photo by Grace Bennett of Inside Chappaqua Magazine
On July 18, the octet of Chappaqua Chamber Players visited a prison up in Wallkill, NY, to perform an hour program. This was covered by Inside Chappaqua Magazine (September issue) and here are posts from their Facebook page: 1 2 .
Started off with the first movement of Schubert's Octet, Yang Sun Kim and I played three duets from Bartok's 44 Duos for violins, two Cuban dances for horn and bassoon, the last movement of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, string bass jazz solo, some pops trios for two violins and bass, and we ended the program with the Scherzo movement of the Octet. I really enjoyed working with these musicians. Some are new, two are from last October's all Prokofiev program so it had been a while but they are all very flexible and have a great ear to play chamber music. And on top of it they are great musicians!
I hope that our audience enjoyed it. It was about 95F with no A/C, it might have been very uncomfortable to sit quietly for an hour.
A little fact about heat and tuning: strings stretch with heat so tuning gets flat but woodwinds and brass are the opposite. When you play in this environment string players have to start playing sharper and winds and brass flatter. When it gets cold, it's the opposite.
I figured my gut D and G strings (Passione from Pirastro) hold up really well under such circumstance but my A string (Infeld Red) gets affected right away. Usually gut strings are known for being unstable with tuning but this is one of the reasons I love Passione. Unfortunately my violin doesn't like Passione A string, so the best match I have found is Passione on G and D, Infeld Red on A and Obligato Gold E string.
I am heading up to Camp Encore/Coda tomorrow morning for a three-week session. I can't wait to work with my returning students and new students! In the first faculty recital I'm going to be performing Duo for Violin and Cello, Op.7 by Zoltan Kodaly with Kirsten Jermé.
Started off with the first movement of Schubert's Octet, Yang Sun Kim and I played three duets from Bartok's 44 Duos for violins, two Cuban dances for horn and bassoon, the last movement of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, string bass jazz solo, some pops trios for two violins and bass, and we ended the program with the Scherzo movement of the Octet. I really enjoyed working with these musicians. Some are new, two are from last October's all Prokofiev program so it had been a while but they are all very flexible and have a great ear to play chamber music. And on top of it they are great musicians!
I hope that our audience enjoyed it. It was about 95F with no A/C, it might have been very uncomfortable to sit quietly for an hour.
A little fact about heat and tuning: strings stretch with heat so tuning gets flat but woodwinds and brass are the opposite. When you play in this environment string players have to start playing sharper and winds and brass flatter. When it gets cold, it's the opposite.
I figured my gut D and G strings (Passione from Pirastro) hold up really well under such circumstance but my A string (Infeld Red) gets affected right away. Usually gut strings are known for being unstable with tuning but this is one of the reasons I love Passione. Unfortunately my violin doesn't like Passione A string, so the best match I have found is Passione on G and D, Infeld Red on A and Obligato Gold E string.
I am heading up to Camp Encore/Coda tomorrow morning for a three-week session. I can't wait to work with my returning students and new students! In the first faculty recital I'm going to be performing Duo for Violin and Cello, Op.7 by Zoltan Kodaly with Kirsten Jermé.
