It was back on September 22nd that we went to this marvelous outside concert at Bug Light Park in South Portland. One walked around to different sites, where different musicians were playing contemporary classical music, which is just my cup of tea! Actually having hot tea there would have been great, as it was very windy and I had only a small cotton sweater with me. I was also still limping along and not able to walk very far b/c of my stupid left hip (still doing PT for that and is slowly getting better). Also apologies for the all wind noise in 3 of the videos. I was shooting with a iPod Touch without a separate mic that could have had a windscreen. Out of the 8 performances, I only saw 4 of them.
In the video above, Maya French plays violin and Jordan Guerette is on guitar playing Vivan Fung’s “11. Twisted Pipa from Twist” (2014). In the program notes, they explain that a pipa is a milleannia-old Chinese string instrument.
The next one we saw featured Brendon Wilkins, Kate Campbell Strauss, Mikayla McClure and Jayne Sawtelle - all playing different saxophones. The piece they play is “Black Waters” (2010) by Evan Williams. The composer says the piece “commemorates the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico… and is dedicated to the hope that Americans will stop destroying the earth for econmic gain and build a clean and economically vibrant energy future.”
The next one we saw featured Katherine Liccardo and Ryu Mitsuhashi on violins, Kal Sugatski on viola and Fred Edelen on cello playing a portion of Eleanor Alberga’s “Detache et martellato e zehr lebhaft und swing it man, from String Quartet #1 (1993)
And the final one, before I gave up the ghost and got an Irish coffee was Raven Chacon’s “Chorale for 4-8 Ships with Fog Horns” (2018) featuring “Maine’s most musical mariners, boat horns”
For an expanse as big as this portion of Casco Bay is, I think they needed double the amount of ships… of course the wind wasn’t helping matters. But I really liked the concept!
So… speaking of concepts… you’ve voted already? I deposited my absentee ballot at the drop box at city hall today and clinging to the beleif that Harris will win. That the racists and mysoginists and the Christian Nationalists will not have enough votes to win and that the Dems take back the house. So we can work on coping with the climate emergency, rather than destroying democracy. And for women to have the LEGAL Right in ALL States to control their own bodies.
But on a happier note, I’ve got this killer Ren-faire dress and am planning on wearing it all day on Samhain as the Ghost of Anne Boleyn… it looks very much like this painting.
Near contemporary portrait of Anne Boleyn at Hever Castle, c. 1550
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