A Britcellist's World

  Although it is short month this February - It has been a wild February with cats, teaching, an English Viol workshop and working on Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony. February 4. An interesting and very enjoyable performance at Duke University by a trio, the Poulenc Trio - Oboe, Bassoon  and Piano. Who would think it? Certainly not string players! Wrong! The oboe playing was superb, my favorite instrument after the cello.  The Washington Post wrote " The bassoonist music dances with a lightness and grace uncommon for his instrument". The program - Two Poulenc works - Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano, Sonata for Oboe and Piano, opus 166.  A work by Viet Cuong commissioned for the Poulenc Trio by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition. Shostakovich's "The Romance, op.79a" A Spin through Moscow. This is one of our most popular piece we play in the Duke University Gardens for the  Duke Alumni Reunion Brunch. A "Suite in the Old Style" by A.Schnittke and...

January 1, 2023 - I couldn't stay awake long enough to see the fireworks, but I'm sure they were exciting going around the world, from Sidney's bridge to Paris, London Eye, New York, Los Angeles and many more.  We all had a good sleep afterwards as the family had to drive back to New Jersey, (good weather, fortunately). Late in the morning, we couldn't resist having brunch at our  favorite restaurant in Durham, - Elmo's.  A good start for the trip. Sad to see them off, it had been a lovely visit, despite being it was a short one, as the weather had been so bad up north the week before Christmas, they were not able to drive until Christmas Day :(   Two days to catch up and tidying up, then back to teaching at Trinity School and the Chapel Hill Music School, followed that night by a very enjoyable concert by a string quartet from musicians from the North Carolina Symphony at  Carol Woods. The performance started with the violist playing the solo Bach Suite n...