Originally posted by @sonship
For me the revelation about classical music came with Scheherazade, Rimsky-Korsakov. It was a true revelation for me no doubt. The dozens of themes played in so many ways was enthralling.
A beautiful piece and very well written.
[quote]
Much later I was similarly enthralled at a live performance of The Miraculous Mandarin by Bela Bar ...[text shortened]... te]
I am saddened to hear that.
Maybe some counseling might help her in the healing process.
She is well over that now, long time ago.
I listened to the Miraculous Mandarin on recordings then when I heard it live at wolf trap by Pierre Boulez it was magical, like a totally different piece.
Do you have more than the two I listened to on YT?
Right now I cannot upload any more, used up my 3 hours of upload time and of course it is only audio, I have yet to do a vid.
I am working with a really talented lady, Joanna Kazdan, who teaches at Berklee in Boston, where my daughter got her first degree.
I don't do transcribing to sheet music much at all and we have some deep connections, one of which we only found out when she said, Oh BTW, maybe you knew Michael Shamus. He was my brother.
THAT blew me away. Back in the 70's, I had a band, Southwind Irish Band, based in Venice Beach California. Founding members were Judy Gameral, Mary Dolinskis, me, and Michael Shamus.
That was total surprise. The other connection we had was when we lived in Israel, my best friend there was a polymath genius, Ray Scudero, RIP. But he got married and that to Joanna. That happened after we left after living in Jerusalem for 4 years.
So she helped with his CD's and such and after he died the incredible folk community organized several tribute concerts to help out Joanna.
So I contacted her about one of Ray's CD's and she sent me a couple of them. It was a tearful playing I can tell you, to hear Ray on his own CD.
Then we talked about my music on Sound Cloud and she listened to a few of my compositions there, just folk stuff, solo guitar, solo mandolin and such.
She loved my tunes and I told her I wanted to put the tunes in a book, originals from me.
She said sure, she can transcribe but I have to do video's of the tunes so she can see them to be sure she is transcribing the right notes and fingering.
So ATT I knew she had married my best friend but that was after we left and went back to the US.
A few more Emails later she laid the bomb on me, Michael was her brother!
That was from 1974 to about 75. Early on, we practiced at his house where she lived also, so we had to have met and I have a vague memory of his sister so I met her briefly 40 odd years ago! She was into dance at that time but later got infused with music and folk music and got her degree at Berklee.
What are the odds of someone you briefly knew 40 years ago becoming a big part of our lives now! Michael died so it was twice poignant, Ray RIP and Michael RIP. But Joanna is still alive and well and helping me on my book project.
Incredible set of co-incidences, eh.