Villa Montalvo presents “This Day I Cannot Say, This Love” : An Evening of Poetry & Music Translations of the poet Rumi
featuring Coleman Barks
with accompaniment from Barry Phillips and Shelley Phillips
2014-05-16
Carriage House Theatre
Villa Montalvo, 15400 Montalvo Dr, Saratoga, CA
8:00 PM, Friday, May 16, 2014
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[8:02 PM lights down, announcements by Angela McConnell]
[I timestamped the show, but seem to have lost the notes I took during the reading/recital/performance, so can't really contribute much detail right now]
[show ends 9:22 PM]
Tonight's event was pretty darn good. Interesting to try and take the momentary distractions of daily life (traffic, work, etc) and put them aside enough to sit quietly and engage with the words of an 800-year old Sufi poet!
Coleman appeared to me to be quite a bit more worse for the wear than in his previous visit to the Carriage House. Nothing particularly noteworthy, just the vicissitudes of time becoming more apparent than ever. I'm glad I got another chance to hear him, even if the overall presentation hasn't changed too much over time.
Like the other shows of his I've seen, tonight included plenty of Rumi verse, set to both spontaneously improvised and pre-planned musical accompaniment. Coleman also tucked in a few of his own poems, as well as an interlude of Nazrudin tales for our comic enjoyment. Something new this time around was the inclusion of a bit of verse by Rumi's friend and teacher, Shams-e Tabrizi. This made for a nice compare and contrast experience, as the style and message of the two masters seemed to altogether different.
Barry and Shelley Phillips did an admirable job in putting together a musical background to Coleman's recitals, slipping in a few choices (Irish jigs? Shaker hymns??) that wouldn't have fit my first conception of proper accompaniment for the words, but ended up working well enough.
Overall it was a fun event, and I look forward to my next chance to spend an hour or two mulling over the words of Rumi with Master Barks and his friends.
Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2014 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2014 event list! ☸ On to the next event!