This live interview is available until 31st December for those of you who can access BBC iPlayer.
Fascinating the difference between this and the previous post!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03lzb89/Sean_Rafferty_at_Home_Julian_Bream/
Category Archives: Classical Guitar
National Youth Guitar Ensemble – calling all teachers. Also players aged 13-18
The National Youth Guitar Ensemble is looking for players, grade 5-6 to audition for this prestigious and fun ensemble.
Do you have young students who enjoy a challenging musical experience playing original works for guitar ensemble?
This year’s guest artists are the Vida Quartet (Mark Eden, Chris Stell, Helen Sanderson, Mark Ashford), and the programme will feature original concertos for guitar quartet and guitar orchestra.
Details below
Timothy Walker broadcast
More from selftaughtgirl
Leeds Castle 1981- a piece of guitar history
Some very familiar faces, and some no longer with us.
A scary but great competition!
Thanks to Oren Myers for bringing this to my attention.
There were some notable events from this competition – Tsuyoshi Horiuchi, the first prize winner had a tragic accident with the little finger of his left hand; Paul Galbraith, who won second prize was only 17 years old at the time, and there was an incident involving a prize sherry goblet and Eliot Fisk!
Here is a quote from Graham Wade’s second volume on Segovia:
“After the playing of three movements from the set repertoire and a movement from Fantasia para un Gentilhombre, the finalists were Eliot Fisk, Tsuyoshi Horiuchi, Cheryl Grice, Paul Galbraith, Stefano Grondona, and Yoshinobu Iwanaga. The competitors then went into the performance of a concerto and when this was completed the unanimous choice for winner was Tsuyoshi Horiuchi, with the youngest competitor, Paul Galbraith, second, and Stefano Grondona, third.
All finalists were given a silver sherry goblet, though it was at first reported that Eliot Fisk, disappointed with the result, threw his goblet into the moat at Leeds Castle. This story was eventually clarified in an editorial in Guitar where it was reported that the goblet had been thrown from a taxi and later retrieved by the driver, who was allowed to keep the article.”
The original “Spring Breeze” – Lust, caution!
Xuefei Yang played a beautiful version of my arrangement of a Chinese song “Spring Breeze”.
I knew it had come from some soap opera or a film, and thanks to Nigel Warburton via @teobesta here is the original use of the piece! (Probably a bit steamy if you are a music teacher!)
See below
Continue reading
Harrison Birtwistle’s earlier guitar piece
Owing to unfortunate circumstances Jonathan Leathwood’s epic Wigmore recital with a first performance of Birtwistle’s “Construction with Guitar Player” didn’t happen, so here is his earlier guitar piece which is incorporated in the later one, played masterfully by Forbes Henderson
Plus des Frères Méduses
This is an audio interview and music from Les Frères Méduses at the Radio Station KUTX
Benoît Albert andRandall Aver describe the quality of their collaborations as having the connotation of free flowing water, surrealism, and the slightly humorous title of their duo suited the music that they create together.
The French adjective médusé also translates to “mesmerized” or “dumbfounded”, the perfect words to describe the feelings elicited by this sensational guitar duo’s music. Albert and Avers both exhibit a formal education in classical guitar performance, composition and improvisation, and their combined skill will certainly leave you breathless. Aside from performing classical guitar music together, the duo has also written original film scores for silent films such as 1927’s The Unknown.
John Williams on the Les Dawson Show
In case you missed this when it went out.
Classic, and shows the humorous side of JW
The fleas that tease
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
So begins Hilaire Belloc’s mysterious mini-epic, Tarantella.
This is a justifiably famous poem from the person who penned Cautionary Tales for Children. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, sailor, satirist, man of letters, soldier and political activist. Originally French, he became a naturalised British subject in 1922, and was President of the Oxford Union and later MP for Salford from 1906 to 1910.
He was famous for his vigorously disputative nature and running feuds with various other strong minded personalities. H.G.Wells remarked that “Debating Mr. Belloc is like arguing with a hailstorm“.
What is less well known is that he actually wrote a bit of music and sang to his poems, including Tarantella.
I was naturally excited to see the following instruction on the top of the page, which was presented to me by Pam Spooner, one of Betty Roe’s singing students (at the age of 85!) and the possessor of a fine high soprano voice.
Micro Headstock Tuner
Tuners! Sometimes I wonder if there are different standard A=440.
They hardly ever agree, and the guitar string sounds a note that seems to fluctuate in pitch depending on the volume and tone.
I normally wait until the initial excited string has settled when using a tuner.
I have around half a dozen different makes, and up until now I have been using the Snark QTSN2 Clip-On Chromatic All Instrument Tuner. Unfortunately it has broken on a couple of occasions because of the rather delicate slender stalk holding the tuner on the clip. It is not too forgiving of inaccurate tuning. (some tuners seem far too tolerant) and the nice col
Lately I have been using the D’Addario NS Micro Headstock Tuner. our display also means that you can see how much you are out of tune to the nearest cent. It also has tuning by microphone or vibration.
Its main advantage is that it is unobtrusive, and very in tune. There is also a choice of reference pitch A from 420-440, so that this could be used on early music instruments.
The display lights up in different colours, and provided you understand what the colours mean, tuning is very fast and accurate. Here is a review in The Gadgeteer.
I far prefer to not use an electronic tuner at all, but when playing in a group of more than two, they are the quickest way to be in tune together (provided the tuner is in tune itself, and also very accurate, and that you understand what the display means!)
How many of you use an electronic tuner as opposed to a pitchfork and your ear?