ON THE EVENING of Valentine’s Day, three members of the Toverview tribe – Maeder, Les and Riaan – made their way into Cape Town at the magical hour of six to attend a remarkable solo performance by Christopher Culpo, an American-born musician living in Paris.
Titled ‘A Valentine’s Spin’, the concert was held in an art gallery in a beautiful old building in Spin Street, Cape Town, around the corner from the houses of parliament.
The programme described him as follows: ‘Culpo is a versatile performer and composer whose artistic vision spans the realms of contemporary jazz, contemporary classical music, and free improvisation. A graduate of The Juilliard School, his compositions traverse diverse genres, from chamber and symphonic works to vocal and operatic pieces, as well as scores for dance, theater, and silent films.
‘Culpo’s discography boasts numerous albums showcasing his innovative collaborations and solo performances. This program is a mix of the romantic works of Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Carlos Antonio Jobim and others.’
But there’s a bit more of a tale to all of this. Culpo is the husband of Anne Graaff, a long-standing friend of Maeder and Les Osler. Anne is an art historian, artist and author, among others of a book about the famous Owl House in the Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda. She has also served on an advisory team that assisted in the restoration of the Owl House.
Nowadays, she and Christopher mostly live in Paris, but they often spend time in South Africa. They recently visited Hanglip Farm, where, among other things, Christopher rode a horse named Spidermansvrou. Maeder says he worried about Christopher’s precious hands, but they survived unscathed. …
Christopher has regularly performed in South Africa – among others in Graaff Reinet, New Bethesda, Prince Albert, and other rural places, which further endears him to Toverview.
Maeder recently asked Christopher to provide him with a perspective on his life and work. He responded as follows:
‘My father was my first music teacher and of course a foundational influence. He was a virtuoso accordionist and conductor and music educator. The accordion was the guitar of his day and his rock ‘n roll was bebop. Along with Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, et al. He was also an audiophile and recording collector. Every day in our home, and I mean every day, music was blasted. Every day included bebop and Bach, Tatum and Horowitz, Ella and Callas. I was taught that Bach swung. That all great music swung.
‘But when I began to study piano and composition at Boston University, jazz and classical didn’t need to be separated; there was no jazz. When I started a second degree in 1987 at Juilliard, a jazz quartet I formed with classmates was denied permission by the school to use Juillard in our name. But in 2001 Juillard established a jazz program, and today most Universities around the world with music programs have a jazz program. Usually still separate from the classical program, but the barriers are increasingly porous.
‘My latest biography states I am “a versatile performer and composer whose artistic vision spans the realms of contemporary jazz, contemporary classical music, and free improvisation. “ True. But that doesn’t define much really, because within contemporary jazz there’s all the jazz which came before; ragtime, stride, dixieland (multiple, simultaneous lines!) swing, bop) And contemporary classical means what exactly these days? In “classical” music we have moved as far away from a common practice as is conceivable.
‘Right now, classical music is everything from diatonic to modal to chromatic to dodecaphonic to serial to spectral to minimalist and back to diatonic. And, going back to jazz, the musicians who created it were more than aware of the classical music of their time and the century or two before. Many studied it, notably the major figures in the development of bebop and modern jazz. But while the jazz and classical worlds were not so far apart musically, racism and snobbism in the U.S. kept them largely apart practically. But, as I mentioned, the barriers are weakening.
‘All of this is to say I don’t separate these genres of music. The music I compose, or perform changes with the situation but I don’t think about different musics. Whether I am composing for harp and cello, or for a jazz quartet, I am aware of harmony, rhythm, melody and the interplay of consonance – dissonance in the context of that musical moment. And as far as whether my music is tonal or not, for this seems to be a common concern with the general public, I can only say that I work within shifting tonal contexts. And I always try to swing.’