Word: harmonium
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...refuse to keep quiet. In a cramped studio off a busy thoroughfare in Peshawar, a few musicians sitting on faded red carpets take up instruments while they await customers. On the walls are photos of the band's performances. Zar Wali smiles broadly as he begins to play the harmonium. "My beloved country," he sings in his native Pashto, "this Afghanistan, is very dear to me." The anthem is sweet--sweet enough to make him briefly forget that he is in Pakistan...
...both from the Boston area. Both are eager to please, polite and attentive to whomever they're with. Both work incredibly hard on the project at hand. For Ripley, Damon spent a month learning to play the piano and perfected Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring on the harmonium for a scene he knew would be cut from the movie. "I'm a writer. I knew what would be the first to go," says Damon, who won his Oscar for co-writing Good Will Hunting with Ben Affleck. "But it wasn't a waste of time, because playing the piano...
Traditional Indian musical instruments, including the harmonium and the tabla, were accompanied by Western keyboards and violins. Fried samosas were sold next to cans of Diet Coke at intermission. And the show itself, which began with classical South Indian dance, ended with a techno take on a Punjabi folk dance...
...writing minimalist essays in broken chords and chugging rhythms, has evolved a more flexible, conventional tonal language, fleshed out with references to past masters (Debussy, Beethoven, Richard Strauss) and even Glenn Miller, as the dramatic situation demands. There has always been a theatricality about Adams' music -- the 1981 Harmonium was a vivid choral setting of poetry by John Donne and Emily Dickinson -- and in Nixon its dramatic qualities have flowered. The figures are sharply characterized: Nixon (James Maddalena), for example, is a gruff baritone whose music is often stiff and halting, while Chairman Mao (John Duykers) is cast...
...play will surely get some questions rolling in your mind-- Is equality possible? Have we progressed from the days of Ali Baba?--but it does not fulfill all its other duties as a piece of art. The live music played onstage is melodically enchanting: a synthesizer, harmonium, tambours, tors, but fails in its overall desired effect, costumes are also intriguing parts of a production that sets up a good plot, has lively and talented actors, but fails in its overall desired effect...