And many of these instruments are on loan for an indefinite period.

One organization that facilitates such loans is the Stradivari Society of Chicago, which acts as an intermediary between musicians and patrons. The list of artists they’ve helped reads like a who’s who of great violinists: Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Gil Shaham, Midori, Sarah Chang, Philippe Quint, Augustin Hadelich, Maxim Vengerov, and more.

That’s today’s Chapman Challenge. Is there a question you’d like to have answered in 60 seconds? Send it to us at challenge@kusc.org.

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It may be an exaggeration to say that Mozart makes us smarter, but in a unique study, scientists at USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute (BCI) have linked classical music training with improved brain function in kids.

The researchers have been working with the LA Phil’s Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA) program to study how classical music training affects brain development in kids ages 6-14 who participate in the acclaimed after-school program.

“It’s the sensory-motor integration, learning to translate abstract symbols to meaningful sound,” says Dr. Assal Habibi, a BCI neuroscientist. “And you have to really be careful about adjusting your fine finger movements to create a sound,” she adds, noting that a performance involves all regions of the brain, from the auditory to the sensory, and beyond.

Assal Habibi | Photo by USC Photo/Gus Ruelas

By pulling in so many parts of your brain, playing can increase the efficiency of other skills, even those that don’t seem related. Habibi says there’s evidence music training even helps kids with empathy response and executive function skills like task-switching and delayed gratification.

“It affects their musical abilities, but it also affects their cognitive, social, and emotional development,” Habibi says. “We’ve seen children who have had music training show more robust connectivity (between different sides of the brain), specifically in the areas that connect the frontal lobes, the motor areas, and the sensory areas. That’s an indication of better ability to maybe hold information, integrate information, probably related to creativity later.”

You can read more about the Brain and Creativity Institute, as well as their latest research on this subject, at dornsife.usc.edu.

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If you were one of the many whose hope of viewing The Industry’s acclaimed new offering Sweet Land were felled by coronavirus, fret not. A version of the show is now available via streaming at The Industry website. It will now cost you just $15 to stream the opera that the LA Times’ own Mark Swed gushed about saying, “Sweet Land made such a huge impression that it has haunted me ever since.” Click here for the streaming version. Our original blog and audio feature are below.

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The Arrivals wash up on the shore. They make contact with another civilization who they call the Hosts and from there the story splinters, starting as a procession through the LA State Park, Sweet Land becomes an opera that erases itself. It is done on two different tracks.

The company that created Invisible Cities and Hopscotch, now brings you a historical pageant that disrupts the dominant narrative of American identity.

Sweet Land is born from collaboration, it could not have been done by any one of the contributors alone. As our country could not have been built by any one group of people alone. The collaborators are: co-director Yuval Sharon, Founder and Artistic Director of The Industry and a 2017 MacArthur Fellow, and co-director Cannuupa Hanksa Lugar, a multidisciplinary artist. One Composer is Du Yun, a Chinese immigrant. Her last major opera won a Pulitzer Prize for music. The other composer is Raven Chacon, a recent Berlin Prize awardee, is originally from the Navajo Nation. One librettist is Douglas Kearney, a poet, and the other is Aja Couchois, a mixed-race Ojibwe writer.

Sweet Land is an invitation to reflect on the layered and silenced history of all colonized land. LA State Park has a history of eviction and exploitation of indigenous and immigrant peoples.

The Industry’s “Sunday Sessions” series supplements Sweet Land with free public events that further explore pertinent themes from the opera. They are partnered with The Autry Museum of the America West and IKAR for this programming. To learn more and RSVP, visit theindustryla.org. Sweet Land runs from February 29 through March 15 at LA State Historic Park.

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Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms both wanted to capture the vibrant folk music of Hungary in their compositions. Brahms through his 21 Hungarian Dances written in 1879 and Liszt through his 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies published between 1851 and 1886. Both composers borrowed their melodies from actual Hungarian folk songs, oftentimes sharing the same material. For example, the same celebratory folk song is used by Liszt in his Hungarian Rhapsody No. 8 as Brahms in his Hungarian Dance No. 3.

Franz Liszt

Sometimes they went beyond using folk music and used existing pieces by other composers too. The Allegro molto vivace section of Pablo de Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen (Gyspy Airs) can be heard in Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 and the melody from Mark Rózsavölgyi’s Víg szeszély csárdás is used by Liszt in his Hungarian Rhapsody No. 8.

Budapest, Hungary

One of the most famous melodies from the Brahms Hungarian Dances is the melody from Hungarian Dance No. 5. When Brahms came across this melody, he mistook it as a piece of folk music and used it verbatim. Unfortunately, it’s actually an original composition by Hungarian composer Béla Kéler titled Bártfai Emlék Csárdás and Brahms inadvertently plagiarized it! As the saying goes, “good artists borrow, and great artists steal,” and it looks like Brahms stole one this time.

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Achinta McDaniel has been at the forefront of LA’s Bollywood dance and cultural scene for more than 15 years. She is the Artistic Director and prolific choreographer of Blue13 Dance Company. She is also a go-to choreographer for film and television. She joined KUSC contributor Sheila Tepper to discuss Blue13’s upcoming performances at The Wallis Center for the Performing Arts and more.

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The company is noted for its rhythmic and highly charged performances that blend hip-hop, ballet, modern and traditional Indian dance. The program includes the world premiere of “Terpsichore in Ghungroos”, which tackles issues of equality and feminism while celebrating joy and connection, also the west coast premiere of “F**k Fusion” both by Achinta.

These works with their theatrical contemporary style use dance as a vehicle for storytelling while turning the cultural stereotype of Indian dance on its head. It is inspired by the classical and cultural art forms of the Indian subcontinent. The ensemble has performed around the world, from Paris and Morocco to New York, North Carolina, Canada and beyond.

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts presents Blue 13 Dance Company on February 21 and 22 at 7:30 pm. Learn more at thewallis.org.

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The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s survey of the politically-charged Weimar Republic era continues this weekend at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Esa Pekka-Salonen will conduct the orchestra and soloists in fully staged performances of the Kurt Weill/Bertold Brecht masterpiece, The Seven Deadly Sins. KUSC’s Gail Eichenthal has a preview.

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Salonen and the orchestra are doing a deep dive into this fascinating period of german history, from 1918, until 1933…when Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. Noted dramaturge Gerard McBurney is co-curator with Esa Pekka-Salonen of the LA Phil’s Weimar Republic festival. McBurney calls the Weimar Republic, “this strange ill-begotten country that emerged in Germany at the end of world war one.”

The concerts will be augmented by light and sound installations, art exhibits, and a concluding marathon film event on February 29th, including the silent classic Pandora’s Box with live musical accompaniment. Learn more at laphil.com.

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Theatre, dance, music, experimental design, found objects, and more come together for a modern adaptation of the classic story of Frankenstein this week at The Wallis in Beverly Hills.

The world premiere production comes from the acclaimed LA-based experimental theatre company Four Larks, which co-founder Mat Sweeney describes as a junkyard opera company.

“The work that we make doesn’t necessarily privilege music—it’s one of the tools we use in the creation of the piece. So, that’s the ‘opera’ part. The ‘junkyard’ part is about the use of found materials and the way that we approach each piece as a collage or an assemblage of texts and specific performers and ideas and materials that we rummage and become a part of both the visual and musical world of each project.”

Sweeney created, staged, and composed the music for this Four Larks adaptation of Frankenstein. Company co-founder Sebastian Peters-Lazaro did the design and choreography. He explains how this story still has deep relevance today, more than 200 years after it was written.

“So, Frankenstein is often described as the first modern myth because it subsumes the role of a kind of mythic deity into this realm of science fiction. It was written by an 18-year-old woman who birthed an entire genre of literature. It’s a story that’s been in print basically since it was published [in 1818] in part, because each generation can look at something it has created—some new piece of technology or some new social movement—that comes up as possibly subceeding [sic] the status quo of society at that moment and shifting things in ways that are uncontrollable and unexpected and potentially dangerous and frightening.”

All of Four Larks productions feature the performers in multiple roles. Mat Sweeney says the actors are also musicians in this show.

“That’s always been the backbone of our practice. We work with performers who are multi-hyphenate. They are instrumentalists and singers and actors and dancers. So we have this incredible ensemble of 12 people who come from a pretty wide spectrum of backgrounds. We have musicians working as actors in ways they haven’t necessarily before and vice-versa. That ensemble is on stage the whole time. They are orchestra, they are a Greek chorus, they are shapeshifters, and they are facilitating the installation of the piece. So, we are with those dozen performers for the hour of this piece watching them shift and reimagine and invent the world aurally and visually and, in doing so, creating the narrative.

Mat Sweeney and Sebastian Peters-Lazaro run the experimental theatre company Four Larks. Their production of Frankenstein opens Wednesday at The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills with performances through March 1st. You can learn more at thewallis.org

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Today’s question is from John and Tamara Callahan in Atlanta, Georgia, who want to know “What is the most common key for a symphony and why?”

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I’ll answer by identifying a key that was especially popular among symphonic composers of the eighteenth century.

First a few words about string instruments. When you play a note you either press down on the string or you don’t, which is called an open string. Obviously the notes that are available on open strings depend on how the instruments are tuned.

And notes played on open strings have a brighter sound, so if that’s what you want for your symphony, you choose a key that favors open strings. And one such key is D major. It’s the key of eight symphonies by Haydn and ten by Mozart, including three of his biggies, the Paris, Haffner and Prague symphonies.

That’s today’s Chapman Challenge. Is there a question you’d like to have answered in 60 seconds? Send it to us at challenge@kusc.org.

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Many performers have elaborate rituals that they go through before concerts — Glenn Gould used to soak his forearms in hot water before performances — but Stephen Hough has made a point of never depending on any of them. “My main teacher, Gordon Green,” he says, “told me never to begin by doing exercises or warmups. He said ‘begin with a piece,’ because, he said, there will be a time when you’re traveling and playing, if you have a career (I was about 10 or 11 at the time) when you won’t be able to warm up, and you’ll have to walk out onto the stage and play cold.” He says unexpected flight delays, traffic, any number of snags could mean that time isn’t available.

But when he does set about practicing, he has another habit that has helped ensure no one part of the piece gets too much attention. “I very rarely begin at the beginning of the piece practicing. I came across this with the Chopin third sonata, the B-minor sonata. Both when I played it myself and when I was teaching it in a master class. I realized that people played the exposition, the first part of it, much better than they played the recap. And it was because they always practiced it more.  They started there every time, and so by the time they got to the recap they’d kind of had run out of steam… and so they’d never given the same attention to that.” Instead, Hough likes to mix it up: “If I’m practicing Brahms’ second concerto, I never begin at the beginning, and just go all the way through. Tuesdays I might just do the second movement, and then the third and fourth together, or start with the development of the first movement, and then go back to the beginning. So I’m actually making sure that everything is equally looked at and prepared.”

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Now at FIDM, you can see the annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition. The exhibition features over 100 outstanding costume designs from more than 29 films released in 2019, including all 5 Academy Award Nominees. For movie lovers, this exhibition sheds light on one of the reasons that makes them so great to watch. This major exhibition is the only one of it’s kind in the world. Admission is free and the exhibit runs now through March 21, 2020.

FIDM Spokesman Nick Verreos takes us on a tour of incredible Oscar-nominated costumes.

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KUSC’s Sheila Tepper also spoke with Mark Bridges, the costume designer for Joker.

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Mark Bridges, Costume Designer for “Joker”

See more photos from the exhibition below.

Costumes from “The Irishman,” designed by Sandy Powell and Christopher Peterson

Costumes from “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” designed by Arianne Phillips

Costumes from “Little Women,” designed by Jacquelyn Durran

Costumes from “Jojo Rabbit,” designed by Mayes C. Rubeo

Learn more at fidmmuseum.org.

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The much loved Los Angeles based Lula Washington Dance Theatre is celebrating it’s 40th anniversary with a powerful program exploring social and humanitarian issues.

The company is known for its high energy dancing and innovative and provocative choreography. There will be three world premieres by choreographers Christopher Huggins, Tommie Waheed Evans and a work in progress by Lula Washington and a west coast premiere by Esie Mensah. Plus a favorite by hip hop artist Rennie Harris.

Lula Washington Dance Theatre | Photo courtesy of The Ford

Washington, reflecting on the company’s 40th anniversary, says, “At the same time the company is pushing forward with new groundbreaking work, it is also holding true to its original mission of doing work that is ‘reaching for your soul.’ Our dancing and programming are designed to touch the spirt of people aiming to move them to a place of humanism and fairness for all.”

The company, which tours internationally has focused on using dance to explore social issues including aspects of African-American history and culture.

You can see Lula Washington Dance Theatre performing at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on January 30, 31, February 1, 2020, 7:30 pm. Learn more at thewallis.org.

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When writing for the stage, playwright Sarah Ruhl follows her instinct and ear for dialogue. She knows the rhythms of speech and conversation. But for the upcoming world premiere of Eurydice at LA Opera, based on her 2004 play, she had to learn some new techniques that apply in the musical world. Teaming with composer Matthew Aucoin, she had to pare down much of the language. “It was a wonderful collaboration,” she says, “A lot of it was me distilling the play, because opera distends everything. So to take three lines of a play and to make it singable, and intelligible, and have emotional impact, it has to be… sort of 25 percent as long as it was.” And she also had to pay attention to the ending sounds of words in a new way, because singers can only hold notes on vowels and soft consonants. Occasionally Aucoin would ask her to ‘versify’ the language of a section. “But one thing that I loved about working with Matt was, he would ask me to make a change, and I would dutifully do it, and then he’s like… ‘Ugh… the original is better, let’s just leave it,’ and I would say ‘Great!’

Revisiting a work that’s had a successful life in one artistic genre, and shepherding it into another was a new adventure for Ruhl: “What’s funny about being a playwright is you try to be useful, whatever room you’re in. So, if I’m working on an old play, and it’s a new production of an old play, I try to be useful. So I try to continue to tinker. But I do think at some point, the plays are done. This is the first time I did an opera, and the first time I was transforming an old… older play into an opera. But I really loved it, and I think it’s because I really enjoyed my collaborator.”

The LA Opera world premiere of Eurydice stars Danielle de Niese, and runs from February 1-23 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

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