This past month has just been crazy and I apologize for not getting around to giving an update on the recital last month.
Music in Action was a great success. We were able to fill the parish hall with a very supportive audience who greatly complimented the musicianship of the performers. Altra String Quartet, Teddy Kernizan, Philip Carluzzo, Sarah Philippa, and Michael Oberhauser provided a wonderfully diverse program. In addition, John Hassler from National Community Church was able to come and speak about the Dream Center and the church's vision for helping to revitalize the community of the southeast Waterfront area in DC. The audience was very supportive of this endeavor as well and I was quite pleased with the reception of the recital as a whole and its outcome.
There were two elements of the recital that were quite experimental. First we tried performing the recital continuously, having one piece start right after the other. The audience still clapped after each piece, but there were no stage changes. This worked to a certain extent, but old habits die hard. This is something that I hope we can continue to play with in the future, eventually getting to the point where changes between pieces are seamless. The way it occurred on the recital was still pretty rigid.
Part of the reason I wanted to try having continuous music on the recital, is that I wanted the bookend arrangements of "In C" and "Worker's Union" to flow seamlessly into the content of the recital. The arrangements themselves worked surprisingly well and I had a great time conducting as well. The mixing of the two pieces created an interesting contrast and texture that helped to frame the recital well. However, in the future it would also be fun to do the two pieces in their entirety as well.
I will probably be looking to arrange another event like this in the Spring of 2010, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, catch a little bit of our arrangement of "In C" and "Worker's Union" below.
