IDRS 2012 Day 2
So much music, so little time, and although the temperature only hit a high of 97 today, it was STILL HOT! Combine that with storms all around (although there was ultimately only a sprinkling here in Oxford), and I took the evening off. The evening program didn’t excite me all that much, so I worked on my statistics class unit and got to bed early 🙂
There were highlights and lowlights yesterday, but I’ll just hit the highlights here:
- The University of Illinois Double Reed Quartet (John Dee and Evan Tammen, oboes; Ashley Haney and Tim McGovern, bassoons) playing the Skye Boat Song arr. Sandra Woolsey and the Sonate F-Dur für zwei Oboen und Zwei Fagotte by Johann Friedrich Fasch. This was fantastic! This was in the first time slot of the day and the performers obviously did not expect a large audience, but the hall was almost SRO! They played fabulously and the music itself was excellent.
- Paradise Winds (Joseph M Kluesener, bassoon; Woody Chenoweth, soprano sax; Gabe Hall-Rodriques, accordion) playing Adios Nonino by Astor Piazolla. This was an amazing sound combination, and they played very artistically. Their entire program was arrangement of Piazolla works, but this one was by far the best in my opinion. Piazolla wrote this piece after his grandfather died.
- Marlen Vavrikova playing some of Petr Eben’s oboe compositions. In particular, I loved the Ballabile from the Sonata for Oboe and Piano and all six of the Miniatures for Oboe and Piano.
- The world premiere of Awatovi by Daniel Baldwin, played by Robert Jordan, bassoon, Mary Nan Jordan, clarinet, and Heather MacPhail, piano. This work was inspired by the Awatovi Indian ruins in Arizona, and is a continuous three movements. Wonderful.
- BassooNova Bassoon Quartet from Arizona State University in Phoenix, consisting of Albie Micklich and three of his graduate students (Laura McIntyre, Maxwell Grube, and Mary Stuckemeyer). They switched off between 4 bassoons and 3 bassoons and a contra, and even included organist Shiloh Roby on the Organ Concerto No. 1 in G Major by Michel Corrette, arr. Fraser Jackson. Everything they did was fabulous, but I was particularly excited by De tous biens playne by Josquin des Prez, arr. David Carp, and Bassango by Mathieu Lussier. I picked up a copy of Bassango at TrevCo in hopes of finding three other bassoons to play it with someday …
And that was yesterday! Today will be a much longer day if I do everything on my plan, so expect a longer entry tonight or tomorrow morning 🙂