Recording Update - thoughts, plans, realities

Thoughts on recording:

I take on recording projects with the blind faith that the process will unlock and liberate something in my playing and understanding of the music.  And while it does happen, it is not ever a final resting place... the work continues.  The act of recording is always a surge of effort that translates into change.

I remember that fact when I hit the inevitable moment of freeze-up before the recording sessions, that moment of what-was-I-thinking-I’ll-never-find-the-right-reed-etc kind of petty worry that assails everyone who faces a big project (and plays a reed instrument, but really, just substitute any tool of any trade).

That moment happened yesterday so I frittered the day and began one of my late-day practise sessions.  Nothing was easy, the reed I made was deeply unattractive.  I kept going and refused to worry.  My dear roommate endured some hardcore repetition that led to glacial improvement. Today was better.  Roommate still talking to me.

If you keep going, you will be able to do something that you couldn’t before.  And a door will open to new possibilities that make you realize that there is yet some other higher plane of existence that is just out of reach.

Update on Vivaldi recording project:

I will be interviewed this coming Sunday by WholeNote magazine for their “Vlog” series (video blog --- here is the link to current entries:  WholeNote Vlog

Thanks to Nic McGegan (leader) and Mitch Clarke (valiant copyist) we have done a third edit of our new edition of the 8 concerti that I am recording (#2 in A Minor RV 498 ; #6 in E Minor RV 484; #12 in A Minor RV499; #14 in C Minor RV480; #23 in G Minor RV 495; #25 in F Major RV 491; #26 in C Major RV 479; #27 in E Flat Major RV483 --- my edition will be available for as part of the library for the Council of Canadian Bassoonists which will be launched sometime this year with the help of my incredible students.

And we have begun the planning for the 2012/13 tour of the new CD --- the show has the working title of Vivaldi’s Lost Girls and the programming will include the bassoon concerti plus feature the incredible solo string players in my group.  We will be playing universities in different sections of the country and connecting with elementary and secondary schools on the way.  Stay tuned as we focus this project.

OK, there is more stuff but I really have to go and work out the final schedules and run the concerti once more (today is two runthroughs of all concerti).