Where is everybody?

[Lance]

Are people still going to concerts and buying music? I sure hope so or else we will, perhaps, be buying downloads, something I DON'T want to do. Let's hear from you on CMG!

[IcedNote]

I'm still fighting Liszt and not much else.

-G

[Ricordanza]

I'm going to a recital by Daniil Trifanov on March 24 and, hopefully, will post my impressions in the "Review" forum.

[Ted Quanrud]

Hi Lance --

Opportunities for live classical music in the middle of North Dakota are exceedingly rare. I just returned from L.A. where I heard the Philharmonic with Helene Grimaud in the Brahms 1st Concerto and then the following night the Venice Baroque in a program of Vivaldi, Geminiani, Galuppi and Avison.

I have tickets for two performances of Walkure at Chicago's Lyric in September and then return to the Windy City the next month for the three Monteverdi operas with John Eliot Gardiner & company. Aside from that, there probably will not be much live music in my life.

As far as recordings, I have a few downloads, all but one freebies. I really don't like them, but may get used to the new technology. Purchases of CDs have slowed greatly, thanks to less disposable income but more especially because I increasingly turn to the thousands of CD already on my shelves and enjoy them all over again. I like having YouTube (although the audio quality can be dicey), and of course CMG remains a daily visit. Finally, the weekly radio show keeps me active.

[jbuck919]

I have a few local chamber music things coming up. I've been neglecting the excellent local series. I will probably wait until I've seen a few over the next few weeks and report on them all together.

[Beckmesser]

For one reason or another I have missed all the concerts to date in the excellent artist series at Union College in Schenectady (first-rate artists and tickets are only $25!). I recently renewed our subscription to the Met and am looking forward to the new production of Der Rosenkavalier this spring. I have already purchased tickets for Tanglewood this summer and I usually attend all the open rehearsals. I'm thinking of attending the two weekends at Bard College in August devoted to "Chopin and his World."

Vision problems have somewhat curtailed my piano practice lately but upcoming cataract surgery might help. Once the weather warms up (this is the Mid-Hudson Valley) I will resume work on my harpsichord project (I do the spray painting out in the garage).

I recently consolidated my CD collection from two houses into one location. I can't remember when I last bought a CD but I am planning to start filling in the gaps in my collection.

[Ted Quanrud]

Vision problems have somewhat curtailed my piano practice lately but upcoming cataract surgery might help. Once the weather warms up (this is the Mid-Hudson Valley) I will resume work on my harpsichord project (I do the spray painting out in the garage).

Hope and prayers the surgery goes well. Would you post pictures of your harpsichord project? I am terribly envious of the people on this board who are actual musicians, and would be even more so of someone who actually builds instruments.

[Beckmesser]

Vision problems have somewhat curtailed my piano practice lately but upcoming cataract surgery might help. Once the weather warms up (this is the Mid-Hudson Valley) I will resume work on my harpsichord project (I do the spray painting out in the garage).

Hope and prayers the surgery goes well. Would you post pictures of your harpsichord project? I am terribly envious of the people on this board who are actual musicians, and would be even more so of someone who actually builds instruments.

Thank you for the kind wishes, Ted.

I would be happy to post some pictures of the harpsichord but I've never done something like that before. I believe I need to post them on another website first which is something I don't know how to do. Can anyone offer some advice?

By, the way, Ted, I see you live in Bismarck. I was born in Fargo and grew up in the Fargo-Moorhead area. Alumnus of NDSU. Lovely people out there.

[barney]

I've been pretty busy. Apart from long interstate work trips, I have been to Saint-Saens the Japanese Princess, Respighi's Sleeping Beauty, Toth's The Princess and the Pea (all operas I had never heard of), a simply astounding Trifonov recital (Schumann, Shostakovich, Stravinsky - it's his program for this season) plus a concert with Trifonov playing Rachmaninov 1, plus another with Vengerov playing the Tchaikovsky and conducting Scheherazade, plus a delightful chamber concert including CPE Bach cello concerto, Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and Haydn symphony 88, and a Mozart chamber concert including the Gran Partita for 13 winds in which the basset horns were replaced with saxophones and the contrabassoon with a double bass! Pauses for breath...
That's all in the past 3 and half weeks.

[lennygoran]

I would be happy to post some pictures of the harpsichord but I've never done something like that before. I believe I need to post them on another website first which is something I don't know how to do. Can anyone offer some advice?

Best wishes with the surgery-I use photobucket to post photos-I pl;ace them there from my computer and then can provide a link in any message I post here in CMG. Regards, Len

Photobucket is an American image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community dedicated to preserving and sharing the entire photo and video lifecycle. Wikipedia
Founded: 2003

[Beckmesser]

Vision problems have somewhat curtailed my piano practice lately but upcoming cataract surgery might help. Once the weather warms up (this is the Mid-Hudson Valley) I will resume work on my harpsichord project (I do the spray painting out in the garage).

Hope and prayers the surgery goes well. Would you post pictures of your harpsichord project? I am terribly envious of the people on this board who are actual musicians, and would be even more so of someone who actually builds instruments.

Well, here goes. I hope it works.

I'm building a French double-manual harpsichord that is sold as a kit by Hubbard Harpsichords. One can buy the kit in various stages of completion. If you are an experienced woodworker with a workshop full of tools you can assemble it yourself. My woodworking skills are fairly basic so I opted for a kit with all of the woodworking and basic assembly completed.

For the moment I can't figure out how to embed my images in this page so I will provide links.

The first major task is sanding and painting the instrument. This is what it looked like after I applied shellac to the soundboard and primer to the exterior.

http://imgur.com/a1eQSf5

http://imgur.com/KGrvWdF

At this point I have applied two coats of enamel and I am planning to apply a third coat once the weather warms up.

http://imgur.com/BFUwv3y

http://imgur.com/XCF3wr3

[lennygoran]

Well, here goes. I hope it works.

I could see all your work-impressive! Regards, Len

[karlhenning]

I played/directed a concert of my music this past Friday:

https://soundcloud.com/karl-henning-756 ... 4-mar-2017

Cheers,
~k.

[Chalkperson]

I have been listening to onlyAfrican Music these last few months. It's Happy Music. 60's to 80's Funk and Soul from Ghana and Nigeria, Soweto's Highlife and Jive, then traditional Mali, Ethiopian, Ivory Coast etc.

fab stuff...

[jserraglio]

I have been listening to onlyAfrican Music these last few months. It's Happy Music. 60's to 80's Funk and Soul from Ghana and Nigeria, Soweto's Highlife and Jive, then traditional Mali, Ethiopian, Ivory Coast etc.

I'm gonna check out some of these African songs on YouTube. Meantime I'm in the basement mixing up Chuck Berry happy tunes. His were some of the first and greatest rock-n-roll songs I heard on WJW when they came out in the mid to late fifties. Chuck Berry (1926-2017)

[Ted Quanrud]

Vision problems have somewhat curtailed my piano practice lately but upcoming cataract surgery might help. Once the weather warms up (this is the Mid-Hudson Valley) I will resume work on my harpsichord project (I do the spray painting out in the garage).

Hope and prayers the surgery goes well. Would you post pictures of your harpsichord project? I am terribly envious of the people on this board who are actual musicians, and would be even more so of someone who actually builds instruments.

Well, here goes. I hope it works.

I'm building a French double-manual harpsichord that is sold as a kit by Hubbard Harpsichords. One can buy the kit in various stages of completion. If you are an experienced woodworker with a workshop full of tools you can assemble it yourself. My woodworking skills are fairly basic so I opted for a kit with all of the woodworking and basic assembly completed.

For the moment I can't figure out how to embed my images in this page so I will provide links.

The first major task is sanding and painting the instrument. This is what it looked like after I applied shellac to the soundboard and primer to the exterior.

http://imgur.com/a1eQSf5

http://imgur.com/KGrvWdF

At this point I have applied two coats of enamel and I am planning to apply a third coat once the weather warms up.

http://imgur.com/BFUwv3y

http://imgur.com/XCF3wr3

Thank you, Beckmesser, for posting this. I had no idea such kits were available. Not that I'm going to try one --- my carpentry skills consist mostly of bending nails, stripping screws and applying bandaids to my hands.

If you get back home to North Dakota, please look me up. We could declare a temporary UND-NDSU truce.

Best wishes with the harpsichord project.