Hausmusik

As promised, a few shots from yesterday's Gerburtstag Feier for Opa's 80th birthday:

Siegi und Verena:



Wolfgang on Zither, Siegi on Steirische, Steve on Hackbrett:



Fred und Hans, performing wild clarinet tricks:




Opa, Oma, and a subsection of the Eberschwanger Bauernkapelle (one of the two community bands in Eberscwhang). They provided music and fun for the party as well, in between beers. :)

Hackbrett

On Friday I started learning a couple of tunes on Hackbrett (Hammered Dulcimer) so we can play some traditional songs for Opa's 80th birthday party today. The main tune is an "Innviertler Landler" (the Innviertel is the local region of Austria we're in). Lots of I and V7, which is good for me, because that's about the limit of my playing abilities at this point. Wolfgang will be playing Zither, Siegi on Steirische Harmonika (similar to an accordion) and vocals, and V on guitar and vocals. And a possible guest appearance on Clarinet by Johann Mösenbichler!

I hopefully will have pictures of our full ensemble later. For now, here's Wolfgang tuning the Hackbrett (Siegi in the background on Steirische).



And here's a quasi-player's-viewpoint shot:

Summer workshop(s) information

As I mentioned in the last post, I'm giving two masterclasses in composition this summer, the first (with Otto M. Schwarz) at MidEurope in Schladming Austria (July 8th-10th), and the second at the Bayerischen Musickakademie (Bavarian Music Academy) in Marktoberdorf, Germany (August 2nd-10th). If you're in Europe this summer, and feel the urge to study composition with me, by all means sign up! :)

Austria again!

Tomorrow I leave for Austria, which of course I always eagerly look forward to (the 'being there' part, not the 'getting there' part). At Mid-Europe this summer I'll be giving a 3 day masterclass on composing, as well as a workshop for beginning composers, and then during the first week of August, I'll be guest composer in residence at the Bavarian Summer Music Academy (I can't find the link at the moment). All the while working madly on the Winds+Electronics piece, which is now scheduled for an October 23rd premiere by Bruce Moss and the Bowling Green Wind Ensemble (part of their annual New Music and Art Festival), followed mere days later on October 26th by Jerry Junkin and the UT Wind Ensemble. So...busy summer!

Now I must figure out how to fit all these hard drives in my backpack...