Recital Performance in Newton Highlands

Sunday August 28th the home of John and Bevie Bavicchi,
Newton Highlands
Attendees: Alex, Dev, Glenn, Martin and Terry

I arrived late at the T station in Newtown Highlands for a quick run through before the recital. Glenn, Terry, Dev and Alex were already there. We ran Homage, Asturias, Growing Circle, and BtA (which was not up performance that day).We all headed over to the Bavichhi’s. John is a teacher at Berkley and quite a Bartok expert! We met Jun with whom Glenn has been working and some of the other students and friends of Jun. Dev knew John and another student from Berkley who was there as an audient. We helped move furniture and then put our guitars and tuned up in the dinning room, for the green room.
Jun got things started; the turnout was a little less than expected. Glenn, David and Terry performed Glenn’s new piece (Terry and David just learning their parts that day) “Ides”. It was very different than the recording, much better live. Then there was a Russian woman, a friend of Jun’s , a painter, but played a Shumann piece and another
who’s composer I don’t remember. Then a student of Jun’s played a very complicated piece by Alban Berg
(It looked like the “Black Page”) Jun said it was just learned and would get better but I thought it was marvelous
atonal in parts yet parts that had an almost jazzy or “Gershwin” feel. A teacher of Jun’s played 4 pieces by Ravel she was very good, but I felt she seemed rushed and glad to get it over. We took a five minute intermission as it was hot in the house (hardly any windows open!) and came back for the second half. Jun played a lovely 4 part original composition about children in the afternoon, I really liked the last pieces about children watching the clouds and the last section a traditional Japanese song in the right hand and a boogie woogie baseline Then Glenn and Jun played “Freedom Jazz Dance” a jazz improv,. I wondered if Glenn was going to step out as Jun was such a talented player but about 2/3rds of the way through, Glenn did some really nice lead work.
The GCNE minus our leader, for the first time in performance, finished off the program. Glenn directed and we played :
Circulation (A Harmonic m)
Eye of the Needle
Hommage a JSB
Asturias
Growing Circle

Ending with Growing Circle was great, very up beat! The audience and the hosts were very complementary and gracious and we were treated to sushi, munchies and drinks after the performance. We stayed and had a good chat, were shown John’s homemade bar in the basement and then we bid adieu and headed for South Boston

GCNE meeting August 21

Meeting attendees included Victor, Glenn, David, Martin, Mary Beth, and Terry.
The meeting started a little late because MB was having a lesson with Victor. Also, once the waiting crew--Glenn, David, and Terry--were let in, V went for beverages. After he returned Martin arrived. The lesson continued into the meeting and we focused on a practice statement: if you can play something seven times in a row perfectly then you know it. We attempted to play Bach's Invention No. 10 perfectly. While G did a quick refresher on the song (he is now playing his third role on this piece), V talked about his plans for us to perform in the latter part of the fall. We will need to focus our efforts to make this work. G returned to the circle and we played the piece. After a few attempts, Victor had us look across to our fellow player who shared our time to play. Victor looked at Terry, Glenn looked at MB, David looked at Martin. This task seemed to help us play better. Then, we just looked at each other's right hand...again, this seemed to help our playing (but I'm speaking for myself mainly). Then, Glenn and I switched seats and we gave that configuration a try.
When Victor made the statement that we were going to keep playing it until we got it, we seemed to make more mistakes. But, Victor commented that we played better under this more stringent rule. We took a break to do the following...say a task outloud and then do it (we did this all together which made for interesting chatter), then say two tasks and then do those in order. We returned to Bach but didn't get all the way through. We then worked on Thrak and marching.
Our task for next week...work on the Bach piece and Eye of the Needle so that we will be able to play these through next week without mistakes. Our challenge for next week will be to play these two songs without mistakes next week.
The meeting completed at 10:30 PM.

Meeting minutes - 8/14

Attendees: Victor, Glenn, David, MB

The first part of the meeting was spent discussing arisings from the Luau performance; what we could become, what was necessary to get us there, etc. Victor suggested a series of 8 performances in two weeks would give us the opportunity to see where we really are as performers; sometime after the NST weekend most likely. We also discussed the name of our website.

We then ran through Eye of the Needle, with MB moving to the bass burbles for the coda. The rest of the time was spent going over Askesis.

Luau performance - August 13th

Players - Victor, Glenn, David, Alex, Martin, Mary Beth, Terry
Martin's place - W. Greenwich, RI

We spent some time before the gig in the attic going over various pieces, especially the Bach piece since this configuration hadn't performed it yet. We set up the equipment on stage, then used the living room as the "green room", and then we went on. We played most of our available pieces, inlcuding an embroidery leading into Asturias to finish off the performance. There were some really good moments, and some really bad moments, but it felt like the good outweighed the bad And we FINALLY had nice weather for the Luau!

8-7-05 Meeting Notes (Victor's house)

Terry, Martin, Victor and myself in attendance, supplemented by Alex L (who will be known from now on at the Big Lahoski, or simply "the Dude" from now on) later in the evening. Bdg was lying on the floor when I arrived, listening to Martin sing a song. We played 3rd Relation for him, and then he went off to bed. We worked amplified: Bicycling, EotN, Growing Circle, Asturias, Lark's Thrak, Moving Force, Calliope, Hope, Circulation (same pattern as last week, but with 5 of us rather than 7), "Embroidery." When Alex arrived and was getting tuned up and amplified, I helped Jn move their bed so she could get at the dust bunnies. Terrible intonation issues. Before Alex showed up, I was the only Ovation in the circle. I wonder if, as circles become more diverse in terms of the makes of guitars represented, intonation problems will also increase. Some talk about the possible NST Weekend and the venue that Martin looked at. Headed home around 11:30.

(transplant from G's diary... feel free to augment.)

7-31-05 Meeting Minutes

South Boston, and an NEGC meeting. Victor, Glenn, David, Alex, Martin, Terry. We worked on playing the first few bars of Third Relation without mistakes. Same with the intro to Calliope. I thought it was a very good thing that Victor pushed us in this way. MB arrived around 9:30, and we switched to working on a circulation pattern (skipping none, 1, 2, 3, etc.) then clapping. We got better at it as we internalized the pattern. The whole evening was a little strange for me, sitting in a new location in the circle (next to Victor). We worked on other repertoire. Hope, fast circulations giving us some trouble. We split into two groups Terry MB and Martin staying put to work on the Bach piece, the rest of us going in the next room to work on Askesis. David picked up the rest of the lead line. Terry MB and Martin played the Bach piece through a couple of times for us. Work on more repertoire. Victor enjoined us to be the circle we could be. I noticed a sign on the wall of the dojo with a similar message. Victor said he was going to get me a Xena poster for my practice room. Talk about the gigs that are coming up. Then just talk.

(Note, this is just a cross-post from my diary. If anyone wants to elaborate, I won't be offended. GH)