From the Top

Last night we attended the Jupiter Quartet performance of a few of Beethoven's String Quartets.  It was beautiful music by any measure.

Each week AMFS produces a program booklet which is about 1cm thick containing a wealth of information about the festival and school as well as detailed program notes about all the major performances.  Steven Ledbetter is a well known musicologist who writes many of the descriptions of the composers and their works.  I usually enjoy reading his stories while the music fills the air.  Here is an excerpt from the notes about one of last evening's pieces:

"The beginning, with unaccompanied violin outlining a seventh and waiting, poised, for the others to produce a chord against which it might settle downward, is utterly unique.  The transition lands suddenly in a very foreign key, but Beethoven hurries out of it to the expected secondary key of A major and brings the exposition to an end with a dramatic, chromatic cello part climbing in half-steps from A to C-sharp, which harmonizes both the repeat of the exposition (the first time) and the beginning of the development (the second time)."  S. Ledbetter


I'm not much of a drinker but I wouldn't mind a taste of whatever he was having.


This morning Maya auditioned for a future spot on a public TV/Radio program called From the Top.  It is a fun program that highlights young musicians, their music and other aspects of their lives.  I believe she has already been accepted to appear based on an audition in TX a long time ago but she went through the process again this morning.  Maybe she will be on the show sometime in the next year or so.  It airs locally (in Rapid City) on Sunday's at 4:00 pm, 89.3 FM.


Here is a view of the enthralled-appearing interviewers.  After she played they asked her a bunch of questions about life in general.

Abe is heading out for a tennis lesson after which I hope we will all take a ride into town.  BTW, his tennis teacher's name is Tory, just Tory, no last name, just one word.  Prema should arrive just in time to join us at the Aspen Festival Orchestra performance this evening featuring Adele Anthony (violin) and violist David Aaron Carpenter.  If all goes well we should make an ice cream run after the concert.