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    The Review is In

    Why music matters: A breathless Musiqa concert makes the case for contemporaryclassical

    Joel Luks
    Jan 11, 2012 | 12:30 pm
    • Musiqa co-founder and artistic director, Anthony K. Brandt
      Photo by Beryl Striewski
    • Karim Al-Zand, composer and professor at Shepherd School of Music, RiceUniversity
      Tarek Al-Zand
    • Claudio Muñoz

    Just when I think I've heard it all, Musiqa shows me up.

    Most classical music audiences are attracted by the tunes of yesteryear; affectionately labeled as works by dead composers in white wigs, it's often with reluctant ears that audiences creep into the world of contemporary art music.

    Each Musiqa concert presents music you've probably never heard before — some by composers living and working right here in the Bayou City — in a framework that allows for the safe exploration and expansion of artistic boundaries. That's why Musiqa is cherished by art lovers in Houston.

    We live today, and though I recognize the importance of learning (and never forgetting) history, it's just as essential to take in — and be in — the present.

    Pianist Tali Morgulis and percussionist Blake Wilkins executed a breathless musical performance, a dance of sorts.

    "Free of the Ground" Saturday night at the Hobby Center for Performing Arts was swarming with concert goers and dance lovers. In collaboration with Houston Ballet II, Musiqa engaged beloved dance teacher Claudio Muñoz to choreograph and premiere De Amor Y Muerte (Of Love and Death), accompanied by a transcription of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla's Tango Suite for Two Guitars arranged for solo piano.

    The title, "Free of the Ground," originates from Robert Creely's Gnomic Verses, giving a nod to the art of dance and Anthony Brandt's Creely Songs (1999) as well as to the open, assumption-free attitude that best prepares contemporary music devotees for the unknown.

    A breathless performance

    Phillippe Hurel's Tombeau in memoriam Gérard Grisey (1999), a work for scored for piano and percussion, set the program in motion.

    Whether it was the dramatic lighting by Jeremy Choate or the physically taxing demands of the composition, pianist Tali Morgulis and percussionist Blake Wilkins executed a breathless performance, a sort of dance in itself.

    As Morgulis maneuvered through extended techniques and Wilkins pranced from vibraphone, crotales and gongs while resorting to four-mallet techniques, the choreography between the artists opened a window into their artistic thought process and non-verbal communication.

    The music of Al-Zand falls in that intangible instersection of something you've always known, and loved, and something you've never experienced before.

    Amid a rhythmically complex and deliberate tocatta-like launch, where the extreme ranges of each instrument was explored, precise starts and stops gave way to swift flourishes, often ending in percussive chordal strikes crowned by high tessitura crotales.

    A hypnotic, moderately static spectral middle developed into a jocular scherzo, returning to the opening effect and ending with a humorous and quirky afterthought.

    The music of Karim Al-Zand falls in that intangible intersection of something you've always known and loved, and something you've never experienced before. His Tagore Love Songs (2004) was no exception.

    Melding cabaret sass with impressionistic harmonic haze, the listener can readily grasp familiar conventions and be challenged by modern compositional techniques through each of the 13 petit chansons, inspired by the verse of Bengali Renaissance man Rabindranath Tagore'sThe Gardener of 1913, Lover's Gift and Crossing of 1918 and The Fugitive and Other Poems, written in 1921.

    For those that lent Al-Zand an ear, Tagore Love Songs was a delightful, sometimes comical, sometimes witty journey into the love relationship cycle, from courting, flirting and passion to disagreement.

    The work was written for mezzo-soprano Aidan Soder and baritone Paul Busselberg, and their performance, alongside pianist Calogero Di Liberto, showed how the composer considered the singers' strengths, which included theatrical virtuosity, substantial range and commanding-yet-comfortable stage presence.

    If there was one musical peculiarity, it is that Al-Zand set one of the strophes twice in an effort to depict how each character could feel the text differently.

    Brandt's Creely Songs attempts successfully to add syntax to the enigmatic poesy of the writer. The poetry may employ simple, everyday language, but the ambiguity of punctuation leaves many questions unanswered and unpredictable outcomes amid stillness, humor, tension and despair.

    The big piano writing sprinkled with dramatic tonal cadences could only be balanced by the robust, thespian voice of soprano Karol Bennett, for whom the six-part cycle was written.

    A world premiere

    When speaking to the audience, Muñoz's humor and honesty has the ability to brighten and lighten the audience's tenor. But his De Amor Y Muerte is nothing of the sort. It's passionate, sexy and tragic, such that it commands ceaseless contemplation. The movement language is familiar, and so is the theme of the femme fatale. And though there's a clear expectation of the transgression of events, there's a thrilling suspense forged by the ideal synchronization of dance gestures and musical ideas.

    Houston Ballet II dancers Guillaume Basso, Dylan Lackey, Ellen Overstreet, Ben Rudisin, Eric White — yes, one woman, four men — and Morgulis earned quite the cheer and a standing ovation.

    Brandt once said to me that unlike technology, innovation in art has nothing holding it back.

    If an artist can think of it today, it can be done today. It's the reason why future trends can't be identified nor predicted. Art will do what artists want it to do, and this Musiqa concert, like others I have attended, reinforces the tenant that performances like these keep audiences reflecting many days after the curtain falls.

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    Movie Review

    Heartfelt movie The Life of Chuck adapts optimistic Stephen King story

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 13, 2025 | 5:30 pm
    Tom Hiddleston in The Life of Chuck
    Photo courtesy of NEON
    Tom Hiddleston in The Life of Chuck.

    Just like actors, once a filmmaker becomes known for a certain genre, it can be difficult to escape that pigeonholing. Writer/director Mike Flanagan has worked for 20 years in both film and television, and literally every project he’s done has been related to horror. He’s finally breaking out with The Life of Chuck, which is ironically based on a short story of the same name by Stephen King.



    Told in three chapters in reverse order, the film is almost impossible to describe without giving away its magic. The first section centers on Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a teacher grappling, like everyone around him, with what seems to be the world falling apart. He’s comforted to a degree by reuniting with his ex-wife, Felicia (Karen Gillan), but is also baffled by multiple ads touting the retirement of Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) after “39 great years.”

    The second section consists of little more than a slightly younger Chuck happening upon Taylor (The Pocket Queen), a drummer busking on a street corner, giving Chuck and a younger woman, Janice (Annalise Basso), the inspiration to start dancing. The final section goes back to the childhood of Chuck (Benjamin Pajak), where he’s raised by his grandparents (Mark Hamill and Mia Sara), discovers dance as an outlet, and wonders about various small mysteries.

    Flanagan finds a way to deliver a lot of story with relatively little effort. Using a wry narrator (Nick Offerman), a limited number of locations, and a series of great small performances, he creates an intriguing premise with few straightforward answers. The structure of the film is designed to confuse the viewer until just the right moment, and the revelation forces you to reexamine everything that came before.

    The biggest accomplishment by Flanagan is making what are essentially three short films and having each of them resonate equally. The film contains elements of science fiction, although the first section may hit a bit too close to home for some of those watching. All three sections, though, have a heartwarming bent to them that sells their central idea without becoming overly saccharine.

    To do so, each of the characters have to connect in a short amount of time. The casting of the film is crucial, and not only does that department succeed with the main roles, but a series of small roles are filled expertly as well. Carl Lumbly as a funeral home owner, David Dastmalchian and Harvey Guillen as parents of students, Matthew Lillard as Marty’s neighbor, Q’orianka Kilcher as Chuck’s wife, and Jacob Tremblay as a teenage Chuck are just a few of the recognizable actors that do yeoman’s work in their brief time on screen.

    Hiddleston is only prominently featured in the second chapter, but his performance there and in small glimpses throughout makes a big impression. Ejiofor is given the star turn in the first chapter and he absolutely kills, both in moments by himself and in scenes with Gillan, with whom he has great chemistry. Hamill, making a rare non-voiceover appearance outside of the Star Wars universe, and Sara, in her first notable role in 11 years, are also very memorable in the final chapter.

    The Life of Chuck is a film that’s filled with emotion, but the full impact of the story is not felt until the final moments. It has a mysterious journey that is initially frustrating, but the performances keep the film going until it gets to its satisfying payoff.

    ---

    The Life of Chuck is now playing in theaters.

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