Two days from now at this time, I will be warming up for my first grad recital.  I have gone through a range of emotions this week preparing, and am finally content with my preparedness.  Last night I played the Ysaye in a studio recital, and was fairly happy with the performance, and today I had my dress rehearsal in the theater.  I was mostly pleased, though I did have some memory slips in the Bach which I did not recover well from.  I will play it for some friends tomorrow and possibly Friday morning, and I’m sure by Friday night I’ll have it.  I can’t wait until it’s done!  To celebrate, we have champagne at home (left over from my birthday), and on Saturday we’re decorating the house and putting up the Christmas lights.  Woo-hoo!!!  I love Christmas time

If you’re curious, check out my programme.  I love the pieces I’m performing:

E. Ysaye – Poeme Elegiaque

J.S. Bach – Sonata No. 1 for Solo violin

I. Stravinsky (arr. by Dushkin) – Suite Italienne for Violin and Piano

Okay, so this anime has only just started and doesn’t seem like much, but my sudden obsession with cooking has taken it’s toll, so guess what link I clicked?

http://www.animeseason.com/yumeiro-patissiere-episode-1/

Episode one begins brilliantly. Perhaps I am a little biased that it’s about cooking – as I’m a sucker for good desserts and yummy sweets – but also because the background music, and theme music is done in, yes, violin. I immediately could pick out some of the tunes in this anime, and leads it to even better standards as it refers to dreams, inspiration and, of course, fine cuisine.

Immediate Kudos points to this one!

Okay, so this anime has only just started and doesn’t seem like much, but my sudden obsession with cooking has taken it’s toll, so guess what link I clicked?

http://www.animeseason.com/yumeiro-patissiere-episode-1/

Episode one begins brilliantly. Perhaps I am a little biased that it’s about cooking – as I’m a sucker for good desserts and yummy sweets – but also because the background music, and theme music is done in, yes, violin.

Immediate Kudos points to this one!

Johann Sebastian Bach

Concerto for Oboe & Violin in C minor, BWV 1060
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Allegro

Hans-Peter Westermann (Oboe); Mary Utiger (Violin); Camerata Köln

Download (18.59 MB)
Mediafire

I spend a lot of my time working with effects and finding new ways to manipulate my bass sound digitally but when it comes to recording, I really value taking time to produce organic sounds to create a sonic landscape (this is what we were really going for with ‘Animals‘.  A tip of the hat to Diego Stocco for what he’s done to his upright bass in this video!  Keep watching through to the end, because the sounds really start to come together to make a nice sonic texture.

Christian Wallumrod Ensemble: Fabula Suite Lugano (ECM 271 1269)
With each release by his ensemble, the Swedish keyboardist and composer seems to have widened his stylistic scope even further. The group started out as a quartet, expanded to a sextet with their previous CD The Zoo Is Far, and maintains that size here with just one personnel change: Eivand Lonning in for Arve Henriksen on trumpet.

So, with the other instruments being cello, violin or Hardanger fiddle, harp and percussion, the palette of sounds remains intriguing and capable of a wide range of moods, which is just how Wallumrod likes it. And this is very much ensemble music, with no particular attention given to individual soloists.

The music picks up influences from the near avant garde classical and experimental composers like Morton Feldman, and from the distant Baroque past of Domenico Scarlatti.

The most immediately compelling pieces are the two versions of Jumpa, which in their strangely stately ways conjure up two very serious circus processions at the court of some 17th-century Swedish king. But then you get a piece like Dancing Deputies which is like a minimalist free jazz work-out full of played echoes. Quote Funebre, Wallumrod claims, is based on a few chords from Olivier Messiaen.

And what textures! On Snake there is the piano in the distance, plucked notes from harp and cello, the cymbals stroked with a bow, and the odd tinkle of a bell.

There is a lot of silence on this recording, and a lot of quiet interaction between the instruments – the listener is left with a fascinating sense of both the spaces between the instruments in the studio and also between the centuries of time which separate the interweaving strands of this music.

Wallumrod creates the equivalent of a coldly-lit Vermeer in sound, and a certain sense of human isolation, too. Both chilling and lovely. And triumphantly unclassifiable.

Mozartina, ¿por qué te gusta torturarme de esta manera?
Llevas dos semanas que no paras con el violín, hasta mis padres han escuchado tu repertorio durante el fin de semana… pero, sobre todo ¿por qué a estas horas? Es tarde, por el amor de Dios!

Acabo de llegar de la facultad y ya estas armando escándalo con tu inseparable violín desafinado, estoy a punto de cenar y tú serás la banda sonora que me acompañe, ni aunque ponga la tele a todo volumen, que va! y mira que lo intento, intento no escuchar como maltratas a tu pobre violín, como destrozas los oídos de los habitantes del bloque, lo intento, de verdad! pero tú siempre estás ahí, sonando de fondo, qué digo de fondo! por encima de las llamadas telefónicas a mis señores padres, por encima de las fiestas de los recientes inquilinos de mi planta…

Nunca podré echarte de menos Mozartina, no me das tiempo para ello… y cuando me lo das te encuentro en la azotea, en el pasillo o en el ascensor… y me acuerdo de lo mal que tocas, me entra un escalofrío y le pido al cielo que a tu violín se le rompa una cuerda…

After a lifetime of playing the guitar, I had the bright idea two years ago that it would be fun to learn the Irish fiddle. The friends I play music with a dozen or so times each year are almost all guitarists like me, and I thought a new instrument would liven up the mix. My secret goal was to learn the fiddle part on “Don’t Pass Me By” from the Beatles white album, which is always a big party song for us.

On Christmas 2007, my family presented me with a nice basic violin. Ah yes, I remembered…no frets. I picked the thing up, dragged the bow across the strings and heard a sound like a bullfrog would make with his dying breath.

Some instruments – guitar, piano, harmonica – are democratic. A rank beginner can make a sound on them that actually resembles a musical note. Fiddle, however, is a lot less newbie-friendly. The first time you try and play it, the blasted thing seems to mock you with all sorts of god-awful, piercing noises. Twenty minutes into my first fiddle experience, I thanked my family for the lovely gift, and stuffed it deep in the back of my closet.

There it sat until August of this year, when I got an email from the Irish Arts Center in New York announcing a semester of classes, including one called “Fiddle For Rank Beginners.” At only about a hundred bucks for eight group lessons, I figured this was the moment, if I was ever going to take my shot.

Flash forward to our first class in September, which comprised eight bewildered adults sitting in a circle around the ever cheerful James, our teacher. There wasn’t much playing – I think most of us were afraid to actually touch our fiddles. We spent a good deal of time trying to keep the things from falling off our shoulders and waving our bows around in the air, chatting about rosin and other arcane violin topics.

The class had an easy-going feeling and, happily for me, almost no emphasis on actually reading music. As the weeks moved forward, James pulled us through the tunes with a “here’s the first part very slow” and “now here’s the second part” demonstration method that got everyone going more quickly than I thought it would it first. The guy is a very good teacher, and after eight weeks everyone felt pretty enthusiastic about an instrument that all players admit is a tough one. We played a polka together at an end-of-semester party and I think we were all a little shocked we could actually do it.

So here’s the deal with the fiddle. I’m planning to keep up with it. I expect it will take me a solid year before I can consistently hit the notes cleanly, or get the “intonation.” I think it’s important to not worry too much about about playing on key for at least six months. The whole thing is a bit like ice skating, which I’ve also done all my life. You only get a real comfort level with it when you log a lot of time practicing. But fiddle has the same magical quality as ice skating. When you first have those little moments of doing it right, there’s something truly, surprisingly exhilarating about it. All of a sudden you hear that beautiful, mournful sound, and when you play one of the old jigs or reels, you get a sense of connection to a very old and proud tradition. For guitarists, I’ll warn that the fiddle is a bit more like piano in that the two hands, fretting and bow, each require their own technique.

You may also find that when you tell your friends you’re learning the Irish fiddle, especially when you’re of a certain age, that they look at you like you’re a little bit nuts. I expect that when I play with my friends next summer, I’ll be ready to spring “Don’t Pass Me By” on them. Then they’ll realize that I was always nuts to begin with.

Henry had his first recital this past Saturday. He’s still not actually playing his violin, so he sang a song about the correct rest position to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. In fact, Henry led off the concert. He’s so self-possessed, he didn’t seem nervous at all as he sat in front of me waiting through the announcements until it was time for him to climb the stairs to the stage. As he started singing, he flushed deep red (sorry about those genes, kid!) so I know he was aware that it was a momentous occasion, but he did such a great job. My dad had asked Henry to make sure to sing loud so that he could hear him, and he did! Loud, in tune, with confidence…it was maybe the most wondrous thing I have ever heard. In fact, I’m bawling just writing about it, so you can imagine the Niagara Falls that occurred on the day. I couldn’t have been prouder or more delighted for him.

Henry greets his adoring public

Here’s the weird thing though – I choked up as each kid performed. The girl that graduated her book and got a certificate. The kid that had to restart “Go Tell Aunt Rhody.” The boy on the cello who played a Breval piece that I still remember from my Suzuki days. Each performer caused a fresh wave of tears. And why shouldn’t I cry? Music itself is so inherently moving, and for these young kids – Henry’s only four, for pete’s sake – to get up on stage in front of a full audience, even a a supportive one, is so brave and beautiful…well, let’s just say I was not the only one dripping salt-water all over the place.

Label reads Jacobus Stainer in Absam
prope Oenipontum  1742 …we think the “7″ is a little obscured

Wieniawski & Bruch – Violin Concertos – CD 9080

Tchaikovsky & Sibelius – Violin Concertos - CD 9081

Mendelssohn & Dvorak – Violin Concertos - CD 9082

Beethoven – Triple Concerto & Violin Concerto, Brahms – Violin Concerto & Double Concerto – CD 9083

Mozart – Violin Concertos Nos. 1-5, Sinfonia Concertante, & Concertone -     CD 9084

JS Bach – Violin Concertos, Double Concerto & Concerto for Violin & Oboe – CD 9085

Vivaldi – The Four Seasons & Concertos for 2 Violins – CD 9086

Bartok Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2 & Webern- 4 Pieces Op. 7 – CD 9101

Encores with Piano – CD 9102

Featuring Allan in critique mode, Suma sketching, a violinist, a really awesome gentleman reading Infinite Jest (!), and a tree.

Last week I was introduced to my new obsession by my best friend’s girl, who by that moniker sounds like a failed 2008 Dane Cook movie (she’s awesome and definitely neither a failure nor associated with dane cook), and probably deserves her own things-in-my-life-that-are-amazing post.

Anyway, the new obsession: Miri Ben-Ari

Girlfriend is bringing sexy back to the violin. Her sounds are sharp, and her CD thrusts her tight violin riffs into the middle of thumping beats and famous faces of the world of rap. I heard the first track, and in less than 5 seconds I was hooked.  Plus she looks like Shakira and Isaac Stern (whom she studied under) had a crazy love child.

See? It’s pretty unmistakable.

Also, the more I read, the more I think that there may nothing that Ben-Ari cannot do.

A summary

• When her family ran out of money for violin lessons, she applied for an won the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Scholarship on the reccomendation of Isaac Stern. Thank god, because if she had stopped playing, it would have truly been a travesty.

• She arranged all the strings for Kanye’s “College Dropout” album. Try not to hold the kanye association against her, just appreciate that the string-age on his album was her brainchild, and thus, amazing. Personally, I’ve started telling people that Miri Ben-Ari’s strings are the only reason the album succeeded, however extrapolated it may sound.

• Started a non-profit called Gedenk to promote awareness and remembrance of the Holocaust, garnering a humanitarian award from the Jewish Federation. I think bringing string-sexy back is enough to garner its own humanitarian award. She’s giving hope to geeky classically trained musicians everywhere.

• She had her own story on NPR, which I think is probably the most impressive thing of all. I love NPR. sigh.

Moral of the story: She is awesome, and she makes my little classically trained-singer heart happy while still pleasing the edgy pink-hair wearing art kid in me.

Listen and feel superior: http://www.imeem.com/artists/miri_ben-ari/

… by Wei Lieh Lee

Pretty good week i might add while it still is here, of course in only 2 hours it will be sunday of next week, so really this is pretty accurate. On thursday november 19th i went to go see the guitar ensemble which when i finish guitar one and then pass guitar two, will hopefully get in. They were pretty awesome, they played classical stuff and they played arabian knights and a song by the beatles, i think it was julia or juliet or something like that, i can’t remember. Then the second half the violin, and chello part of the string orchestra came up and did some stuff. My guitar teacher was the stage director and he was sweating like a dog, and he said before one of the songs, “Hey there’s a basketball game going on tonight,” that was pretty funny. Then friday my little brother got his new electric drumset which he is pounding on, and he has to steal my amp for the time being for it to work. Today we were going to go see this new movie about a tall quiet black guy being adopted by this white mother, and its one of those really lovey-dovey but profound movies that you see in the theatres nowadays less and less. But of course there was a huge accident near the theater and it was so big they had like 10 police cars 5 ambulences and 3 or 4 firetrucks. When i saw it i was like, “Apparently somebody tripped,” which made me laugh for like 10 minutes. We found out it was sold out then went to another theater to find out the same thing, so we just came home and made a gingerbread house, after which im sick of sugar. Right now im writing this blog post as my family watches the new show white collar downstairs. All in all an awesome week.

-Calebrentex out-

PS: i added way too many tags this time.

One week to go.   Really, I don’t have much to report as I’ve been spending so much time closed up in a practice room preparing for my recital!  I have had time on my practicing breaks to reflect on my life – past, present, and future, and am left with a hard to describe feeling.  Unsettled, perhaps?  Here’s what I’ve been thinking…

Past:

Not quite right.  We lived in a beautiful place, our good friends were fantastic people, and we had an easy life.  We both were “settled” in our professional lives, yet it never quite felt like home there.

Present:

I’m in a bit of a limbo at the moment.  I’m focused on getting through my MMus here and improving my mental health.  I know what I’m doing and where I’ll be for the next few months, but I don’t know what to plan on for after that…  I can’t build a life here, yet my plans for the future are dependent on Chri’s DMA auditions and we don’t find out about that until April or later.

Future:

Really, who knows what the future holds for me?  My present is unsettled, so how can I decide on a future?  I’m barely holding my head above water in my present, so how can I plan my future?  Sigh.  Can you tell that I like to have a plan?  I just have to be patient.  A few months from now I can begin to plan my future, at least for the short term of 3 years or so…

Anyhow, I’m looking forward to playing my first solo graduate recital.  I know that there are things that won’t go as well as I’d like, but there is nothing quite like the feeling of working hard towards a goal and then achieving it.  I’m proud that I’ve been able to make it to this point.  I am still struggling to overcome my mental health issues, but I WILL give a successful performance and I am excited about that.

Alright, time for a good nights sleep so that I can spend the day in a practice room tomorrow!

Well, George and I headed out from Houston about 9:00 this morning. And after a stop at Jack in the Box, piss breaks, ice cream and coffee pit stops I’m proud to say we’ve got this baby in our hands!!!

We got it in the back of the Prius!!!! George and I are on our way back now from picking up in Fort Worth from the awesome guys at Nationwide CD.

I gotta say y’all…. it looks pretty damn good. It sounds pretty damn good, too. We’re listening to it right now and are up to Track 9…. crave. Sounds awesome.

If you’re in the Houston area November 21st, we hope you can make it out to the CD release party.

It’s at one of our favorite places, the JP Hops House. The show starts at 9:00.

Rob

Klassik muß nicht immer gleich klassisch sein. Hier habe ich ein tolles Cover aus dem Genre der “Neuen Klassik” gefunden und denke es ist aufjedenfall mal hörenswert. Für eine klassische Karaoke Version vor der heimischen Computerkiste! Los geht`s!

The Killers- Mr. Brightside als Violin Piano Version

I’m coming out of my cage
And I’ve been doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down
Because I want it all
It started out with a kiss
How did it end up like this
It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss
Now I’m falling asleep
And she’s calling a cab
While he’s having a smoke
And she’s taking a drag
Now they’re going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it’s all in my head
But she’s touching his—chest
Now, he takes off her dress
Now, let me go

I just can’t look its killing me
And taking control
Jealousy, turning saints into the sea
Swimming through sick lullabies
Choking on your alibis
But it’s just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes
‘Cause I’m Mr Brightside

I’m coming out of my cage
And I’ve been doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down
Because I want it all
It started out with a kiss
How did it end up like this
It was only a kiss, It was only a kiss
Now I’m falling asleep
And she’s calling a cab
While he’s having a smoke
And she’s taking a drag
Now they’re going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it’s all in my head
But she’s touching his—chest
Now, he takes off her dress
Now, let me go

´Cause I just can’t look its killing me
And taking control
Jealousy, turning saints into the sea
Swimming through sick lullabies
Choking on your alibi
But it’s just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes
‘Cause I’m Mr Brightside

I never…
I never…
I never…

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel (Georg Friedrich Händel en alemán) nació el 23 de febrero de 1685 y falleció el 14 de abril de 1759. Menciona Pedro Luis Martín Olivares que fue un compositor de origen alemán nacionalizado inglés de música docta barroca. La mayor parte de su vida vivió en Gran Bretaña.

Nació en la ciudad de Halle, ubicada en el centro este de la actual Alemania. Su padre era barbero y cirujano y había decidido que su hijo sería un abogado, pero cuando observó el interés de Händel por la música, la cual estudiaba y practicaba en secreto, cambió de idea y se mostró dispuesto a pagarle los estudios de música. Señala Pedro Luis Martín que de esta forma, Händel se convirtió en alumno del principal organista de Halle, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau. A la edad de 17 años fue nombrado organista de la catedral calvinista de Halle.

Al cabo de un año, Händel viajó a Hamburgo, donde fue admitido como intérprete del violín y del clavecín en la orquesta de la ópera. Al poco tiempo, en 1705, se estrenó en ese mismo lugar su obra Almira, y poco después Nero. Al año siguiente, aceptó una invitación para viajar a Italia, donde pasó más de tres años. En Italia, se representaron obras suyas en Florencia, Roma, Nápoles y Venecia, y al mismo tiempo Händel escribió música nueva, inspirado por la música de aquel país. Sobre todo, estudió y perfeccionó la forma de combinar su música con textos en italiano. Alega Pedro Luis Martín Olivares que gracias a la alta calidad de sus interpretaciones, conoció a importantes músicos y compositores italianos de la época, como Scarlatti, Corelli y Marcello.