CMSO Firebird Concert

Chicago Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra played the "Fantasy" yesterday:

Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D Minor
Pierne: Concertstück for Harp and Orchestra
Nuiko Wadden, Harp
Mussorgsky: Prelude, Khovantchina
Stravinsky: Firebird Suite

I think Russ is really stretching with some of these concert themes, but "Fantasy" is as good as any for this concert. The Bach and Stravinsky were in Fantasia movies, and the Mussorgsky and Pierne are picturesque, soundtrack-type pieces that fit in well.

I'll go in order. The Bach was nearly a disaster, as we just didn't have enough time to rehearse it. The fugue section is actually pretty difficult technically and really difficult in a large ensemble.I think we played it well, and we did it without resorting to stereotypes (i.e. it was not overdramatic).

The Pierne was a pleasant surprise. I think it sounded a little too much like movie music, but it was still very enjoyable. Harp soloist was very good and impressive. From my viewpoint, I could actually see her hands shaking before starting off some passages. Once she started playing, though, her movements were natural and gorgeous. I just found out that she is the harpist in the Janus Trio, which I feel like I've heard of before.

Ruiko Wadden, Harp

The Mussorgsky is one of those pieces with an absolutely sublime melody line, something that you could get lost in for minutes at a time. Our oboist absolutely nailed the solo. I will need to explore the opera a little bit more, if only just for that melody line. By the way, I don't know what it is with me and the Russians. I can think of 5 or 6 melodies off the top of my head by Russian composers that make me pull a J.D. from Scrubs. There's the Borodin Polovtsian Dances. The line that builds and eventually climaxes in the last movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique. The second theme in the first movement of Pathetique. The slow movement of the second Prokofiev concerto. The second theme of the first mvt of the Khachaturian concerto. The slow movement of Tchakovsky 5. All of Scheherazade. I guess my point is, I'm easily drawn into Russian melodies.

The Stravinsky was a real challenge. I've become a pretty fast learner of music, but it took me several tries at the Stravinsky before I could even develop a roadmap in my head, and even then the notes were still hard. I ended up needing to fake a few passages (first movement, just before the start of the Princess Dance, and the end of the Infernal Dance. However, once we had played and rehearsed it a few times, the piece actually started to make sense.

I actually have a pretty long history with the Firebird suite. Back in 10th grade, my youth orchestra had a series of Russian-heavy concerts (something like Shostakovich 5, Polovtsian Dances, Russian Festival Overture, and the Finale of Firebird). In my 10th grade English class, I did a big report about 20th century Russian composition. It was painfully basic stuff (i.e. look! Stravinsky's using percussive sounds!), but hey, I didn't (and still don't) know anything about music theory. However, it confirmed my love of classical music. During that time, there were a few recordings that I listened to obsessively. One of them was Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra doing the Firebird Suite. I'll talk about the other recordings later. The point is, in 10th grade, I never thought I would get the opportunity to try such a complex and substantive piece like Firebird. On Sunday, I got to be part of an experience that actually transformed the piece for me.

I listened to Firebird roughly 3,764 times in 10th grade

Our performance completely exceeded my expectations. The Infernal Dance was fast and exciting. The solos were absolutely gorgeous in the Princess Dance. The first movement actually moved with purpose and didn't drag. And the Finale was actually quite intense, one of the better experiences I've taken part in.

Brahms 1 is next.

Individual Jump Ball Performance

Thanks to play-by-play data from Basketball Geek, I've been messing around with the game logs for the three seasons from 2006-2009.

One of the things I've always been fascinated with is the jump ball. To my eyes, it obviously takes height and athleticism, but there is also the factor of tipping it into the right place. I remember watching a Spurs game from a few years ago (sorry, tried looking for the specific play but couldn't find it) in which Tim Duncan won the opening tip by slapping it hard to Manu Ginobili, who gathered the ball and without breaking stride made a nearly uncontested layup. That play was probably drawn up by the Spurs because they knew they had the advantage in the jump ball.

First, some basics about the jump ball. There is one to start off every game to determine the initial possession. The winner of that jump ball will also start with possession in the 4th quarter, while the loser gets possession in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. Thus, the opening jump ball is really not that crucial to the game. A jump ball can also occur during the flow of the game, most often in the event of a tie-up for possession of the ball. A complete list of ways to initiate a jump ball can be found here.

Jump balls are also used to start each overtime period. This is a potentially huge advantage as there are very few possessions in the overtime period as it is, and winning the jumpball guarantees you will have at least as many possessions as your opponent. I may look at overtime jump ball stats and their correlation to winning games in the future.

So, are some players better at jump balls than others? I looked across the three seasons from 2006-2009 and kept track of each jump ball and determined the winner by seeing who ended up with possession. My criteria was that a player's stats were only counted if, during the season, the player attempted at least 15 jump balls. This weeds out most of the smaller players who only do jump balls when they are part of a tie-up. I then looked at the average attempts per season and calculated their jump ball win percentage.

The chart has the average attempts on the x-axis and the win % on the y-axis. The best players for jump balls are the ones furthest up and furthest right. Although there is a slight positive trend (which tells us that NBA teams are, for the most part, picking the right players to do the jump balls), the results are pretty scattered.

The individual results are also not that surprising. Most people would probably have guessed that Dwight Howard is one of the most effective players at the jump ball. The "winners" of this survey are Howard, Duncan, Shaq, and Samuel Dalembert.

Also, it's interesting to see how height isn't necessarily the most important trait. In fact, although I have not done this analysis, it looks like rebound rate would be a good proxy for jump ball effectiveness. All the high % players are ones that are usually associated with good rebounding skills and the effort/desire to play in the low block. The ones that are low % but also made many attempts (Yao Ming, Mehmet Okur, Eddy Curry, etc.) are tall players but not necessarily athletic players.

However, height does matter in that it seems to serve as kind of a threshold stat. The three worst players in this survey are Kevin Love (ouch), David Lee, and Udonis Haslem. All three are undersized big men that had to play significant stretches as the lone big man (Love when Jefferson went down in 2009, Lee pretty much all the time, Haslem after Shaq was traded from the Heat). Even though all three players are effective rebounders, it looks like those skills don't really help in their case as they do not meet a basic level of height.

Finally, I just want to mention that this is a relatively small sample size, as even in the best case (say, for Dwight Howard), we still only have about 250 attempts over the three-year period. Statistical fluctuations can and do occur. The next step is to see if winning the jump ball in overtime actually leads to an increased probability of winning the game.

Tosca at the Lyric

I saw the Lyric Opera do Puccini's Tosca last Friday night. It was the first time seeing a live opera for me. We had pretty good seats, on the third floor (not too far, but definitely far enough that opera glasses would've helped). Overall a pretty good experience, but I think it came in slightly under my expectations.

Tosca is a great first opera to see. It has an intriguing but typical story line (crazy woman driven to the edge for love, kills bad guy, everyone dies in the end). The sets were splendid - I really liked the church setting for the first act. Music is solidly Puccini.

Yep, she murders...I know, crazy!

After the first act, I was actually hyper. It was very exciting, hearing the voices in person, and seeing the acting definitely makes a difference. The second act really slows it down as most of the act is a dialogue between Tosca and Scarpia (until she kills him in the end, of course). The final act is brief - I actually wanted more.

In the end, I think part of my underwhelming experience is because I don't really have a connection to the music. Puccini is famous for the most well-known arias, such as Nessun Dorma and O mio babbino caro. There isn't really a signature aria in this opera. The two times I was most engaged were in the final act when Cavaradossi sings his farewell to Tosca and the end of the first act when Scarpia is plotting while the church congregation gathers. None of those really qualify as a "chill" moment for me.

As cheesy as this sounds, the closest I came to the "chill" moment is when I realized during the end of the first act that Tosca is the opera in the background when James Bond is kicking ass in Quantum of Solace. That movie might actually over-dramatize Tosca, although I still think it's cool that I made the connection.

I will definitely try to make a few more Lyric productions. They still have Figaro on their schedule for this year and already announced Carmen, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Lohengrin (among others) for next year.