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He translates �Tempest� into music Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Surrounded by sound baffles, Paul McCandless, a member of the jazz group Oregon, records original music for Oregon Shakespeare Festival�s "The Tempest" in Medford�s Oregon Sound Studio Thursday. The play will open in February. Adding melodies to Shakespeare�s magic By Bill Varble What does a sprite sound like? One who can become invisible, look like a monster and control the winds? Airy, Paul McCandless thinks. Something like an Irish low whistle. Which is why McCandless is using that flute-like instrument at Oregon Sound Studio in Medford to record original bits of melody for Ariel, the mysterious sprite in William Shakespeare�s play "The Tempest." It�s not the first time McCandless, of the Grammy-nominated jazz group Oregon, has worked with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival on the music for a play. Oregon did the music for the festival�s "A Midsummer Night�s Dream" a couple of years ago. "The Tempest" opens in previews in three weeks. McCandless has been putting in long days, splitting his time between the festival and this state-of-the-art studio where he�s recording sound cues. Productions of "The Tempest" usually include dance numbers and songs, and many of the characters in the play are manipulated by Ariel�s music. Shakespeare himself tells us that the island in his magical tragicomedy is haunted by "sounds and sweet airs of a thousand twangling instruments." As McCandless improvises Ariel�s voice on the whistle, he stands in the middle of a circle of sound baffles, sculpting an Ariel passage out of two long notes he links with an intricate connecting theme. He creates music for Gonzalo, King Alonzo�s counselor, on oboe. The magician Prospero, Ariel�s master, is associated with guitar music, as are the lovers Ferdinand and Miranda. Prospero also gets a synthesizer treatment befitting his profound character, a big, mysterious, orchestral sound. McCandless�s Oregon bandmate Ralph Towner, a pianist and guitarist, wrote most of the music that�s not being improvised by McCandless. McCandless has played on more than 200 albums and with musicians such as Wynton Marsalis, Jaco Pastorious and Pat Metheny. He was a member of the Paul Winter Consort from 1969 to 1973 for five albums and extensive touring. In three decades, Oregon has released two dozen albums and performed at Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center and Berlin�s Philharmonic Hall, as well as Britt in Jacksonville. He won a Grammy in 1996 with banjoist Bela Fleck and is a double 2001 Grammy nominee, for best instrumental composition and best instrumental arrangement. Sound designers will mix down his work and edit it on computer, and it will wind up in little chunks on a cue list loaded onto what�s called a sample player, where it will stand by until the lights go up and Ariel begins working his magic on Shakespeare�s island for audiences. The whole business of trying to encompass sound in words and communicate it is a tricky one, he says, fraught with peril. "Penny (Metropulos, who directs) is very good at communicating the character of the scenes," McCandless says, "and how she wants music to color a scene." Still, he says, "It�s a challenge to get a music version when somebody puts the words out there. You can�t tell until you see how it plays." And how the twangling goes. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.