Palestine Revisited, 2016

[Dan Worrall]

Another great Palestine weekend completed...and here is the photo of most of the attendees and their concertinas. Thanks to all who made it a success, and to Jody for all his efforts and music!

 

Cheers,

Dan

[Jody Kruskal]

Old Pal was especially great this year. In addition to the festival at large with dulcimers, banjos, fiddles and guitars playing old-time music and songs, over a dozen of us concertina players were there playing Anglos, English and duets. In the workshops, we focused on my concertina band arrangement of the song "The Rivers of Texas". Over three rehearsals, we learned and refined the song based on the skills and abilities of the concertina players attending, then performed it on stage for the assembly of a hundred + audience members. Our Texas audience knew the song well and to the gratification of all, obliged us by singing along... with feeling!

 

You can view a rehearsal here and the performance here.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Jody Kruskal

[KMTX]

I had a wonderful time at the Palestine festival, my second time attending. As always, it's a pleasure to be there and the other attendees are tremendously nice and welcoming. Jody outdid himself preparing a true concertina band arrangement with a variety of parts suited to all the different styles of concertinas and levels of players--quite fun! I left the workshop feeling inspired and motivated, with new tips and tricks up my sleeve, and already can't wait for next year's event!

[Bruce McCaskey]

I liked the rehearsal video especially, with no sound system amplification involved the camera picked up the sound of the group very evenly and warmly.

Edited April 5, 2016 by Bruce McCaskey

[Jody Kruskal]

Yes, the sound is better in that small rehearsal room. I did make an audio recording from the stage of the performance. It's a slight improvement from the sound in the video but not better enough to bother with attaching it to the video.

 

Anyway, turning a tune or song into a whole band arrangement written in parts was a successful experiment for me. It's fun to do, sounds good IMO and solves the problem I've encountered in a workshop setting where there are so many kinds of concertinas and players of wide ranging abilities and experience on their instruments.