Northeast Concertina Wekend

[Lawrence Reeves]

Great to have been there. Nice venues, and the classes were well attended. I had the pleasure of meeting some new friends, and seeing a few after many years. From an Anglo perspective, Chris Stevens, Claire Keville, and Mary MacNamara. Brilliant concert performances, and a special kudo to Chris for opening with such a strong performance including an O'Carolan piece and some very tasty reels.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Lawrence Reeves

[Azalin]

It was nice seeing you Lawrence!

[Dan A]

Which classes did you attend yourself, Larry?

[David Barnert]

I had a great time there, but I don't think I met any of the above. I took a song accompaniment workshop with Jeff Warner (whom I hadn't seen in 20+ years), Jan Elliott's consort music workshop, and Aaron Marcus's harmony and improvisation session.

[Lawrence Reeves]

Those three looked very cool in the description. At the concert, they each played beautifully. Also, Jody Kruskal had a great performance. Finding a Unitarian Universalist Hymn to have as a sing along...... If there had been a fourth class session I could have learned a lot from Jody, and how he gets so many complex chords to sound effortlessly. Interesting to me was the use of the various concertinas to accompany singing. Something not normally found within the context of Irish Traditional Music. A dancing concertina player was also a new experience. The amount of concentration and coordination to pull that off still has me thinking. I can barely speak and play at the same time.

The overall flow of the concert with two halves, and diverse styles was very enjoyable to me. I have attended other one instrument recitals with much less flow. As someone mentioned to me recently, the concertina community is pretty diverse. I come to it from the Irish tradition on Anglo, but there are many other genres of music, and type of concertina. It was a very well organized event, and I would strongly recommend it to anyone on this forum. The Greenfield area had plenty of nice cafes, and restaurants to pass the time between class and concert. The price for the weekend was a true bargain.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Lawrence Reeves

[Jody Kruskal]

Dear Lawrence,

 

I'm so glad that Aaron Marcus's stepping along with playing inspirited you as it did me. That was certainly a highlight of the evenings entertainment.