Encyclopedia of Music in Canada

Things have been rather hectic these past few days - reorganizing everything from the studio to the house and from my budget to ARMTA portfolios.

This week's useful link is the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. You can find out about Canadian classical, pop, jazz, rock music and more.

(c) 2006 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Friday Fun Link #29

This weekend is Carifest in Calgary. Enjoy a weekend of Caribbean music and culture! (c) 2006 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Friday Fun Link #24

Just a quick post before I start teaching for the day. This week's fun link is Musical Hangman. Have fun!

(c) 2006, Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Calgary Youth Sparkle at Calgary Concerto Competition

On Sunday, a friend and I attended the Calgary Civic Symphony's concert, featuring the winners from this year's Calgary Concerto Competition. We were simply amazed at the musical maturity these youngsters displayed. At the tender age of 11, Jan Lisieki demonstrated that he could interpret the tender cantabile melodies in Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with sensitivity and maturity. It is no wonder that he has won the Calgary Music Competition three times.

Thirteen year-old TieDan Yao is always a delight to watch. His face reflects the sheer joy he feels about playing. He sparkled with the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1. I enjoyed this performance even more than his playing at the CFMTA National Piano Competition this past summer.

Willem Stam provided a wonderful break from the piano with his interpretation of Dvorak's Concerto for Violncello and Orchestra in B minor. The seventeen year-old proved that he can infuse the melodies with sufficient angst and passion.

Fifteen year-old Eric Kim closed the program with Gershwin's Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra. In her introduction, Maestra Rosemary Thompson, mentioned that Eric plays trombone in his school jazz band. His feel for the jazz idiom was evident in his performance.

It was an inspiring concert, the type that inspires other musicians to try harder. Most of us aren't cut out for the concert stage, but we can always improve.

Copyright 2006, Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

Friday Fun Link #23

Whoops! I nearly forgot to post today's Friday Fun Link. What can I say? I got carried away with errands and housecleaning (a true sign that I'm getting older). Although I did take a detour to McNally Robinson today and heard an accordionist play at the cafe. She played wonderfully. We had a good chat afterwards. Did you know that there are over 100 accordion schools in Europe? Today's fun link comes from the Dallas Symphony's DSO Kids website. There are several games on the site. Enjoy!

PS: On another note, I'm another step closer to solving the Site Feed issue. It was a two-fold problem, 1 - typing up blog entries in Word, copying and pasting into a blog is a no-no. I deleted between 4 and 48 extraneous codes per blog entry because Word added code that was incompatible; and 2 - Blogger uses Atom 0.3 and apparently 1.0 is the standard; which means more code needs to be adjusted. It's a slow ongoing process, at least until Blogger upgrades to 1.0. Stay tuned!

Off to practice now. I'm playing at a wedding tomorrow and need to pad the beginning of Canon in D to make sure that the bride's entrance is timed perfectly with the climax of the song.

(c) 2006, Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.