Category Archives: Melodies Linger On

Appreciation of some great works (of music) that have particular personal resonance

NfaC Double Repost: BREAKING INTO SONG IN MUSICALS

Posted on March 21, 2016 by dannyashkenasi

Time for another Notes from a Composer rerun, or repost, this time a double feature from last April on the convention of breaking into song in musicals, and how cleverly the movie version of Cabaret subverted that convention.  This post … Continue reading →

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6 SPEAKEASY PERFORMANCES LEFT! – (plus James Rado from Hair drops by) (and a personal recommendation)

Posted on March 6, 2016 by dannyashkenasi

3pm Matinee today! Wed 8pm!   Thur 8pm!   Fri 8pm!   Sat 8pm! Final performance Sunday March 13 3pm! Get your SPEAKEASY tickets here! Also… Last night the legendary James Rado, co-writer of the musical Hair, attended the performance.  Afterwards he shook … Continue reading →

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ANOTHER OPENING OF ANOTHER SHOW!

Posted on February 19, 2016 by dannyashkenasi

SPEAKEASY  John and Jane’s Adventures in the Wonderland is now in previews! Grand Opening Night Saturday 8pm! Theater for the New City – 155 1st avenue   I think Cole Porter had something to say about this: Another Op’nin, Another … Continue reading →

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NfaC Repost: The Sound of Music: Embracing the “Sugarcoated Lie”

Posted on January 22, 2016 by dannyashkenasi

This article was one of the first ever published on “Notes from a Composer” and quickly became one of the more popular during the first months of the blog’s existence.  I thought I would repost it so newcomers to the … Continue reading →

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OSCAR NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED – so, what happened with those hoped for bragging rights, Danny?

Posted on January 14, 2016 by dannyashkenasi

So the Academy Award nominations were announced this morning, and as every year I had the TV on, munching my breakfast, and followed along as they were read out (see the full list of nominees at the bottom of this … Continue reading →

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BEST SONG OSCAR SURPRISE? – The movie song I predict will be this year’s stealth surprise Oscar Best Original Song nominee

Posted on December 14, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

A few days ago the Academy, aka the people who hand out the Oscars, revealed the list of songs from this year’s movies that are eligible to be nominated as best original song in a motion picture.  There are 74 … Continue reading →

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CYNDI LAUPER Just Wants to Have Lots and Lots of Fun (and so do many guys)

Posted on November 24, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” is the song that put Cyndi Lauper on the scene and to this day is the song she is most identified with, even though she has had many other hit songs since, recorded dance … Continue reading →

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BLONDIE vs. SHEENA – Grudge Match of the Bond Themes

Posted on November 14, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

With the release of the latest Bond, “Spectre”, a whole bunch of internet articles listed rankings of the Bond theme songs.  Sultry “Nobody Does it Better” generally wound up the #1 choice of most of these polls, followed by the … Continue reading →

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TROUBLE BUBBLES – The Songs from Childhood that Loom Large All One’s Life

Posted on November 11, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

I was three years old when Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was released and became the one of the most popular songs of its time.   One of my earliest memories is of me, small boy hardly taller than … Continue reading →

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Catching HALLOWEEN around HALLOWEEN 1978 in a seedy New York theater

Posted on October 30, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

My father insists that the movie theater or rather many of the patrons in the theater were scarier than anything that was happening on the screen.  Possibly.  I was eleven and not world-weary enough to be wary of the pot-smoking … Continue reading →

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ENNOBLING TITILLATION – Company XIV’s carnal, campy, classy CINDERELLA

Posted on October 14, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

“a baroque burlesque ballet” That is how AMDM Productions describes the luscious presentation of “Cinderella” currently playing at the Minetta Lane Theatre.  This undeniably adult take on Charles Perrault’s Cinderella (1697) by Company XIV, which deliciously blends “opera, circus, Baroque … Continue reading →

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HOW MANY WAYS CAN ONE BE A CREEP? And does it ever stop being so “fuckin’ special”?

Posted on September 28, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

Who could have imagined that Radiohead’s “Creep”, that dark, spiky, idiosyncratic paean to self-loathing, would become one of the most covered rock songs from the 1990’s?  It’s not only recorded by a huge variety of artists, but also covered in … Continue reading →

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CHASING WATERFALLS – The Flabbergasting Force of Foz do Iguacu

Posted on August 29, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

Time for another bout of Two-fisted Touristing with musical accompaniment.  Today the amazing Foz do Iguacu waterfalls, which cascade partly in Brazil, where Ed and I first encountered them three years ago, and partly in Argentina, where we saw more … Continue reading →

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H A M I L T ON – Friday, August 21, 8pm, Rear Mezzanine, A 109

Posted on August 22, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

I cried twice during the second act Tears steaming down my face, shoulders quaking   First, when tragedy strikes Alexander and Eliza Hamilton Their marriage already strained by scandal, estranged And now the death by duel of their eldest son … Continue reading →

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Speak Low, Phoenix, Speak Low…

Posted on August 16, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

I attended a matinee screening of the German movie “Phoenix”.  As the movie began and the screen was still black, I heard a lone upright bass picking out two notes a major sixth apart, followed by four more notes bounding … Continue reading →

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MERYL STREEP SINGS! and sings again! and again!

Posted on August 5, 2015 by dannyashkenasi

That Meryl Streep is one of the great actors of our time is common knowledge.  But what should now be considered obvious is how she is also the great movie musical performer of the modern age.  That statement may be … Continue reading →

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