Armchair Concert

I was pleased to see the special promotion of Orange-born Tim Hansen's music on The Australian Music Centre's website today.

I admit I'm biased, because Tim has composed music for my son Daniel McKay to play, including an entertaining concerto for amplified classical guitar and orchestra and also a piece called Earwig, which Daniel recorded with violinist Zoë Black.

You can hear Daniel and Zoë's version of the piece in the next Armchair Concert program, on Monday, 2nd April between 1.30 and 3.30 PM on 2MCE FM, Bathurst's community radio station.

We will also be rebroadcasting part of a terrific concert which featured duo pianists Max and Haydn Reeder and flutist Prem Love. Prem teaches at Orange and Mitchell Conservatoriums. He plays flute superbly and we will later feature him in a wonderful concert where he plays with flutist, Phil Braithwaite and pianist, Cindy Fox.

Max Reeder was for many years Senior Music Lecturer at Charles Sturt University and also director of Mitchell Conservatorium. Max and brother Haydn will be heard playing piano duet works by Mozart, Debussy, Bizet and others.

We hope you will listen on 92.3, 94.7 FM, at 2MCE.org or by using the smartphone tunein radio app. There's plenty of ways to make sure you don't miss the program.

Antony Field and Daniel McKay

On Friday, 21st October, 2011 we had the privilege of witnessing Duo 19's first performance in the ACT, at a Canberra Classical Guitar Society concert, in the Wesley Music Centre.

Taking their name from their tram route, Duo 19 consists of Antony Field and Daniel McKay, both of whom are graduates of ANU's School of Music and currently teach at the Victorian College of the Arts.

The concert included performances of works by beloved Australian composers Phillip Houghton and Nigel Westlake. It was interesting to hear Westlake's Hinchinbrook Riffs, originally composed to be played by one guitarist with a digital delay machine, expertly executed by this duo.

We also loved hearing Songs from the Forest, also by Westlake, and originally written for Antony and Daniel's teacher, Tim Kain, to play with John Williams.

It was also intriguing to hear two of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's preludes and fugues from his Well-Tempered Guitars. His 24 pieces were written as a homage to J S Bach and for his favourite guitar duo, Pesti-Lagoya. You can hear one of these works performed by the Brasil Guitar Duo in the following clip.

We're Back!

Mitchell Conservatorium is open for music lessons again. We are looking forward to lots of wonderful music-making this year by our students, staff and guest artists.

Georg Mertens, featured in the Youtube clip above, is one of our guitar and cello teachers. His performances which you will find on his Youtube channel are always of a high quality, and always feature interesting notes about the music and even the instruments used to play them.

If you are interested in playing classical guitar, you will love the new Australian Guitarist website, which features information about Australian guitarists and luthiers [pronounced LOO tea uhs, and meaning guitar-makers. But why say guitar-maker when you can say LOO tea uh!]

I'm fairly sure that you will find information about guitarists you already know about, but also plenty of new information to strum your strings, too!

Oh look! They even feature Danny McKay from Melbourne.

But if you want to continue or begin your own musical journey on guitar, or almost any instrument, please come in to Mitchell Conservatorium, in the West Wing of Bathurst Court House in Russell Street, Monday to Friday, from 10 AM to 5 PM. Or you can ring our friendly staff on 02 6331 6622.

Magic!

Eusebius requests your indulgence, please. Normal service will be resumed soon, but today he is reminscing. Today is our first baby's birthday. Daniel is 36 today and is busy rehearsing for a new duo guitar recording with Anthony Field, to be distributed by MOVE Records. It will include music by Phillip Houghton and Nigel Westlake, two great Australian composers for classical guitar.

But I'm remembering him as a little boy doing the percussion for our $1.99 Music For Pleasure Greatest Hits of The Tijuana Brass record.

He used to love the first track, The Magic Trumpet, which begins with a rhythmic motif for 2 trumpets, and is answered by the bass drum's BOOM, BOOM.

Today I discovered that the song was composed by Bert Kaempfert, who was born on my birthday and died on my Nanna's birthday. I used to love to listen to Bert Kaempfert's A Swingin' Safari when I visited my Uncle, Aunt and cousins. We thought Uncle Ben was a cool dude, with a great-sounding stereo and such a wonderful brassy, bassy record to play us.

If you'd like to make some great sounds on a trumpet, guitar or almost any other instrument (no vuvuzela lessons currently, though), you can enrol now to start your journey in music-making next year at Mitchell Conservatorium, which is located in the West Wing of Bathurst's Courthouse in Russell St. Phone 6331 6622 for more information.