Worldwide Sketch Crawl 43 – Brewster, NY – April 19, 2014
Was feeling not sufficiently tip-top to join the NYC Urban Sketchers for this one, so stayed local – remembered a spread of wild hyacinths in walking distance; with this year’s late spring, the timing was right for them to be in peak bloom, and well-festooned with the native bees!
Spring Bees on Hyacinth 2014
Greenwich High School Jazz Festival – March 22, 2014
I was dragooned into serving as MC for the GHS Jazz Festival. A total of 14 high school jazz ensembles performed in an all-day affair. So I brought along the sketchbook to maintain sanity. I did capture all of the faculty directors, and quite a number of the students; these (over 30 sketches!) will be directed to a different presentation forum to be determined. Here I offer tribute to the organizer, John S. Yoon of Greenwich High School, and also include sketches of several of the professional musicians who served as judges, and then performed briefly at the end of the festivities. Not portrayed here, but shown on previous blog posts, were Greg Gisbert (trumpet) and Rich Perry (sax). Milliman presents an interesting aspect when performing: looks down at his instrument, so that only the top of his head is showing; for an old guy he sure scrammed fast at the end, gone like a cool breeze before I could track him down for an autograph!
John S. Yoon
Linc Milliman
Scott Brown
Justin DiCioccio
David Oliver
Sloan Wainwright – Pound Ridge Library – March 9, 2014
Wainwright is a scion (scioness?) of the Wainwright-musical-industrial complex of Westchester County (sister of the more famous Loudon III), performing here on basically her home turf. Her passionately expressive pipes put over both covers and her originals, composed with longtime collaborator Murphy. Carroll provided intermittent harmony and hand percussion.
Sloan Wainwright
Steve Murphy
Cadence Carroll
Poetry & Poetry Talk – Bruno Walter Auditorium – March 6, 2014
The real title of this presentation is waaaaay too long to fit on the title line: “e.e. cummings and Edna St. Vincent Millay: Two Mid-20th-Century Stars”. Presented in collaboration with Poetry Society.org at the NY Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, it featured discussions of the bibliographic books by Cheever (cummings) and Milford (Millay), followed by poetry readings by Collins (cumming) and Brown (Millay).
Billy Collins
Blair Brown
Nancy Milford
Susan Cheever
Busking New York – Columbus Circle Subway Station – January 30, 2014
I finally came up against a performer (kora player Salieu M. Suso) who wouldn’t sign, leading to speculation on my part about why that would be. Guitarist Martinez was much more accommodating (and took a picture of the sketch to boot).
Salieu M. Suso
Daniello Martinez
Focus: Schnittke’s World (2) – Juilliard School, Peter Jay Sharp Theater – January 30, 2014
For my second foray into this year’s Focus festival, in contrast to Tuesday’s session, complete ensembles (and a soloist) were captured, lending a slightly better sense of closure, though I didn’t stick around long enough to try to get autographs. The first number was six hands on a single piano!
David Aladashvili & Peter Dugan & Dan K. Kurland
Tristan Clarke & Aaron Plourde & Samuel Jones
Fanya Lin
Focus: Schnittke’s World (1) – Juilliard School, Peter Jay Sharp Theater – January 27, 2014
This year’s Focus festival is on Alfred Schnittke and his circle. The four players portrayed are each part of a separate ensemble; time is too brief to get any entire group.
Robyn Quinnett
Remy Taghavi
Ai-Ching Huang
Khari Joyner
Songbook: Broadway’s Future – Bruno Walter Auditorium – January 27, 2014
This was a serendipitous session. I was mad early for a program at Juilliard, needing to kill a major hunk of time, so I went over to the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center to check out the exhibitions. Downstairs was an unstaged no-costume reading (a kind of intermediate phase of development) of a musical play, “Gary Goldfarb, Master Escapist”. The major players were there, as well as the lyricist, the composer (who played piano accompaniment), and a drummer to fill out the music. Although Broadway musicals are not my thing, this wasn’t so different in terms of sketching, so I just went at it, and was thoroughly entertained in the process.
James Olmstead
Omri Schein
Jared Loftin
Zachary Eldredge
Helen Avakian – Unitarian Fellowship Hall – January 18, 2014
Avakian was the featured performer at the Poughkeepsie branch of the Hudson Valley Folk Guild. She’s an awesome songwriter and performer; her encore, a version of Rhapsody in Blue, was the kind of virtuosic thing that makes me want to put down the guitar.
Helen Avakian
Pepe Romero – Winter Garden – January 10, 2014
This performance by the classical master was part of the larger New York Guitar Festival. John Schaefer, one of the festival organizers, introduced Romero, and as he usually does, provided insightful info tidbits and anecdotes. First, although it was an all-Bach program, it turns out that ol’ JS never composed a single note for guitar – all Bach guitar pieces are transcribed from works meant for other instruments. Pepe Romero was part of a family performing troupe (the Romeros) consisting of a his father and the three brothers. When Pepe was born, his father was in the delivery room playing him in with some Bach; and when his father lay dying, Pepe was in the room playing him out with Bach!
Pepe Romero
