Cello Party! de Falla & Villa Lobos arr. for Lots of Cellos

I was looking at a a friend's facebook page and watching some of the YouTube videos he'd posted when a recommendation popped up for a wonderful arrangement of de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance performed by a group of about a dozen cellists with one soloist, Luca Sulic. I then found a very nice performance of a Villa Lobos piece from the same performance, but this time with no soloist.

The recordings were filmed in a beautiful, small hall at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival in 2005. You can hear enough of the reverb in the recording to know that it must have been incredible to witness those 12 cellos in that room. The building is just singing with the overtones of those cellos! While it might sound a bit muddy when recorded, it must have been amazing in person.

So here is a playlist with both pieces. Enjoy!

Steve & John Hackett

Genesis fans will of course be familiar with guitarist Steve Hackett, but some of you may not be aware that his younger brother is also a talented musician. John Hackett's primary instrument is the flute; John recounts on his website that Peter Gabriel would sometimes ask to borrow his flute after wielding his own flute on stage as a sword, with rather disastrous consequences. On such occasions John would fear for the safety of his own treasured instrument!

In recent years John has begun playing a custom-made, vertically-held flute. Although I was unable to find a published explanation for this, I would expect it is for medical or comfort reasons.

Here are three videos of some very nice performances featuring John and Steve together, joined by different keyboardists, from recent performances:



Steve and John have both released numerous classically oriented recordings in recent years, both together and separately. Rather than attempting a complete list, I highly recommend the following:

• Sketches of Satie: The popular piano works of the French composer arranged by the brothers for classical guitar and flute.
• A Mid Summer's Night Dream, by Steve Hacket, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. 
• Steve Hackett and the Underworld Orchestra: Metamorpheus

Portions of all three of these albums can be heard in two different episodes of the Classical Connection radio show: Episode #3: Classical Genesis, and Episode #12, a special featuring Steve Hackett. I had the opportunity to interview Steve via email for the episode concerning his favorite classical music, his new album at the time, Wild Orchids, which features mostly orchestral tracks mixed with rock instrumentation, and other related topics. Both hour-long episodes are available for listening at the show's website.

And I'm looking forward to John's new  album, to be released on October 24th: Moonspinner, featuring music for classical guitar and flute. Watch his promotional video below:

John Lord's Durham Concerto

As it's been quite a few years since I recorded the original Classical Connection episodes, I periodically follow up on the musicians I featured to see what they've been up to. In episode 28 I featured John Lord's Suite for Band and Orchestra, recorded back in the early years of Deep Purple. Since I recorded that episode John has composed a number or orchestral works; I've been very happy to find and listen to the gorgeous Durham Concerto from 2007.



And that's not all! In 2008 John released his "Boom of the Tinglings Strings" piano concerto, and in 2010  the album "To Notice Such Things." That's three great CDs of symphonic music released in the last few years, all composed by John Lord. Not bad for the keyboardist formerly of Deep Purple. Looks like I have a lot of listening to do.

His website states that his current projects have been delayed due to his struggle with cancer. Best wishes, John! Hope to hear more soon.

Symphonic Theater of Dreams

UPDATE 11/8/11—in response to Mike Mierzejewski's comment, I'm posting a link to the Symphonic Theater of Dreams Facebook page! Thanks Mike for the comment. I'm looking forward to hearing more from you and the rest of the musicians involved with SToD.

As Dream Theater releases their new album, I'm happy to learn of another new release, as well as a musical project that I was previously unaware of: the Symphonic Theater of Dreams. It is an orchestral project put together by some classically trained Polish prog rock fans. They released a 9/11 tribute of their arrangement of the Dream Theater song "Sacrificed Sons." It's an exciting 9-minute arrangement that seems very nicely done! I'm looking forward to hearing more from this relatively new project.




The arranger is Michael Mierzejewski. Here is a video of one of his original compositions for String Orchestra. Titled "Schizophrenia," it aptly juxtaposes a fast rhythmic theme with a quiet melody in a rather disjointed way—perfectly suiting the title.



And of course you can learn more about the new Dream Theater album at the official DT site.

Yes Fly From Here Review: It Soars!

I've had my CD for a week now and after listening to it many times (and having a spare moment in my work schedule) I'm prepared to write a review. It's good! I've enjoyed listening to the entire album clear through many times in the past week, which is more than can be said for Magnification (always wanted to skip one song), The Ladder (always wanted to skip a couple songs), or Open Your Eyes (always wanted to skip more than half of the songs!) So compared with the rest of the band's relatively recent catalog, it fares quite well.

It's got some very poppy moments, which we've come to expect from Yes in recent years. Fortunately they're mixed in with some quite interesting proggy bits and some nice dense instrumentation.

This album and recent events in the band's history have a lot of fans stirred up, but really—it's nothing we haven't seen before. After all, this is Yes! Line-up changes and behind-the-scenes drama are what it's all about. I became a fan of Yes at the time of Union (I was 18 at the time) so I got my fill of the whole YesWest/AWBH mess. I finally decided that I didn't care who played on what; I just liked music that didn't bore me by being overly repetitive or predictable. I'm happy to say that there is at least one song on EVERY Yes album that I really like.

So Jon got sick and the band found someone else to sing. Trevor Horn came along with some 30-year-old post-Drama and Buggles material that he wanted to get recorded and brought Geoff Downes along with him. Deal with it. Musically, it's a good album.

Face it, these guys are OLD. This could be one of our last chances to hear some of our favorite musicians in the studio. Rather than moaning and groaning about "what should have been" (according to our own warped perceptions) we should be celebrating how wonderful it is that we've got an exceptional talent like Trevor Horn producing some incredibly talented Yesmen once again to create some beautiful music. And don't forget the marvelous artwork by Roger Dean.

Yes have posted a film-style video for one of the more pop-oriented moments from their new CD on Youtube. It's interesting to watch. To my knowledge, producer and ex-Yes man Trevor Horn is the only person associated with the band to make an appearance in the video; he's the guy with the cigar. The band does not appear; the music is used as the soundtrack for this mini-film.

Here's the video!



In other news, Rick Wakeman, Trevor Rabin, and Jon Anderson are reportedly working together on a new project. There was even a rumor that Bill Bruford had been invited to join.  This will be interesting, I wonder what they'll call themselves; ABW...R? I am excited to hear what they come up with.

National Anthem by Enchant's Ted Leonard

Happy Independence Day in the USA! Ted Leonard of the band Enchant performed a wonderful, straight-forward rendition of our national anthem at a ball game a few years ago. One of the better performances of the song that I've heard. Have a listen and enjoy your 4th.



And so you can see him in his band context, here is an Enchant live performance video.

Aaron Meyer: Portland-area rock violinist

Here in Tualatin, Oregon we've got a nice summer "Concerts in the Commons" series of free outdoor concerts with a wide variety of music. As I reviewed this year's schedule I was pleasantly surprised to see a "Rock Violinist" listed! Intrigued, I checked out the artist's website.

Aaron Meyer is a talented musician with great stage presence, and he's put together a great band. His website has several videos, and YouTube has quite a few more. I'm really looking forward to the concert this summer!

First video I'll share is a promo clip from a video CD he released recently that features the band playing along with their studio recording--so you can hear some overdubbed parts that aren't actually being played, and there is no audience, but the camera work is really good:


Then a couple clips from an older live concert, where the sound and camera isn't as clean but it's a genuine live performance with audience: