November 16th, 2007
To continue the personal news catch-up that I’m attempting this week, I thought it would be good to mention that Sari and I got married! Now that it’s been over a month, I figure it’s time to say something here. Enough secrecy!
The wedding was a wonderful day on Thanksgiving weekend. Perfect weather – just a bit chilly, but very sunny. Lots of friends and family. All in all, a fine party. Thanks to everyone that could come! Sari made a web site for the event, and we now have many photos up on it. If anyone has photos that they’d like us to post, send them over! We can always add more.
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November 16th, 2007
A heads-up about my next concert: I’ll be heading back to Fredericton tomorrow to give a solo harpsichord recital. Here are all the details:
Sunday November 18, 2007
3:00 PM
Gallery 78 – 796 Queen Street
If you can come, you might want to get there early – it’s a pretty small space, and there has been a fairly large amount of publicity!
I’m travelling by bus again, which I’m not really looking forward to. It’s straightforward, and cheaper than the alternatives, and takes very little effort, which it nice, but it’s 12 hours sitting on a jiggling lump of metal. The worst part is actually the schedule – I have to get to the bus station before 6AM! It’s too early for the regular city bus schedule, so I have to go even earlier on a night bus, or spend a lot of money on a taxi.
On the last trip to Fredericton (just a couple of weeks ago!) I also took the bus. I found that the best activity is to listen to podcasts and audiobooks on an mp3 player. I think I listened to about a dozen Escape Pod stories last time, and I have a pile more downloaded now. There’s a lot of good stuff on that site, if you’re into science fiction at all! A lot of variety within the scifi genre too, which is very nice. There’s a lot more out there than the usual Star Trek stuff, and Escape Pod manages to sample a lot of different subgenres.
I should really get packed up so that I can grab a few hours of sleep before setting out. See you at the concert!
November 14th, 2007
So I finally moved redowl.ca to a new server. I got a dedicated machine at iWeb for a very good price through their clearance department. I’ve been toying with the idea for years now, but could never justify the cost, and didn’t want to get into the business of being a commercial webhosting company or anything. Redowl has been just hosted at home over a DSL connection for all this time (first appeared in 1996!)
The new server is called scallop. It replaces squid as general-purpose web and mail server, among other things. (My computers are all named after molluscs starting with the letter S – and no, that’s not the strangest naming convention I’ve heard of). It’s very nice to have better bandwidth – you might have noticed it already. The upload speed from the DSL connection here was never really good enough to run a server from, but the new one should be plenty for quite a while.
Beware – technical junk coming up.
Setting up the server itself was very simple – I’ve installed countless linux machines now, so getting the right packages installed and configured wasn’t any trouble. The difficult part was in switching things over from the old server to the new one. There are two main issues with a move like this: one is that right up until the move happens, the old server is still processing data and receiving mail. So if I just copy everything over and then switch servers, there’s a good chance that something would change on the old machine in between – those changes would then be lost. A thornier problem is that when you switch a machine from one place on the internet to another – in this case, moving the redowl.ca name from its old IP address with teksavvy (my ISP at home) to the one with iWeb – the change doesn’t happen instantly for everyone on the net. Even after switching, many computers might still try to contact the old server, just because they remember where it was and don’t check every time to see if it has moved. So I had to also set up some things on squid to say, for example, if any mail is received, it should be forwarded on to scallop, and not kept on squid.
Much to my astonishment, everything seems to have gone very smoothly. I only made one ridiculous mistake: When I made the switchover, I forgot to turn off fetchmail – a program that retrieves mail from my McGill account – so mail from that account kept arriving on squid instead of going to scallop! Luckily, I caught it before long, and it wouldn’t have affected any other users on the system. I just had to transfer a few messages manually to scallop.
So now I feel like a grown-up computer geek. I have my own little bundle of IP addresses and a real server in a datacentre. Feel free to suggest fun things to do with it!
November 11th, 2007
I was pleased to see that harpsichordist and fortepianist Tilman Skowroneck has started a blog. I’ve been enjoying what he has to say on the harpsichord mailing list for a few years now. He wrote an article about choosing concert reviews to post publicly on a website, which bears comment.
The challenge of choosing which reviews to show people isn’t something that I’ve run into, simply because I don’t have any press clippings at all – I don’t think a review of a performance of mine has been published since I was in high school, with the exception of some large ensemble concerts at McGill in which I played a very small part and certainly wasn’t mentioned by name! I wish I could get a review done of one of my concerts, but unfortunately, it’s next to impossible here in Canada, it seems. Most of my performing is either in Montreal or else in the much smaller city of Fredericton. In the latter, the local newspaper hasn’t actually had any arts reviewers on staff in many many years, and I haven’t seen a classical concert review since I was in high school. It’s a real shame – there’s a small enough amount of classical music that you could put a review of every single concert in town into the paper without taking up too much space, but the interest just isn’t there on the part of the editors.
In Montreal, it’s a different story: there are professional music critics writing for some of the newspapers, and they do cover many classical concerts. That said, the main dailies here have concert reviewers that cannot stand early music – one goes so far as to state the fact clearly at the beginning of almost every early music review he’s forced to write. It’s quite ridiculous that they can’t find someone with a hint of interest in the music to cover the scene here, and makes the music look bad quite unfairly. The other issue in a large city like Montreal is just that there are so many concerts and established professional ensembles in town, that even in a style of music that the critics might appreciate, it’s rare to get anything written up about a small concert, especially for a new group.
Increasingly, I think private critics writing on blogs are becoming a more useful look at what’s really happening in niche styles of music, though I expect, and hope, that the situation is better in Europe. For now, every time I see an application that requires the inclusion of press clippings, I wonder if the person requesting them really knows what they’re asking for!
Perhaps I’m just at too early a stage in my career right now, and I will accumulate some mention in the press in coming years, but honestly, I don’t see it being too likely. Perhaps I’m also putting too much emphasis on print reviews – serious, informed writing about the kinds of performances I do seems to be confined to the net. Perhaps it just makes sense that way!
November 10th, 2007
Sometimes a blog doesn’t get updated because nothing is happening. Other times, it doesn’t get updated because there’s just way too much going on! I’ll try to make a few posts in the very near future about all the new developments in my life, but for now, a very quick run down:
- Sari and I got married!
- Both of our bikes got stolen – if you know of a good bike for sale in Montreal, let me know!
- I lost my Brandenburg V virginity
- I have a concert coming up next week in Fredericton – Sunday November 18th at 3:00PM at Gallery 78. You might want to get a ticket in advance, because it’s a small space, and there might be a lot of people there – I’ve been getting more pubicity than usual!
- As always, there are a few more photos up.
September 19th, 2007
It’s been a while since I posted anything here. It’s been a busy time!
Since the last post in mid-August, I’ve been travelling all over the place. Sari and I spent the beginning of August in New Brunswick, as I mentioned before. We stayed for a couple of weeks, doing a trio of concerts with Seasons Baroque, and house sitting for my parents for a while.
The rest of the month was spent with various other trips: We both visited friends in Vermont, then Sari spent a week in Toronto to do a couple of recordings with the Toronto Chamber Orchestra (you can see a video of one of the sessions on youtube!), while I took a lengthy bus ride down to Philadelphia to visit some weyrmount friends – a delightfully geeky bunch! Then, as soon as we were back in Montreal together, it was back to the Maritimes, performing again with Seasons, though this time we were playing for Graham’s cousin’s wedding in Nova Scotia! It was a fun trip, but very exhausting – left early Saturday, rehearsed that evening; drove to NS on Sunday and played the wedding that afternoon; back to NB on Monday, another quick rehearsal to get ready for the next concerts; and then back to Montreal in time to return the rental car Tuesday night!
We’re now in Montreal for another couple of weeks. Sari will be off for a weekend playing in the Sackville Early Music Festival, and then as soon as she gets back to Montreal, we’re headed back to NB together! This time, it’s not just for a concert (though we’re doing that too!) since we’re getting married! October 7th is the date, and it’s creeping up on us alarmingly quickly. It’s all coming together now, but there’s still a lot of work to be done!
Right after the wedding, we’re doing two concerts – with all these musicians there, it’d be a shame to waste the opportunity! Tuesday October 9th will be in Fredericton, and then Wednesday the 10th in St. Andrews. Check www.earlymusicfredericton.ca for more details, as usual.
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August 4th, 2007
Our schedule has finally been finalized!
The Seasons Baroque Ensemble will be performing four concerts in New Brunswick this coming week.
Thursday, August 9, 1:00pm – St. Andrews
Friday, August 10, 12:10pm – Fredericton
Friday, August 10, 7:30pm – Oromocto
Sunday, August 12, 2:00pm – St. John
The other exciting news has to do with where you can go to get more information about these (and other) concerts: Early Music Fredericton now has a website! I’ve carefully not mentioned where the concerts are actually happening in this blog post, so that you’ll have to follow the link the find out! We’re moving ahead with making this a ‘real’ organization to help manage our early music activities in Fredericton and around the province, and to encourage more of it to happen! Sari did most of the work on the design and coding for the site, which is why it looks so darn good.
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July 31st, 2007
I must say, it’s a far more satisfying experience to play music in a space that’s big enough for the sound. Today’s concert of unaccompanied saxophone music was at St. James United Church, and it felt very nice to play there! Especially after practicing for the past month or so in our very small spare bedroom with no acoustic at all.
Concert spaces are always a tricky thing. You want some resonance, but not too much, and it depends a lot on the instrument/ensemble that’s performing. Redpath Hall, at Mcgill University, is built a bit like many churches – it’s very resonant, and sounds great for early music. I’ve played harpsichord there more times than I can count! But saxophone can really drown in its own echoes in a space like that. I remember one unfortunate event when the McGill Wind Symphony performed there – it was almost painful to hear the amount of sound flying back at us from all corners of the room.
Louder instruments and ensembles usually sound better with a slightly less ‘live’ sound. My saxophone grad recital was in Pollack Hall, which suited the sound of the instrument much more. St. James is probably even better though – a little more live than Pollack, but not nearly so boomy as Redpath.
I did record the whole concert, though I think it was miked a little too closely, since you can hear a bit too much of the keys and other noise, and you don’t get quite as much resonance as was really present in the church. The microphones are very directional, which is usually very nice, since you can record without capturing too much of the audience sounds, but maybe a little bit more room reverb wouldn’t have hurt. That said, it doesn’t sound completely dead. This is the first time I’ve recorded saxophone – I think with the quieter baroque instruments, it makes sense to get a little closer, perhaps. I’m still learning this whole recording thing! I’ve taken these recordings down, in the interest of disk space. E-mail me if you want to hear them.
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July 27th, 2007
I’ve gotten pretty bad at this ‘regular update’ thing, alas. There is news to share though!
The most important thing is that I’ll be giving a concert this Tuesday, July 31, at 12:30pm. It’s at St. James United Church (Ste-Catherine corner City Councillors). Admission is free, but there will be a freewill offering.
This will be the first solo saxophone recital I’ve done in ages! I’m playing some really fun and interesting music – pieces by G.F. Telemann, H.I.F. Biber, S. Karg-Elert, G. Kulesha, E. Bozza, and P, Bonneau. It’s all unaccompanied music, which is very seldom heard. Mostly 20th century pieces written for saxophone, but with a couple of baroque transcriptions I’ve done as well (the Telemann and Biber). I hope a few people reading this are able to come!
If you miss this concert, you might be able to catch the next one: Seasons Baroque Ensemble will be performing a selection of trio sonatas in Fredericton on August 10, at Christ Church Cathedral at 12:10pm. We’ll have a few other concerts in New Brunswick that week as well, so watch this space for updates in the near future!
June 16th, 2007
We’re back from Boston, and Montreal is way too hot!
BEMF went very well – all three concerts we were involved in (La Fiorenza, Les Bostonades, and then a joint concert with both groups) were well-attended and well-received. La Fiorenza managed to sell several CDs as well. (more on those in a minute!)
It was really exhausting though, starting from the week before. Sari and I had just gotten back from Fredericton, and then were plunged into rehearsals. Somewhere during the half-week or so that we were in Montreal before heading to Boston, someone came up with the idea of making CDs to bring – the group has several concerts recorded, and we figured we could at least assemble a short demo with a few tracks. So, in three days, I did a pile of editing, Sara went crazy designing a CD jacket and getting it printed, and Esteban made labels. It actually all came together, and ended up looking and sounding very good! It’d be nice to have real pressed CDs instead of burned CDRs, of course, but that’s unfeasible except in large batches (1000 is a common minimum).
Sunday came around then, and we commenced the complicated ballet of signing for the rental car, picking up everyone, and squishing all their stuff in. This was made much more complicated since everyone was scattered all over the city, Sari and Ellie had a recording session all afternoon, and I was at church all morning. Also, we didn’t reserve early enough to get a minivan, so we had a monster Ford Explorer SUV instead. That ended up working just fine, actually, though it was a little tricky to get the theorbo, lute, guitar, harp, violin, suitcases and camping beds in, along with 5 people! We finally made it to Akiko’s house in Boston at 2AM, and collapsed for a few hours’ sleep.
The next two days we rehearsed with everyone (almost – Ellie didn’t arrive until Tuesday night), and then Wednesday was concert day! Toshi picked up the cargo van first, and then we packed up Akiko’s [huge and very very heavy] harpsichord and loaded it up. Next stop was in Cambridge to meet Peter Sykes and pick up the organ we were using – it was being used in the opera the night before, so he had to transpose it from A=392Hz to A=415Hz and retune it for us. It also weighed a ton, but we got it in. Then unloaded everything at the church where we were performing.
La Fiorenza was first up, at 11AM, and their concert went very well. Afterwards, though, there was only half an hour to tune the harpsichord before the Bostonades concert. This was made worse by all the people there, and especially by the crazy temperature – it was a damp and cool day outside, and stiflingly hot in the church hall that we were performing in. So I dove in and started tuning, and managed to break a string – not the end of the world, but not good either. I quickly put on a new one, only to find that I had somehow managed to put it on backwards!!! No clue how I did this – I think I’ve only done it once before, and it was at least 7 years ago. In any case, I unwound it, restrung it properly, and… it broke again. Now, at this point, it might have just been overstressed from being wound twice in opposite directions, but it was really frustrating, and we were getting really close to concert time. So the next string was put on, and a frantic tuning ensued.
At this point, my nerves were so shot that I couldn’t actually get the new string up to pitch right away – it’s so terrifying, after breaking two strings, to think how close you’re getting to breaking the next one as well… eventually I got it done though, and the harpsichord was tuned, and the concert started just a few minutes late. Because of the temperature though, it didn’t last long at all, and of course, the new string was still stretching out, so by the end of the concert, it sounded like I hadn’t done anything at all!
Then it was time to turn to the organ for the next concert – as I mentioned, Peter had already tuned it after transposing it to the pitch we were using, but after sitting in the hot room all morning, it was pretty raunchy again. So now I can say that I have tuned an organ as well! There’s a first time for everything. Another speedy assault on the harpsichord, and we were ready for the concert just in time, but without time for any sort of sound check or anything. It was a little bit nerve-wracking, since not only had we never played in that space before, but we hadn’t had a chance to rehearse with Ellie, since she just arrived late the night before (though she had no trouble at all), and we hadn’t been able to use the organ for any rehearsals! But everything seemed to go very well – it’s a really good bunch of musicians.
After the concert, the instruments had to get loaded into the van and dropped off at their respective destinations – the organ was headed back to the theatre for another opera performance that night (I hope Peter didn’t have to suffer too much with the tuning, after all the wild temperature shifts during the day!) and the harpsichord back to Akiko’s. Sushi, beer and wine ensued, and an early night – it’s funny how it feels like the same time after a concert, whether it finishes at 6 or at 11…
After that, back to Montreal with most of us, though with a cello instead of harp and lute, since Jivko came back with us, and Esteban had to use his other instruments in a concert with La Rota on Friday.
So now we’re back in Montreal, with very little coming up. I’m playing piano in church tomorrow, which is a novelty, and then next weekend is the Montreal Baroque Festival, though neither Sari nor I are too heavily involved with that. Then I have a saxophone recital at the end of July, and we’re headed back to Fredericton in August, but most of July we can relax, plan a wedding, learn music, and actually do some of the work we’ve been neglecting over the past weeks. Looking forward to it!