March is Early Music Month — a project of Early Music America (EMA). It’s about getting those of us who love baroque, Renaissance, and medieval music to share our stories and events. You can check it out through the hashtag #earlymusicmonth or #earlymusicmonth2018, or at EMA’s website.
Here’s a brief account of my life with early music over the past twelve days of March, 2018, in this early music paradise of the East Bay.
- Thursday, March 1. I practiced a Telemann overture/concerto for the recorder — for performance next week. Practiced pretty much every other day in this two-week period!
- Friday, March 2. Went to the monthly meeting of the East Bay Recorder Society—some 25 players conducted by Louise Carslake, and playing some scrumptious English music, including Robert Fayrfax.
- Saturday, March 3. Went to a concert presented by the San Francisco Early Music Society (SFEMS) concert, featuring Ohio-based Les Délices —great to see my friends and here wonderful French Baroque music!
- Sunday, March 4. Went to a concert presented by Voices of Music, based on the music associated with Leonardo da Vinci: wonderful music and great poetic through-line by Larry Rosenwald. (Check out Voices of Music’s fabulous YouTube channel)
- Monday, March 5. Rehearsed my Telemann concerto and ten others (!) with Berkeley Baroque Strings — a very long evening!
- Tuesday, March 6. Sang and played in a group studying and performing Italian madrigals.
Wednesday, March 7. Played the concerto (on recorder) at Berkeley Baroque Strings concert, and played backup to all the others (on violin)—full house, lots of friends; a glitch where there had never been a glitch before, but kept going. Sue played the cello solos in a Bach aria and Brandenburg #6.- Thursday, March 8. Went to a concert of Galician medieval (and traditional) music—cantinas, dances, hurdy-gurdy, vielle, bagpipes, and wonderful Galician food!
- Friday, March 9. Heard the great viol player Paolo Pandolfo, and an ensemble of one other viol, harpsichord, and theory — mostly Marais.
- Saturday, March 10. Played the concerto again, and the glitch went away. I focused on really enjoying the experience!
- Sunday, March 11. Rehearsed with Sue on viol and another recorder player, for a recital next Saturday: playing Telemann’s challenging trio sonata on the characters of classical and mythical women — Lucretia, Xantippe, Dido. . . . In the morning, I wrote my review of the Pandolfo concert for San Francisco Classical Voice — it should be up on that website tomorrow.
Now it’s Monday and it’s just a practice day! More fun with early music to come!