Sunday, June 10, 2007

Shelton Farmer's Market

It rained Saturday, June 9 2007 at Shelton Farmer's Market downtown, but that didn't seem to dampen people's spirits that much. I played nonstop from about 10:15 am to 12:30 pm or so. Thank you to Katrinka Hibler for having me come and play, and to whoever arranged for there to be an Easy-Up to keep me dry. So yes, it rained. But so what, this is the Northwest and it is to be expected. To match the weather, I included some old standards like "I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine," "Hazy Shade of Winter" by Paul Simon, "What A Day For A Daydream" and plenty of songs from Bach to the Beatles. I also performed the Romberg Sonata, a personal favorite of mine. Around lunchtime, I played Henry Mancini's "Moon River" and an older one, "Moonlight Bay." People really appreciated my music, and that makes me feel good, I feel like I did my part to boost morale.
It was fun, and I look forward to next time. Thanks again!

I played at Shelton Farmer's Market again yesterday, Sat. Aug. 4th from about 10 to noon. The weather was wonderful and foot traffic was pretty good. I brought a vintage chair a friend gave me and I had recently repaired. I played pretty much without stopping and had a great time. On most of my songs, I felt like I was right on, in my groove though strangely I made a couple of slips where I never have before (nothing major though). Everyone really enjoyed my playing and I feel great to have become a positive part of the atmosphere by bringing a full program of historic to modern romantic pop melodies, all filtered through my acoustic cello. What a pleasure.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Alpine Way Performances

I play cello regularly at Alpine's Elegant Dinners (usually on a Wednesday), Evening Concerts (usually on a Monday) and Open House Lunches (usually on a Sunday). See previous entries for program notes; I pretty much focus on music from 1930-1950 for this very appreciative group of listeners. These are wonderful jazz standards that I continue to expand my repertoire with. It's their music, so that's what I play for them. But the more I play it, the more it becomes my music too...

I will be playing another Open House from about 12-1 pm on Sunday, December 9, 2007, which is free and open to the public.

My next Elegant Dinner performance should be the second Wednesday in January 2008 from 4:15-5:15 pm in the Willow Room.

I would like to thank Beth Johnston, RN, Manager and Ron Wilkes, Activities Director for hiring me to help keep the residents entertained.

WEDDINGS

If you look at some of my web logs over the past few years, you will find that I have played live cello solos for quite a few wedding services, and some receptions as well.
In my classified ad in the Shelton-Mason County Journal (WA, USA), I have described what I play as "From Bach to the Beatles." That is to say, I have a good program of classical repertoire as well as a lot of light rock and jazz standards that I play. Each time someone makes a request, I tend to add one or more related pieces to what I can offer everyone from then on. So my songlist of performance-ready pieces now totals more than eight hours of music. That is a LOT of 5-minute songs. Yes, I play Mendelsohn's WEDDING MARCH and all the other common classical wedding pieces. Yes, I play them as unaccompanied cello solos. Yes, I worked up my own arrangements for a lot of the songs that I play. Yes, I have a lot of songs by Bach and the Beatles in my repertoire. Yes, I do play modern pop and rock & roll melodies from the '70s, '80s and '90s up the present day. I don't discriminate against musical styles, so I have a bit of everything available, including country, Celtic, and originals too. It all depends on what you want me to play.
Instead of adding one or two songs from a given genre or style when I get a request, oftentimes I can now offer a whole program if I need to in some styles and genres. For example, I play over three hours of great songs written from about 1920 to 1960, the "greatest generation" music from before, during and after the WWII years.
Do you want to know what the really fun part is for me? The fun part is that I know enough music now that a lot of the time, when someone requests that I perform a certain piece, I already know it. And if I don't have it in my existing repertoire, I can usually find it and work it up to performance level in less than a week if I need to (though I prefer having more time whenever possible).

It was an honor for me to perform the wedding music for Angela at Steven's Fine Dining at the restaurant on December 29, 2007. It was packed and very beautiful in every way possible (all chairs and no tables that day). Thank you and congratulations Angela!
Since it was the Fifth Day of Christmas, wedding rings were certainly appropriate. I mostly played Christmas music, including "White Christmas," quite a few standards and several beautiful melodies from The Nutcracker. Of course, I played plenty of traditional, classical wedding music also.

Throughout this web log are many more wedding entries. These notes are for my personal reference as well as to provide examples of how I customize music according to the individual needs of people for each event I play at. For those of you who live in or near Mason County, WA, please e-mail me at cellodad@juno.com if you are planning a wedding (or other event) and would like to hire me to perform for you, so we can work out the details. --Dave