A day of three concerts! With the undergraduates and Framnäs students.

Thursday the 2nd of February was an intense long day.  The reason it was so long was because of moving gear.  Unlike Wednesday night, where the concert was in the same building as the percussion instruments, on Thursday we had to use the truck belonging to Framnäs to transport people and instruments across town.  The other problem was that it was about -28C

So luckily one of the Framnäs students, Lisa, is over 25 and can drive the truck.  So she and the other Framnäs students loaded the percussion into the truck and then came to the Musikhögskolan to collect us.  We couldn't all fit into the truck so we left Maria, Johanna, Astrid and Denis behind.  We drove into town to Krokodil cafe.  It's a lovely cafe with a big room that has a stage.  We loaded in and were all set by about 1pm, so we had sweets and coffee for lunch.  

This initial concert was very quiet - unbeknownst to us, Krokodil doesn't serve many customers on a thursday afternoon!  So we considered this first concert a bit of a warm-up.  It was really great to run through everyone's pieces without stopping.  It was a good confidence-boost for the students, some of whom were pretty nervous.

Then Denis had a great idea - let's play in Gallerien!  Gallerien is a shopping mall which is right next door to Krokodil.  Not as big as Woden plaza but bigger than Cooleman Court.  So Denis went and got the manager of Gallerien to listen to us play.  She was skeptical at first because she'd had "trouble with percussionists in the past" but she liked what she heard so we wheeled the instruments over!  It was crazy!

In Gallerien I had all the students play but I didn't do my pieces.  I was feeling very tired from all the stress and the cold.

After that gig, we packed up and a load of people took the instruments to Framnäs for our third concert of the day.  Johanna, Astrid, Charles, Maria and I were left behind so we bought some snacks and rested.

When Jake picked us up again, we went to Max for takeaway burgers.  We bought lots and got to Framnäs around 5:30.  It was great and energising to eat all together and talk about fun stuff.

This concert people actually came to.  It was so lovely to see all the students with their friends being excited and playing fun music.  The concert went off without a hitch, which is amazing considering how tired we all were.  All the students played really well!

The only thing left after the concert was to take the instruments back to the Slagverkrum.  Then a couple of trips later we were all home!  It was a wonderful day, super tiring but rewarding for everyone.  I think that I achieved what I set out to do: make everyone excited about ragtime, and encourage everyone to perform more often.

After much rehearsal and planning, we put up posters for my ragtime concert with Ensemble Evolution and Anna Larson.  This concert was to be mostly xylophone + marimba band repertoire, with some extra songs with added vocals and a couple of duos for Charles and myself.

We set up in the hall (Musikhögskolan Aulan) which turned out to be very resonant, quite different from our rehearsal space.  We adjusted our playing style to match the hall's acoustic.

The setup.  Xylophone and glockenspiel at the front, with vibraphone to the right and marimbas behind.  A microphone at the left was for Anna.

The concert went really well.  The audience was impressed, especially when Anna was singing (as we expected).  I feel like my performance skills have really improved and I'm able to communicate with the audience better now than ever.  I've reached a great stage in my playing where I know the songs and styles really well and can basically not read the music or look at my hands.  I take great inspiration from Barry Morgan.  My familiarity with the music and my loose wrists (currently loose anyhow), as well as my love for the music, make for fast, entertaining playing.  I hope.

There was a whiteboard behind the curtain where we wrote our setlist.  It is written in a language only we could understand!

The team: Anna Larson (soprano), Jacob Remington, me (Christina Hopgood), Charles Martin, and Maria Finkelmeier.

The setlist:

1. Nola (Felix Arndt, arr. Charles Martin.  Soloist Christina Hopgood)

2. Alabama Moon (George Hamilton Green, arr. Bob Becker.  Soprano Anna Larson)

3. A Foggy Day (Gershwin, arr. Hopgood/Martin)

4. Charleston Capers (George Hamilton Green, arr. Bob Becker.  Soloist Maria Finkelmeier)

5. Fluffy Ruffles (George Hamilton Green, arr. Becker/Hopgood.  Soloist Christina Hopgood.  Soprano Anna Larson)

6. Log Cabin Blues (George Hamilton Green, arr. Hopgood/Martin.  Soloist Christina Hopgood)

7. Knocking On Wood (Red Norvo, arr. Bill Cahn.  Soloist Christina Hopgood)

8. Stardust (Hoagy Carmichael, arr. Hopgood/Martin)

9. Just A Kiss (George Hamilton Green, arr. Bob Becker.  Soprano Anna Larson)

Rehearsal at Framnäs on a sunny Saturday

Today we took the bus out to Framnäs at 11am to rehearse and look at the hall space (where we will perform on Thursday night).

Despite there being some nervousness, everyone played their pieces pretty well and we made the marimba band parts sound nice. We had one problem that needed fixing, and that was the solo part for Nola. The girl who was assigned Nola was sent the part by her teacher, but it was an iPhone photograph of a photocopy, and was on four A4 pages and was really hard to see. So I will write out that part in Sibelius for her to read properly.

After the rehearsal we still had 1 and a half hours before the bus came, so Charles and I went for a walk down to the bay. The view was amazing because the sun was out and there was mist everywhere.

Rehearsing with our lovely singer, Anna Larson

Lesson with Anders Åstrand

Today Charles and I had a lesson with Anders for our duo repertoire, as we did our ensemble pieces last night. We played Chromatic Foxtrot, Cross Corners, and Log Cabin Blues from the G. H. Green ragtime book, and A Foggy Day and Stardust as standards.
One great thing about Anders is that he has played everything. Usually in 1983 and in some hilarious circumstance. So he knows a lot about styles of playing and improvisation. He also talks a lot about movement and enjoyment of the music. Charles got some great tips on 'comping' in the ragtime style while not sounding the same all the time. I got s some advice on improvising in a ragtime style in the non-ragtime standards. And we both went from being average-good players a bit tired in the morning, to hot confident players with a real joy for the music.

Tomorrow we're heading out to Framnäs on a bit of an emergency morale-boosting mission. I will have to try to give the students as much confidence as Anders gave me!

Concerts - updated!

We already had one of our performances - a lunchtime concert at "2 Kök" restaurant, playing duo ragtime pieces with Charles. We have a lot more lined up!

Wednesday, 1st February, 7pm. Christina Hopgood + Evolution Ensemble concert in Aulan, Piteå.

Thursday, 2nd February, 2pm, Krokodil. Christina Hopgood, Ensemble Evolution, plus students from Piteå Musikhögskolan and Franmäs. The culmination of weeks of workshops.
Same concert that evening at 7pm at Framnäs Aulan.

Saturday, 4th February, 2pm. Christina Hopgood + Charles Martin duo pieces at Krokodil.

Today's rehearsals!

Today we rehearsed some pieces featuring me, Ensemble Evolution, and a singer, Anna Larson. We were lucky that Anders Åstrand is in town today so he could tutor us.
We thought we were pretty good at the beginning of the session, but by the end of the day we were playing about ten times better, and enjoying ourselves a hundred times more. Anders is amazing how he can make people play better than they thought possible.
It was a really intensive afternoon and we had fun but became exhausted. Then we all walked to town for dinner at Thai Garden! Delicious!