Assorted ramblings from the world of entertainment:<\/p>\n
\u2022 One of my favorite live performances last year was seeing Annie Clark at Stage AE.<\/p>\n
The singer and guitarist better known as St. Vincent brought a very different show to Pittsburgh this week. <\/p>\n
St. Vincent, conductor Jules Buckley and her band were joined by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for a concert Tuesday at Heinz Hall. It was the first stop on a 16-city orchestral tour that will conclude with an Aug. 2 performance at the Hollywood Bowl.<\/p>\n
The grandeur of playing with so many musicians (she had more cellists Tuesday than she had band members at Stage AE) seemed to amplify the theatricality that\u2019s always been a part of her persona.<\/p>\n
On several songs, she looked like a marionette. She would lean far back from the microphone or contort herself into different angular poses only to snap back into an upright position as if being pulled by a puppeteer\u2019s strings. <\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s set was a slightly abbreviated version of the orchestral concert she performed last year at London\u2019s Royal Albert Hall. That show was released digitally to streaming services in March, and \u201cLive in London!\u201d will be released July 10 as a 2-LP set.<\/p>\n
The 17 songs included multiple tracks from more recent albums \u201cAll Born Screaming\u201d and \u201cMasSeduction,\u201d but it included just as many from earlier releases \u201cMarry Me\u201d and \u201cActor.\u201d<\/p>\n
For me the standout was \u201cViolent Times.\u201d With its powerful brass and swelling strings, it sounded like St. Vincent was auditioning to record a Shirley Bassey-era \u201cJames Bond\u201d theme song.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarrow,\u201d \u201cDigital Witness,\u201d \u201cLos Ageless\u201d and the encore of \u201cSlow Disco\u201d were other highlights. Buckley also is responsible for the orchestral arrangements of St. Vincent\u2019s songs, and those arrangements had more oomph than orchestral pop shows often do. They added drama and brought out different musical colors in songs I\u2019d heard many times before.<\/p>\n
St. Vincent didn\u2019t crowd surf like she did at Stage AE, but during \u201cNew York\u201d she left the stage and ran up the aisle, sitting on a lap or two and kissing at least one bald head. That song also might have been the first time many of the orchestra members accompanied a song with multiple utterances of a certain 12-letter profanity.<\/p>\n
At one point, someone in the audience yelled out, \u201cTurn up the guitar,\u201d in between songs. It was a gauche thing to do at a symphonic concert, but he wasn\u2019t wrong. St. Vincent is a skilled guitarist, and that instrument was less prominent in the mix Tuesday than it is on the \u201cLive in London!\u201d album. <\/p>\n
Of the two concerts, I probably preferred the show last year at Stage AE. But St. Vincent is a constantly experimenting and evolving artist, and this tour might be the only opportunity to experience these songs in this way. It was a great birthday gift from my daughter. <\/p>\n
\u2022 The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is one of many acts that will be doing free concerts during the Three Rivers Arts Festival, which opens Friday and runs this weekend and June 11 to 14 at Arts Landing, a new four-acre public arts space in downtown Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
The artist market features more than 300 artisans from around the country, and the event includes a variety of public art exhibitions and fine arts performances as well as free shows by nationally touring artists.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s lineup includes Spin Doctors on Friday, The Pharcyde on Saturday, Trousdale on Sunday, Buffalo Rose on June 11, The War and Treaty on June 12, Delfeayo Marsalis & the Uptown Jazz Orchestra on June 13 and Joan Osborne on June 14. <\/p>\n
More information is available at traf.trustarts.org.<\/p>\n
Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com. <\/p>\n
\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Art<\/p>\n ART ON PARK, 180 N. Park Ave., Warren: Black & White on Park, 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, free. <\/p>\n ARTS & …<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n The W.D. Packard Concert Band will march into its outdoor concert season on Sunday.<\/p>\n Marches will dominate the …<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Soul Jam concert is rescheduled <\/p>\n The Soul Jam concert originally scheduled for June 14 at Powers Auditorium has …<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n