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Shocker
Continued from Page 5

Parkenin
By Michael Paul Fischer
I've never quite shaken off the re-
alization that by allowing myself to
miss the legendary Andres Segovia's
final area concert, a performance at
Hill Auditorium back in 1985, the
chance to glimpse a musical age
which was to pass by forever had
slipped through my fingers.
An irrepressible survivor at age
9-1, the pioneering world-master of
the classical/Spanish guitar was still
touring extensively, as if to spread
the flame until his dying day. It was
obvious that such energy could not
last forever. And by the summer of
1987; the Spaniard - who single-
handedly won acceptance for his
once-humbled instrument in the
world's hallowed concert halls -
had finally completed his mission.
The ghost of Segovia must par-
ticularly haunt Christopher Parken-
ing. At the age of 15, only four
years after beginning his guitar stud-
ies, the American was selected to
participate in Segovia's first United
States master class, held at Berkeley.
Years later, after earning unprece-
dented acclaim in Europe, Japan and
the U.S., performing as a recitalist
with America's leading orchestras
and recording a catalogue of top-
selling, Grammy-nominated classical

g brings
albums, the en-
gaging and hand-
some performer
- hailed by his
mentor as "a great
artist, one of the
most brilliant
guitarists in the
world" - finds
himself in the
inevitable posi-
tion of being pro-
claimed the ac-
knowledged heir
to the Segovia
legacy.
This Sunday
evening, Parken-
ing will play his
first area concert
in 18 months -
titled "A Tribute
to Andres Sego-
via" - on the
very same Hill
Auditorium stage
where Segovia
himself offered his farewell perfor-
mance four years ago. Parkening's
musical program - with the excep-
tion of three early dances by Tele-
mann - features artists exclusively
from the Spanish tradition champi-
oned by Segovia, including one

his guitar genius to Hill

The young music master
must live up to his mentor
Segovia's reputation at his
latest performance.
cal sophistication and creative artis-
tic vision is still developing and one
can certainly call him this country's
greatest classical guitarist. Previous
concerts have enthralled the critics.
The San Francisco Chronicle called
him "a prince among guitarists, a
musician of genuine warmth and in-
tellect, magnificently exciting." The
Los Angeles Times remarked that
"Parkening brought it off in manner
suggesting that other virtuoso -
Segovia."
Considered by aficionados to be
one of the world's three finest mas-
ters, outstretched perhaps only by
the elder John Williams, Parkening
has established a reputation which
affords him the stature to broaden his
instrument's domain in the classical
realm from which the guitar's folk
music-based stylings were once ex-
cluded.
Parkening passes on the flame of
Segovia's tutelage through his own
master classes, taught every summer
for the last 14 years at Montana

State University. In his early days,
Parkening studied musical interpreta-
tion at the University of Southern
California from the renowned cellist
Gregor Piatigorsky, while continu-
ing private guitar studies with
Segovia in California and Spain.
But it is through recordings, in-
cluding his most recent, a brilliant
1986 collaboration with vocalist
Kathleen Battle entitled Pleasures of
Their Company, that Parkening ex-
erts his widest interpretive influence.
The Grammy-nominated album,
which Time magazine called "one of
the ten best classical recordings of
the year," brings into new light the
love songs of Renaissance composer
John Dowland, accompanied by
Parkening's own transcriptions of
characteristic lute pieces of the day.
In addition to a set of Brazilian
songs which allow Battle to demon-
strate a breathtaking rhythmic
prowess, the duo offer a clutch of
Black spirituals which recasts the va-
riety of the music's stirring combi-
nations of joyous testimony and
anti-slavery protest in placid,
sparkling arrangements.
The record does afford Parkening
his brief moments of technical spec-
See Parkening, Page 13

piece, "Estudio sin luz y Remem-
branza," by the master himself and
the four piece Segovia/Miguel Lllo-
bet "Suite Catalan."
There can never be another
Segovia, but the legendary promise
of Parkening's accomplished techni-

loses respectability, when the two
dive out of a TV set into a woman's
living room and she mugs, "I've
heard of audience participation
shows, but this is ridiculous!"
Craven is clearly taking a jab at
today's TV culture: people whose
minds are controlled and souls
"murdered" by television; this is a
theme explored better in the more
Parkening
Continued from Page 4
tacle - for instance, his production
of churning contrapuntal currents
beneath the sprinting high notes of
Cancion's "Seguidilla murciana" -
but by and large, it is Parkening's
generally pedestrian backdrops which
provide Battle with the stage to
demonstrate her exquisitely intelligi-
ble soprano.
Unlike up-and-comers such as
Japan's Kazuhito Yamashita, whose
original transcriptions of such un-
likely and sprawling works as Dvo-
rak's New World Symphony capture
attention for his virtuoso technique,
the established Parkening can now
expand the possibilities of classical
guitar through popular mainstream
recordings and television perfor-
mances. His new contract with
EMI/Angel includes a Christmas
collaboration with Julie Andrews set
for 1990.
But Parkening's next album, his
first in three years, will be a solo
tribute to Segovia himself. Yes, it's
a logical extension of Parkening's
tour, but it is also a holding pattern
along the path on which Parkening
must assert his own vision in order
rise among the legendary.
His last show at Rackham
demonstrated beyond a doubt the po-
tential of Parkening's musicianship,
but also the fact that he has surely
not yet arrived. Parkening immedi-
ately established his genius with a
set of three Renaissance lute-pieces,
gliding his fingers across the fret-
board in a series of elegantly-tex-
tured, wistfully ornate melodic fig-
ures, ending the selection with en-
chanting brush-strokes of harmonics.
Throughout later offerings,
Parkening deftly interspersed tonal
variations, moving his picking-fin-
gers up-and-down to alternate be-
tween a twangy, harpsichord-like
Winning
Continued from Page 5
Avoid this film, and, no, it is not
worth seeing just for the Matt
Groening Simpsons short at the be-
ginning. Watch Tracy Ullman in-
stead; she's a lot funnier.

cerebral Videodrome by today's
most talented horror film maker,
David Cronenberg. Though Shocker
does show more originality and style
than most horror movies, it's just
too bloody stupid to rise very far
above the rest.
Shocker is now showing at Show-
case Cinemas and Fox Village The-
aters.

Alex
Continued from Page 6
well, the later particularly in Lord of
the Flies and Heart of Darkness.
The party should by now pretty
much be taking care of itself.
Now comes the day after. If the
party was good, your place will
smell like Eau de Stale Busch. We

had the advantage of my housemate's
mother in town to help us clean up,
but otherwise, you're going to have
to "Just Do It."
Half the fun of the party will be
recounting who actually showed up,
who you wish wouldn't have shown
up, and who said they would and
then didn't. You'll hear a number of
excuses from the latter group
ranging from "I was with a bunch of

1
" L ~

V' I - I -O - V --



k.d. lang fuses rockab lly,
country and androgyny

sound and smoother, richer-sounding
notes.
In a set of three encores assisting
guitarist David Brandon, who will be
featured with Parkening on a future
duo album, brought an added dimen-
sion of texture to the captivating
Latin stylings of Spanish folk songs
like "El Pano Maruno." Brandon
tapped out a little percussion and
some fiery rhythmic strums while
Parkening worked out rich melodic
colors. On Sunday night, Brandon
will join the star at the show's end
for four works, including the Tele-
mann and Ponce pieces.
But the difficult solo chord
changes of the previous concert's
dense early compositions showed at
times in Parkening's somewhat ten-
tative approach; for all of his grace
and charm, the almost mechanistic
exactitude of Parkening's phrasings
remain more earth-bound than sub-
lime. Unlike Segovia or even John
Williams, Parkening played from
sheet music throughout - mere vi-
sual evidence of the shrinking tether
on his authority. It will only be
when he can make such pieces ap-
pear truly effortless that Christopher
Parkening can touch on legendary
status.
And the stage is his.
Guitarist Christopher Parken-
ing, accompanied by assisting gui-
tarist David Brandon, will perform
his "Tribute to Andres Segovia" --
including selections by Torrijos, de
Murcia, Sor, Segovia, Ruiz-Pipo,
Granados, Sanz, Torroba, Rodrigo,
Telemann, Ponce, Tedesco, and
Falla - Sunday night at 8 p.m. in
the Hill Auditorium. Tickets for re-
served seating are $16.50 and
$13.00, available at the Michigan
Union Ticket Office and Ticketmas-
ter outlets; $8.00 studet tickets are
available at the Union only.
Poniewozik
Continued from Page 10
of water. The only people who will
have to sacrifice will be the children,
whose much-loved playthings will
be needed for the defense of Space-
ship Earth.
But at least they won't have to
wear the stupid duck suits.

friends an
didn't wa
no one to
so you ki
your part:
was next
sorry.
Don't
though, t
own hool
how it gi


. -Y y

. 1%

r--v-~--

"The Bfue Nile wraps up the ffavor
of Ethiopia."
Molly Abraham
Detroit Free Press

"Like an oasis in
in the midde of a
Nile is an escape,

By Nabeel Zuberi
Country music has a hard time
being sexy. Those tales of bitter
love, adultery and sin can move you.
to tears, but they don't quite have
the spirit of Dionysus. The last time
a flaming sex god came forth, he
was banished by the Nashville mafia
for quite some time; but Elvis Pres-
ley and country's unruly son Rocka-
billy soon found their own space and
they called it "Rock 'n' roll."
Now another voice has arrived to
upset the Nashville patriarchy; she's
not "feminine" the way women are
supposed to be in the Country Hall
of Fame. She's no Barbara Mandrell,
Tammy Wynette, or Naomi Judd, for
that matter. She's k.d. lang, she's
Canadian and she messes with coun-
try music's gender preconceptions.
Lang is sexy and androgynous and
has a huge gay and lesbian follow-
ing. She's also rocky, so country
radio has an uncomfortable task try-
ing to pigeonhole her.
Lang has consistently defied cate-
gorization. At a recent Detroit show
you could see an incredible cross-sec-
tion of musical fans; as lang domi-
nated the stage in her blue Elvis suit
(circa '54), lesbians and gay men
bopped alongside punks and the blue
rinse beehive country & western set.
T'was a sight to behold. Lang wooed

Lang's always been hip enough to traverse the
boundaries between country and rock, And,
then again, she's also a torch singer.

them with her soaring ballads and
electrified them with frenzied rocka-
billy numbers.
Lang's always been hip enough
to traverse the boundaries between
country music and rock. And, then
again, she's also a torch singer. Her
first album, Angel With A Lariat,
was mostly a straight country record
but lang received glowing critical
plaudits with her next release, Shad-
owland. Produced in Nashville by
Owen Bradley, the man who recorded
Patsy Cline, Shadowland is a mix-
ture of torch songs, such as "Black
Coffee," and classic country tearjerk-
ers in the Patsy Cline tradition. The
Cline comparisons have been
inevitable - lang's band, the re-
clines, are named in homage to the
'60s queen of heartbreak - but k.d.
lang's voice, wonderfully rich
though it is, doesn't bear the same
marks of pain. Her new album, Ab-
solute Torch and Twang , has some
memorable moments, particularly
the rousing "Big Boned Gal."
Lang on record is only sporadi-
cally satisfying; she has a great

voice but sometimes it fails to con-
vey genuine, honest feeling. Live on
stage, however, she's incendiary.
Lang has all the early Elvis moves
down perfectly, and the reclines have
as much fire as Jason & the
Scorchers on a good day. The high-
light of her live set is a superb ver-
sion of Roy Orbison's "Crying" that
will have you groping for the
kleenex as well as your nearest loved
one.
Sometimes you get the feeling
that being a country singer is all a
big joke to lang, who walks a fine
line between camp and sincerity.
Often, her between-song patter
seems a mite contrived, too well re-
hearsed. But these reservations aside,
k.d. lang and the reclines are loud,
rambunctious and at moments even
sound as if the Tupelo sex god him-
self had spoken to them.
k.d. lang and the reclines, lower-
case letters and all, will be per-
forming tonight at 8 p.m. at the
Michigan Theater. Reserved seat-
ing tickets are $17.50.

Experience the 3000year ofd culture of Ethiopia.
The Ethiopiandiet is based onpracticafity and "totaf health." Eve
"niter kibeh" is purified by boiling andffavored with ten different
pure sweet f lavor.
Poultry, beef, lamb and vegetarian dishes are affpreparedfrom trai
recipes keeping in mind our philosophy of "total health". The end
variety of pleasing textures and tastes
Our famous, imported "Tej" honey wine is the perfect accompani
and to our knowledge is not served anywhere else in the United St
Our teaprovidesyet another unique experience for inthe Ethiopia d
sugar! However our tea is noticeabcy sweet and light. The reason
ingredients including rose hips, cinnamon, orange, and emon peel.
andgood for you.
Join us tonight for a dining experience that is to be shared and fotu
300 BraunC
Ann Arbor
ItKerrytowns
Restur-a-n-- 9 6ty- J

the Atcbt*gan :43atlu



Page 4

Weekend/November 3,1989

Weekend/November 3.1989
' + + +t ra / w J i