' " . # r ." , i s : a '1 F ., ut i "! YF 4 ' Some Moscow in Ann Arbor By KATY THOMPSON A long wait is about to end when lhe Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and violinist Gil Shaham make their Ann Arbor debut at Hill Auditorium this Friday night. The concert features Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," whose discordant sounds and brutal rhythms offended some when this modern piece was first performed. Shaham will be the guest soloist in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. "I love the Tchaikovsky. I've played it for years," Shaham said, "It's one of the greatest violin concertos." Shaham is a veteran of performance - while studying at the Julliard School of Music, he was called upon to substitute for Itzak Perlman on one day's notice and became an overnight media sensation. He had his first concert at Carnegie Hall at the age of 20. His talent has been universally praised, and he has played with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras as well as the Detroit Symphony. This year alone he will perform 120 concerts. All in all, he is refreshingly unaffected by all the attention he has earned. "It's nice to get a good review. It's very flattering, I guess." Now 23, Shaham is looking forward to playing in front of his peers. "I feel more at ease when I play for people my own age. I see a real classical music comeback. There are lots of young people coming to concerts. Music conservatories are bursting at the seams with young people. It's time for Generation X to take back Tchaikovsky." Shaham and the Moscow Philharmonic have been on tour in Florida since the beginning of this month. "We've almost reached the point of no rehearsal," he exclaimed. "It's just so thrilling to play with them. They know this stuff forwards, backwards, they can play it in their sleep." The Moscow Philharmonic was formed by Bolshoi Orchestra conductor Samuel Samosud. It has performed under many distinguished guest conductors such as Igor Stravinsky, Zubin Mehta and Igor Markevich. It last toured the United States in 1990. The talent of conductor Vassily Sinaisky has not gone unnoticed. In 1973, he became the only Soviet conductor awarded the Gold Medal at the Herbert von Karajan Competition in Berlin. Sinaisky has been associated with the Moscow Philharmonic since early@ 1992. His distinguished career includes being Chief conductor of the Latvian Symphony Orchestra in Riga, as well as a frequent guest conductor with the Hungarian State Orchestra. THE MOSCOW PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA with soloist GIL SHAHAM will perform at 8p.m. on Friday March 18 at Hill Auditorium. Tickets range from $16-$45, and are available at the University Musical Society Box Office. $9 student rush tickets are available at the Union Ticket Office and the North Campus Commons today. Call 764-2538for more information. "Parinaya - A Legend of Love" will be performed tomorrow by the Dances of India Troupe at the Power Center. Dance highlights love story Buffalo braces for great year. By ROBERT YOON Take all the trappings of a traditional, Western ballet - a beautiful princess, soothing music and heaps of love - add plenty of grief and hardship, put it all in an Indian setting, and you've got the Dances of India Troupe's production of "Parinaya-A Legend of Love," an original ballet directed and choreographed by Malini Srirama. "This is actually more than a ballet - it's a dance- drama, where each dancer portrays a character," said Srirama, who also founded the Dances of India Troupe. "We have aprince, aprincess ... it's really quite beautiful." "Parinaya," which can be seen tomorrow night at the Power Center, is based on an ancient Sanskrit legend and should strike a familiar chord with college students, as it chronicles the often stormy and turbulent path to romance and true love. The main character in this tale is Jasmine, an island princess who meets and falls madly in love with a visiting prince from the faraway mainland. The two decide to sail back to the Prince's home and get married. The story at this point teeters perilously close to a happily-ever-after conclusion, but leave it to those crafty Sanskrit storytellers to keep things interesting. While en route to the mainland, the weather starts getting rough. The tiny ship is tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, well, you get the idea... The ship is destroyed in the storm, and everyone is believed to be dead. The Prince, having the foresight to take a separate ship, makes it back to the mainland uninjured, save a broken heart. The rest of the ballet focuses on Jasmine, the sole survivor of the shipwreck, who, sans princely beau and dressed in rags, has a difficult time convincing people she's a princess. Jasmine and the Prince, now separated, must endure hardships and grief before finally being reunited. "Throughout thousands of years of Indian history, there are many legends which chronicle the stormy path of romantic love," explained Srirama. "Nearly all follow the cycle seen in 'Parinaya' of falling in love, separation, grief and longing for the loved one, and finally the reuniting of the lovers." Many of the themes and plot devices in "Parinaya" are reminiscent of those in a variety of modern and classic Western works, such as "Robinson Crusoe," "ThePrincess Bride" and Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Twelfth Night." "There are a lot of similarities between Indian and Western folk tales," Srirama said, because the themes are so universal. "(Indian dance) stomes have been the basis of great works of literature and art, just as similar stories in Western culture have inspired artists and authors for centuries.," Despite these similarities to Western works, audiences at the Power Center tomorrow night will agree that "Parinaya" has a decidedly Indian feel, from the colorful and exotic costumes, to the authentic Indian music to which the performers dance. There is also a musical interlude featuring an Indian vocalist, "You really don't need to know anything about Indian dance to enjoy the performance," said Srirama. "Anyone who enjoys rhythm and music will enjoy this production.," The ballet relies on movement, facial expressions and symbolic hand gestures as its main storytelling device, so newcomers to Indian ballet will not be at a loss. The word "parinaya" is a particularly apropos title, as it signifies the Indian concept of a "special wedding," one that takes place despite remarkable odds, sort of like the Brady wedding. "It doesn't just signify pomp and glory. It's a special wedding because of all the hardship that one must endure beforehand," she said. "Parinaya" is essentially a love-conquers-all story and shows that true love can overcome the greatest ofobstacles, even inclement weather. PARINA YA - A~LEGEND OFLOVE-ville performed at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 19 at the Power Center General admission tickets are $8 ($5 students). Call 763-TKTS. By TOM ERLEWINE Michael Stipe once called them his favorite band. BobMould's record label released their first single. Critics from all over the world praised their debut album, "Fuzzy," as one of the bestalbums of 1993. With their second album just completed and a short tour opening for Pearl Jam on the calendar, 1994 is shaping up to be a great year for Grant Lee Buffalo. Undoubtedly the key musician in the band is Grant Lee Phillips, agifted songwriter with a knack for sweeping rock 'n' roll epics. Unfortunately, Phillips' talent obscures the fact that Paul Kimble is as equally responsible for the group's musical success. Not only is Kimble the band's bassist, but he also is their producerand arranger; he is the man responsible for the dark R.E.M- meets-Bowie-and-John Lennon vibe of "Fuzzy." Without Kimble, Grant Lee Buffalo's versatility would seem sloppy instead of eclectic. "We've gotten so many different comparisons," admitted Kimble, "which I think is good because people can't put a finger on it and say, 'Oh, it's just like this.' I think (our sound) does have its own identity and I think the new record is going to be even more like that, it's definitely more focused and more us, in a way" Grant Lee Buffalo finished their new album in the past month and it is tenatively set for release in early summer. The record has benefited from the band' s extensive touring in the past year, as well as a big creative burst from Phillips. "We came off the road from Europe and we took about a week and a half off," recalled Kimble, "and then we went into the studio andjust banged it outand we've got like 25 songs to choose from. I can only narrow it down to about 16 songs right now. We may end up putting that many out just because we don't want to leave them off. We're trying to figure out what the focus of the record is going to be, in terms of putting it all together with the artwork and what videos we want to make - just trying to get a concise package that we have control of. "I think on this record there's gonna be a side of us that has always been there that didn't necessarily make it onto that record as much. 'Fuzzy' is a good blueprint and songs like 'Stars and Stripes' - stuff that's more kind of mid-tempo and more sort of surreal. That's the direction that this album has more of on it. There's more stuff like that and less stuff like 'Jupiter and Teardrop' and 'America Snoring.' And the stuff that is more over-the- top tonally still sounds like the same band to me. It sounds more focused. I think that if people like the first album, they're really gonna like this record because I think it's more of the same and even better." From the very beginning, Kimble felt that he, Phillips and drummer Joey Peters were meant to play together. "It was funny," he remembered, "because the first time I went down to see their band play - I called them through an ad in the paper - and within the first two minutes of seeing them, the first thing that entered my mind was like, 'Wow, I should get in this band so I can steal this guitar player and drummer,' I could just tell that those were the guys. When I started playing with Grant, from that point on my biggest influences were Grant and Joey. Because Grant has got such a unique sort of perspective on things, I was really taken by that." Many musicians have gotten frustrated supporting a talented songwriter, complaining that they aren'table to fully express themselves, but not Kimble. "What my talent is," he explained, "is producing and engineering and arranging which I get to fulfill in this band. A thing that's always been really good about this band is the working relationship between everybody. Nobody wants to do what the other person is good at. Being in a band or being a musician, I think the toughest thing that you can come to grips with is what you're not necessarily good at and learn what your strengths are and concentrate on those. That's the point that I came to when I met Grant; it's like, 'Well, fuck. I don't want to write songs. Why bother? I'm not gonna write a song like this.' But I get my jones fulfilled through producing and arranging and all that stuff which i where my real talent lies." While waiting for the release date of their album, Grant Lee Buffalo is hitting the road again. First, they will do about six dates with Pearl Jam; after that, they'll head over to France, where "Fuzzy" wasjust released. Although they've played some major shows before (including festivals in England and opening tours for Sugar and Paul Westerberg in the U.S.), they will be facing their largest audiences ever on the Pearl Jam tour. "When they called us originally, they saw us play with Sugar in Seattle and they asked us to do a tour last year but we couldn't because we had already committed to do the Westerberg tour," explained Kimble. "It's a pretty nerve-racking thing, especially since we haven't played, now in like two or three months. It should be pretty interesting," he admitted. Although GrantLee Buffalo is known for terrific live sets, their music is not as dynamic or straight- forward as Pearl Jam's. Consequently; they might not go over well with some mosh-brained fans of "Evenflow" and "Jeremy," but Kimble is not intimidated by the tour at all. "We just have to do what we do and people are either going to like it or they're not gonna like it," he said. "We've been pretty lucky. Playing with Sugar and playing with Westerberg you would think, 'Wow, those audiences are really gonna be weird for us.' But they ended up being really good, people were really receptive. 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