ARTS

The Michigan Daily

Tuesday, September 30, 1986

Page 5


Eyemediae leads Kerouac workshops

By William McRoy
Just when you think you've
seen all there is to see in campus
cinema groups, someone comes
along to remind you how much
variety this area has to offer. All
you have to do is go look for it.
Your search could very easily
lead to 214 N. Fourth, home of the
film group Eyemediae. Actually
the term "film group" doesn't
come close to describing how
much Eyemediae presents in
several areas of the arts,
including video, gallery art, and
P live performances.

Eyemediae was created four
years ago by Mike Clarren and
Charlie Saxe as a forum for local
artists' video productions. It
quickly grew to include films
and live performances, shown at
such places as The Performance
Network, Kerrytown Theater,
and on local cable television.
Mark Schreier, who coordinates
events for Eyemediae, says that
since 1984 the group has been sub-
sidized by Access Productions, a
local multimedia production com-
pany. Access provides
technological as well as
financial assistance, in addition

to providing the space Eyemediae
uses for presentations.
The basic philosophy of
Eyemediae is that art should be
presented through a combined
media, rather than on a single
level. The result is a more
effective form of art because, says,
Shreier, "You see it right in front
of you." Instead of simply seeing
a film and going home, you can
see it and then maybe talk with
someone involved in it.
The group is currently
showing a series of writing
workshops by Thom Jurek on the
work of Jack Kerouac. To

accompany this workshop, there
will also be a series of films by
and about Kerouac. Tonight's
presentation consists of several
short films, including Pull My
Daisy, a half hour film about the
Bohemian Underground made up
largely of Kerouac rapping with
his friends, with appearances by
such figures as Allen Ginsberg
and Gregory Corso.
The workshop, entitled Jack
Kerouac and the Art of Memory,
will continue throughout the
following weeks. Along with this
workshop there will also be a
showing of Heart Beat, a 1975 film

with Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek
as the characters from Kerouac's
novel On the Road
On October 14, Eyemediae will
show a new film (in conjunction
with the Ann Arbor Film Co-op)
entitled What Happened to
Kerouac. Made just this year by
Lewis MacAdams and Richard
Lerner, this promises to be a good
look into Kerouac's life and the
Beat Movement associated with
him. The film includes
interviews with Kerouac's friends
and family, as well as footage
from his ap pearances on
television.

Eyemediae has always tried to
present different things, because
as Schreier puts it, "When you sit
down and look at a cinema guide,
you see a lot of the same stuff."
Eyemediae, however, tries to show
worthwhile things one might not
find anywhere else.
Eyemediae is located at 214 N.
Fourth Ave. Presentations are on
Mondays and Tuesdays,
generally at 8:00. (What
Happened to Kerouac will also be
shown at 10 p.m.) For more
information call 662-2470.

Herbig leads DSO through afine performance

I

By Debra K. Shreve
In its 61st appearance under
University Musical Society
auspices, the Detroit Symphony
Orchestra performed Sunday
afternoon to a large audience in a
very steamy Hill Auditorium.
Under the baton of the poised and
elegant Gunther Herbig, Music
Director since 1983, the DSO
played with a confidence and
control that defied the sweaty
conditions, polishing off an
impressive performance of works
by Webern, Brahms, and
Beethoven.
The promised highlight of the
afternoon, a performance of the
treacherous Brahms Violin
Concerto in D Major by world-
renowned virtuoso Henryk
Szeryng, turned out to be,
unfortunately, somewhat disap-
pointing. Having celebrated in
1984 the 50th anniversary of his
concert debut, Szeryng is
considered one of the world's
greatest violinists, and is
especially honored for his
flawless technique and his

prolific and award-winning
recording career. He is, in fact,
one of the most recorded violinists
in history. Szeryng continues to
perform in concert halls and at
music festivals all over the world.
He also travels these days as a
cultural ambassador for Mexico,
of which he became a citizen in
1946 in gratitude. for Mexico's
kind reception of refugees from
his native Poland.
Although Szeryng's repertoire
embraces all the great violin
works, his exacting style and
Brahm's impassioned composing
is not, perhaps, the optimum
combination. Szeryng's Brahms
Concerto, at best, is one more of
precision than of passion. In
Sunday's performance, however,
the first two movements lacked a
bit even of Szeryng's famed
precision. Then again, the
technical wizardry this piece
requires, which prompted one of
its first conductors to call it a
concerto against, rather than for
the violin, are a terror even to the
best violinists. Even so, the
intonation, vibrato, and the upper
register leaps and peaks of

Szeryng's first movement
seemed a little less in the first
movement than one would expect
of him, even at his venerable age.
But by the time he reached the
third movement, Szeryng had
relaxed, and was flying along
with his customary technical
brilliance. Though his is not
perhaps the most moving in -
terpretation of the Bra h m s,
Szeryng offered the audience the
experience of some truly great
violin playing.
The greatest moments of the
concert, however, were engen-
dered by the DSO itself. It appears
that the orchestra enjoys an
amiable and productive part -
nership with Maestro Herbig, who
has long received - critical
acclaim in Europe, where he was
born and trained, but who has
only recently established his fine
reputation in the States. Under
his direction, the DSO has
continued to earn touring and
recording laurels in the wake of
its success under former music
director Antal Dorati.
Sunday's program opened
unusually with a gloomy work,

the Six Pieces for Orchestra by
Anton von Webern (1883-1945). A
disciple and friend of Arnold
Schoenberg (1874-1951), Webern
helped develop the twelve-note
system of composition, although
the Six Pieces is not a pure
example. The DSO brought off
this work with exquisite dis-
cipline and intense dynamic
control, resisting every one of the
abundant opportunities for sloppy
playing, and achieving a delicate
continuity despite Webern's
sectionally fragmented com-
posing.
Following the intermission,
the orchestra returned to perform

Beethoven's Symphony No.7 in A
Major. Not at all wilted- though
the men by now were down to their
shirt-sleeves- the orchestra in-
fused every movement of this
work with extraordinary vigor,
filling Hill Auditorium with a
gorgeous, full-bodied, yet never
overly heavy orchestral sound.
Although the Seventh is sus-
ceptible to much hacking and
grinding, neither Herbig nor the
orchestra ever lost control, and
even the forte passages received
the careful nuances that raise
adequate playing to the level of
brilliance. While giving full
credit to some outstanding wind

solos in the first movement, and
to the delicious cello section solo
in the second, the heros of the day
were certainly the violins.
Despite their huge size, the violin
sections always played
beautifully together, not faltering
even in the trickiest spiccato
passages. And when the ultimate
test came in the forth movement-
replete with sforzandos and
flying-finger phrases- they
passed the test without a hitch.
The full orchestra maintained
that same energy through the
final coda, and there was, no
doubt, some glorious-Beethoven
floating out the open doors of Hill
Auditorium on Sunday.


FOOD Bugs

Fairport keeps the flames alive

By Joseph Kraus
Before I saw their show Sun-
day night, I was skeptical that
Fairport Convention was really
"the Fairport of the '80s."
In previous incarnations with
such notables as Sandy Denny,
Dave Swarbrick, and Richard
Thompson, Fairport Convention
established itself as the greatest
folk-rock band of the late '60s and
I early '70s.
When rhythm section
stalwarts Simon Nicol, Dave
Mattacks, and Dave Pegg decided
to reform the band in 1984, their
assumption of the title "The
Greatest Folk-Rock Band of All
Time" seemed a bit like cashing
in on a glorious past.
: But Sunday's performances
showed the current fivesome has a
legitimate claim to the title.
With the addition of virtuoso
violinist Ric Sanders,, the band
can now perform classic Fairport
numbers from the Swarbrick
years with a new, flashier
vitality. Nicol, with the other
principal vocalists gone, has
moved from his traditional
inconspicuous role to the band's
leader.
Mixing a spattering of old
favorites with a large number of
selections from 1984's Gladys'
Leap and offering an equal
number of instrumentals and
ballads, the band showed it's
capable of as many surprises as
any previous Fairport outfit.
An early highlight from the
second show was "Dirty .Linen,"
originally recorded on the Full
House LP in the early 70s.
Sanders, here visibly grappling
with the ghost of Swarbrick,
followed the master's licks to a
note; but in such an arrogant,
winsome way that he made the
song his own.
Later, it was Nicol's turn to
shine on "Wat Tyler" and "Head
in a Sack," two ballads off
Gladys' Leap. Formerly obscured
as a vocalist by Denny,
Swarbrick, and Thompson, he
turns out to have a strong, tough
B that t sit. perfetly with the

the Ark to kill an evening.
Inevitably, when Nicol or
newcomer Martin Allcock tried to
.itroduce a song, somebody else
in the band interrupted with a
joke. Pegg was the most notorious
jokester, adding to Nicol's
comment "We're a small
enthusiastic group from En-
gland," "He's talking about his
pubes."k
The laid-back approach almost
became distracting when the
group managed to lose its set list
with about a third of the show to go.

Nicol, hiding some legitimate
annoyancer behind a joke, called
out to the sound engineer, "Could
we have a little more IQ on the
band."
But thanks to the enduring
strength of the classic Fairport
material and the sustained
ability of the new group, the show
clicked. It is perhaps as strong
testimony as we have available
that the band could be so powerful
in the midst of such sloppiness,
and it augurs well for Fairport
being the Fairport of the '80s.


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