From: carter AT aix1 DOT ucok DOT edu (Paul Carter) Date: Wed, 19 Oct 1994 14:25:00 -0500 Subject: Copeland Ballet in OK The following is an article that appeared in the local newspaper. I'm going to the Saturday night performance! =========================================================================== Copyright The Sunday Oklahoman (Oklahoma City) Oct 16, 1994 'Torrent of Music' Brings Copeland to Oklahoma By Sharon Beuchaw A 6-year-old boy sits in a darkened room as the strains of classical music mix with wartime explosions in the night and the staccato of gunfire in the streets of Beirut. The year is 1958. Muslim Arab nationalists rebel against the Lebanese government. The sounds of turmoil outside occasionally punctuate the child's reverie as the listens, enraptured. He doesn't hear the music, he visualizes it: in pictures, rhythmic shapes and colors. "I could see it all," Steward Copeland quietly recalled, in a phone interview from a recording studio in Battle, England. "That's been with me all my life. I can't think of any words to describe it." Copeland, the 42-year-old drummer from the defunct, Grammy-winning rock band The Police, now expresses himself by composing music, primarily orchestral compositions, operas, ballets and movie scores. The world premiere ballet "PREY," a collaboration between Copeland and Ballet Oklahoma's artistic director Bryan Pitts, debuts at 8:15 pm Friday at the Civic Center Music Hall. Sharing the spotlight are the ballets "Tangos," which uses the music of Argentina, and Stravinsky's "Variations for Six." For the Copeland-Pitts ballet, the Civic Center stage will be transformed into a wild forest where "prey takes many forms," Pitts said. One animal may stalk another or a dominant maile may be challenged. Scaffolding and trees will re-create the hierarchy of a wild kingdom populated by baboons, lions, eagles and wildebeests. Pitts describes the music as African influenced. The ballet has eight movements and is scored for small orchestra without strings. Copeland, playing the drums, will perform with members of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. "The music for a ballet has to relate to a story without the help of lyrics," Copland said. "The ballet is all about body language - the mechanical part of telling a story. It can just be about creating beautiful patterns but I, myself, am a storyteller." Pitts began working with Copeland about a year and a half ago, mostly via long distance phone calls from England and California, where Copeland maintains residences. Pitts received a tape of Copeland's score in June. "It's been a very easy relationship," Pitts said. "We feed off each other's ideas." The event will breathe new life into the company by attracting a different crowd, Pitts said. "Steward adds another dimension to our audience - those who have never come to a ballet." The premiere of "PREY" marks a major milestone for Ballet Oklahoma, Pitts adds: It is the first work the 25-year-old company has commissioned from a composer, offering the chance to create a ballet from the ground up. "When you have a company that is tradition-bound and they're (the members of the company) ready to bust out," Copeland said, "they really will commit all their energies and resources to your work." Copeland, who calls himself an iconoclast, admits some critics were rough on his fledging efforts in classical music. He says he is equipped with a "lexicon of critical invectives," containing negative reviews of great works of music. Some of the negative reviews have actually helped him, he adds. Most friends and associates tell him only positive things about his music. Often critics are his sole source of honest opinion. "There has been constructive criticism which I've taken note of," he said, but no words can erase the feeling of satisfaction which comes from listening to a finished composition or having an audience hear and enjoy it. "The people who come to my shows, they like my music ... They're not there to form an opinion and put it on paper," Copeland said. "If it plays for the people of Oklahoma ... that means it's the real thing." Besides, he added, the London press hated The Police during the band's first two years. Formed in 1977 in London, the band's success culminated with the success of "Synchronicity," which was No. 1 for 17 weeks in 1983. "There are certain combinations of musical personalities that work well together," said Copeland. Musicians like members of the Eagles can play in a band for years, outgrow each other and then come together again. As for the possibility of a reunion tour by The Police, a band whose well-publicized battles gave new meaning to the term "artistic differences" with actual fisticuffs, "I don't think that's likely to occur," he said. In 1983, with The Police nearing the end, Copeland started writing film and television soundtracks. His latest soundtrack is for the movie "Fresh." In 1985, Copeland composed music for the San Francisco Ballet. He has also written three operas and orchestral music for the Seattle Symphony. Copeland says it is his first love. As a child of 4, he would demand that his mother Lorraine, an archaeologist, play some of their favorite music: Debussy, Copland, Orff and Ravel. His father Miles Copland, Jr., a former trumpeter for the Glenn Miller orchestra, was a CIA field officer. The family lived in Cairo and Beirut during Stewart's childhood. Copeland, who was born in Alexandria, Va., says as a kid he was physically small for his age, bespectacled and shy. During his teens he forged his identity by playing the drums, he recalls, "because they're very noisy and I was very quiet." Copeland says he was raised as a jazz musician and became a pop star before segueing into composing. Now he's working with one of the modern guitar heroes of rock - Jeff Beck. Their project, as yet untitled, is about as far from ballet as is possible. Copeland, it seems, is not deterred by musical boundaries. "From the age of 6 I've had this torrent of music going through my head," he said. "I can't stop it." =========================================================================== Paul Carter: GAT d@ -p+ c++(++++) l u++ e+++ m+ s-/- n-@ h--- f+ g+ w+ t++ r- y?