A million hits on Youtube

Georg Mertens

Congratulations to our colleague, Georg Mertens, whose Georgcello Youtube site has now received a million visits.

As we said in a post last month, Georg Mertens is a cellist, guitarist, composer, arranger, teacher and author who combines great musical skills with an astute knowledge of successful internet marketing.

How did he achieve a million hits on Youtube? It was not by choosing to play current popular music, which was the way former Mitchell Conservatorium student, Ella Jamieson and her band, Aston, clocked up the magic million, with their classical version of Lady Gaga's Telephone.

And it was not a viral campaign, like the wildly successful Canadian Christmas flashmob version of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus.

Georg's success in attracting a million visitors to his Youtube site has been achieved through providing so many musically interesting, varied performances on guitar and cello, both solo and in combination with other musicians.

His most popular video, so far, has been an Arabian improvisation on cello.

Britney Spears goes Baroque

Remember the Lady Gaga fugue? The very clever Giovanni Dettori has done it again: this time with his Baroque version of Britney Spears's songs Hit Me Baby One More Time and Oops, I Did It Again in his new composition called Counterpoint.

Mr Dettori has kindly made the sheet music available, too.

Counterpoint refers to the unique ability musicians have of saying two or more things at once and making sense! Lots of pieces of music have several tunes going at once, but this was developed to a high art in the Renaissance Period of Music (1450-1600 AD) and perfected by Johann Sebastian Bach in the Baroque Period (1600-1750).

The Naxos summary of periods in Music history is pretty well written and useful.

Giovanni Dettori teaches counterpoint via his Youtube website, which is well worth investigating.

I like the way you can listen to this piece and follow the scrolling score. Well done, Maestro Dettori!




Did I mention that Britney Spears is an anagram of Presbyterians?

Haydn Seek

He was the most famous composer of his day, more popular than Handel had been and certainly more popular than Mozart or Bach were, in their own lifetimes. He has been called the father of the symphony and the father of the string quartet. New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians says

No other composer approaches his combination of productivity, quality and historical importance in these genres.

Mozart and Beethoven were both taught by him, and were greatly influenced by his music. But surprisingly, most people would not know much of his music.

I'm hoping to change this with The Haydn Pages. This is my effort to add a little about Joseph Haydn, because there is not a lot of information about him that is easily accessible.

As a student, I learnt his wonderful late Sonata in E Flat Major, Hob XVI:52, when I was studying for my licentiate diploma (L Mus A). This is the first movement, played by Bulgarian pianist, Ivaila Ivanova.

Tara Chan is a talented pianist and violinist. She has already been awarded an Australian Music Examinations Board A Mus A diploma, and is currently working towards her licentiate L Mus A diploma, and is not yet 16 years of age.

Tara enjoys playing violin with fellow violinist Chloe McCormick, violist and pianist, Ailie McGarity and cellist,Nicola Ball in the delightful Bella Forte string quartet.

On Sunday, 28th August, 2011, Tara will perform her L Mus A program in a 12.30 PM concert in The Orchard Room at Mitchell Conservatorium. The concert is free of charge and includes J S Bach's Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, from his Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Mozart's Sonata in A Minor, K.310, Chopin Prelude in C# Minor, op 10 no 4 and Prokofiev's one movement A Minor Sonata.

A splended time is guaranteed for all.

The one thing better than one guitar ...

Peter and Marion Constant

... is Two Guitars, according to Frederic Chopin.

And on Sunday, 14th August, 2011, at 3 PM you can prove this for yourself at a concert at Mitchell Conservatorium, in the west wing of Bathurst Court House, in Russell St.

Peter Constant learnt guitar through Mitchell Conservatorium in the 80s, as a student at St Stanislaus College (Stannies). He later joined Guitar Trek, Canberra's terrific ensemble, modelled on the string quartet.

In this clip, Peter plays a bass classical guitar, while Marion plays an octave guitar, crafted by Australian luthier, Graham Caldersmith.

Bach's well-known Bourrée in E Minor inspired Paul McCartney's song Blackbird, featured on The Beatles white double album.



Watching videos on Youtube is enjoyable, but is a pale reflection of a live music concert. And Mitchell Conservatorium's Orchard Room is a great intimate venue for live musical performances.

See you there!

Explaining the strange notation

This piece of music, which looks like one note on a strange musical stave, is actually 4 notes, spelling the name BACH.

There's no H in the musical alphabet in English, but there is in German. Germans call our B flat B and our B H.

Reading the music anticlockwise, also known as widdershins, you have the well-known treble clef, then a tenor clef (used by cellos, bassoons and a few other instruments), an alto clef (mainly used by violas) and another treble clef.

The notes are then
B flat = B
A
C
and
B =H

But the source of this ingenious musical curiosity is unknown. Musicologists would love to find that it comes from Bach himself, but so far its origin is undetermined.

Two flutes and a piano

What more could you want for an afternoon or evening of beautiful music?

Perhaps you'd like some top-quality players to play them ...

We have that organised for you.

Does this whet your appetite?



Mitchell Conservatorium's version is the reverse of the video, because our performers are two men and one woman: Prem Love, Phil Braithwaite and Cindy Fox, all teachers at our Bathurst campus.

The concert also includes some beautiful Bach, Doppler's Hungarian Fantasy and a piece that is becoming very popular around Bathurst: Eliza's Aria, from Elena Kats-Chernin's Wild Swans ballet.

You can enjoy this beautiful music at

Hoskins Memorial Church, 43 Bridge St, Lithgow on Friday, 29th April, 2011 at 7.30 PM
or at
Baptist Church Community Centre, 70 Bruce Rd Mudgee on Saturday, 30th April, 2011 at 7.30 PM
or on
Sunday, 1st May, 2011 at 3 PM at Mitchell Conservatorium in Russell St, Bathurst.

The concert is free for Conservatorium students and costs

$20 for Adults
$15 Concession
$10 for U3A and CPSA cardholders