Part Two

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1k0zdIpFRM

Obama Inauguration speech part one and two.

CNN analyzes the speech content here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/20/obama.speech.sources/index.html

Photo November 2008 at the ZAIA Theater – Venetian Macao.

Manchester United visited Cirque Du Soleil’s ZAIA Theater in Macau, China as part of their promotion for the new Manchester United Interactive Football Experience located at the Venetian Macao. Here is the photo of MU with the ZAIA cast (I’m on the far right in the top photo).

Update December 2008: Manchester United wins the World Cup!

Manchester United Interactive Football Experience comes to the Venetian Macao
Macau can now experience what it is like to be at Manchester United (MU), as Asia’s first interactive football experience, MU Experience is opened at The Venetian Macao, launched by two former United stars, Bryan Robson and Brian McClair, joined by Mr Stephen Weaver, President of Asian Region, Las Vegas Sands Corp.

“I think the Experience is superb, it really captures the spirit and the atmosphere of this great club. The amazing way in which they have used technology makes it really feel like you are in the United dressing room or lining up with the players in the tunnel.” said Robson, former MU captain who was the longest serving captain in the club’s history.

During MU Experience, fans will have the chance to experience the drama and excitement of the build-up to a match at MU, including hearing Sir Alex Ferguson’s voice, without having to travel to Old Trafford.

I wanted to do something with my newfound free time; so decided to do something crazy that I had always wanted to do: To write a complete orchestral and choral work in one week like JS Bach used to do for his weekly church services. My last service for the church was Christmas Eve 2007 so I decided to write a Gloria for presentation at the evening Christmas Eve service.

I am not good at writing unless I have to – so I habitually put myself in positions where I can’t back out. I told the church staff and choir of my intention and they all thought it sounded like fun and they put ads in the local paper for people to join our choir for the service. The great part about his (and I don’t think they knew this) is that the ads went out but I hadn’t written a note of the music yet. But it put me in a great corner where I had to write the piece now.

Wanting to complete the piece in one week like JS Bach used to do, I started composing one week before the first choir rehearsal. I am usually unimpressed when people tell me how quickly they wrote a piece (“Look, I wrote this song in only one hour!”) because it’s usually just an excuse for how crappy the music is. But I cut myself slack in this instance, because part of the magic of the journey was the time constraint involved. I cannot be JS Bach (Boy, I wish I could!), but I could at least enjoy a little taste of his historical work style.

I write this because I received an email reminding me the one year anniversary of the “Christmas Gloria” was coming up and there were questions about how to access it.

Here is a live recording of the piece:
http://conradaskland.com/downloads/Christmas-Gloria/Christmas-Gloria.mp3

The score is located here:
http://conradaskland.com/downloads/Christmas-Gloria/Christmas-Gloria-Askland-conductor.pdf

FYI, I had set up several professional microphones for a great recording but did so at the last minute and my ADAT tapes wouldn’t format that evening correctly. So all I could do was put a little CD recorder on top of the organ that recorded this performance with it’s very crappy internal microphones. But at least we have something of that night.

Yes, you may download it and copy it for a performance if you like. This was a wonderful experience for me. Thank you to the many talented vocalists and musicians in Mount Vernon, and the congregation and staff of Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church for supporting this work.

If you want to follow the original progression of the work on the piece begun December 12, 2007 – you can go here:
http://www.conradaskland.com/blog/2007/12/the-gloria-challenge/

The words of the Gloria are from the original Latin text of the Gloria from the Catholic Mass. I think I rearranged the order of the sentences, can’t quite remember now. I DID add in the words “Soli Deo Gloria” at the beginning and end (for a proper Protestant musical bookmark), “Only for the Glory of God” – also a reference to “Sola Scriptura” from Martin Luther and the Reformation.

The middle section is a trio on Et In Terra Pax or “Let There Be Peace On Earth”. That is my favorite section – the gentle and intimate relief from the larger choral sections. It makes me cry because Et In Terra Pax (the words) are so beautiful, yet seems so impossible to realize. Like the girl in Les Miserable singing “Castle on a Cloud” – it’s more of a hopeful wish than something I know can be true. It is pathos – just my personal take. To others it might very well just be some song.

My other favorite part of the recording is not actually the music at all, it is the applause. It’s not applause necessarily for the piece, but the piece was my way of saying farewell to the congregation; and to me the applause was them wishing me well on my journey.

Merry Christmas!

HISTORY OF THEATER IN WITTENBERG
Wittenberg has a long tradition in cultural events. The City Theatre Mitteldeutsches Landestheater reached a great importance in GDR times. Since 1996, the City proposes Open-Air theatre shows based on the Lutheran history still alive in many historical places of the ancient town. As highlights, in 2001 and 2005, Fernando Scarpa became the artistic director of the “Bühne Wittenberg” (Stage Wittenberg), a project for theatre, art and culture in the whole of Germany which attracts to the City plenty of audience and whose success achieves European echo. Hamlet is said to have studied here.

A film by Davy McGuire 2008 showing the cast of Zaia from training in Montreal to opening in Macau at the Venetian Casino. The Zaia artists saw this for the first time in the green room at the Cirque Du Soleil Zaia Theater in Macau in October 2008.

At 1:19 there’s a photo of me outside in the snow in Montreal with other band members. I like this video a lot – it captures a little of the crazy energy and personalities working on our show.

Thanks for making the video Davy!

Video clips of the 2003 film “Luther” about Martin Luther and the Reformation. I have a wide variety of views listed here. I don’t agree with all of them, but I enjoy the diversity. And it interests me that 500 years later people are still so passionate about Martin Luther.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn8I_HttB20&NR=1

Martin Luther defends himself at the Diet of Worms:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5P7QkHCfaI

Diet of Worms – Different movie version – black and white:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0F1utKV46w

Martin Luther in Rome (2003 LUTHER movie:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiSCnZ4wSMov

German Trailer – 2003 Luther film:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qlPKU_3eTA

A video saying Martin Luther is the “devil”:
One of the first defenses is “Luther said the Catholic church sold indulgences. That’s not true, they gave FREE indulgences to people that donated to rebuild St. Peter’s”. I’m told this argument is still used today…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR0hCypT5-k

Video critical of Martin Luther:
Jesus Christ vs. Martin Luther – who will you follow?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM8U6bnt37U

2002 Documentary on Luther and the Reformation:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFqWnEpZvjs

Why the Protestant Reformation matters – Sermon

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otGfG5dDl7Y

Attack on Martin Luther from YouTube member:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH8V8iHFc9U

Catholic vs. Protestant (Apple Parody)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FI5nzGU844

Battle Hymn of the Reformation
“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiRpUtVByxU

Martin Luther vs. the Catholic Church – Part One

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMe2lExkrtQ

Martin Luther vs. the Catholic Church Part Two – Documentary w/film clips

Martin Luther vs. The Catholic Church – Part Three

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbLqMdcvNOg

The Sanctuary Choir and Orchestra from Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas present Mark Hayes’ arrangement of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” in their 10:35am service on February 24th, 2008.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRIp2nnlQuc

Martin Luther – Documentary Part One excerpt:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p01dS27bCQ

Luther documentary Part Two:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXLr_Rtv-es

Luther documentary Part Three:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY6hMVMtjPg

Documentary Part Four:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzUPp1BgWg8

Documentary Part Five:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29FiYa0A5tU

Documentary video Part Six:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i8u_KQvZkk

Martin Luther was not a saint. Here is
“Positive Atheism’s Big Scary List of Martin Luther Quotations”:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/luther.htm

*****

This video is dedicated to Martin Luther who struggled a lifetime to understand more clearly a person’s relationship with God and to Luther’s insights which have been shared with us through these centuries..
“I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen”,answered Dr.Martin Luther.
Standing before the Holy Roman Emperor
and the princes of Germany, Martin Luther refused to give way. From the moment he had nailed his ninety five theses to the church door in Wittenberg, he had been a wanted man.His enemies accused him of heresy, his books were burned, and he was threatened with excommunication and death.
Dr.Roland Bainton was a leading specialist in Reformation history. The author of many books, he was Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale Divinity School in the United States. His most famous book “Here I Stand” pictures the struggles, conflicts and achievements in Martin Luther’s life and gives a vivid and exciting portrait of the man who reshaped the face of Europe and turned the church of his time upside-down. Now Dr.Bainton tells that story in the German countryside WHERE LUTHER WALKED!

Where Luther Walked – Part One
With the author of Here I Stand:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HESj2k6iLMc

Where Luther Walked – Part Two:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uwE-pt-c0Iv

Where Luther walked – Part Three:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwBXy2sJGlA

Martin Luther does the Chicken Dance
Ok, maybe I’ve spent too much time on Youtube now!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_qtG90SpxM

*Someone just wrote me and said “this could’ve been a C-flat”. Ouch, that’s bad!*

I finally got to ride the elephants! That was one of the things I wanted to do while visiting Thailand. This was my first full vacation since relocating to China with Cirque Du Soleil. We spent three days in Bangkok and four days in Phuket, Thailand.

In the picture above I am getting a massage from a baby elephant. Believe it or not – he actually cracked my back for me and it felt great. A true Thai massage!

This was a really great touristy ghylo tour – complete with elephant rides, ox rides, Thai cooking class, elephant show, monkey show, rice farming tutorial and demonstration of rubber tree harvesting – and an exhibition of Thai Boxing. Very fun stuff. This was my favorite tour that we took.

My friend Olivier was not very excited about riding the elephants and went along just because he knew I was looking forward to it. But he was amazed to watch the driver control the elephant with his feet movements and Thai verbal instructions.

Before leaving for vacation we had a great Cirque bachelor party for a certain artist. I’ll tell you that when you get high energy artists together for a party – it’s a PARTY! What a great crew. Pic up top is myself and Tom, one of our clowns.

She looks great in my shades…..

Midway through our party – the guys getting their last sendoffs in.

Never let a circus performer around a dancing pole!

Farangs and ghylos are notorious for juicing up and taking to the polls – and in my opinion only the Cirque guys do it right.