In the studio, day #3

Everything except the Higdon piece has been recorded! I'm really getting excited.
More details over at the kickstarter page:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/189691637/preludes-problems-and-prayers-contemporary-piano-m/posts/556761

The birds really do sing Mozart

I was practicing some Mozart today (K. 330) and a bird actually hung around outside my window and started imitating. I thought such things only happened in books.

(I'm sure it wouldn't have happened with any other composer.)

Mama, when are you gonna be done?

Yesterday I had a rare day off and we went to Outside the Box, a 9-day free arts festival in Boston Common, where my cousin Lila Rose Kaplan had a play "The Magic Fish" in performance. The play was great, including fabulous dance and puppetry, and my five-year-old was absolutely riveted. (There is another performance at the festival on Tuesday in the Spiegeltent.)

One of the various tents scattered around Boston Common turned out to contain a surprisingly well-maintained Betsy Ross spinet with a sign "Play me, I'm yours." I took the suggestion and sat down to play a little Handel. About 40 seconds in, my daughter did what she often does about 1 1/2 hours into a practice session: grabbed my right arm, played several notes of her own, and whined "Maaaamaaaa, when are you gonna be done? Be done Mama, be done." I thought of shaking her off but then realized, you know, it's my day off, and it's supposed to be her day off too. Music is fun but my kid needs my time also. So I got up... at which point it was apparent that a bit of a crowd had gathered around to listen to me play.

Oh well. They'll have to catch me some other time. My daughter and I headed off to the kids' craft table.

In the studio, day #2

Details here.

In the studio, day #1

Some thoughts, and a bunch of pictures, over here at the Kickstarter page.

Video from Wednesday's performance with the Massachusetts Walking Tour

That's Mark Mandeville, Raianne Richards, Mark Kilianski and Amy Alvey (the 2013 Walking Tour musicians). Also Scott Slapin and Tanya Solomon being awesome at 0:49, and Gillian and me at 2:20.


Many thanks to Joe Rodio for having the presence of mind to film, and to South Hadley Public Library for hosting! I spend enough time there for fun and it was even more fun to be there in work mode :)

Performance June 26: "Summer"

I will be accompanying the lovely and excellent violinist Gillian Woldorf (ok, we're married) in a performance of Vivaldi's violin concerto "Summer" at the South Hadley Public Library on June 26 2013 at 6pm.

Unfortunately the library doesn't have a piano so I will be playing on my Yamaha digital. I am almost tempted to use the harpsichord sound. Almost. Please come and hear Gillian be beautiful, and me try to keep up. No ticket required.