Patrick’s Picks is a series of monthly Spotify playlists curated by Jacaranda’s Artistic Director, Patrick Scott.
Each two-and-a-half hour playlist spans genres, eras, and continents, and is crafted with the current historical moment in mind.
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and while you’re there, check out our first two Jacaranda Live Recordings releases:
Rebellious: Music of Julius Eastman, & A Charged Embrace: Music of Kraft, Broughton, and Krausas.
The Spotify playlists you see on this page are previews only. To listen to the complete playlist,
click the playlist title, square graphic or the Spotify logo in the top right corner.
DECEMBER 2022
The eccentric Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaya’s highly controversial recording of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is the centerpiece of this Sagittarian ceremony of difference, confluence, and the tempi of the times. Our monthly visits to Stockhausen’s Tierkreis (zodiac) come to an end with three terse and witty interpretations. The barefoot diva, Cesária Evora gets a shout out from Canadian Loreena McKennitt, and Fellini adds a savage humor to Rameau’s torchlight dancing. Messiaen and Sibelius are the magnetic birthday boys with three famous singers delving into Messiaen, and Ormandy’s Finlandia still besting the rest! With victory tantalizingly in sight, the Japanese have a special feeling for the Ukranian national anthem.
MAGNETO TEMPO: TORCHLIGHT DANCING
NOVEMBER 2022
Rasga o Coração (Rend the Heart) is the subtitle of a famous piece for chorus and orchestra by Villa Lobos. He used a very popular song with the same name from Brazil’s Roaring Twenties (hey Los Angelenos, go hear it with MTT and the LA Phil 1/06/23!). This throbbing Amazonian chant is profane in the sense that it is decidedly NOT sacred — like Allegri’s Miserere written exclusively for the Sistine Chapel. Truth-spitting Lizzo is just profane. This Scorpio-inspired playlist swings across the emotional spectrum from achingly beautiful, to various states of craving, heart break, pique, and disillusionment. With women’s freedom squarely on the ballot, Iran’s Mahsa Amini is remembered by Baraye Azadi. Hindemith’s birthday is celebrated with two absolute marvels, then add some fire, and the plash of rainforest rivers.
REND THE HEART: PAEANS & PROFANITY
OCTOBER 2022
Still saying goodbye to September and the passing of truly great people last month. Ellington wrote Single Petal of a Rose for the Queen’s coronation. As we head toward November 8th, Libra, holding the scales of justice aloft, points an accusing finger at the unjust Supreme Court with her free hand. She says: “vote the corruptors out!” We are reminded of the horrors of war by MLK, while Ani DiFranco and Lizzo make it real – here and now. Shostakovich is this month’s birthday boy, and The Companion Guide to Rome is parsed out in honor of the coruscating debut of Trio Ukiyo. Bravo Andrew Norman! Throughout, a cornucopia of singers gives a richness of perspectives.
BLINDJUSTICE: MIRRORS & HAMMERS
SEPTEMBER 2022
If you count Autumn Leaves, here are just four from a welter of songs about September, a month where the wheel dwells in service, tough or tender, while the season vividly changes. Virgo John Cage elevated the mundane to high art with seeming surrender. Virgo Dvorak mastered the intricate dynamics of flow and cultural inflection. Harvesting pearls — symbols of wisdom gained through experience — is dangerous and dirty. Virgo polishes gems at whatever price. Piece by piece the abalone tesserae collide with fugitive visions (given mostly to the strings) that surround the effortless sound of Eva Cassidy, a voice as clear and natural as water — not smoky like Dinah, or crusty like Willie. On the burning sand, parched cowboys pursue mirages, cowboys looking for hidden rivers and secret lovers —maybe at the cost of a shiner, and the rest is noise.
APRONS, BOOTS & PEARLS
AUGUST 2022
On the wheel August is about royalty and love writ large. We ascend with the Egyptian king Akhenaton’s hymn to the sun and start our descent with the Druid high priestess Norma’s hymn to the moon. Here is sacrificial love, love as a fever, as power, and as a history of touching. An illegitimate Babylonian princess will not supplicate for love as a slave but seize the throne instead. Meanwhile, time flows as liquid tintinnabulous days punctuated by the gloriously ornamented “Egyptian” concerto. Following a nod to John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra – to premiere in San Francisco next month – the night fades with two old lovers holding hands counting stars on a park bench.
LEONINE: FORCE MAJEURE
JULY 2022
The USA is a fearful manic moonchild – yes, nations have astrological charts when the birthdate is known such as July 4th – ruled by the realm of feelings and twisted by the original sin of slavery. America is a crazy child! This cancer’s ability to make rational progress is bedeviled by fear, second guessing, and denial. Its vulnerability is exaggerated and defensive. America’s compass as a nurturing mother becomes toxic when “family values” are used to control. So Johnny and Jessye must spell it out – to the long-tongued liar (Donald Trump), the midnight riders (The Proud Boys), the gambler (John Bolton), and the back biter (Rudy Giuliani) that you can run on for a long time, throw your rock and hide your hand, workin’ in the dark against your fellow man, but sure as God made black and white, what’s done in the dark will be brought to the light – sooner or later God’s gonna cut you down!
COMPASS MENTIS: SUN DEVILS & TWISTERS
JUNE 2022
I've looked at life from both sides: clouds and clocks, joyful tears and baseless fears, countless dreams and reckless schemes, through waxing moons and Gemini Junes — I've looked at life from both sides now; from win and lose and still somehow, it’s life's illusions I recall; I really don't know life at all. Now old friends are acting strange, I shake my head, seems they changed — something's lost but something's gained in living every day, with constant change along the way. I really don't know life at all. Thanks Joni Mitchell, for the dualities, from afar.
EREWHON: NOWHERE
MAY 2022
Whether its black coffee, Alexander’s feast, a baroque banquet, or a mixed grill of roadkill, the texture of orange peel, or the nourishment of growing grass, the throat of the human bull is wired to the cerebral cortex. Then there is the restorative power of sleep, whether is follows or precedes sexual congress. Sultry Saudades from Brazil are heard from a garden teeming with buzzes and stridulation.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: SEX AND SLUMBER
APRIL 2022
The fiery child of the zodiac Aries marches to the beat of a different drummer. Bach was born on the cusp partaking of the cyclical vastness of Pisces and the originality of Aries, which declares – I am the first! A sense of pre-language or of communication beyond words is captured by speaking in tongues. Three contrasting perspectives on the singular blackbird, a thrush notable for rich melodies, proves it is a great singer. The less beaten path of the ram leads to unexpected vistas.
BEAT PATH: SPEAKING IN TONGUES
MARCH 2022
Hidden places, tales from the attic, secret gardens, enigmas, swimming fish, and an enchanted lake. Bodies of water associate with memories entangled in dream states. Musically, such fluid realms include the containment of an aquarium, the evanescence of tears, vapors of invisibility, and the sea where corals lie, cranes fly, and sirens sigh. Enigmatic Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river. Arvo Pärt asks what if Bach were a beekeeper, and Sparks asks why now are you hearing the number one song in heaven?
REALM OF SECRETS: ENTANGLEMENT
FEBRUARY 2022
This musical deep dive into Black history was inspired by the 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. One year before the Mayflower, America’s first slave ship White Lion landed on our shores from Africa. A vibrant musical tapestry of enduring pathos and artistic vindication traces crossings from African tribal states to America’s current sociopolitical state — offering a soundtrack for what reparations, truth, and reconciliation might yet feel like. Among the roots music, work songs, and now-classic expressions — sometimes refracted through a contemporary lens — the ebullience of Grande Tarantella by international Creole superstar Louis Moreau Gottschalk debuted with unfettered joy, Philadelphia 1864.
REPARATIONS: WHITE LION
JANUARY 2022
In the future, January will always start in solemn remembrance of the havoc wreaked in the Capitol by domestic terrorists and coup plotters. Cinderella’s nightmarish midnight by Prokofiev gets the action started. “Best Laid Plans” offers irony, dark humor, solace, and love stories involving rain, as well as our January beginning of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Zodiac known as Tierkreis. His score is an “open form” so for Capricorn two dramatically different versions are included. Bjork’s song Virus has taken on new meanings, while Arcade Fire’s dystopian hot mess Intervention is strangely uplifting. It’s striking use of pipe organ culminates a thread with Tierkreis and Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar tracks.
