[CAUT] Villa-Lobos piano music (self-promotion)

[Horace Greeley]

Hi, Fred,

Thanks very much for this gift!

I always enjoy your contributions, and very much look forward to hearing and seeing this concert. 


I've always been quite partial to Villa-Lobos, and (in what seems like a previous lifetime) performed the Bachianas for flute and bassoon a number of times.  

Another favorite is Carlos Chavez, who wrote exceptionally beautiful, if equally difficult, music.

Glad you're performing, Fred!

Best.

Horace 


-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Sturm <fssturm at unm.edu>

Date: Tue, 8 Sep 2009 12:55:51 
To: College & University Technicians<caut at ptg.org>
Subject: [CAUT] Villa-Lobos piano music (self-promotion)


Hi all,
	As many of you know, I am a pretty serious pianist and do a fair  
amount of performing and recording, with an emphasis on Latin American  
composers, Villa-Lobos in particular. This fall I decided to do an all- 
Villa-Lobos program in honor of the 50th anniversary of his death, and  
I gave that concert at UNM a little over a week ago (and repeated it  
at St John's College last Sunday). It was videotaped, so I have  
uploaded it to YouTube. If you are interested, here is a link to one  
of the uploads (there are a total of 24):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KfHXBrmgWE (the others should be  
pretty easy to find, should you care to).
	To make it "on topic," I'll note that I tuned the piano in the  
morning the day before the concert. The hall was heavily scheduled the  
day of the concert, and I don't like to tune the same day as I perform  
anyway (I want to concentrate of performing), so that's how it worked  
out. I got there an hour ahead of my concert, and while warming up  
(and letting the sound engineer set levels for the recording), I  
noticed a few unisons that were starting to be suspicious, G5 in  
particular. However, Fred Sturm the pianist really didn't feel like  
putting on the hat of Fred Sturm piano technician, so I let it go. If  
you listen to the encore, O Policinelo, the G5 (together with a couple  
other notes) really does become a bit annoying. But not so much that I  
feel the need to hang my head in shame - hey, that pianist played  
pretty hard.
	So I conclude that it is a good idea to tune the day of each concert  
if possible. And also that it pays to tune pretty solidly as a matter  
of course, in case the day of the concert doesn't work out. Just on  
the off chance anyone on this list didn't already know these nuggets  
of wisdom <G>. Also, it is a bad idea to rely on a tuner who is a  
little lazy <G>.
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico
fssturm at unm.edu






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