So you might have noticed that Scott did some of the blogging for this concert. Now Scott went to great pains to explain how athletic this concert will be, and this is indeed the case. One thing he did not mention was how musically diverse the program will be. Unlike last month where we went totally nuts exploring tango, tomorrows concert will almost have an anti-theme. One of my favorite parts of being in charge of Denver Eclectic Concerts is finding out what music other musicians are excited about playing. I figure if the musician is really excited about their music, has chosen it themselves and is willing to stand up in front of a crowd, mostly by themselves, and play it then that enthusiasm will transfer to the audience. It doesn't mean that sometimes you aren't scared and feel during those first notes that you would rather eat glass then try to play the piece, but you do it anyway. It's our own personal form of skydiving. The view is almost always worth the jump.
Now I'm pretty sure that Dorian Kincaid, our amazing violinist for tomorrow, won't read my entry tonight. Knowing Dorian she is practicing (something I have to get to soon!) So I can safely write embarassing things about how great she is, and how cool this Prokofiev solo violin sonata will be tomorrow. You don't get to hear this piece live too often, and it has a great neo-classical and very buoyant feel. Nothing like the Prokofiev 4th Symphony that Dorian and I are playing with the CSO this week. If you want to study the contrasts in Prokofiev, check out both performances.
Mike Thornton, Kelly Shanafelt and myself will help Dorian out with her heavy lifting on this concert, although I'm pretty sure I'm still going to owe her a weeks worth of frappuccinos for the sheer number of notes she is playing this week. Mike and I will assist Dorian with the Haydn Divertimento and Kelly joins Dorian for the not oft-enough-played Martinu 3 Madrigals. Mike will also create some techno magic with 8a piece for horn and tape by Paul Basler.
Sometimes we in the music world have to play pieces that don't get performed much and when we get done we say to ourselves, "well, that's why we don't play the piece too much…it's kind of a dud". That being said all of the pieces this week are not often played and I assure you they are not duds.
As for those pieces that that don't get played much but that are duds? Most recently the CSO played a piece by Beethoven that was a dud. Now, a dud by Beethoven is still better than most composers works on their very best day, but when speaking comparatively, it is possible to classify a piece or two by Beethoven as not-so-good. I'll tell you what, show up tomorrow with the name of piece by a famous composer that you think is a dud, give me a good reason for it's dud-id-ness, and I'll give you a glass of wine to enjoy Denver Eclectic's decidedly not-duds. See you there!!!!
