This is the missing introduction from Stephan Hesse’s excellent video of the first two movements of the concerto “China Sings” –
Kuang Junhong is the soloist with the Iserlohn Festival Orchestra 2013
I am aided and abetted by Xu Bao and Frank Gerstmeier
It was an exciting occasion – the world premier of the first two movements of my concerto “China Sings” – Kuang Junhong played with great delicacy and fiery virtuosity, and the orchestra was superb. Watch this space for all three movements with symphony orchestra.
A couple of videos – the first is the rehearsal of my piece for Organ and Guitar Quartet played by Tobias Aehlig, the Amadeus Duo and the Gruber Maklar Duo. This is in the Oberstdat Church in Iserlohn – sorry the video content is boring, but it is more or less what the audience was looking at! Las Meninas Bailan refers to the famous painting by Velasquez and is a depiction of what happens below stairs! The main theme is a Spanish Christmas Carol, “Riu, riu, chiu” from the Cancionero de Uppsala manuscript.
Some more pictures from Iserlohn 2013
It’s that time of year again, and I am in Iserlohn (Schwerte, actually, which is where the festival relocated).
This year there is a large contingent from China – students from Chengdu with their teacher Xu Bao, and also from Shanghai with Danny Yeh. I know most of the Chengdu students from my visit earlier this year
Compare and contrast this guitarists’ favourite piece! Continue reading
While I was looking for David’s video of “My Gentle Harp”, I came across his site and David Russell’s Tips for Guitarists which been around for a while, but it took me ages to discover them – they are very simple and wise, and cover a surprising amount of ground with good humour and grounded common sense. I hope you will find these tips from an experienced musician who is also a great artist and human being helpful. Continue reading
My friend Apostolos Paraskevas has written two articles on recovery from Focal Dystonia.
He was very excited about his recovery and will be happy to share with anyone after the publication of the articles in Classical Guitar magazine.
There will be more about this most common and distressing syndrome amongst many professional guitarists.
Apostolos says:
I was struck almost overnight by focal dystonia (FD) to my right hand after a concert. Continue reading
