Music Magg

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2020 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved I spent the evening on the Fourth of July 2020 watching some interesting programming on KPBS: an early (1985) Ken Burns documentary called The Statue of Liberty (back when Burns still made films of reasonable length — this was just under an hour); a rerun of a local concert special from August 30, 2019 with the San Diego Symphony conducted by Christopher Dragon, focusing on the music of Tchaikovsky; and the centerpiece of the night, the 40 th anniversary presentation of A Capitol Fourth . Needless to say, this show was absolutely nothing like any of the 39 previous entries in the series, thanks primarily to the dictatorship of SARS-CoV-2 under which we presently live, in which a sub-microscopic assembly of nucleic acid, proteins and a lipid coat whose only purpose in life is to make more copies of itself has put an end to large public gatherings of virtually all sorts (unless you are Donald Trump

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2020 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved    While most PBS stations (including ours in previous years) followed up the  Capitol Fourth  telecast with a repeat showing of the same program, this year KPBS chose instead to rerun a local show originally taped August 30, 2019 — and, let’s face it, rebroadcasts of concerts during the SARS-CoV-2 crisis actually make more sense than rerunning sporting events, since with a concert at least you  know  how it’s going to turn out and there’s no big suspense about the outcome. The show actually began with the San Diego Symphony’s current conductor, Rafael Payare, leading members of its brass section in a piece that was instantly familiar: the old traditional Shaker hymn “The Gift to Be Simple.” (Unfortunately for the Shakers, their idea of “simplicity” included a total ban on their members having sex — and, not surprisingly, their numbers dwindled over time.) The Symphony brass played this in an arra