Blending jazz & classical

One time at band camp: Friends come together in Texas Music Festival big bang concert opener

It's often said that music brings people together.

Some prefer to take this adage a step further, making bold claims to the likes of music being a universal language, music as a bridge that dissolves cultural differences and on and on. Heck, if you recall the days of "We Are the World," apparently music can solve daunting global issues. I'll leave that up to you to ponder the possibilities of the art form, though I'm certain you can tell from my air of sarcasm that I prefer not to take things too seriously when it comes to tuneful matters.

I do, however, believe in the lasting power of close relationships.

Think back to your days as a camper in some sort of bucolic setting far away from home. Other than a couple of designated visitors' days, the parents are nowhere in sight. You explore your personal limits, try new things, crush on your cabin counselor, chant Kumbaya in the warmth of a bon fire, partake in the required water sports . . . how much fun did you have?

Not to compare the Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival, which targets mostly college-age music students, to a teen summer camp experience, but the mechanics of how people bond through intense escapades don't change one bit with age. The addition of such a personal aesthetic pursuit atop the close quarters of the month-long classical music program, which runs through June 29, is a formula for forging bosom buddies joined at the hip — musically speaking.

Take the "Celebratory Opening" concert, set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Moores Opera House. One of the pieces in the program that also includes Benjamin Britten's Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury, selections from Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring typifies how people connect through music. I guess you could say the story starts with "this one time at band camp. . . "

"I thought Matt was a typical wise guy from Long Island. But after having the opportunity to perform with one another, there were some very strong musical synergies."

Mark Anthony Turnage's Fractured Lines: Double Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra was written for Peter Erskine, a jazz drummer who performed with Steely Dan and Weather Report, and Evelyn Glennie, a deaf percussionist active in the solo circuit. The piece is based on a melody by Erskine scored in a style implied by the reference: A tad of classical and plenty of popular music allusions, drum set included.

TMF faculty members Matthew Strauss and Ted Atkatz come together to perform the big bang showcase.

One time at band camp . . .

Atkatz, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and Temple University in Philadelphia, resigned from a tenure position with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to have the freedom to go after more creative pursuits. He's the founder and front man of NYCO, an alternative rock group based in Chicago, while teaching at the Lynn Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Fla.

Strauss, who holds a degree from the Juilliard School, has been a core percussionist with the Houston Symphony for nine years. He spent two seasons as a member of the percussion section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra alongside Atkatz beginning in 2002. But their friendship dates back almost 20 years prior to that. The two met in the mid-1980s while studying at the New England Music Camp in Maine and reunited a decade later at the Tanglewood Music Center.

"I thought Matt was a typical wise guy from Long Island," Atkatz jokes. "But after having the opportunity to perform with one another, there were some very strong musical synergies."

Knowing your collaborators heightens the ability to play expressively, not unlike being able to finish someone else's sentences.

"Music is certainly a language," Atkatz explains. "When you know how your partner communicates, it makes music-making so much more rewarding. In rehearsals, a concerto like the Turnage comes together quicker than if we didn't understand how the other plays — and that's when the fun begins."

Strauss describes the musical exchanges as effortless, particularly in shaping phrases and timing entrances and releases, something that's particularly critical when dealing with instruments with such defined front to the sound. There's little room for error in the initial attack as any discrepancies in coordination aren't just obvious — they can be disastrous.

"We can take more risks in performance knowing that we are synched," Strauss continues. "Isn't that what we all want: Fresh, energetic music?"

As a teacher, Strauss hopes that his students develop the same type of relationships he did while refining his artistic skills.

"Programs like the Texas Music Festival are where you meet your friends and colleagues, the ones who will continue to have impact throughout your professional and musical career," says Strauss.

The Texas Music Festival presents "Festival Orchestra 1: Celebratory Opening" on Saturday, 7:30 p.m., at the Moores Opera House. Tickets are $15 for the general public, $10 for students and seniors, and can be purchased online or by calling 713-743-3313.

Maestro Franz Anton Krager leads the Texas Music Festival Orchestra.

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Movie Review

Offbeat drama Pillion features command performance by Alexander Skarsgård

Photo courtesy of A24

Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling in Pillion.

Describing the new movie Pillion is almost an act of futility. It contains a variety of seemingly disparate parts that coalesce into a whole to make it utterly fascinating. Few other recent films have been able to walk the line between filthy and wholesome in quite the way this one does, and that’s only because few other filmmakers would actually dare to try.

It centers on Colin (Harry Melling), a meek man in his mid-thirties who still lives at home with his parents, Pete (Douglas Hodge) and Peggy (Lesley Sharp), while working a dead-end job giving out parking tickets. While performing in a barbershop quartet at his local pub, Colin catches the eye of biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), who summons him for a clandestine hook-up the following day (which just so happens to be Christmas Day).

With barely a word exchanged between them, Ray establishes a dominance over Colin that quickly leads to them starting a relationship in which Colin does anything Ray asks. And that means more than just sex: Colin, whether desperate for any kind of affection or unlocking a side of himself he hadn’t known, readily agrees to cook, clean, shop, and basically do whatever else Ray wants him to do.

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton, the film is astonishing in the way it’s able to mine humor from Colin and Ray’s atypical bond. To call Ray “unfeeling” might not be totally accurate, but the way he treats Colin borders on cruel. However, the way Lighton structures the film, it’s easy to understand why someone like Colin would be willing to go along with the situation. It’s both hilarious and heartbreaking to see Colin debase himself in a variety of ways.

On the flip side is Colin’s heartfelt arc with his parents. It’s established right away that Peggy, who is sick with cancer, is a bit too involved with Colin’s love life, with the opening scene featuring her setting him up on a blind date. But their easy acceptance of his queerness and desire to see him find love is as heartwarming as it gets. The juxtaposition between the wholesomeness of their family and Colin’s new life is also the source of a good amount of comedy.

Lighton does not shy away from the sexual side of Colin and Ray’s relationship, and the scenes he depicts are as graphic as you are likely to see in an R-rated film. Some go up to and a little past what might be expected in a mainstream movie (including the use of a certain fake appendage). Other times they play out in a comical way to illustrate just how far Colin has progressed from the person he was when the film started.

Skarsgård, who stole the show in the Charli XCX movie The Moment, is the attraction in more ways than one in this film. The part calls for someone who’s not only impossibly handsome, but also a person who can stop dissent with just a glance, and he lives up to both qualities equally well. Melling, best known for playing Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies, also embodies his role perfectly. He plays Colin as weak enough to be run roughshod over by Ray, but not so hopeless as to not be worth rooting for.

Pillion (which is the name of the secondary seat on a motorcycle on which Colin rides multiple times in the film) operates at a storytelling level that is difficult to achieve. Many people will not fully understand the film’s central relationship, but the way it is showcased by Lighton makes it compelling, gut-wrenching, and sexy.

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Pillion is now playing in theaters.

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