Finnders & Youngberg, Colorado’s premier Americana quintet, will add yet another honor to their impressive resume: they’ve been chosen as an official showcase act for the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass conference in Nashville, Tenn., this fall. They are one of just 13 acts invited to perform during the bluegrass industry’s biggest and most important week.
Festival Mozaic has announced its 2012 summer season, which will take place July 12-22 in the most charismatic spaces across California's Central Coast including Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, Chapel Hill in wine country, Hearst Castle overlooking the sparkling Pacific Ocean, and Mission San Miguel . The theme, "In The Footsteps of Giants," will showcase a lineage of masterworks which inspired – and were inspired by – phenomenal composers over the ages.
The San Francisco Mandolin Orchestra with singers Susan Gundunas and Twila Ehmcke will be performing one of the gems of the Baroque music era, Stabat Mater, written in 1736 by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.
The Newport Festivals Foundation has announced the lineup for the 2012 Newport Folk Festival set to take place July 28-29 at Fort Adams State Park.
This album is sophisticated urban pop played with a combination of acoustic instruments usually found in bluegrass bands. Any further references to blugrass is hard to find on the album.
A neurological disorder called dystonia is estimated to have ended the careers of at least one member of every major American metropolitan orchestra. Dystonia has claimed the livelihoods of musicians across genres including the acclaimed pianist Leon Fleisher of the Peabody Conservatory of Music, former first oboist of the Chicago Symphony Alex Klein, acoustic guitarist Billy McLaughlin, classical guitarist Liona Boyd, keyboard player Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and others.
Luckily, Alexandra Coutinho and Rio Con Brio decided to make this a stand alone album. The plan was to feature Alexandra Coutinho on some tracks of Rio Con Brio's Caprice.
Caprice is an album by a guitar and mandolin duo playing mostly choro standards. It could be a challenge to make this fly. Rio Con Brio have pulled it off.
Watertown is an honest low cost production. All tracks but one are signed songwriter Cheryl J. Watson. Fellow musicians helped her by contributing takes from their home studios.
The expression Goat Rodeo is a description for an event where a hundred things must go right in order for the event to work. That is the concept for this cross genre production.
Magazine
Alon Sariel
Alon Sariel is young, gifted and busy. He is one of those remarkable guys from the Beer Sheva Mandolin Orchestra in Israel. This Friday he appears in Cambridge, UK, to teach in the Cambridge Performance Masterclasses.
By Reidar Falch
"Well, it's probably the South-Israeli sun," Alon Sariel says about the Beer Sheva Mandolin Orchestra as a hatchery for great mandolin players like Jacob Reuven, Avi Avital and himself, "Seriously, we were lucky to have really amazing teachers. The recording I made with Yaki (Jacob Reuven) for instance, was all about looking back to our "sources", in different aspects. We of course dedicated this project to our former teachers: Nathansohn - Khaymovich - Shmitt."
Alon Sariel
"By the way, the only common thing among the three is that non of them is or was a mandolin player. It might sound exaggerated, but a point that I would think has really affected my being as a musician is playing in the Beer Sheva Mandolin Orchestra and particularly the last three years as Konzertmeister. I am sure that is the case with my colleagues too," he says.
Alon lives in Hannover, Germany. He is involved in several projects and ensembles in the fields of new music and early music, both as conductor and instrumentalist on mandolins, lutes and other instruments. This summer, he received his Arts Diploma (Künstlerische Ausbildung) from the Hannover Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien (University for Music, Theater and Media in Hanover).
Alon Sariel and the Israeli Early Music Project
The Israeli Early Music Project and Hannover International Ensemble are founded and directed by Alon. He serves as the musical director of the Camerata Medica in Goettingen, and from this summer and on he is principle conductor at the Young Symphony Orchestra of Goettingen.
Alon Sariel and the Hannover International Ensemble
This summer has been busy. Alon has performed the UK premiere (May 22) of the Julian Dawes Mandolin Concerto with Imaestri Orchestra in London. He conducted a production of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale with members of the Hannover International Ensemble at Plathner’s 11. "One of the most successful concert series in the frame of our school, directed by Gintaras Janusevicius," he says.
"In that same concert series I made the world premiere of a piece “Holborne Reborn” written for me by Robert Schulz and this same concert series of Plathner’s 11 has just opened it’s 3rd competition for composers, where I will have the honor to give a prize in my name to the best piece for mandolin or mandolin duo with piano," he says.
He is excited, "So I would like to call from here to all the interested composers – the piece has to be sent until the 25th of October 2011. See link below.
In July Alon played at the Pince Cordes Festival in Mirecourt, (Director – Ricardo Sandoval) and from France he traveled to Spain to join The West Eastern Divan (Director -Daniel Barenboim) for the summer workshop in Andalusia.
Alon Sariel
"This summer I am still taking part in concerts with the Hannover Kammerchor (Chamber Choir of Hannover) where I accompany with the lute, playing Dowland songs and Bach Motets. That’s one of the reasons that I would have to miss the coming tour of the Early Music Project in Israel, but I am sure my colleagues there would do great without me," Alon says.
In the coming winter he will play guest conductor with the Münchner Kammerorchester (Chamber Orchestra of Munich) and in February with the London International Orchestra.
Alon conducts and plays several instruments. He definitely thinks being a conductor affects his relation with the mandolin and vice versa. "I can say that since I started concentrating in conducting, I understood that most of the substantial work about a musical piece can be made almost with out any regards to the instrument. For instance, understanding the structure of the piece, and constructing it the way you want your execution to be… only after I have these things in mind, I pick up the instrument – surprisingly, most of the technical barriers are already minored if not at all disappeared."
Over the years he picked up all sorts of plucked instruments such as the lute, the theorbo, the baroque guitar, the vihuela and the cittern.
He is not in doubt that playing other instruments reflects on his mandolin playing, "Starting to play the lute certainly did strange stuff to my left hand, especially my big archlute which demands a really different approach. It takes time but then you start finding, and I’m still finding, the different switches in your mind which makes you capable to quickly go from one instrument to another."
Alon Sariel
"It certainly affected my approach to the mandolin, things like the dynamic range of the strokes, the tone, the chord shapes I use - they all have benefited from my lute playing. Moreover, I believe that at least basic knowledge of basso continuo is essential to every player who would like to deal with Baroque music, it was much easier learning that through the lute of course," Alon continues.
"Of course this doesn’t mean that one who isn’t a multi instrumentalist may not be super fantastic in anyway, but I find that even in a smaller scale within the mandolin family instruments, that playing mandola and mandoloncello makes you at the end of the day a better mandolin player. Just like a clarinet player get’s to know a larger medium of his instrument when he knows the feeling of playing the bass and soprano clarinets, just like the oboist would only benefit from playing the English Horn etc," he says.
the Cambridge Performance Masterclasses runs from August 12 to 18. Cambridge is one of the most beautiful cities in the UK, according to Alon, who will teach in the Mandolin Workshop.
"In this workshop we will talk about different aspects of performance, analyze the components of performance in different styles of music, and talk about the ways to transfer musical ideas through performance," he explains.
Alon Sariel
There will be a concert almost every night, in which every student could perform. Accompanists will also be available to prepare with the students for Masterclasses and any concerts they choose to play. "We will then analyze these performances in class and learn from our own self performances about the good habits that we should emphasize or improve, and about the bad ones that we all have and would like to leave behind in Cambridge," he says, "There is no age limit to attend the class and obviously, this workshop is open for mandola and mandolincello players well."
Alon recommends the readers to have a look at the website of the Cambridge Performance Masterclasses, “Since we have really lots of accommodation possibilities, this summer application is open until the very last minute. The online application is very simple, all you got to do is go to 'Apply Now' and within 5 minutes you are registered."
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi - mandolin concerto RV 425 - I) Allegro
Review of Reuven/Sariel: Sources
Radim Zenkl, the Czech-born, California-based magician of the mandolin has been on the road and onstage since he arrived in the USA more than twenty years ago. He recently swung through my hometown of Portland, Oregon and performed his eclectic solo show to a packed house of enthusiastic fans.
Rio Con Brio started out to make one CD. As they recorded tracks, they realized they had two albums on their hands. One is their third choro album, the other is the debut of fado singer Alexandra Coutinho.
If you were there, you’ll agree that the Baltimore host team put on an excellent convention for our quarter-century landmark. With so many people attending, the energy level was high. If you weren’t there, you want to know what you missed. Here are some highlights.
James "Yank" Rachell was the primary exponent of blues mandolin, although he also played guitar, violin, harp and sang expertly well.
To create a violin with the same characteristics as the 1704 instrument known as "Betts," Dr. Sirr worked with professional violin makers John Waddle and Steve Rossow of St. Paul, Minn. They used a CT scanner and a CNC router. Here are a few photos.
Recently, Cheryl Watson released a CD called Watertown. She unplugged her Fender Tele and turned to acoustic guitars. She traded a guitar for her first mandolin. Chloe, her cat, listen with the eyes closed when Cheryl plays the mandolin.
International mandolin super-group revives the name and repertoire of a 1930's Polish Jewish mandolin orchestra. And this September, they took the music back to its source. Full story and notes from the tour by one of the Ger mandolinists.
Alon Sariel is young, gifted and busy. He is one of those remarkable guys from the Beer Sheva Mandolin Orchestra in Israel. This Friday he appears in Cambridge, UK, to teach in the Cambridge Performance Masterclasses.
Conference. College. Genre bazaar. Horizon expander. Mandolinirvana. Musical family reunion. An ear-stretching, soul-filling, life-altering immersion experience. Surely, we must be talking about the Mandolin Symposium.
Nigel Forster is a luthier. He has a lot of thoughts about his trade. One book is not enough space for his thoughts. He willingly shares more thoughts.
Jim Richter is inviting all to his 1st annual Jim Richter rock-n-blues mandolin camp. He hopes it'll approach mandolin instruction from a perspective more immediately beneficial and useful than some workshops. He also has top ten advices for beginners.
"Enjoy." This quiet word, unheard by the expectant audience behind him, flew straight from the conductor's lips to the hearts of 35 mandolin, mandola, and mandocello players. Instantly, the chemistry in a Chelsea rehearsal room in the middle of New York City was altered - a subtle change, but the perfect one.
Raffaele Calace released his mandolin method in 1910. Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg have reissued his work in English, 100 years later.
He found way to combine Finnish traditional music and Brasilian choro. An unique flavour of choro was born.
Los Hermanos Cubero, The Cubero Brothers, live in Lliçà d'Amunt, a small town near Barcelona in Catalunya, Spain. Combining their folk music with bluegrass is a natural consequence of their influences.
French rock star Feloche has created his own cajun universe. It's rooted in his Urban Bajou.
"Oi, Druzil here," he presents himself, "The Dread Pirate Druzil is the resident mandolin, banjo, and tin whistle player in the world travelling band of raving drunken lunatics and purveyors of fine clusterfolk known as the Dreadnoughts."
Tim O'Brien is a traveller. He wants to get off the road and write and produce more.
Mandolin Cafe was launched November 18, 1995. The number one mandolin site is celebrating 15 years.
The education of the fashionable girl is not complete nowadays until she has secured a certain degree of proficiency in playing upon one or more of the popular string instruments.