Guitar and Violin in Europe

This month Judith Hickel and I played a series of seven concerts in Germany and Sweden on Violin and Guitar. Our program included New Zealand and Australian composers Phillip Houghton (Aus), Ross Edwards (Aus), Peter Leask (NZ) and of my arrangements of some Maori songs (He Wawata, Po Atarau, Hine e Hine and Pokarekare Ana). The program also included favourites such as the Brahms Hungarian Dances number 1 and 5, the Meditation from the “Thais” Opera of Massenet and some solo guitar Celtic music arr. by David Russell. Overall, the tour was three weeks, with half a week on the plane and one week to get over some of the jet lag. I got to Heidelberg on a fairly smooth flight and connections to be picked up by Judith. Rehearsal began the next day and was fairly intense until the opening concert, as we learnt new material, brushed up old material and had dress rehearsals in the venues for the first three concerts. After playing a short set during the church service in Heidelberg to drum up some interest in the upcoming concerts, we were asked to play at a mid-week function for a local theatre – the Unterwegs Theatre, its 18th birthday. Unfortunately, only I was able to play at this gig, as Jude had other things to attend to, and it was very nice little party for a few people including some local politicians. Of course, being a true Kiwi, I managed to find the only pub to show the All Blacks game in Germany. So I had to go and cheer them on against the English and then negate the Heidelberg public transport (which was actually really good). The opening concert in Hoffenheim was a very good one. I was amazed at how warm the crowd was during and after the concert. The next two concerts in Bammental and Heidelberg were also well attended and attracted similar reaction from the audience. At this stage, I sold out all the Cd’s that I had bought to Europe – I guess people enjoyed what they heard. We knew that we would enjoy playing the concerts, but we didn’t expect the reaction to be so overwhelming by the people who came along. After the first three concerts, I had two days off to play ‘Tourist’, and managed to get around town to check it out and take a few photo’s that tourists do. The remaining four concerts were on consecutive days in both Germany and Sweden. Firstly Brühl was to a small but appreciative audience, then after a long day traveling we got to the Grappe wine house in Stockholm and added Alison Hurst (Soprano) to the remaining programs with some Swedish songs. This was probably the smallest concerts, as the weather was particularly bad that day, and a few people (who had RSVPed) just didn’t get there. The evening was divided into two sections; firstly we played the music that featured both New Zealand and Australia, and then there was the wine tasting where we compared three New Zealand and three Australian wines. I thought that the New Zealand wines were the best but I only had one eye open! ha! It was a fine evening and thanks to the guys at Grappe who were very accommodating hosts. The concert at the Australian Ambassador’s Residence the following evening was really cool – and I may have been nervous if I’d known before the concert that just about every ambassador to Sweden was in attendance, but then that made for a great night of mix ‘n mingling after the concert. The final concert in Uppsala was something where we finished the tour on a high note – and the 2pm start felt like a normal 8pm start as the sun was practically gone. Anyone would have thought that the sun was on strike for the four days I was in Sweden. Anyway, we gave another good concert (by now the ensemble was starting to feel quite natural), to yet another good crowd, followed by a master-class from Judith for the violin dept. I had offered to help with this by giving my thoughts on a violinists bowing arm…Oh well. The last day in Europe had my host Byörn showing me around Stockholm in the morning, before I caught the evening flight to Frankfurt to connect to the red-eye to Sydney. In 2007, we will be trying to record our first CD for Guitar and Violin. There has always been a lot of request for this, both at home and abroad. We have put forward applications for funding and have our fingers crossed. As this will be my last post before the break, I wish you a merry Xmas and a happy new year (and I’m impressed you got this far through this yarn!)