News about upcoming opportunities to see, hear, and throw tomatoes at me.

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Mozart c. 1780, portrait by Johann Nepomuk della Croce
Mozart c. 1780, portrait by Johann Nepomuk della Croce

On Thursday I shared a new recording of the first movement of Mozart’s D Major Sonata for piano 4-hands, and warned promised that the later movements would be forthcoming.

Can you keep a secret?

The second movement of that sonata is, I think, one of the most gorgeous piano movements ever written, so I couldn’t stop myself—I stayed up late that night (abandoning my poor husband in the process) to get it recorded and ready to post.  But I didn’t want to steal the thunder of the snow-melt Mozart, so I looked ahead to what will (at least according to Thursday’s forecast) be a rainy Monday morning, and scheduled this announcement to provide a bit of a bright spot that day.

If the forecast is wrong and/or you live in a place that isn’t rainy on Monday and/or you don’t listen to this post until after Monday… well, the best-laid plans….

Anyway.  I give you the second movement of the Mozart sonata, now included in the Classical Piano playlist of my Demo Recordings page.  Enjoy, my friends.  The effervescent “Allegro molto” finale will be coming soon!

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The view from the studio, 28 January 2016.
The view from the studio, 28 January 2016.

It’s bright and sunny here in Central Pennsylvania, and Snowmageddon is clearly losing its grip on the terrain.  Something about the sparkle and trickle of melting snow makes Mozart piano music seem “just right” today, so I’m delighted to announce that I’ve uploaded my second demo recording: the first movement of Mozart’s Sonata in D for piano 4-hands.

(In case you’re keeping track: yes, I still have two hands.  In order to record this duet I set a metronome in GarageBand and recorded both “players” of this duet—first the Secondo, then the Primo.  Happily there’s not too much pedal work in the piece, and the tempo is constant throughout, so there was very little technical fiddling to do to get it together.)

I’ve added the track to the “Classical Piano” playlist on my Demo Recordings page, and it also appears below.  The second and third movements of the Sonata will follow within the next few weeks.  Enjoy!

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Court Street CabaretIt’s time!  It’s time!  Everyone’s favorite annual evening of music, merriment, and mmmmwine is back, in a special new January time slot!  Stuart Landon is back in his element, presenting the best of Broadway and beyond, and this year he’s joined by area favorites Alexis Dow Campbell, Kara Miller, and (of course) me at the piano.  (He says he might even make let me sing again this year!)

Purchase your tickets in advance for just 18 bucks each at the Open Stage website.  And if you’re a Facebooker, check out the event page and let us know you’ll be coming!

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frederic-chopin-1838
Frédéric Chopin, 1838. Oil on canvas, by Eugene Delacroix.

One of the things I love most about my career is that I get to experience a never-ending stream of new repertory—between my work at UUCV, at Open Stage, at CASA, and elsewhere, I never have time to get bored with the material I’m working on!  The downside to this excitement is that I seldom have time to really dig in and master a piece of music in a way that feels “complete.”  Or rather, I seldom take time to really dig in….

So today I spent a few hours procrastinating all of the work I’m “supposed” to have gotten done today, and instead put some time into brushing up on one of my all-time favorite piano solos, Chopin’s E Minor Nocturne.  I first performed this piece at senior piano recital in high school, so it seemed appropriate to use this as my first experiment with digital recording.  I played the piece on my Yamaha P-140 digital keyboard into GarageBand on my Mac using Garritan’s amazing Abbey Road Studios CFX Concert Grand Virtual Piano, and produced a recording that sounds almost disconcertingly like the way the music sounds in my head when I think about playing it.  (Did that make any sense at all?)

Anyway.  Take a listen, and let me know in the comments what you think.  There will, I hope, be many more of these “demo tracks” to come!  But for now, I’m going to take this Nocturne as my cue to head off to bed.  In six minutes it’ll be New Year’s Eve!

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Today at UUCV we’ll be commemorating National Transgender Day of Remembrance.  (What’s that?  Take a look, but not if you need to put on your happy face any time in the next few hours.)

I am pleased about one thing: I’ve used Namoli Brennet’s music in worship enough over the last year that I feel okay about using more of it today.  (I try not to fall into the trap of using Jewish music only on Yom Kippur, African-American music only in February, etc…..)  The choir is singing “We Belong,” from her sophomore project Welcome to the Afterglow; I’m doing a solo version of “I Belong,” from 2011’s We Were Born to Rise (probably my all-time favorite of her albums, though the newer ones are catching up); and I’m doing pianistic noodlings based upon a couple of her other pieces as offertory and prayer underscoring.

I’ve sat here trying to come up with words to describe how much I respect Namoli for a long time now, but probably the best way to give you an idea of how amazing she is, is to just give you a taste of her music.  So, here it is.  Listen.  Feel.  Remember.