JPO's 1st 2014 Season, 5th Concert

The final concert of the 1^st Season started with Johan Strauss II's Overture to Die Fledermaus - a very popular piece, given the number of times I have heard it on radio. Like many of Straus' compositions (i.e. waltzes), the piece is fun and lively - a great way to start the concert.

For me, Bruch's Concerto for 2 Pianos was the most anticipated piece of the season - not because I had heard it before; just the spectacle. The soloists were Bulgarian duo Aglika Genova and Liuben Dimitrov rounded up the full Bulgarian quota of visitors with conductor Martin Panteleev returning to the podium for the concert. The concerto itself was strange - it starts of, with the pianos imposing themselves, but then retreats in support for much of the concert; before returning with much pomp in the final movement. The concerto was very well recieved, and the duo obliged with three encores - certainly a record for the JPO concerts I have attended. 

I did not particularly enjoy Rachmaninov's 2^nd Symphony - but I am not completely sure why. Perhaps it was because it is quite a long symphony (this was the full hour performance), that sometimes feels like it never ends - or perhaps it was because I was just tired after a long day. 

The 2^nd JPO season will start on 7 May, and start off with Rachmaninov's 2^nd Piano Concerto - that should get a good crowd in for the night!

Opposition Politics in South Africa

The Centre for Ethics at WITS hosted a debate on opposition politics in South Africa last night. The panel consisted of author and talk show host Eusebius McKaiser, UJ Professor Steven Friedman, Independent Newspaper's chief editor Karima Brown and WITS Professor Daryl Glaser. It was an enlightening discussion, although it wasn't really a debate, given that all the panelists more or less agreed on the major discussion points; but the discussion points were still intellectually stimulating and provided some very interesting insights.

The discussion was obviously dominated by a few key themes - DA and whether it got the fact that race is important to most South Africans; EFF and it's actual chances; whether NUMSA would be more effective and what it would take to overcome the ANC hegemony.

Probably the most interesting idea advanced by the panelists, was that opposition parties in South Africa largely do not have any real ideological differences to the ANC. The argument was that the major opposition parties are effectively stating that try are the ANC but would be able to deliver better, and thus they are not really painting a radically different vision for South Africa. And since the ANC currently owns that vision, together with a powerful history of great leaders like Mandela and Tambo together  with the success of liberation; they inherently start off better than the opposition parties. The panelists further agreed that EFF was not radically new vision - but rather a more fundamentalist version of the ANC vision, and thus can be classed in the same pot.

Quite some time was also spent on racial politics and the DA's general incompetence in this regard. Eusebius McKaiser elements put it that the DA's policies are clear as mud which in turn turns off both their existing and prospective supporters. 

Largely, the consensus seemed to be that ANC will win handsomely, and will only be affected by the supporters who agree that other parties would deliver the same vision better. Without a comprehensively new vision however, long term opposition politics will remain in the quagmire that they are not really that different. 

Gautrain vs. Metro Rail

Saturday evening's transit to FNB Stadium brought out the stark difference between them. It is not so much the difference in modernity - that is unavoidable between systems that were built decades apart. 

Rather it is the difference in maintenance and enforcement of rules. For example, Park Station's stairs down to the platform  has a distinct smell of urine; platforms are not really clean; and rules like no smoking in public spaces are not enforced. It also goes wider into signage, sub standard ticketing (no ticket machines?) and just a generally creaking system. 

The one thing that Gautrain can learn - cabin seating. Metro Rail's cabin design with two rows of seats with lots of standing room is far more efficient for commuter transport; and would be a better design for Gautrain too. And Metro Rail can learn from the better enforcement of rules.

An Evening with Santana

Although I heard of the Santana concerts when they were announced, I didn't get round to buying tickets till Friday (for the concert on Saturday) - and even then, only via OLX. Unlike other concerts I have been to, the audience was significantly older - and it did feel strange to go to a concert in a stadium that was seating only. With Gautrain's "Big Night Out" promotion, M and I took the Gautrain to Park Station, followed by the metro train to FNB stadium - an arrangement that worked relatively well - and certainly far better than the organisational chaos that was U2.

Embarrassingly, I didn't even know that Johnny Clegg was the opening act for the night, until I saw the T-Shirts for sale. His 1 hour performance was filled with most his well known hits from over the years, that brought the crowd to its feet; and kept them on their feet for most of the concert. It is strange for a performer to end a set with a slow tribute song, but Asimbonanga is not an ordinary slow song and was a perfect ending to a great set (including the projection of the video on the link as the backdrop).

There was a very efficient 25 minute set change-over to Santana, who would go on to play on for just over 2 hours - although his promise of playing until 6am if the audience was up for it did not materialise.The wet weather was not perfect, but as Johnny Clegg commented - the heavens is showing respect for Santana - the rain did stay away for the full duration of the set!

The band lineup, based on the Wikipedia article, is not the current line-up of the older Santana band members, but the earlier band that has seen most of the success in past 10 years or so. Most of the songs were from his recent albums (since I recognised them :), but given the audience reception from the other songs, it was fairly easy to identify some of the older songs! The set had the expected, amazing instrumental pieces - the fusion of rock, jazz, Latin and African rhythms; and much of the crowd was on its feet for most of the concert.

There were a few songs towards the end performed together with Johnny Clegg, both songs from Johnny Clegg with Santana adding guitar or Johnny Clegg contributing vocals to Santana pieces.

JPO's 1st 2014 Season, 4th Concert - Beethoven

The penultimate concert for the first season featured an all Beethoven line-up, with Bulgarian conductor Martin Panteleev on the podium. It started with one of the most well known (short) orchestral pieces - Egmont Overture; which combines all the best parts of Beethoven's symphonic creations in a single, short piece. It was well performed by the orchestra, and enthusiastically received by a rather sparse audience.

There was a slight change from the published programme, with Zanta Hofmeyr's concerto recital of the Violin Concerto taking place before the break (instead of after). I am not as familiar with the concerto - except for the very familiar 3^rd movement; but the length did warrant its performance after the break in my opinion. Concerto performances make it interesting to observe the soloist's reactions; especially in long pauses where it is only the orchestra performing - as in the first movement, where the soloist slowly, and quite tentatively joins in after what it seems like a couple of minutes. And the piece is quite interesting on how the soloist goes from a tentative participant to a commanding presence in the final parts of the concerto; slowly bringing out the virtuoso performance. It was an amazing performance, that fully deserved the standing ovation. 

The concert finished off the evening with the Second Symphony; which after the first half was a bit of a let down after the majestic performances of the first half; and another motivation for the concerto to have been the final piece!

Movie: 12 Years a Slave

The movie reviews and the general history of slavery do not really prepare you for the brutality of the story recounted in 12 Years a Slave. More than any other movie exploring the subject of slavery, the director and the actors manage to encompass both the physical and mental battles - and the absurd contradictions. On one hand slave owners treated slaves as animals; as property; yet they also lusted after the women for sex. 

The acting performances are amazing across the board and they definitely deliver one of the standout performances of the year. 

This is a difficult movie to watch, not an "entertaining" movie, but definitely one that needs to be watched - so that the atrocities and the thinking are never repeated.

JPO's 1st 2014 Season, 3rd Concert

Robert Maxym, with his translucent shirt, was back on the podium for the 3rd concert for the year for the JPO. The concert started off with Beethoven's Lenore Overture No 3 from his opera Fidelio; and was probably my favourite piece of the concerts so far - almost a mini symphony on its own.

Russian pianist, Konstantin Soukhovetski, is probably the most flashiest male solo performer I have seen at the JPO - complete with sparkling shoes and jacket. I am not a big fan of Mozart, but his performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No 24, was amazing. He was completely absorbed in the music - whether sitting while waiting for the orchestra; or in his own solo performance. Without much prompting, his encore was a piano rendition of song scored by Schumann set in September (at the beginning of Autumn), and the fading  sunlight that brings a slow death to the garden - which he gave a synopsis of, before performing. With the material in mind, it is quite amazing how well the music tracked the emotions described.

The last piece of the evening was Mendelssohn's Symphony No.5 (Reformation) - which I liked in parts - but was mostly bored through it. The Beethoven and the Mozart made up for it though.

Harties Cableway

I first heard of the Harties Cableway when I first moved to Johannesburg - but I was told it was derelict, and no longer operational. About a year ago, while driving through the area - I went past the site on a whim and saw that it was "under construction". Ever since, I have wanted to go up - but just never got round to it.

It's a fixed cable car system, providing a fairly comfortable ride up to the top - with absolutely amazing views of the area - with Johannesburg just visible on the horizon. The last bit to the top is particularly steep - but the cable car speed is fairly gentle with the whole ride taking about 2 minutes. There are a few food places with very reasonable prices - and is generally, a good place to spend an afternoon. 

  

It is hard to imagine riding up on the older cable car system, which are still on display at the bottom.

 

JPO's 1st 2014 Season, 2nd Concert

For a pair of concerts that precede Valentine's Day, most of the music was rather a reflection of broken hearts instead of love and happiness. And all the music was Russian - although there wasn't a link between the nationality and the somberness of the music! Daniel Boico was back (for this week only unfortunately) as the conductor, and, once again he brought great energy to the performance.

The concert did start off brightly - Borodin's Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. It's a great piece - especially the solos featuring the oboe and the clarinet. It was a great start to the concert. The concerto, featured German cellist, Peter Bruns, playing Shostakovich's 2^nd Cello Concerto. The cello, by default is quite a somber instrument, and the piece itself, was quite somber - even when there was some fanfare or brightness - it seemed to be quickly extinguished.

The final piece, was Tchaikovsky's 6^th Symphony - Pathetique.If there is one piece of music that traces the journey from happiness to sadness and despair - this is probably the best candidate. It even has a great flourish that promises happily ever after, at the end of the 3rd movement; to be brought crushingly down to despair in the final movement.

It was not the best Valentine's Day concert (but then again, it wasn't advertised as such) - but it was still a great concert with superb performances all round.

Lang Lang and Metallica

It is not the first time that Metallica has merged metal with classical, but the collaboration with Lang Lang at the Grammy's is just mind blowing - not only how Lang Lang perfectly fits into the metal performance guise; but also how well the piano merges with a Metallica classic.

Rome2rio

I have been planning my next trip the last few weeks, and a new website - Rome2rio - has been an amazing help for working out travelling options. Combining the full set of bus, taxis, public transport, flights and ferries - it has been a great help in working out the best way to travel between two points - especially when my trip covers quite a wide set of cities in a constrained time period. I have been most impressed by some more off beat suggestions it has thrown up; things that even some tourism sites and travel companies don't mention. Definitely one of the best travel planing websites around!

Buskaid Chamber Concert

St Mary's - a private girls school in one of the richer suburbs in Johannesburg is quite an ironic location to host Buskaid - an ensemble from one of the poorer suburbs of Johannesburg. The Edge, a brilliant auditorium with amazing acoustics paints the gulf between the haves and the have-nots - Buskaid is after all still struggling to add on to their music school.

Buskaid returned for the third year running to the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival, playing yet another eclectic mix of composers, spanning a few centuries; ending off with the Buskaid tradition of kwela. For me, the highlight was Tiisetso Mashishi playing Max Bruch's Romance for Viola and Orchestra Op. 85; but all the pieces were well performed, and well received by an almost capacity audience. 

Buskaid performances are always a highlight and deliver some of the most joyous musical performances on stage. And they definitely deserve to play in the best venues available.

JPO's 1st 2014 Season, 1st Concert

The 2014 concerts for JPO started this week, and for the first time, I decided to get season tickets. For the last few seasons I have managed to go to almost every concert - and the discount makes sense. The seasons have been shortened to 5 concert weeks this year - perhaps it is a cost saving move. The first concert featured conductor Brandon Phillips from Cape Town, and acclaimed pianist Christopher Duigan from Durban - making it an all South African affair.

The concert started with Liszt's Les Préludes, S97 (Symphonic Poem No.3) - which was a bit longer than I expected, with a lot of different moods - which is explained by the origins of the piece. In fact, the entire piece is like a classic story arch - there is a mostly neutral set-up narrative, followed by arguments and strife concluding with celebration and everyone living happily ever after. It's a great piece to start off the year!

Liszt's Piano Concerto No 1 is one of famous piano concertos,easily recognisable, Christopher Duigan played it brilliantly. I think I enjoyed it more than Ben Schoeman's performance in 2011 - but that could be just due to the passage of time! Christopher Duigan's encore (given seemingly quite reluctantly, after the 3^rd round of applause), was a Liszt transcription of a Donizetti opera - was amazing; and got an equally appreciative applause.

Dvořák's 6^th Symphony rounded off the evening, and of the evening, my least favourite. To me, it just didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the concert line-up.

Movie: The Book Thief

Set during World War 2, the story revolves around an adopted girl, Liesel, (it is not completely clear why she is adopted) in a small German town, and the experience of war. Her adopted family hides a Jewish family friend for 2 years, she teaches herself to read - and then falls in love with literature. It is a chronicle of the times where nationalistic songs included hatred of the "non Germans''; where books are burnt and where jobs are dependent on Nazi party allegiances. 

The use of "Death" as the narrator was a stroke of genius in part; spoilt by an annoying voice and some cliched lines. The mangled use of German words in an otherwise English movie is also sometimes annoying; but the story and the acting performances are impressive, especially by Sophie Nélisse as Liesel.

It's a different take on the World War 2 movie - not focused on the politics or the fighting - but rather on the lives the women and children that aren't on the front; and not in the major cities. It's a touching tale of will, hope and bravery; and well worth watching.

Movie: The Wolf of Wall Street

Despite its many excesses, The Wolf of Wall Street doesn't feel like a long 3 hour movie. It is fast paced, with a dramatic tale of drugs, alcohol, money, sex and greed, based on the life of stockbroker (now turned motivational speaker and sales guru) Jordan Belfort.

The movie features some amazing acting performances - especially by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill; and while it does tell the tale from Jordan Belfort's perspective; the impact of the pump-and-dump stock trades is not really explored. Instead, the FBI investigation comes across more as inevitable the fall of the anti-hero rather than arising from actual complaints from harmed consumers. 

Nevertheless, it is a highly entertaining movie, that deserves the rich haul of award nominations (and wins).

Viennese New Year‘s Concert

The opening concert of the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival, was effectively a tribute concert to the Viennese New Year's concerts - a concert with a lot of light, happy music. There were a lot of polka and waltzes (many penned by a Strauss), a few operettas (one even penned by Mozart) and a few other well known highlights. 

One of the great things about Richard Cock as a conductor in these types of events, is how he gets the crowd involved and informed - be it little snippets on the pieces about to be played, or getting the crowd singing or clapping along. It certainly makes these concerts a lot more accessible; than the typical classical music concerts.

Talking and Feeling Plants

One of the main arguments made by vegans and vegetarians supporting their food choice relates to not causing animals pain. The argument is quite compelling, especially given many modern, high volume, farming methods - but it is usually hypocritical, in that the defence of animals rarely extends to insects and other less "cute" animals.

Some recent studies now seem to close down the argument on plants not feeling pain. The Economist has a very interesting article reviewing work showing, experimentally, that not only do plants feel pain, but they also have the capacity to remember the circumstances when they felt pain. Another article in Wired, had a discussion on plants communicating warning between each other - although this was restricted in terms of location and species of plants. 

This is quite interesting beyond just the concept of plants being sentient (although I think Ents are a bit far off). It extends our own understanding of what biological constructs may exist for nervous systems - and that the traditional known nervous systems are not the only ones. Perhaps, in one of the planets out there, there is a sentient species that are just like Ents :)

Why the e-tag?

I first heard about the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project in 2008 - and that included a fairly detailed discussion on how the project was going to be paid for - tolling. The discussion document, compiled by a senior manager at a large construction company, provided views of the work packages, proposed designs for new interchanges, the proposed timelines for the work and the proposed toll fee of 50c per KM.

I don't like the idea of tolling - but in my opinion OUTA's (and for that matter COSATU and the DA) actions were largely misdirected. Tolling came across, because of a single failure - politicians across the board (from every party) - be it local government, provincial government or national government - not doing their jobs. It is after all their responsibility to vet proposed actions, such as road improvements. And the tenders were all public documents; well advertised - the people who were elected to look after such things, didn't. And a few years after the projects were awarded, it became a hot button issue.

While a lot has been made of the tolling process - one of the questions I haven't seen being raised, is why the e-tag? Let's take the system without e-tags; which is fully functional whether you are registered or not. When a car goes under the gantries, the license plates are captured; and the number plate is deciphered. If the number plate is linked to a registered account, appropriate discounted charges are calculated and deducted from the account. If the number plate is not linked to a registered account, the charges are compiled; and after a certain period of time, an invoice is sent through based on the vehicle registrations details.

So what value does the e-tag add? Firstly, it is not necessary to get the discounted rates. Secondly, it is not transferable - it can only be used with one vehicle. It does not help with unlicensed vehicles - since those vehicles can't get e-tags anyway. In fact, the only benefits I can see are 1) the double-beep to tell you that the account is getting too low and 2) reuse in other toll roads that support e-tags (which don't have cameras). People who use the roads covered by earlier verision of e-tags regularly, already have e-tags - and the use case is easier to defend - pay on the spot, or use an e-tag. That doesn't extend to open-road tolling.

But the whole e-tag infrastructure adds additional cost; additional RFID readers, additional tags, the whole registration process etc. Instead, a more rational process with open road tolling would have been to simply issue accounts -  just like the municipalities do - and provide discounts for early payment, and penalties for late payment. And just like any credit process, provide for debt collection. Registration or pre-paid accounts can also be handled through the same process - but just adds extra administration overhead. 

Instead, with the added complication of registration and e-tags, SANRAL has gotten itself lots of headache and delays - with absolutely no additional benefits.

Movie: Carrie

I have not read Stephen King's book, nor have I watched the earlier versions of this movie. Carrie, a quiet and reclusive teen brought up by her very religious mother (brilliantly portrayed by Julianne Moore), gets bullied in school, discovers that she has telekinetic (and other) powers (naturally from the devil), and has a meltdown that takes out the whole school when the bullying goes overboard. It's better than most teen (or is it young adult?) movies and good entertainment; but nothing spectacular.

Movie: Jeune & Jolie (Young and Beautiful)

The plot is fairly simple - a young woman (girl?) looses her virginity, but doesn't enjoy the experience - during her summer holidays. Back home, she becomes a secret call girl - mainly catering to rich, old men; where she experiences a wide range of sexual activities - although; except for one "john", she doesn't ever seem to actually enjoy the experience.

The movie makes no moral judgement (though it does present various sides of the arguments around prostitution) - neither does it present any motivation on the choice of becoming a prostitute. It is like a study of a rebellious teenager - but one that doesn't draw any conclusions, nor offers any theories. 

And, in that respect, the movie was unrewarding.