RSS FeedClarke Peters of The Wire on his show Five Guys Named Moe
What links Shirley Bassey, Stanley Baxter, a song about talking chickens and cult US TV show The Wire?
If you’d asked me a week ago, I’d have struggled to tell you. Now I know: 58-year-old American actor Clarke Peters, currently sitting opposite me in an Edinburgh hotel, tellig stories and looking like the cat that got the cream – or, in his case, the large glass of Laphroaig.
He sniffs the whisky appreciatively as he talks and its smoky aroma fills the room. His voice, equally smoky, does likewise. “Mmm,” he purrs, his mind still on the amber stuff. “This is gooood”.
If you’re under 30, you’ll know Peters as Lester Freamon, the laconic Baltimore detective who features alongside British actors Dominic West and Idris Elba in David Simon’s epic crime drama The Wire. Running to five seasons and hundreds of characters, it has spawned superlatives like nothing else on television before it.
The Boston Musical Intelligencer » Gandolfi Commission, Fine ...
In: Reviews September 22, 2009 Gandolfi Commission, Fine Bartok, Herald Concord Chamber Music Society 10th Anniversary by Adam Baratz
The Concord Chamber Music Society celebrated their 10th anniversary with a performance at the Concord Academy auditorium in Concord, MA, on Sunday afternoon, September 20. They opened with some comfortable material before moving onto lesser-known lands. The first piece was Beethoven’s (op. 96), with Wendy Putnam, violin, and Vytas J. Baksys, piano. The writing was unmistakably Beethoven, dynamic and daring as only he can be, but the performance didn’t rise to meet it. The attitude was more placid than the score seemed to suggest. I think it was a combination of slightly shy tempos and the room’s dull acoustics.
Lukas Foss’s was another violin/piano duo. It’s best described as a caricature of a reel. The genre’s essential enthusiasm was doubled over on itself in a cascade of rhythms (the final section fed the violin through a delay pedal for a real barnstorming — unfortunately, sloppy volume control overwhelmed the piano). While a lazier composer would’ve made a minimalist reel and smiled with smug post-modern satisfaction, Foss dove into the nuances of his material and had fun. Sure, the premise was a little cerebral, but the mind at work was genuinely playful and joyous.
A commission from Michael Gandolfi marked the society’s anniversary. His note indicated that was modeled after Picasso’s single-gesture works. The music was a set of five sketches for violin, clarinet, and piano, each written in under three days with emphasis on a single gesture. The writing in each was strong and clear, but the whole set had a kind of “box of chocolates” effect. You’re happy when you get, for example, the chocolate-covered apricot. The marshmallow you might not take on its own, but it’s fine enough when taken with the rest. In all, the set was pleasant and refreshing.
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