MP3 players ...

Well, I now have a plethora.

Creative Labs win at customer service: within 12 hours of my original plea ("help Zen stone DOES NOT WERK drive not recognised o noes!") they sent me a long email full of diagnostic steps etc. I skipped to the end, downloaded new firmware and now have an empty but functional Zen Stone.

Tesco came up with the goods: £9.97, 1GB, own brand, kind of clunky. (Pic below cut.) Functionality not quite up to Zen standards (you can't fast-forward or pause/resume within a track) but perfectly adequate for walking-music. It does have one huge advantage, which is that it takes an old-fashioned battery. While this is less ecologically sound, it's much more convenient if one's away from laptop for extended periods (e.g. holidays, long flights, sailing trips).

Unfortunately at that price I cannot take it seriously, so this afternoon -- whilst listening to the 'on hold' music of British Gas, EDF, Lewisham Council, Reigate Council and the camera repair people, all occasionally interspersed with Real People -- I have given it a makeover.
( before and after )

Concert: Ainadamar (Golijov), concert performance, Barbican 13.04.08

Golijov's opera Ainadamar is based on the relationship between playwright and poet Federico García Lorca and his muse, the Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu: the Lorca / Margarita story is framed in a dialogue between Margarita and her student Nuria, in a theatre in Montevideo in 1969.

This is the first piece by Golijov that I ever heard, on Radio 3 a couple of years ago. I fell in love with the mix of Latin American rhythms, flamenco and soaring soprano: with Dawn Upshaw's passionate, precise voice. (Golijov writes much of his vocal music for Upshaw: calls her his muse.) When the CD came out I bought it, and found the flavour, the timbre quite different to what I'd heard on the radio. Sunday's live concert performance (CBSO cond. Spano; Dawn Upshaw / Margarita; Jessica Rivera / Nuria; Kelley O'Connor / Lorca) had a different flavour again.

Ainadamar seems to be a work in progress: Golijov revised it extensively after its 2003 debut, and the CD version differs from the previous live version in some respects. I'd assumed the CD was full, final version, but there was about 15 mins more material in the Barbican performance: notably 'To Havana' (which rocked), the pre-execution scene, and the final trio. Hmm, wonder if there'll be a broadcast of this performance?

The Barbican tends (in my minimal experience: three Golijov concerts, one Priesner) to present live modern music in much the same way as rock: extravagant coloured lighting, miked-up singers, conductor in loose designer suit rather than tux. (On the other hand, the singers shared the stage with a brass-heavy orchestra and a 30-strong choir: I doubt I'd have heard anything if they hadn't been amplified.) The lighting worked very well: blood-red, ghost-blue, rich gold.

All singers fab, O'Connor as Lorca especially so: her body language was flirtatiously masculine, or perhaps androgynous. We were sitting a couple of rows from the front, so got full benefit of Dawn Upshaw's acting: this may have been a concert performance but it was every bit as dramatic and heartfelt as a full production.

One delicious thing about modern music: live composer, who appeared to tumultuous applause at the end, and congratulated orchestra and soloists with a huge grin on his face: yes, this is what I meant, this.

Slightly incoherent review, I know, but it was gorgeous and moving and just what I needed.
ladymoonray (not usually a fan of modern stuff) reviews the concert here