In case anyone is interested, Dark Sky, the Chinese piece on which I based my concerto first movement is a Taiwanese song about an old couple fighting about what to cook!
Here is a version which influenced my choice by Maestro Wenarto, an artist, crossfitter, singer, Youtube opera star and aeronautical/astronautical engineer – I hope you enjoy. It’s worth sitting through to the end.
I happen to think that the sound of a guitar orchestra is special, that it is a sound world of its own and there is a sound that no other instruments en masse can reproduce.
There are many who disagree with me, who, through experience of bad ensembles, think that guitar orchestra is synonymous with out of tune, imprecise, unmusical quasi-ensemble.
On the final leg of my summer school/teaching junket, it’s yet another acronym but one that many are familiar with – the National Youth Guitar Ensemble, which I have been conducting since 2005 when arranger and 19thC guitar supremo Chris Susans stepped down in order to be administrator.
Link to David Russell playing Celtic melody
“Estamos en duelo por el trágico accidente de tren en Santiago, la ciudad donde María Jesús y yo nos conocimos y que está tan cerca de nuestro corazón. Nuestro sentido homenaje a las víctimas y nuestro apoyo moral a las familias y a los supervivientes.”
“We are in mourning for the tragic train accident in our beloved Santiago (Spain), the city where María Jesús and I met. A Celtic melody in memory of the victims and our moral support to their families and the survivors.”
“My Gentle Harp” arranged by Gerald Garcia
Get the music here
Classical Music News: Hall of Fame honour for Naxos Chairman
Klaus Heymann, the founding chairman of Naxos, has been included in the 2013 Gramophone Hall of Fame.
The other four citations were awarded posthumously!
Naxos has done a huge amount for the guitar in their Laureate series and their gradual complete coverage of the repertoire. Klaus Heymann has personally done a lot to promote the guitar (partly because it is advantageous economically!), and I am grateful to have been the first guitarist recorded by Naxos in the early days.
Classroom music from 2014: the new National Curriculum | Classical Music.
It says that “the purpose of studying music is to ‘engage and inspire pupils to develop a love of music and their talent as musicians, and so increase their self-confidence, creativity and sense of achievement,’ so that pupils eventually develop ‘a critical engagement with music, allowing them to compose, and to listen with discrimination to the best in the musical canon’” Continue reading
When Choirs Sing, Many Hearts Beat As One
“it took almost no time at all for the singers’ heart rates to become synchronized. The readout from the pulse monitors starts as a jumble of jagged lines, but quickly becomes a series of uniform peaks. The heart rates fall into a shared rhythm guided by the song’s tempo“
This has been around a while now, but is still interesting. I wonder if anyone has measured heart rates of supporters at a football or tennis match.
Do guitar ensemble players live longer than soloists? (Only if they follow the conductor!)
Continue reading
In a moment of weakness I once bought a CD entitled “The Ultimate Classical Album”.As well as the usual classics like Rachmaninoff’s Concerto, a smattering of Satie Gymnopédies and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (well, one season actually), I was surprised to find that 3 out of the 4 CDs contained music by Max Steiner, Thomas Newman, John Barry, James Horner and other names not that familiar to classical listeners – in other words film music. Continue reading
The following article made me think about a couple of forthcoming concerts that I will be taking part in.
Classical Music magazine – Southbank granted time to rethink controversial Festival Wing plans
When Xufei Yang started the guitar, it was a known as a ‘hooligan instrument’ in China.