In this video piano soloist Maria Joao Pires is confronted with a nasty situation. As the conductor begins the piece of music they are to play, she discovers that it is not the piece she prepared. She has left her music at home Imagine that.
Undaunted, she engages in a short conversation with the conductor who encourages her to play it any way – she played it last season, she knows the piece well.
Pires digs ddep – you can see it in her face – and conjures up Mozart’s D minor concerto form the depths of her mastery.
There have been times when I am working with a group, when a similar feeling has overcome me. For whatever reason – the invitation was wrong, the situaion had changed, people were expecting something different – everything I had prepared was wrong for the moment. In such moments the only thing that saves you is an ability to improvise, to draw on your experience and to attend to the present needs of the group. This is what I strive to be able to do. This is why practice is so important.
Share:
From Montreal band Little Scream, have a listen to The Heron and the Fox, a gentle tune sung with smoky voiced longing.
Share:
My friend Alan Stewart reports on a meeting he had with Pete Seeger: An Encounter With a Guy With a Big and Bobbing Adam’s Apple. Included in the article is a new verse for Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now.”
Share:
Spent a lovely evening last night playing tunes with friends new and old at The Snug Coffeehouse on Bowen Island. Every so often, a couple of times a month or so, we gather there on a Saturday night to play Irish and Scottish tunes. Last night my old friend Dave Marshall showed up, which was lovely. He and I were regulars at the famous Tuesday night session at the Irish Heather in Vancouver in the mid to late 1990s.
Last night though was the first time I have ever played with Jocelyn Pettit. Jocelyn, who is all of 16 years old, is a phenomenal talent. A beautiful fiddle player, who has crafted a marvelous CD of tunes both traditional and recently composed, Jocelyn lives in Squamish, the town up at the end of our inlet.
Today, on my way to Kuujuaq in northern Quebec, Jocelyn’s music is filling my ears. Click through and listen to her music…
Share:
via YouTube – Amazing WWII Story.