January 22nd, 2007
I’m back! And akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! (Happy New Year!) It has snowed several times since the last entry, and rained, and then snowed some more! So far, we’ve been a couple of weeks with no rain, which is fantastic! It’s even been quite cold for a few days.
In the weeks and weeks and weeks since the last entry, Sari and I traveled to New Brunswick for Christmas, celebrated a few birthdays, performed with the Seasons Baroque Ensemble, settled Catan extensively, and generally had a silly and jolly time.
The concerts with Seasons included shows in St. Andrews and Saint John this time. These went very well, and we had a great turnout, especially considering the new venues. Everyone seemed very enthusiastic, so we’re looking forward to the next shows!
The next performance put on by Early Music Fredericton will be a series of solo harpsichord recitals that I’m playing. Friday, March 9 will be in St. Andrews, Saturday the 10th in Saint John, and then Sunday afternoon in Fredericton. More details to come on those concerts! Watch this space!
In other exciting news, I’m no longer a regular McGill employee. My last day working at the venerable help desk at ICS Customer Support was last Thursday. It’s been a long time – after five and a half years, I was, except for Mary-Ann, the most senior employee there, including all the managers, etc. It was time to go though – I have more than enough work these days with other web work and programming and all the music work, so it was time for a change!
Unfortunately, I have a cold. I’ve been treating my symptoms by staying in bed for most of the past three days (medicinal laziness?). I think I’m on the mend, but it’s slow going. One nice part of working from home though is that I can stay in bed in my pyjamas all day long, and actually get a whole lot done!
Posted in music, Photos | Comments Off on Long time no blog
November 6th, 2006
Last week I recorded a few tracks to use as a demo for Jeunesses Musicales.
I’d like to start recording more often, and posting more tunes here. Now that I have some slightly better equipment for recording, and don’t have to deal with the minidisc, it might actually happen. Can anyone recommend some good cheap microphones though? The one I have isn’t really up to the task. It’s a little minidisc stereo microphone, Sony ECM-MS908C (basically an older version of this one). It actually works surprisingly well for being a tiny little simple microphone, but the level it puts out is way too low. For some reason, I didn’t have that problem so much when I used it with my minidisc, but it might just have a higher recording level than just about everything else I’ve tried.
I’ve had Oktava mics recommended to me. They’re apparently very cheap for what you get, though it’s still expensive. With all the cables, stands shipping and all the rest, I think I’d be looking at no less than $600 to get a pair of them, and possibly quite a bit more. This isn’t a ridiculous amount, and for microphones, it’s not much at all, really, but for something that I’m not really serious about, it’s a little much!
October 27th, 2006
For the latest concert with the Seasons Baroque Ensemble, Sari and I decided to rent a car and drive there and back. It was fun to have a road trip together, and to not have to worry about schedules or anything like that. It was exhausting though… and somewhat more expensive than the bus (since we were there for a whole week).
The concert was also exhausting. Katherine and Graham only got back to town two days before the show, so we put together a very challenging programme, including F. Couperin’s L’apothéose de Lully on very short notice. The end result was very good though – many people commented that it was our best yet. We certainly had a good turnout, too. The Cathedral is a very nice place to play.
September 29th, 2006
The concert in Fredericton went very well! I didn’t get it recorded, unfortunately, but there will definitely be more. Gallery 78 is a very nice place for a harpsichord recital – just big enough to hold some people and sound good while still being cozy and intimate. We have a concert coming up with the Seasons Baroque Ensemble in a couple of weeks. If you’re in Fredericton, it will be October 15 at the Cathedral – I’ll get some more details up here in the next little while.
While in New Brunswick, I went roaming in the woods, of course. The weather was fantastic most of the week, and with the trees starting to change colours, it was really perfect.
September 20th, 2006
So I’m back in Keswick Ridge, in preparation for the concert I’m doing this Saturday. I guess I should have posted some more updates in the past month, but it hasn’t been too interesting – just busy. I’ve been working full-time at the helpdesk (I’m mightily glad that I’m finished with that now!), doing a bunch of choral gigs at church and with the Montreal Symphony, and frantically trying to prepare for this solo recital.
This concert’s been quite exhilarating to put together. I haven’t done a solo recital since I finished my master’s degree three years ago, and haven’t done a harpsichord recital in Fredericton ever (for that matter, I don’t know if anyone ever has, at least not in the past century or so). But it’s been going very well, with a good mix of familiar and obscure (some familiar for the audience, and some for me!), simple and difficult. I’ve been playing a few pieces that I performed many years ago – I always find that to be a rewarding experience, since I can feel how much I’ve improved. Something that took 6 months to half-learn now takes a couple of weeks to play very nicely.
If you can’t make it to the concert, I’m going to attempt to record it, but can’t make any promises – my laptop has pretty terrible input sound quality, and I haven’t gotten an external sound card yet (though the Tascam that Mershie suggested is looking like a keeper), so I’ll be struggling with the minidisc.
In any case, I have a preview available: the Scarlatti that I’m performing Saturday is available (in ogg format, as usual – let me know if you have trouble playing it, and I can get you turned away from the Dark Side). Unfortunately, it’s one of those acrobatic Scarlattis, so on a recording, you won’t get to see all the fun hand crossings and leaps, but you can surely imagine them. Without further ado, Sonata K.54 in A minor.
