Category Archives: Myron’s Music Notes

Concert Photos/Reviews, General news, Il Volo, Myron's Music Notes

Music Notes ~ Painfully Beautiful ~ By Myron

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Picture stolen from Elaine's video
Picture stolen from Elaine’s video
This one too
This one too

Il Volo in Concert – Los Angeles – Greek Theater – June 7, 2014

Have you ever loved something to point where it hurt ? You know this tiny amount of heaven will only last for 2 ½ hours and then you go back to your everyday life – “reality”. You wish it would go on forever and that hurts. So I am using the title of a song Il Volo sang in their first album (see title) to describe the concert last night. So many times the singing was so beautiful that I was in tears – music that was “Painfully Beautiful”. Why did it have to end? Well, here is a review.

First, the boys, the guys, THE MEN – (Piero can’t possibly be turning 21- why do I feel so old ? ).
If ever a fan might be worried that their singing might be less than what it should be, just remember the years of training and solid family life-style they have had. This amounts to such a tremendous work ethic that I can’t imagine they will ever let us down – if they have anything to do with it. This was a perfect example of that work ethic. The vocal work was always right on the mark. The details such as HUGE BREATH support, perfect vowel shapes (watch a video of Gianluca for a lesson on perfect vowels), beautifully supported high notes (Ignazio never fails); pure vocal projection and power without the usual pop singer screaming (Hooray for Piero). This year, more than ever in the years since I have been seeing them in concert, they have shown such passion and emotion and it was laid out there on the stage for us AND we could feel it – WHEW ! Feel your heart skip a beat ! I will discuss the personal side of the boys later. Pardon my pride of ownership: “My boys were absolutely on the money” . This was 2 ½ hours of artistically superb singing !

This was the first stop on their tour that used full-live orchestra of about 30 players. Most other concerts will use five instrumentalists and pre-recorded orchestra track on computer.

The program was sort of a potluck of their favorites from the past years:

Act One

Un Amore Cosi Grande

Granda

Tous les Visages de l’Amour

We are Love

No Puede Ser (Piero’s solo)

Caruso (done as a trio this time)

Ti Voglio Tanto Bene (Ignazio’s solo)

(from the very first PBS show)

This Time ( from first season)

I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You

(brand new Elvis arrangement for Gianluca )

Mama (from first season)

 

Act Two

Can you Feel the Love tonight

Per Te

Memory (Ignazio’s solo)

Angel

Il Canto

Smile

Night and Day (Gianluca’s solo)

Beautiful Day  

Maria (fro three)

Non Ti Scordar Di Me (Piero’s solo)

Surrender/Torna a Surriento

Il Mondo

———-

Encores

El Triste

O Solo Mio/Now or Never

 

Long-term fans will see music from three seasons mixed together and it was great.

My favorites;
The new arrangement of the Elvis song: “I can’t Help Falling in Love You”. I like this song and Gianluca wrapped it in a blanket of beautiful passion. His maturity is showing more and more. His “Night and Day” was even better than last year- superb. Ignazio stopped the show with his wonderful “ Ti Voglio Tanto Bene” (they joked about how the last time he sang that song (three years ago) he was 75 pounds heavier. He did look good last night. He also was showing more maturity in singing. Piero just wiped up the whole place with his powerhouse solo “No Puede Ser” . They talked about him training to do an opera role later this year. This young man is serious. For the full ensemble pieces my favorite this time was “Il Canto” which Ignazio accidently announced as “ Il Volo” – whoops ! Then would come my main favorite: “Il Mondo” But they were all so good.

Staging and crew:
Well, the boys may have been nearly perfect in their work but the crew that backed them up was not. The stage crew at the Greek was very sloppy in the stage set-up. The general lighting was poorly timed (to the music) and the worst tech problem was the follow spot-operators. I know some of you may think this is silly but when you are in the audience and your favorite singer starts a song and he is totally in the dark for two or three phrases that is terrible. It was so bad that the boys made mention of it several times in the show. At one point all three spots were to be on each boy but Ignazio was in the dark and he was the one scheduled to talk. So he said, in his typical light-hearted fashion, that “electricity is so expensive that we cannot afford to have lights” (huge audience laugh ! ) (power to you Ignazio – the audience was very pleased he said that). There were other times that made a lot of us feel that spot operators needed to be fired.

The Il Volo sound system was tied into the Greek Theater sound system which was way overloaded to bass sounds (like a rock band) and that drown the boys’ sounds once in a while – fortunately not too often. I do get annoyed because our boys’ work very hard and they need to depend on a good partnership with tech and crew and when that does not happen it hurts the boys’ presentation and the entire show.

Atmosphere:
The tech stuff aside, there was so much that was wonderful about this concert. I don’t usually like open-air theaters but that evening the sky was clear, the moon was out and the weather was beautiful. The acoutics in the Greek work very well for an open-air place.
I was about 8 rows back and the viewing was great. The orchestra was very fine indeed.

My favorite thing (aside from the singing) was seeing how these boys have matured since I saw them last November. They are engaging the audience more and more and their between-songs banter does not feel a little rigid anymore but very natural and really funny this time. I mean really funny. In the past Gianluca would tend to stay out of the clowing around but this time he engaged just as much as the others. It warmed my heart to see this funny, loving banter and a little horse-play going on and the audience loved it and loved them. One scene: Ignazio was fooling around between songs messing the hair of the guitar player and then the pianist and then he went to mess the hair of Gianluca and WOW – you don’t mess Gianluca’s hair ! So they had a pretend hair fight. We all laughed outloud. Then they turned around and sang just perfectly.

One little cute and funny story: during the singing of the Lion King song, “Can you Feel the Love Tonight” Ignazio made a mistake with the text – the words. After the song was done he owned up to it in a funny way telling the story of how they saw the show on Broadway and he went back to his hotel room and could not sleep because the words “ Hakuna Matata” were going through his mind. That was the reason he goofed the words on the song – “Hakuna Matata”.

End result: the audience (about 4000) was totally transported into a heavenly realm of musical artistry and it was obvious from the pre-show and intermission conversation that the people came loaded for love. They already knew it was going to be great. I had several meetings during my time there: There were three different groups of fans from the Flight Crew that I ran across, both before the show and after. Some I was expecting and the others were a suprise to me. All in all 14 new friends and Flight Crew fans.

Personal side:
The other meeting was at 3:30pm in the afternoon when I had set up to meet backstage with Barbara, Piero, Gianluca and Ignazio as best they could fit it in. I arrived just as they were in sound check and rehearsal. It was very interesting to watch them do their rehearsal work. Barbara and the boys were very welcoming and warm but the time was cut short because they had added another radio interview to be done before concert. I did have a little more time with Piero and wished him a happy birthday. Ignazio was so sweet to mention the flowers for his grandfather’s funeral. Gianluca waved at me (on the side of the stage) but was busy with the orchestra working out Elvis. I must say that the term “Flight Crew” got mentioned by them here and there during the talk. I tell you we are becoming a large family.

 

Thank You Myron, This was just beautiful!

 

General news, Gianluca, Ignazio, Il Volo, Myron's Music Notes

Music Notes ~~ Il Volo – Raising the Bar – Raising the Standards ~By Myron Heaton

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a - billboard award

Il Volo is having an influence on the pop music world even though it is rather small
right now. However, I am confident it will grow as time goes on. How is that? It has
to do with the way they keep perfecting their art. The answer later in this article.
First let me start with this premise: the human voice is too often taken for granted and
poorly treated partly because it is an instrument inside us and not tangible like a violin
or clarinet or piano, etc. Everyone can sing and, in fact, you are doing a form of
singing when you talk. It is the same set of muscles, and you are using pitches when
you talk- just not a lot of different ones. But with all that as a given, a person is not
born with the knowledge of how to use the voice to the best of its ability. Training is
needed.
If you are given a violin or clarinet or piano and want to play it to the best of your
ability, you take lessons from a trained and degreed expert – i.e. a private teacher with
a B.A. Or Master’s degree – and learn all of the proper methods and techniques needed
to produce great quality. A singer – just as with those instruments – should take
private lessons and put those techniques to good use. You are taught by a voice
teacher (advanced is a voice coach) with a Master’s degree in vocal pedagogy ( rough
definition: the science and craft of teaching the art of singing) . Yes, anyone can sing,
and some are born with a wonderful natural instrument which they put to use with
little or no knowledge of good techniques while others take that wonderful natural
instrument and add the proper training and end up with an incredible instrument of
limitless beauty, power, grace and elegance.
a - 02JPVolo4-articleLarge
IL VOLO ‘ s place
Each of these guys at a very young age had the love and passion of singing instilled in them either by their grandpa (Gianluca and Piero) or by the family and community
they lived in (Ignazio) or both (all three). Each of these boys was blessed by God
with a magnificent natural instrument. They had parents that were smart enough and
caring enough to realize that such natural beauty deserved proper training and got
them good voice teachers. Those same parents needed to provide the support and
emotional space to allow them to grow artistically. Takes a lot of patience from the
parents some times. Then comes the contests and festivals and competitions (more
parent partnership).
Picture credits to Don Ercole andMundial
Picture credits to Don Ercole and Mundial
As the group was finally put together as Il Volo, they added a voice coach to sustain
the great work already started and, also, to teach them how to preserve and protect
those wonderful instruments. When you ruin a clarinet you go out and buy a new one
but when you ruin your voice you are done. You can’t buy a new one.
With all this work going on we, the public, have been enjoying wonderful pop music
(with a classical flair ) presented to the heights of quality and perfection. Since they
are so young and not in their 30’s or 40’s, they get more attention from all ages. The
youth thing really works in their favor so well. The result is that they have become
very popular with a wide variety of ages in the USA.
This has not escaped the attention of some well established big names. Barbra
Streisand had planned a tour in 2012 but after hearing Il Volo and seeing what their
coach has done, she decided to add a coach to her prep work for the last 4 months
prior to tour. Recently, I have read that Justin Timberlake has hired a voice coach to
expand the range and improve quality of his serious singing. He has mentioned
wanting to do a Broadway musical and that requires a well-trained voice. He very
much knows the “Il Volo sound” There has also been some talk amongst certain
female singers that they want to get a little of the “ Il Volo “ edge and clean up their
voice and their singing.
a - tumblr_Barb strisand
Il Volo is not the only group with good training but they are the youngest and the best
out there right now. They are having an impact on the pop music business. Gianluca,
Ignazio and Piero have raised the bar. They have raised the standards. Let’s hope that
impact keeps growing.
Picture credit Laura Batke at The mall of America
Picture credit Laura Batke at The Mall of America
Coming soon: an article looking at two of the concerts Il Volo did during the winter
season.
General news, Il Volo, Myron's Music Notes, Site News

Billboard Latin Music Awards!!!

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news            2/5/14                          billboard

The 2014 Billboard Latin Music Award nominations  have been announced!!

Il Volo has been nominated in 2 catagories!!

“Artist” of the year for Duo or Group and “Album” of the year for Duo or Group!!                                                               a - tumblr_mx581byPaU1rsi2o7o3_1280

Congratulations “Guys” you deserve this. The Award show this year will take place in  Miami  in April, and will be televised by Univision.

EDITED:  Gianluca tweeted today “Thanks to our #ilvolovers that are holding us up everyday, thanks to #latinbillboardawards @latinbillboards for the 2 nominations. #gracias.”

 

General news, Il Volo, Myron's Music Notes

Music Notes: Buon Natale – is finally here! – By Myron Heaton

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 Here, once again, is our very own Music Man.  Myron, I hope you really like this show.  It’s my favorite.  ~Marie

(Courtesy Detroit PBS)
( Detroit PBS)

I was hoping to have had this out sooner but my order of this program had not arrived yet when the PBS special came on television tonight. So here is my review of the television show on PBS – December 2, 2013. This was filmed on March 27, 2013 or as they called it at the time –“ Christmas in March in Miami “. Try to get your head around that image ! 

In quick summary, I want to say that this program was really excellent but given their schedule that week it should not have been good at all. More on that later.

I don’t usually describe the staging of a song but this was excellent: curtain closed, the boys walk in through the audience shaking hands as they keep walking and while the orchestra (out of sight) plays intro to Panis Angelicus. They make it to the stage just in time to start the song. Beautifully sung – period . Then this is done the curtain opens to a very lavishly decorated stage with full orchestra and the song Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. The whole transition was excellent. Nice lively rendition.

With the boys up on their round platform they sat on the edge and sang I’ll be Home for Christmas. Another great orchestration and using the alternate introduction made famous by Bing Crosby. Nice singing and very rich in tone. Gianluca gave a wonderful mellow sound to the 3rd verse. This was followed by the boy’s now-famous medley with the big band Sinatra sound – Medley: Jingle Bells Rock-Let it Snow-Wonderful Time of the Year This is always a powerful performance and they always have fun with the audience. When you compare the “We are Love “ concert which was filmed the night before this program, this audience was a lot more “alive” and responsive to the boys.

Perhaps the best song and best performance of the night: The Christmas Song(Chestnuts Roasting on an open fire) – the orchestration was fantastic and it starts with Gianluca singing in a most incredible and mellow tone. He is inspired by the great singer Mel Torme – who, by the way, was also the composer of this great song. Torme was known as the “velvet fog” – nickname because his voice moved so smooth and because he was a great jazz improviser. That was Gianluca right here and right now. To make it even more wondrous, Piero – who normally pushes tone rather strong came through with his own wonderful, mellow vocal sound. Ignazio followed with some jazz rifs and echoed by Gianluca again. Mel Torme would be proud. Truly great performance of this wonderful song.

Up next a very nice rendition of Ave Maria – Schubert version. As Gianluca points out there is another famous version written by Johann S. Bach and arranged by Gounod. Here, I am afraid, we had some evidence of the tired voices from the stressed out week. More on that later. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town – changed the mood right away with a lot of cute facials and footwork from the guys. This was fun. This section concluded with their very fine arrangement of O Holy Night. Giving each boy a good solo section and also using very nice harmony is part. The singing here is just absolutely glorious. Great orchestration but this is all the guys. This is what Gianluca, Piero and Ignazio were created for. This is what the original meaning of the words “Bel Canto” really meant. Absolutely pure and simple beautiful singing – period !

The next section starts with Silent Night which was not quite as good as they have done and part of it was the rather dumb position they are sitting in – ugh ! They looked so uncomfortable from the start. Singers don’t sit on the floor with their legs crossed up under their arms – sorry Gianluca. Fire the stage director. They have sung this song much better on prior times (the Today Show last year, for one).

A let-down to a highlight. Elvis’ Blue Christmas – sung totally a capella ! ! !

Starting without any pitch from orchestra (nice to have perfect pitch) and sung with no orchestra, or piano or guitar. Just PURE GUYS ! That was fantastic and very pretty. This was followed by another of my favorites that they have sung before Notte Stellata (The Swan)–another “Bel Canto” example of singing. The version of White Christmas was sung vey nicely but I felt they should have stayed with the original key which is lower by two steps and therefore better range for all. They carried it off. The concert ended with Feliz Navidad along with Belinda. Nice audience sing-along. Good ending to a program.

As I said above, this concert came off in truly excellent fashion – great music done with great quality. Congratulations boys, but no due to planning. There should never have been a plan that forced the boys into filming two entirely different concerts for television BACK TO BACK – one day after the other. “We are Love” on March 26 and Buon Natale on March 27 ! This is bad vocal planning and vocal care. I also think it takes advantage of the boys’ good nature and their extraordinary professionalism ! The proper plan should have been a week of rehearsals for the first show and two days off and then a week of rehearsals for the second show. These two concerts came off because of the three most wonderful young men in the business today.

Bless you Ignazio. Bless you Piero. Bless you Gianluca. We love you and wish you all a great and restful Christmas with your families.

-Myron

 

Concert Photos/Reviews, General news, Myron's Music Notes

Music Notes ~ End Of Tour Reflections – Il Volo – 2013 – By Myron Heaton

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Now that the  2013 “We Are Love” Tour is over both in the U.S. and Latin America, here is my review of the concert season. Gianluca, Piero and Ignazio are the best singers in the world and are more handsome than anyone else on the planet.  Now for a few more details…here’s our real music man, Myron Heaton.

~Marie

RSCN1008

The music, tour set-up and itinerary, and the guys.

MUSIC

I have always felt that the repertoire they choose is excellent and as I look back over the program from this tour having seen the concert close to four times I feel that is true way more than ever. It was nice (and smart) to bring some of the songs from the last tour back again and add to the songs from this year’s “We Are Love” album. The concert was well balanced in terms of texture and tempo of the music ( fast / slow / fast and serious / lighter / serious ) . The solos were spaced out very nicely except for one place: Gianluca’s solo “En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor” should have been followed by something other than “Beautiful Day” – something that starts with one of the other boys as lead singer. It is just vocal pacing that I am thinking of. But “Beautiful Day” is a great song to lead into intermission. I would have put “Il Canto” in the first half of the concert and not the second half – again for pacing. I also felt that even though “Questo Amore” is very nice song, it is not an opening number. “Il Mondo” is a great opening number as “Torna a Surriento” – Surrender “ is a great finale. Using the a capella version of one verse of “Smile” as the final encore was a stroke of genius ! Wonderful! Always sent chills up and down everyone’s back.

Songs left out of the tour: “ Lion King”- ended up being overdone prior to tour. “Cosi”- – never quite worked well and the pairing did not work well. “Bring you to my senses” – this turned out to be a regret for the guys. After the tour was going a few days they wished they would have kept that in the tour program rather than “Angel”. All due to the situation in Miami back in March. Too bad. It is a nice song with just the boys singing and they liked singing it. Hope we hear it in the future.

My personal favorites from the new crop of music: We Are Love (great theme song); Luna Nascosta; Il Canto; Surrender-Torna A Surriento. It is hard to stop, there are so many that I like. Older favorites: Smile and Tous Les Visages de l’Amour.

TOUR SET-UP

In one of my comments on the site I said that it was too short and too long. It was too long from the standpoint that there were too many concerts too close together allowing for too little rest of the voices and the body. They were forced to put in some unplanned rest time around Panama because voices were starting to go bad. That is very scary when you are a singer on tour. They had to move the Panama concert to give them space to get health back. 50 concerts in 2 ½ months is too many concerts in too close an order makes it feel to the singer like it is going on forever. You can also say that if you need to do all those concerts than stretch the tour out to four months.

This would allow time for my other pet peave: Not enough places in the USA. The whole midwest was left out except for Chicago and now four songs in Minneapolis. Nothing in Texas where they had four sites last time (pardon my repeating myself) nothing in Las Vegas ? !

My suggested tour would have lasted four to five months and had two week-long breaks in the 1/3 way point and the 2/3 way point. Maybe two-week break before Latin American half.

I know what you might be saying: too many concerts period . My take on that is too many concerts in too short a time. This is their profession and like other professional singers they do about 70 to 100 concerts a year. A revised tour would have had those 50 concerts plus two or three midwest cities plus Vegas and Texas bringing the Il Volo total to about 60 concerts over a four-month period. This year Salena Gomez has 76 concerts but stretched out more. Justin Bieber has over 130 concerts (although he has cancelled some of these) spread out over 8 months. With the Australian / Asia tour next spring and a return to Europe I am not sure on the numbers there. I just hope we are kept in the know.

OUR BOYS – OUR MEN

These guys are all legal adults and did not need to bring parents along. But they did anyway. Very wise. Helped to keep them grounded. Throughout the tour people like me were expressing concern about their voices being over-worked. But we need to know that they were concerned also and their parents also and their managers were concerned as well. They did have pretty good care during the whole tour. The fact that the tour was too cramped was a little bit out of their hands.

Our guys always sang as a true “professional” is supposed to. They treated each concert as though it was the first – with care and quality. They treated each concert like a classical concert rather than a pop concert. That is not the case with a lot of singers these days.

After spending the summer and fall reading about Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber and their silly actions, I was so proud of the way our guys conducted themselves on this tour. Magnificent young men !!! You did not see stories of our guys doing drugs; smashing cars; going to brothels; getting arrested; treating audience like cattle, etc. etc.

I tell you that we Il Volo fans are lucky that this is the group to which we are attracted. The best of everything: best music; best voices to sing that music with; THE nicest guys – period. God was having a very fine day when each of these boys was born !