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Music: Drama in Poland for BGMC

By the time you read this, the members of the Boston Gay Men's Chorus should be on buses headed for Prague to continue their European tour, but Poland won't soon forget them. The chorus was all over the newspapers and television in Poland after controversy erupted before the group's performance in Wroclaw, Director Steven Smith says. It seems the first performance there by an openly gay group could not go unopposed.

In an email sent early this morning from Poland, Smith recounted that a right-wing group called the League of Polish Families - believed to be backed by conservative elements of the Catholic church in Poland - vowed to stop the show by blockading the Philharmonic Hall. A large police presence, including an armed escort from the hotel to the hall, kept that from happening, and only about 20 protesters turned up - to be met by a counterdemonstration by activists. Still, the First Lady of Poland blew off the concert, as did the mayor.

And the police action doesn't mean the authorities are on the BGMC's side. Local organizer Jaroslav Blandzinski, who runs the city's only openly gay club, was arrested the day before the concert for handing out promotion flyers outside the hall, Smith says. He was later released without charges - or an explanation.

The League also vowed to screw things up by buying all the remaining tickets for the show and occupying the hall, but organizers outfoxed them by stopping sales - only to resume them just before the concert. Smith says 200 advance tickets were sold, and more than 250 more went at the door, bringing the audience close to the hall's 500-seat capacity. The ovation at the end of the concert lasted 10 minutes and required two curtain calls.

You don't get action like this at choral concerts in Boston, and I suppose that's a good thing. But doesn't it say something about how Europeans feel about the arts, too?

(Smith's Euro-tour blog is here, but it hasn't been updated with the Wroclaw events as of Tuesday morning. Photos are promised.)

The morning papers

The Globe and the Herald both have takes on the new 50 Cent/Manny Ramirez ads for Reebok, crafted after 50's original effort drew controversy for allegedly glorifying violence. I can't find a link to the Herald's story, but here's the Globe's. ... The Herald's Inside Track reports that Gov. Romney may be settling the state's film bureau dispute by creating yet another agency not run by Mark Drago OR Robin Dawson - although Dawson sure sounds happy.

In the Herald, I think Bob Nesti liked "Pugilist Specialist" at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, although the Jerry Bruckheimer reference is a shot, right? ... In the Worcester Telegram, Scott McLennan introduces us to violinist Joe Deninzon, a lover of jazz and rock whose group Stratospheerius hits Worcester's Plantation Club on Thursday. Here's hoping they play the "jammed-out" version of "The Simpsons" theme mentioned in the article.

Arts: 'Stunning' South African images at Mass MOCA

In the Berkshire Eagle, Joel Stonington has a review of an unusual film event at Mass MOCA in North Adams over the weekend. South African artist William Kentridge's "Nine Drawings for Projection" was presented with live accompaniment by longtime collaborator Philip Miller and other musicians.  Stonington writes that the films offered "truly stunning expressiveness, showing movement, joy and haunting brutality."  In one, for example, a developer is served coffee and when he pushes down on his French press, the plunger continues down through his bed and into the mines where the oppressed masses are working. Unfortunately, this was a one-time deal.

Music: NEC adds jazz guitarist

Jazz guitarist and composer Brad Shepik will join the New England Conservatory jazz faculty at the beginning of the 2005-06 school year. Where he'll find the time to teach, I dunno - the press release lists by my count 10 ensembles he plays with, and a few more he joins in the studio. Shepik's current working band, NEC says, is a trio with organist Gary Versace and drummer Tom Rainey, which will perform at the North Sea Jazz Festival before hitting the recording studio.

Music: Get behind me Satan, in the Ticketmaster line

The White Stripes have added a third Opera House show on Sept. 22 to their gigs on the 20th-21st. Tickets, $37.50-$47.50, are on sale now at the box office, Ticketmaster, (617/508) 931-2000, or (617) 228-6000 and by logging on to teapartyconcerts.com.

Music: Clear Channel provides Live 8 aid

Clear Channel has added a bit of promotion for Live 8's push for African debt relief, which has as its centerpiece a series of concerts in eight international cities this coming weekend. In support, from July 2-4, some 80 different acts will offer special $18 tickets to more than 400 summer concerts at Clear Channel venues including the Tweeter Center and Bank of America Pavilion. Acts participating include Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers,  noted humanitarian 50 Cent, Backstreet Boys, Johns Mellencamp and Fogerty and the sensitive caring souls at Ozzfest. Those purchasing the tix (at venue box offices and through Ticketmaster) will be providing a donation to Live 8 and receiving a white Live 8 wristband to show their support for debt relief and eliminating extreme poverty around the globe. They'll also have a chance to sign The One Declaration.

How it all helps, I'm not quite sure, but Live 8 is a bit different than its Live Aid predecessor anyway -- the goal is awareness, not fundraising. Live 8's Bob Geldof, Bono, et al hope to put some pressure on First World nations at the upcoming G8 summit. How 50 Cent or Tom Petty fans wearing white wristbands is going to affect the G8'ers, I'm also not sure. But maybe it will help fill some of those empty lawn seats this summer, huh?

Music: Bang on the drum all week at Berklee

I'm remiss in not telling you before now, but...it's Percussion Week at Berklee! Our favorite Back Bay college of music is hosting its annual weeklong festivities for drummers, vibists and percussionists of all stripes to learn all kinds of rock, jazz and world music styles. A series of public performances is included. There are already a couple getting underway, so start this evening with Victor Mendoza at the David Friend Recital Hall, 921 Boylston, at 7 (free), and Ralph Peterson’s Fo’tet and Yoron Israel at Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass. Ave., at 8 ($5). A Latin night and a faculty blowout are among the week's other events. See Berklee's site for details. 

The morning papers

If you want to feel crappy about the paltry accomplishments of your relatively self-centered life, read Globe correspondent Sheela Raman's story about 14-year-old composer Natasha Sinha of Milton. Being an "intensely original" musical prodigy is not enough for this award-winning composer. She's now leaving what she calls "the narrow world of composing" to perform for hospital patients and start up Bring Out the Music, an organization to recycle neglected musical instruments by giving them to people who will actually use them. ... In all the adulatory reviews for Gregg Araki's new film "Mysterious Skin," it somehow slipped by me that the novelist Scott Heim, whose book was the basis for the film, is from Boston. The Globe's David Mehegan talks to him here.

Both papers write about "Same Sex America," tonight's 90-minute Showtime documentary (8 p.m.) on the debut of gay marriage in Massachusetts; I like the Herald's take.

The Lowell Sun's Nancye Tuttle  features Revolving Museum director Jerry Beck, also an artist, whose "dramatic public art project," the "political" and "eye-popping" "The Secret Ark of Icon Park" is being unveiled in the Charlestown Navy Yard, not far from the USS Constitution.

Music: More Euro-drama for BGMC

Boston Gay Men's Chorus executive director Steven Smith emailed last night from Germany that tensions continue to grow over the troupe's performance in Wroclaw, Poland, where the group arrives today. Right-wing meatheads may protest the group's appearance and are calling for the resignation of the director of the Philharmonic Hall, which booked them. "We are told that we may see demonstrators and might be attacked with eggs or shouted down in the concert hall," Smith writes. "We have been advised not to walk alone and have hired extra secuirity in both our hotel and the concert venue."

The ultraconservative League of Polish Families is attacking the BGMC's "deviation" and "pathologies." So Smith issued this statement on behalf of the chorus: "We look forward to singing for the people of Wroclaw Poland. The purpose of our visit is to promote civil discussion and visibility of the gay community. We hope to promote open discourse and diversity, free from violence and hatred. These values are a cornerstone of all free and democratic societies."

Contrast that with the reaction to Friday night's concert at Berlin's Haus der Kulturen. The performance ended in a standing ovation that went on for four minutes, promoting the chorus -- some already out of stage costume -- to run back on for an unplanned encore of "Marry Us" greeted with cheers. " If you had a stereotype that Germans weren't an emotional people, well, that would have changed," Smith writes.

The Wroclaw concert is Monday night; Smith will update the situation depending on Internet access. His Euro tour blog is here.

The morning papers

The Globe has an eyeopener by Jenn Abelson about companies paying bloggers for what amount to stealth advertisements - paid blog recommendations that don't mention the paid part. We'll never do that to you here at HubArts. On the other hand, if you'd like the advertise, use that email link on the top left and we'll talk. Or you can just use the PayPal link on the top right to send me money. Really, feel free.

The Globe sent Christine Temin to Art Basel; that's the dateline on her piece about Providence artist Jim Drain, who won the show's big prize. ... Catherine Foster writes about "Pugilist Specialist," a new play at Wellfleet Harbor Actor's Theatre, a political thriller about a female Marine who has exposed comrades roles in an unnamed incident and is now being sent on what sounds like a mission designed to fail. ... And Louise Kennedy writes about the Publick Theatre's coming production of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia," intended in part to shake a public perception that it's a Shakespeare-only troupe.

For some reason I just recently got around to reading the Phoenix's On the Download music blog, but it's a new must-read. Did you know there's an iPod-connected vibrator that'll get with the rhythm of your music? Lots of mp3s linked off the blog, too.