The percussion section is so often little considered although they are not just like jazz drums, playing rhythm as important as that is, but they also play pitch with keyboard substitutes on vibes and marimba and pedals on timpani or tubular bells as well as the complexity on seemingly simple instruments like the triangle.  They have to count, too!  But this was Claire Edwardes of ..read more

It's a little different with mates.  I was recording so nabbed the front of house spot to turn on and off the recorder and get some good pics so I was right under the eyes of the Dudok Quartet.  Marie-Louise viola is staying with us and we are driving the group frequently so I would be watched.  Suffice to say it was so easy with Dudok Quartet Amsterdam.  They were such a ..read more

This was guitar of a magical beauty.  I did see John Williams once but in a massive hall; being close is something different.  Clear, crisp, deeply felt playing, complex fingered chords, surprising limited obvious right hand finger movements, occasional lightning scalar runs.  These are strings well played, trebly with little obvious sustain, from quick playing or broad movements ..read more

These were the gardens of Spain, as interpreted by Saralouise Owens and Natalia Tkachenko at Wesley.  The program had that title and interestingly, flowers and pines and various growing greenery appeared frequently in the lyrics, but this was more of love, mostly lost or rejected, amongst florid words and literary circumventions and Spanish rhythm and dance.  Saralouise played the ..read more

I was chatting with trumpet Tom after the gig and I commented on how complex and difficult was this music and he suggested it had taken them 3 years to master it.  That floored me.  The recording makes it seem demanding but fairly relaxed.  The tour and this gig just opened the complexity and difficulty for all to see.  So it was not music for the faint-hearted in the audience ..read more

I have great respect for woodwinds.  They don't play so often, unlike the consistent, unrelenting playing of the strings, but when they do, the lines are essential statements of melody or at least of colour and contrast and those lines can be very difficult.  The bass is clumsy and slow if defining, but woodwinds are fast and fleet also definitional in their different way.  So I ..read more

It was with sadness but also a great deal of musical admiration and fond memories that we farewelled Niels Rosenhdahl.   There were many people present, musicians, friends and family, and plenty of the performers were on stage through a string of combinations.  Probably most had played with Niels.  Michael and Eric from Straight Up; Leigh, Aron and Sam and The Lethals; a ..read more

I've got into recording over the years and most recently into multitrack mixing and mastering, mainly of gigs at Smiths.  I find it fascinating and even, in some ways, better or more revealing than being in attendance.  Less fun, perhaps, and less personal, but revealing.  So I can solo the bass or sax of other and follow the thinking, the improvs, in detail and with repeats.& ..read more

Prayers and lamentations was the title of the concert by Oriana Chorale with a range of Biblical and other quotes.  The obvious one and ever popular was Thomas Tallis lamentations of Jeremiah from the a capella first half.  Interestingly the two parts of Tallis sandwiched a modern work by Roxanna Panufnik.   It was a little confusing and I thought Tallis was mightily modern ..read more

Australian Haydn Ensemble called the concert Heavenly Sopranos and sure enough most of the program featured a soprano and mezzo pairing.  AHE doesn't often perform with singers (3/28 posts on CJ).   This program featured several works by Johann Adolf Hasse, a renowned opera composer in his time,, Francesco Durante, a teacher of Pergolesi, and the feature, Stabat Mater by ..read more