Sunday, March 30, 2008

Man, Im pretty bad at this. Kingston, and CBC

Sorry its been so long, I've been busy and lazy. equal amounts of both probably. Dangerous combo..this will be a sloppy post as a result

I was playing with the Kingston Symphony this past weekend, music included Tchaikovsky - Romeo and Juliette, Bolero and the rite of spring. A beautiful program if you're a percussionist. I had the pleasure of hanging out with the guys in the section for 3 days, very fun crew, ll very laid back and having a good time with some challenging rep
. The orchestra itself reminded me a lot of the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. Overall I was pretty pleased with my playing, I was playing the tam tam in the rite and really got to wail on the Dance of the earth, I really do not think I could of played too loud for this conductor, which is a lot easier than being told to play less. He also gave me a thumbs up for my triangle beater on tam tam gliss, which is always nice. In Bolero I played second snare, which comes in about 3/4 of the way through the work..before my entry the main snare drum was to back off a little bit and i was to come in full throttle (dynamically) which was again, the first time i had seen or heard the piece done like this. I think it surprised the audience a little as Snare drum one was placed in the center of the band while i hid back in the percussion section. My only gripe with bolero is that the poor first snare, who had slaved away for 15 straight minutes with the same pattern, not to mention setting up the whole dynamic for the piece did not get a bow, I mean, its Bolero!! throw the guy a bone!!


so, How about the axing of the CBC radio orchestra in Vancouver. When 40 musicians find themselves out of their main source of income in the blink of an eye you really realize you cannot take anything for granted in this career. What will happen to the players?? Potentially moving across the country to freelance, only adding to an overflown pool of qualified players... Its a scary thought.
Right now there are a boat load of email campaigns going on to try to some how save the orchestra, and to fight the changes the CBC is making to radio 2 as well, but will probably be for naught. Which is really said, because I really loved the radio 2, It was my station of choice for the past 6 years or so, In Newfoundland there really was NO other outlet to get classical music on the radio. Granted I have a great recording collection so im not exactly without access to the music, but there are certianly a tonne of young people who do not have the means to this music like i do, and thats really sad as well.

Lately I'm listening to...

Rite of Spring (fun homework for the show) Boulez with Cleveland (1969), MTT with San Fran, and Bernstein with the NYP

Levon Helm - Dirt Farmer
Joe Jackson - Rain

Since I'm seeing him live on April 1, I'll put up a video

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Busy boy

Been busy as of late which explains the tardiness of this post...sorry by's (gang, if you aren't from newfoundland)

Had friends and family visiting this weekend which is always nice, A lot of over indulgence to say the least so this Sunday night has been devoted to relaxing and some practicing,

This weekend in Toronto was Canadian music week, Which meant a tonne of live music in the city. I checked out Plants and Animals, The Acorn, Danko Jones and Hey Rosetta!

None of the bands were terrible at all and i enjoyed myself both nights out, which is rare for me and live music in bars! The Acorn really had some great stuff going on, they went the spectrum of super sparse to dense as hell often in the same tune, lovely harmonies and a quasi percussionist who also sang and played ukulele. What more could you want, Also! in the middle of the song, two people in the band made out for an entire verse, Do what you have to do to get noticed I guess. Regardless they were probably my favorite band coming out of the weekend.

The friends i had in visiting were part of the group Hey Rosetta!, A band from newfoundland who is starting to get some serious recognition. They had some new tunes that I really enjoyed. Good times, and the finest house guests you could ask for.


Practicing lately has been in huge spurts and then days of nothing, I really hate it when i get into these ruts...We will see if this improves by the end of the week.

Ill leave you with a clip of The Acorn