Journey of 100

July 17, 2012 I have started to hear the first four movements linked to the Chaconne…as one spirit….a sense of urgency within the music, within the lines…an urgency to travel ahead…to go, to move towards a destination distant and magnetic…Have never heard or felt these phrases in this way….

Performance for colleague Hastings-on-Hudson, NY June 22, 2012 8:30 P.M.
He loved the purity of pitch and sound…his comment was that I used vibrato in some places but not others, and because he found the purity of my sound so persuasive,  it made him wonder if I might consider not using any vibrato.    Personally I have not even considered this and have to think it through.

Non-vibrato as an 18th century norm, or as an 18th century aesthetic never appealed to me, and I believe that the notion is flawed to begin with.

The Players, NY …May 22 2012 7:30 pm

Program Dvorak Romance, Prokofiev Vocalise, Messaien Vocalise-Étude, Brahms G Major Sonata, Enescu Impressions D’Enfance, with photographic images by Peter Laytin.

Colleagues present.  In this performance and the previous one at Lincoln Center, I felt free to allow fancy to direct my timing and dynamics in many of the variations, and colleagues with whom I spoke approved.    The opening statement and the two dotted rhythm variations seem to function as an Introduction, the dotted rhythms recalling to my mind French Overture.

May 19, 2012 2:30 pm   Lincoln Center, NY Bruno Walter Auditorium  Recital with Robert Merfeld
Many colleagues present!  Went really well, wonderful reception…great to have a resonant hall that allowed me to really push the envelope with the soft dynamics…Program Dvorak Romance, Prokofiev Vocalise, Messaien Vocalise-Étude, Brahms G Major Sonata, Enescu Impressions D’Enfance, with photographic images by Peter Laytin<