Many thanks to Bob Hubbard, of Westwind Double Reed, for sending this out on Facebook.
I always wonder, though, why there is cello … and now violin. I’m so puzzled. (But hey, do they need an oboist?)
Odds are I’ll get home from the kiddie concerts today and find this not working. I hope not, but so far that’s happened with nearly every video I post! I really do check them after posting … honest! … but later they aren’t working. A second fix and all seems to be fine. So very odd.
Be sure and watch the outtakes at the end. Then you hear what the violin really sounds like as one is moving and playing at the same time. :-)
Soul Focus Photography, used with permission from Merran Cooke
Background photo found here
Playing classical music can take your mind away from “worrying about niggly little issues” and allow you to come back to work with a fresh perspective, says Crown Law Assistant Crown Counsel Merran Cooke, a member of the Vector Wellington Orchestra and organiser of the recently held ‘Counsel in Concert’ choral and orchestral performance. “I really enjoy the lawyers’ music group,” says Cooke. “It brings me back to when I was doing music as a teenager, and didn’t expect to get paid, just doing it for the pleasure of it.”
First notes
Cooke fell in love with music as a youngster. She played piano, recorder, and harp, but it “was the oboe that won out”. She started playing the “lovely” and relatively “rare” instrument as a 10 year old thanks to the encouragement of her music-loving parents, and fell completely in love with it when she made the Wellington Youth Orchestra four years later. “I really enjoy orchestral playing,” she says. “That was what I really loved, playing in a big group with lots of people. The teamwork aspect is what really appealed, and being part of a really big sound as well.”
And here’s a link to the poster (again, thanks to Merran!)
… and I think my kids might too!
Okay, I normally don’t like autotune. At all. But this just cracked me up. So there’s that. And it’s done by some young folks and I like that too. :-) (Yeah, using the word “folks” means I’m old. Go figure.)
I’m just amazed she can get through all of these!
Performed by Jane Lui, Michael T., and Jonathan Batiste.
… or I can’t be friends with you. Sorry.
This guy, David Newman, is fantastic and I wish I’d had him for theory. Maybe I would have actually learned … and remembered!
… and yes, there are more!
… and wince as well. I sure hope those weren’t good instruments! :-)
Thanks, Bob Hubbard, for sending this my way. I almost want to go to Wisconsin now. (And I do believe I saw Robert Levine in this … am I correct?)
As a friend wrote (hi Johne!):
You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Ride of the Valkyries augmented by harmonica and mouth harp.
… and of course An der schönen blauen donau is thrown in for good measure …
MozART Group
What fun — scroll in to about 2:25 unless you want to watch them set up and all — but if you speak German maybe you’ll want to hear the intro, where the heckelphone is introduced!
Jazzy Ideas for 5 oboes, 2 English horns, heckelphone, 2 bassoons and piano.
Composer: Augustin Lehfuss
(In case there’s someone out there who hasn’t seen it, the title of this blog entry comes from the movie Being John Malkovich.)
This video below just brought me joy. Here this group of people are, in a house with three (!) pianos, and a variety of other instruments and they are making music together. I mean … this is just too darn fun and I would love to do something like this sometime. No performance anxiety (I hope). Just sheer joy of playing music together.
You can read a bit about the composer, Irene M. Giblin (1888-1974)here.
The video was recorded in Sutter Creek, California. I know someone from there … I wonder if she knows any of these people. Oh Madeline, do you read this blog?!
Here’s another, just for fun (and in reading more, it appears this was a Ragtime Festival). Six pianists on four pianos, plus 1 banjo:
Want a real winner of a ring tone? Check out the Met’s Ring ring tones!
And they are Frrrreeeee!
After being in place for only a few hours on a warm afternoon in downtown San Jose, one of artist Luke Jerram’s outdoor pianos was getting a workout.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to play,” said 26-year-old San Jose waitress Mazel Brooks, who was performing “Stardust” on a piano at the Circle of Palms, next to the Fairmont Hotel. As the notes wafted across the city streets, she added, “This is fun. I’ve got to tell my friends about this.”
That piano is one of 20 placed by Jerram, a 35-year-old conceptual artist from Bristol, England, throughout the downtown area and at locations such as Santana Row. It is part of his “Play Me, I’m Yours” installation, an interactive art project like ones he has done in cities throughout the world. San Jose is only the second American location, after New York, where such stars as Alicia Keys were seen playing the pianos.
“This was designed for California and Silicon Valley,” said Jerram, fresh off a flight from Hungary, where he had placed pianos in the city of Pécs for a festival. “There is lots of creativity here, a lot of openness.”
