7:00 Holiday Concert at the Jackson Heights Jewish Center, Queens
I have played this seasonal concert for many years and it is always great fun – so many wonderful people from the neighborhood show up, and the programs are always interesting! A really fine Tango segment (singer Chris Vasquez and pianist Cesar Vuksic), Arabic music (including Simon Shaheen’s Alhambra Trio which we commissioned a number of years ago for A Night at the Alhmabra Café), which I performed with Rex Benincasa, Tar and Carlo Valte, Oud), Tangos, music by James Primosh (beautiful piano solo Ryan MacEvoy McCullough and singing from Judy Kellock.
I played the Chaconne following the last movement from the Messaien Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps, it was a good pairing. The room we were playing in had very dry sound, so I had to speed the tempos slightly. Having done three or four of these performances in the last couple of weeks, it was pretty easy to drop into a somewhat mind-less space and allow the music to flow.
We were fortunate to have the services of a spanish translator – one of the staff at the Jewish Center – so that the spanish-speaking audience members would know clearly that I was asking the listeners to participate with me in this Journey of 100 – to come to our website here and write their experiences – I hope we get some comments.