Theremin recital in Middlebury, Tue 22 April

Middlebury College's Department of Music presents visiting composer Brian Robison in an evening of theremin, demonstrating the instrument's versatility in selections of classical, jazz, and pop music.

The program includes selections by Anderson, Arlen, Berlin, Bonfá, Brahms, Dowland, Gershwin, Huckett, Mancini, Messiaen, Monk, Purcell, Rakhmaninov, and Scarlatti.

Collaborating musicians include: Dayve Huckett, guitar; Greg Vitercik, piano; Peter Hamlin, accordion; Jeff Buettner, guitar; Tristan Axelrod, bass guitar; Dick Forman, piano; Larry Hamberlin, harpsichord and piano; Adam Morgan, 'cello; Mark Christensen, Chapman Stick; and Kareem Khalifa, electric upright bass.

Tuesday, 22 April, at 8:00p
Mahaney Center for the Arts
72 Porter Field Road
Middlebury VT 05753

Free admission

When may we expect the DVD?

That hinges on 1) whether I can remember to bring my camcorder, and 2) whether I will want anyone to see and hear the results.

(I was away from the instrument for the first two weeks of April... so my performance might be less Clara Rockmore, more Florence Foster Jenkins.)

>> "I was away from the instrument for the first two weeks of April... so my performance might be less Clara Rockmore, more Florence Foster Jenkins."

That's quite impossible since it seems that the good old Florence has choosen my Etherwave as residence...
:-)))))

Florence Foster Jenkins was not a bad singer, just a woman out of her time, a square peg trying to fit in a round hole.

Her error was trying to sing conventional music, to which she was unsuited - I can think of bands that would give their eye teeth to collaborate with a singer with FFJ's vocal qualities.

Ah, the agonies of being culturally deprived. Florence Foster Jenkins is unfamiliar to me; will have to see what Wikipedia has to say about her...

As is usually the case, Wikipedia is instructive. Sound clip is included. Sounds like a very sporting person--if I could get that close to a tune with my theremin I should consider it great progress! Hard making the time,though.

Right--before laughing at her, attempt "Der Hölle Rache" on theremin.

I haven't yet heard audio nor watched video of last night's concert, but people seemed to enjoy it, and a few plan to obtain their very own theremins.

And we discovered yesterday two important additions to the repertoire:

1) Irving Berlin's "Russian Lullaby." He was writing for theremin; he just didn't know it at the time.

2) "Praise to the Immortality of Jesus" from Olivier Messiaen's [i]Quartet for the End of Time[/i]. Yes, I've been flogging this one for a while, as something that works well on theremin. But yesterday, I listened to a popular recording, and realized that the movement works [i]better[/i] on theremin than it does on violin. For one thing, there's no bow noise, just pure tone. Also, unlike the violin, the theremin can play genuinely [i]forte[/i] and [i]fortissimo[/i] in the stratosphere. The only drawback is that it seems to require an ePro, exploiting its high-register setting... though I'd love to be proven wrong on this point.

OK, no DVD, but I've posted a small rash* of highlights on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/brianrobison

It's humbling that in every set, the most presentable selection was the slowest! Oh, well: back to practicing, practicing, practicing...

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*Anything over a dozen might plausibly be labeled a "plague"...

Very nice--thank you! Ancient Tears, Russian Lullaby--I really liked them. Will go back and sample the others as well!

Just had a look on the youtube videos.

I did know that converting videos in the flash format as does youtube reduces image and sound quality.

Didn't know until now that converting videos in the flash format as does youtube affects also the pitch of some instruments (theremin) while others play correctly (harpsichord, piano)

That was a new experience