I was very happy to be hired to play for the Robin Hood Restaurant and Pub's Easter Brunch again this year, from 11 am to 2 pm. Thank you, Kerry, for being so supportive, and for the perfect veggie omelet. I would also like to thank everyone who gave me compliments on my performance.
For the program, I mixed it up between classical and contemporary, alternating between styles about every ten to twenty minutes. I played a lot of Bach this year, and my beloved Romberg sonata for cello that is so expressive. I had a bit of fun with the contemporary songs, and I included a lot of my own Beatles arrangements. Most of them are pretty short, so I can fit a lot of them into a program. A few of the songs I played were the first of Bach's Six Suites (all six movements), "The Girl from Ipanema" (Jobim), "Ain't Misbehavin'" (Thomas "Fats" Waller), "It Don't Mean A Thing," (Duke Ellington), "What The World Needs Now Is Love" (B. Bacharach & Hal David), "If I Fell," "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," (Beatles), "La Villageoise" (Rameau), Zwei Menuette" (Bach), "Sarabanda" (Leclair), "O Belle Nuit" (Offenbach), "Penny Lane," "I Will," "In My Life," (Beatles), "Spanish Eyes" (Bert Kaempfert), "I Love Paris" (Cole Porter), "Volare" (Domenico Modugno), "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You," "Fields Of Gold" (Sting), "Que Sera, Sera" (Livingston & Evans), "Always On My Mind" (Thompson, James & Christopher), "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" (Russell & Ellington), "Don't Be Cruel (To A Heart That's True)" (Blackwell & Presley) "Blue" (Bill Mack) "A Taste Of Honey" (Marlow & Scott) "Time In A Bottle" (Jim Croce), "Puttin' On The Ritz" (Irving Berlin), "Save The Best For Last" (Galdston, Lind & Waldman), "Andante" (Tschaikowsky), "Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes" (Old English Ballad), "Air" (Henry Purcell), "Sarabanda" (Giuseppe Tartini), "Rondeau" (Giovanni Battista Buononcini), "Gavotte und Musette (Jean Baptiste Lully), "Angel" (Darling Violetta), "Don't Know Why" (Jesse Harris), "What A Wonderful World" (Weiss and Thiele), "Wonderful Tonight" (Eric Clapton), "Tennessee Waltz" (Redd Stewart & Pee Wee King), "Blue Suede Shoes" (Carl Lee Perkins), "You're The Inspiration" (Cetera & Foster), "Just The Way You Are" (Billy Joel), "I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire" (the Ink Spots), "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree" (Levine & Brown), "Love Is Here to Stay" (George & Ira Gershwin), "Star Dust" (Hoagy Carmichael), "Spinning Wheel" (D. Clayton-Thomas), "Beautiful Dreamer" (Stephen Foster) and "Moon River" (Johnny Mercer & Henry Mancini). And some other stuff.
I went through less than half of my prepared music over three hours, and took one short break to eat at about 12:30. Playing cello is hard work physically, and I tend to work up an appetite. I also tend to forget to take breaks.
I am currently working up my arrangement of "Come Away With Me" (Norah Jones, 2002)
See my entry from last year also.
