Strangenesses

Gawd.  A few more best eva gigs and you could have tickets on yourself.  I guess it's age.  You get over playing for others, comparing, fretting and just accept you're as good as you'll ever be.  And you get better!  Strange, that.  How does that happen, I wonder?  But a great gig, none-the-less.  And several ideas for future projects.  And a really nice pale ale on tap.  Couldn't beg for more.

The James Woodman Trio (today AKA Tilt Trio) appeared at Molly.  In this incarnation, JWT is James Woodman (piano), Dave McDade (drums) and Eric Pozza (bass).

Pleasurable annoyances

Super Rats has been around a while but this was my first hearing.  They are an impressive and energetic group playing music that I somewhat recognise but don't know.  But it's busy and driving and oddly timed and foreign in many ways.  In language, of course, but also in approach.  And instrumentation, given the core instrument is a cimbalom.  Cimbalom?  A form of hammered dulcimer developed in the Balkans.  Tim gave me a little introduction to the 145-stringed instrument, its techniques and structure.  I got lost after the chromatic bass strings.  The SR site claims Ottoman court music, Balkan peasant folk, Roma (gypsy) music along with a touch of tango and jazz.  My impression was lots of two-feels, jumpy and danceable, entertaining and driving, the sharp and jangly paired notes of the cimbalom at the centre of it all, with a nicely damped, thumpy bass and an accordion that took its share of solos and Pip's blistering violin.  Our group heard some similarity to bluegrass or US folk, but probably the similarity was from Eur to US.  I admired some tricky repeating bass lines and demanding counts generally throughout the group.  There was a readiness to play ostinato behind solos and a resultant drive and thrill.  And some Romanian vocals that were interpreted to much delight.  Not without reason that this band takes its name from a Romanian word meaning annoyed ones.  Not that they were annoyed or annoying, but they to performed it with panache.  Tim was cimbalom, vocals and the core of the band, having studied at the source for some time so this was both authentic and playfully Aussie-local.  And the band he gathered is capable in its own fields (jazz, classical) and eminently satisfying in this.  What a great local treasure: an authentic, modern take on Balkan music.  Saves a trip to Bucharest in these locked-down times.

Super Rats played all shades of Romanian music at Band Bang Cafe.  SR are Tim Meyen (cimbalom), Alister Price (accordion), Pip Thompson (violin) and Simon Milman (double bass).

Shimmies

We can be pompous about the arts, their deep connection with our souls and the like, so the sheer entertainment of good company and close relationships or even playful seductions can be forgotten or disregarded.  Even this statement is doing much the same, meaning, intellectualising the everyday and playful.  Linus Lee did a concert that had me bopping in my church pew and smiling big smiles.  He called it European Dance Afternoon.  He played it in the Wesley church, variously with their relatively grand organ and Yamaha grand.  Again, pipe organ in a church is not normally throught of as a thing of playfulness, even less so of seduction.  But it was all there, with the seductive program cover and the polkas and boleros and various dances.  He had a range of tunes, many very well known, from Strauss II, Bartok, Brahms.  I knew Csardas but not Vittorio Monti.  Trust an Italian!  Several dances derived from national folk music, Norwegian or Hungarian or Bartok's Romanian.  SS's Dance macabre.  It was a mix of tones, with the majesty and depth of the pipe organ sandwiching the percussive business of a competently played grand piano.  Linus did both with panache and involvement and joy.  What a wonderful, joyous concert. 

Linus Lee (piano, organ) performed various shades of dance music at Wesley Church.

Pencilled pop

The National Portrait Gallery has an array of musics including their Drawn In sessions where they provide easels and paper and pencils and visitors are invited to draw to the accompaniment of musicians.  Today's was with nonbinarycode.  They got me in mentioning that they'd grown up on grunge, punk and stadium rock.  Sounds cool and good fun.  I could expect some renowned anthems and searching lyrics.  nonbinarycode was a duo: Hardman and InkBits.  Well, I got their names chatting to them later and they were wonderfully welcoming and not at all hard or bitsy.  The sound was Maton acoustic guitar into a decent PA, vocals and occasional harmonies.  No auto-drums or the like, but nicely solid strummed rhythms and committed voice out front. Structurally simple but attractive and inviting with tunes like Scar/Missy Higgins, One/U2, Never tear us apart/INXS, Broken bells/Greta van Fleet.  Popular and satisfying and most intriguing hits.

nonbinarycode performed in the foyer at the National Portrait Gallery for a Drawn In session.  nbc are Jolene Mifsud (vocals) and Stephen Harden (guitar, harmony vocals).

More@BBBBB

But of course there was more at B!B!B!B!B!  It was essentially a singer-songwriter night, but there was a mix.  First up was pop-rock band Winning Combo Band playing mostly originals from the pen of the singer.  I didn't get names, but this was tight with short songs.  Then The Pots, then Anthony Glynn.  AG was fairly playful, quite confident, nicely rhythmic with a stomp box and his ukulele played over the top.  I noticed a different skew on politics from The Pots and considerable comfort from regular busking.  Interesting.  Then Minh.  I didn't get a full name, except maybe a stage surname, Slowjam.  This was not at all slow jam.  This was singer-songwriter with very rich and fascinating harmonies.  Very nice piano.  Then we caught just a tune from Sanjiva de Silva.  Very capable, presentable guitar-vocals, capable and settled on each skill.  Impressive.  Nice to encounter new styles and people around town.  But this is Canberra and this is Smiths and both bode well for interesting experiences.

Winning Combo Band (pop-rock quartet), Anthony Glynn (vocals, uke, stomp box), Minh (piano, vocals) and Sanjiva de Silva (guitar, piano, vocals) performed at Smiths.

CD@BBBBB

Now this was fun!  Smiths runs an open-mic session called Bang!Beng!Bing!Bong!Bung! and The Pots appeared there in their incarnation as a DJ set.  Well, The Pots playing snippets from Pumpkin Discomforts.  The Pots have produced 3 albums but this was their first outing as a CD launch with Bassist EP doing the transitions and intros and just a touch of effects and giving some introductions and apologies for the tunes ("Beware: Political themes!").  All a good lot of fun even if those political themes were not so rosy, sounding great over Bevan's PA at decent volume, even bringing some dancing shoes out, at least to shuffle about to my fave, Power.  What a fun outing.  I have ideas for another, more live incarnation.  Maybe.  TBC.

The Pots is a project of Bassist EP.  The Pots performed as a DJ set at Smiths.

• Hear The Pots at Spotify, YouTube and many other streaming sites

Thanks to Rich for the pic

Jelly's roll

Mila was rushed at first, arriving quite late, for some reason held up.  It showed for some of the Bach prelude that started the concert.  She was playing solo violin this piece, and the arpeggios over the fingerboard gradually got more convincing and settled as she settled.  I have no problem with this.  Then into some confident, rich playing on the following fugue then the Mozart, Ravel and Prokofiev, all with accompaniment from Anthony Smith.  The first pieces didn't surprise me at all, Bach being Bach and Mozart also being his joyous self.  The Prokofiev was different, initially sparse, but then into busy and intriguing, not least the pizz.  It was a violin concerto as were the others, but quite a different beast,.  And then to the most different, very far from Bolero, Ravel Tzigane,  He'd written the piece for Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Aranyi from a commission.  Lots of feature solo passages with harmonics or screeds of notes then into bouncy then dissonant pizz stuff with piano.  Even a touch of danceable fours.  A strange but fascinating piece, no doubt a show piece for both Jelly and Mila.  Mila did it great justice.  So impressed with this intriguing piece of great unexpectedness.  Mila did a great job.   They teach them great and young. 

Mila Haydon (violin) performed the music of four European masters with accompaniment from Anthony Smith (piano) at Wesley.

A view from the bottom end

NCO is rehearsing Brahms German Requiem.  It's a great work and I have a history with it, chasing rather than playing it.  Now I get to play it.  Maybe.  The story is that we should perform it with the Canberra Choral Society at Llewellyn on 24 July 3pm.  That's 150 people on stage.  How I love these choral outings at Llewellyn.  An absolute blast and a great pleasure.  But Lenny, our conductor, and our two solo singers are in Sydney, and given COVID and a string of recent cancellations (incl. Mike Nock and Brendan Keller-Tuberg), it's up in the air.  We can just hope.  In the meantime, here's a pic from rehearsal as seen from the bottom end.

National Capital Orchestra and Canberra Choral Society may perform Brahms German Requiem at Llewellyn at 3pm, 24 July.

Band hang at Gang Gang

I'd had a coffee at Gang Gang Cafe one afternoon, but not gone to any gigs there.  I should have.  I've seen the names and they are a worthy summary of local players, jazz on Friday with Free entry and indie and other on other days, free or with a cover charge.  So we got to play last night and it was a hugely pleasant outing.  Seriously nice staff, a very decent beer on tap, comfy surroundings and easy parking.  It was cold and in Covid times, though, so not too many turned up.  The piano's not perfect, a bit well worn, but it is a Yamaha grand.  Likewise the PA, also mostly Yamaha.  The space was good, the audience gave some claps and we had a great outing.  Our recent Molly outing was somewhat a "best eva" gig and this wasn't too far off.  Much enjoyed.

Tilt Trio played at Gang Gang Cafe in Downer.  Tilt are James Woodman (piano), Dave McDade (drums) and Eric Pozza (bass).

Revelations

I admit I was wary of attending a concert of piano students, presumably from a very young age.  What could I learn from kids hardly up to my waist?  But I was wrong.  This was a huge revelation.  The younger kids would play music relevant to their age and musical development and do it surprisingly capably.  So the Bach lines were satisfying and the Haydn pleasant.  This from 9, 8, 10 years olds.  But then to watch the development of older students was a revelation, as they played more complex, rhythmically demanding, dynamically interesting, emotionally more profound pieces.  You could observe human development here, in the course of 11 short but lengthening pieces.  So we got into Beethoven and Chopin and ultimately Grieg and Rachmaninoff.  If I had a favourite, it would be Mykhail Anufriiev playing Rachmaninov Prelude C#maj op.65 no.2 "Bells of Moscow" for both the music itself and the wonderfully mature performance.  And then to finish with two movements of a Mozart sonata by a duo of 10yo Charlie and adult violinist Jason Li, who I had recorded leading the Black Mountain Piano Quartet just days before.  The playing was different and developing with age but always worthy and interesting.  The joy of it all was infectious and only helped by the sight of slightly nervous kids on stage.  The training must have been excellent, from teacher Jinbo Huang, (BMus ANU, PhD UCLA).  Maybe unexpected but a great pleasure.

Piano students of Jinbo Huang performed at Wesley.  The students were James Li, Lingwen Chen, Charlie Sanoubane, Naomi Feng, Frank Huang, Hongkai Chen, Michael Danilov, Damien Ruan, Mykhail Anufriiev and Charles Huang.  Jason Li (violin) joined Charles for a final Mozart sonata.

Afrofolk

I think of Afrobeat as electric, hot rhythm section, horns out front, deeply funky.  That's  what I had expected at the Afrobeat jam session at Smiths.  They happen on Sunday afternoons and have been running for several months.  This was my first visit.  Not at all bad, but not what I'd expected.  This may be, probably is, more authentic to traditional village music making in Africa.  I dunno.  It was folky, acoustic, still rhythmic, still with that tum ta-tum rhythm on the 2+, more soft and with some intriguing instruments.  One guitar-like instrument had 12 tuners and the smallest of bodies (so cute!); the bass was a double bass neck on a kick drum body.  And some more traditional instruments: lots of percussion to share around; flutes and guitars, fiddles and flugels; voice.  I enjoyed tapping a resonant box in the background, but I may have been too varied so undermining the intense, unending regularity.  It has its own mega-power that infuses and inculcates and brings out the dancing feet in the audience.  If they are not joining in somehow else.  So folky rather than funky but still strongly grooving and very inclusive.  A nice and friendly scene for a cold Sunday arvo.

The Afrobeat jam session happens every Sunday afternoon, 1-3pm, at Smiths Alternative.

B-ing late

Last year was the big Beethoven birth bicentennial but many events were lost due to Covid.  I just got to one, a year late.  It was Black Mountain Piano Quartet playing two Beethoven piano quartets, one written at age 15, another much later, and two pieces written to Beethoven.  Local composer Michael Hardy, an old mate from the Patents Office and also the Blues Club, presented two world premieres, A scherzo for Ludwig and Ludwig in Wonderland.  Mike introduced the works as influenced by Beethoven's playfulness, thus the scherzo, obvious enough, but Wonderland?  Beethoven after too much listening to Steve Reich and Terry Riley.  Amusing.  And both were solid, interesting works.  Well done.  Not to be limited (Mike is prolific!) the encore was a classical take on an Angels song, a great melody with classical harmony and quartet interplays.  Insinuating and satisfying.  The BMPQ was neat and internally responsive, perhaps a bit unsure of some of Mike's reimaginings, but very satisfying.  As for cello, Alex got a good few bass-like lines.   But think of this.  In a few hours in downtown Canberra, I've explored bell ringing in two venues and experienced 2.5 world premieres and 2 Beethoven piano quartets.  And tomorrow a touch of Afrobeat, perhaps?

 The Black Mountain Piano Quartet comprised Jason Li (violin), Thayer Parker (viola), Alex Moncur (cello) and Kathleen Loh (piano).  They played Beethoven and Michael Hardy after Beethoven and The Angels at All Saints, including 2.5 world premieres.

Evading the riff raff

It's learning all round, from the article in the Canberra Times that morning, through to the visits to two bell towers just a few hours later.  I thought there was only one church tower with tuned bells in Canberra, at St Paul's Manuka, and the tuned bells at the Carillon, played as they are, with several fists and feet on several big keyboards.  But no.  There are two other bell towers, each with 8 tuned bells, but not played by 8 ringers (as are the bells of St Paul's) but by one or two ringers, using the "Ellacombe Chiming Apparatus", or more simply Ellacombe chimes.  It's a mechanism that uses static bells struck with in internal hammer.  The alternative is bells that are rotated 360deg and called Full circle ringing, in which each bell requires its own ringer.  Apparently this new apparatus was devised in 1821 by Rev. Ellacombe of St Mary's Church, Bitton, Gloucestershire, to avoid reliance on unruly carousing travelling bell ringers.  They were a bawdy lot!  Whatever, we have two instances here in Canberra and they were rung for the international bicentennial celebrations of the invention.  First bells were in NZ, then through the world, played at Noon in each location, but due to a prior booking, one was delayed here.  Suits me: I heard them both.  First up was St Andrew's Forrest, our deco-influenced post-WW1 not-quite cathedral that is and probably will remain sadly unfinished (lacking a dome and entrance).  I entered as they started, so heard the much more firm and glorious sound outside.  They started with a lengthier Plain Bob Major, then into a series of popular tunes, much shorter and simpler.  The bob and peels and the rest, written for the bells, are intricate mathematical expressions of moving orders.  Quite fascinating.  The popular tunes are just melodies played in a major scale.  Then on to St John's, Reid.  Again we could watch the bell ringer/s.  We arrived a little later and just heard the simpler songs.  The bells at St Andrew's are mysteriously tuned in G# (=Ab, a jazz key) and are in lovely tune.  Those at St John's are in G and not quite so accurately tuned, perhaps showing their age.  Either way, they are delightful.  Bells are a strange obsession that I touched on some time ago and enjoy the occasional visit, I think when St Paul's sounded a half peel for some Civic ceremony.  Maybe they rang for the Queen's visit too.  To learn something about the craft, check out the free app Methodology (Android).

Bell ringers at St Andrew's Forrest and St John's Reid rang in the bicentennial of Ellacombe chimes.

Travel in these days of Covid

It's one of the pleasures of Canberra to get invited to an Embassy event.  I know one Hungarian well, and on the night I discovered several others that I've known.  And discovered some classic Hungarian foods, including the luscious Dobos torte, and wines.  The main event was a concert by Huangkai (Kaykay) Lai, a current third year student at ANUSOM, winner of various competitions, not least the 2014 Chopin International Youth Piano Competition.  He played a set of solo piano pieces: several each from (Hungarian) Liszt and Chopin, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Debussy, Peixun Chen, Tan Dun and an original piece KayKay had written.  My favourite was the Ravel.  I was fascinated by the styles of the two Chinese pieces.  They sounded programmatic  I could almost hear the goldfish jumping (do they jump?).  KayKay observed that the Chinese and French pieces had similarities, both very picturesque.  I could only agree, especially for the Debussy, Voiles, where you could just hear the wind blowing in the sails with upward flourishes of notes somewhat like those goldfish.  Whatever, it was a nice opportunity night to put on a suit and visit another country, given we can't do that in real life these days.  Another pleasant aspect of the Canberra experience.

Huangkai (Kaykay) Lai (piano) performed at the Hungarian Embassy. 

The pic is KayKay with Hungarian Cultural Attache Anita

Early days

The path to becoming a musician is a long and demanding one and it's one that never reach the end, at least not until you do.  You are always learning.  But it's interesting to go back, to see and hear young musicians taking relatively early steps.  Often these steps are big ones but either way they are interesting.  Today at Wesley we saw a concert from the Music Academy of Canberra Girls Grammar School.  The music was madly varied; there were stronger and less strong parts and instruments.  Intonation, tentativeness were common early problems.  It's easy to understand.  I can still be tentative after many years.  On the other hand, dynamics were strong (they very obviously teach that!), technique, approach.  Timing sometimes was unstable with quick lines just not keeping up.  But I loved some cello playing; the bass clarinet sounded a dream; the take on Debussy was  both challenging and fascinating and nicely played; again, the dynamics were ever-present.  And just the breadth of the music was astounding.  Lickl (classical era Austrian) and Mozart, through Debussy (yes! String quartet Gmin op.10 mvt.3) on to early jazz, Chattanooga Choo Choo and Svoboda Bongil Bongil Blues through to Lennon McCartney Eleanor Rigby and Freddie Mercury Bohemian rhapsody, no less, with parts written for accompanying trio (piano, e-bass, drums).  And various combinations of Wind quintet, String quartet, Flute ensemble, Flute & Clarinet ensemble, Clarinet ensemble, Guitar ensemble and that Sax ensemble with the trio accompaniment.  Total players?  I counted 28.  Nice outing and fun.  My faves?  Debussy and Bohemian rhapsody.

Various groups from the Music Academy at Canberra Girls Grammar School performed at Wesley.