Word: kushnick
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...this particular gala also had its grim side. Alternating with the show- biz stars were people like Helen Kushnick, a Beverly Hills mother who lost her three-year-old son Sammy in 1983 to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, the deadly disease known as AIDS, and the Rev. Stephen Pieters, a minister with the North Hollywood Metropolitan Community Church, who has suffered from AIDS since 1984. The message from President Reagan, who had made his first public mention of the widely feared and often stigmatizing illness at a press conference two evenings earlier, also concerned the scourge of AIDS. Read by Actor...
...major problem in presenting an experimental cornucopia of new music is one of continuity. Lieberman and Kushnick seemed aware of this: they integrated Kushnick's five songs with Lieberman's virtuoso a capella opening song, "Poly Waly," and Lieberman's own version of the Stevie Winwood tune, "Can't find My Way Home." The Lieberman-Kushnick segment of the program began forcefully, and later drifted to the ethereal with "Holes in the Sky," a 32-bar rendition of a poem by Louis NacNiece. The next four songs formed a cycle beginning with the straightforward harmonic piece, "Velvet Sportcoat," followed...
...DEMANDS the musicians make on the listener's untrained ear are substantial but not unreasonable. Consider "Ode to the Apocalypse," which is, in Kushnick's words, a "surrealist love song" about two lovers spending a last night together in the face of the apocalypse; it has seven verses, each of a diffegent mood, meter, and key. It also contains many of the purposely electic elements of Kushnick's "surrealistic neo-class avant garde jazz/rock and roll" music: in this case, a basically straightforward key progression beginning and ending in G minor, and a Beethoven-like hand-over-hand arpegio accentuated...
DESPITE THE rich musical offerings and exuberant performance, there were two problems with Liebermen's performance. The first was her partial disregard of the intricate lyrics of Kushnick's songs. Kushnick attaches a great deal of importance to the words of his compositions; they deserve similar consideration from the performer. Another source of annoyance was an emotional self-indulgence and slight preoccupation with exhibiting "sensitivity" during the remarks between songs. Yet through all this, the music and its energy prevailed...
...serious listener should have no problems, however, with Lieberman's music; one never feels "put on" by the composer or performer, and there is nothing gimmicky or superficially exotic here. Jeannie Lieberman, Bruce Kushnick and Richard Johnson have all worked hard on this labor of love, and their efforts have reaped remarkable results...