Performance perspective: A Classical Interlude at Ribble Valley Jazz & Blues Festival, Clitheroe

The May Day weekend saw the annual Ribble Valley Jazz and Blues festival hit Clitheroe. An amazing lineup of musicians across 17 venues for the weekend. The festival is entirely volunteer run and they did an amazing job! This year, the festival organisers had a few branch-out events including A Classical Interlude - a morning of classical guitar and an afternoon of piano.

Members of the Clitheroe Piano Meetup, myself included, were invited to perform at the Interlude concerts. They were held in Clitheroe Library - so far, so familiar as this is the venue for the regular piano group. Multi instrumentalists John Hesketh and Ian Plested performed solo and duo guitar repertoire to a packed out room.

For the piano slot, there were 5 performers: John Hesketh, Nick Mahon, Margaret Plested, yours truly and Richard Dinsmore. The repertoire - what a selection! Somehow independently of each other we'd ended up focusing on quite a few French composers. After a more 'classical' start from John and jazz from Nick, Margaret included Debussy's Arabesque No. 1 in her section, followed by me with Erik Satie (Gnossiennes 1-4) and Benjamin Godard (Au Matin), followed by more Debussy (Reverie) and Poulenc (Improvisation No. 13 and Toccata from Trois Pieces) by Richard.

The room was pretty full and the audience very enthusiastic! Definitely helped with the nerves (although playing a familiar piano was another bonus). For me, I enjoy the Satie Gnossiennes so much that I was floating away on them whilst playing. Very nice.

Big congratulations to all the performers. Same time next year??

Comments

Music, Poetry and Cake (Gateshead and Lanchester)

Piano at the ready! (by M) After a good few months prep, the concert Piano Music and Poetry (organised through the Gateshead Piano Workshop folks) came around pretty quickly. As one of the participants, I was excited and also a little nervous about the prospect of a Paying Audience. The work paid off, as all the performers were excellent! Well appreciated by the compact audience. The format was in relation to National Poetry Day which was on 2nd October. Each performer chose a poem either in direct or indirect relation to their piece. A summary of the programme: Alan - Liszt Consolation No 4 and Mozart Adagio in B minor Graeme - Chopin Nocturne Op. 62 No. 2 with 'Uncertainty' by Adam Mickiewicz me - Clara Schumann, andante con sentimento with 'Clara Wieck und Beethoven' by Franz Grillparzer Jim - R Schumann Kinderszenen 1 and 7 with 'My child, we were just children' by Heinrich Heine Ernie - Debussy Clair de lune with excerpt from 'Fêtes g...

Sounds of JUNOfest

Classical JUNOs performers Something of a musical melange weekend but an excellent set of events! Eschewing some of the bands and artists we knew, we chose less familiar sounds for our JUNOfest experience. First up was the Classical JUNOs in Concert event at the National Arts Centre , featuring both nominated performers and composers. The mix of contemporary music was brilliantly played by Christina Petrowska Quilico , Susan Hoeppner , Heather Schmidt and the New Orford String Quartet . Quilico amazed the almost 100-strong audience with her performance of Derek Charke's Sepia Fragments in a reduction for piano; I found this piece a really captivating mix of earthly and ethereal elements. Quilico's second performance was of Ann Southam's Glass Houses No. 5 , an hypnotic piece which sounded both fiendishly difficult to play but also very clean and unembellished. Susan Hoeppner's excellent performance of Eldin Burton's Sonatina for Flute and Piano got the po...

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 .

PrettyInScarlett

Search This Blog