November Bonanza 1: Sara Watkins in Saltaire

If October was busy... something of a concert bonanza in November! The run started with Americana legend Sara Watkins playing The Live Room in Saltaire at the end of her UK tour. We saw Sara as part of the I'm With Her tour in Gateshead last year and have been much enjoying her current album Young In All The Wrong Ways. This album is quite a rocky/produced sound, so to hear the same songs from Sara alone with her instruments was a treat. It also meant that they lyrics stood out more. There were also older songs (including a few Nickel Creek tracks) and covers.

This was also our first visit to The Live Room, which is an award winning live space within Caroline Social Club in Saltaire. It's a very intimate space (a bit reminiscent of Belgrave Music Hall back in 2013 when we saw Basia Bulat), chairs, tables and low lighting. The live events are very reasonably priced and there are some great acts coming!

Sara had a local support, Serious Sam Barrett. Sam was very good, excellent chat and stories, and I was closely watching how he played his guitar. For all that - his songs were slightly genre-bound.

Sara played around 1 1/2 hours on stage with her and 4 instruments - two guitars, fiddle and ukulele. Fantastic mix of songs and instruments. I enjoyed them all - but the electric guitar Pat has a superb timbre. Young In All The Wrong Ways has been on regular rotation since! More details about Sara's many projects are available on her site.

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Pigeon Funk

Notes on a very random purchase. Earlier today I acquired Venetian Snares 'Rossz Csillag Alatt Sz ü letett ' purely on the basis of the language and artwork. Its certainly something different - and most definitely not pop. After a bit of searching: Venetial Snares is, according to Wikipedia, the performing name of Aaron Funk, who seems to specialise in experimental tracks in odd time signatures. Article here . The sleeve notes for this album (whose title is Hungarian for 'Born under a bad star') poses the question: what if, for just a day, we could both be pigeons? Interessant. Apparently this concept (a day in the life of a Hungarian pigeon) is non-typical of Venetian Snares sound, but one could ask, does Mr Funk do 'typical'? On first listening, the sound of this CD mixes classical/traditional Hungarian sounds and breakbeats. but aside from that? Definitely a 'listen for yourself' artist; try the website , fan site or myspace .

Lang Lang: a little bit of stardust in Southam Hall

Lang Lang with Anita Pari Like many National Arts Centre regulars, the idea of a Lang Lang concert sounded fantastic... except that for me the Gala tickets are rather too expensive. As a result the turnout for today's masterclass with young artists Anita Pari (Ottawa), Alexander Malikov (Calgary), and Tina Chong (Banff) in Southam Hall was pretty good. No surprises that there were photographers and a TV camera all over the stage... so much so that during Lang's analysis of Malikov's rendition of Transcendental Étude No 8 'Wild Hunt' (Liszt), someone shouted at the cameraman to move. To my mind they seemed a little intrusive on the performances, but none of the artists seemed to take any notice. Lang Lang with Tina Chong Up first and for me the best performance was Anita Pari with the captivating Ballade No 1 by Chopin. In comparison, Malikov's performance did not have anywhere near as much projection. Final performer Tina Chong seemed

New talent at Southminster

As a follow-on from last weekend's excellent Chopin concert, there is an afternoon of New Artists from the NAC's Summer Music Institute at Southminster United Church on 17th June. Entitled 'Dover Beach and other works for summertime', the concert features new artists Katarzyna Sadej , Emily Nenninger , Drew Santini, Hannah Min, Paul Casey , Karen Kang and Bryan Wagorn. I had the chance to hear Bryan Wagorn at one of University of Ottawa's Concerts at the NAC 4th Stage concerts back in February and thoroughly enjoyed his performance. The proposed programme is very enticing: MENDELSSOHN String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13 MONIUSZKO Sen (The Dream) Prząśniczka (Spinner Girl) SZYMANOWSKI Lecioły Zórazie (The Swans Were Flying) Ściani Dumbek (The Dark Forest) CHOPIN Piosnka Litewska (Lithuanian Folksong) Moja Pieszczotka

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