I don’t live in the right place (Seville, in the very south of Spain), I know that, but where should I go?
There are many very good early music professionals in Seville, but I’m missing professional players my age who want to play, play and play! Who want to rehearse for the sake of playing, of getting better, of working on projects as a group (I think, sometimes, collective intelligence ends up in a deeper and more interesting result than one working on his own).
I want to go out for some beers and talk with friends about the music from, for example, the Odhecaton. Where are viol and lute players who, apart from Marais and Kapsberger, are in love with music by Rogniono, Agricola, Ghiselin or Cabezón? The easy answer for this one could be Basel, but Basel is incredibly expensive.
I want to go to early music concerts, as many as I can. Where is early music alive, or as alive as possible?
Where are young early music professionals who are fighting to make a living playing music, who don’t mind playing one day in a concert hall, and another day in a bar or restaurant?
I don’t know where to move. Help?
10 responses to “I want to play!”
Well we are in Norwich England and we do a lot of playing take a look at our web site.
Tony
Basel of course.
The best place to be.
I still miss it.
Wenn du’s rausgefunden hast lass es mich wissen 😉 Ich werde ab nächstem Sommer dieselbe Frage haben.
Liebe Grüsse
Daia
Hehe, FALLS Ich es rausfinde sag Ich Bescheid 😉
Basel stelle ich mir auch toll vor. Ansonsten weiß ich nicht, ob es woanders wirklich besser ist. Hier im Rhein-Main-Gebiet habe ich den Eindruck, es sind vor allem ambitionierte Amateure, die sich wirklich für alte Musik begeistern, sich damit beschäftigen und spielen, spielen, spielen wollen. Bei den Profis habe ich oft den Eindruck, die stecken in “ihrem” jeweiligen Repertoire fest. Gerade die alte Musik unterschätzen sie oft. Die Noten sehen ja so leicht aus. Aber wirklich Musik draus zu machen ist gar nicht so leicht.
PS Bin auf deine Website gestoßen, weil ich auch ein g-Bassett suche. Aber so viel Glück wie du muss man erst mal haben!
Ja, den idealen Ort gibts wahrscheinlich nicht 🙁
Danke für deinen Kommentar und viel Glück bei der Basset-Suche!! (Manchmal kann Ich mein Glück immer noch nicht glauben ;))
I know how you feel. I’m a relative newcomer to early music and the recorder (most of my musical career has been spent around wind ensembles and jazz bands as a saxophone player and conductor), but I have completely fallen in love with them and would like to take to some time to really develop my skills in this area. Although making a living as any type of musician can be tough, it seems even tougher for early music professionals who are mainly confined to academic circles…although all you really need is a small group of like-minded individuals to make something truly worthwhile. Here in the United States the main centers for professionals working in early music seem to be around the Boston/New England area and the San Francisco Bay area (which hosts a series of concerts as well as summer workshops for both professionals and dedicated amateurs). There does, thankfully, seem to be a number of growing scenes and university programs spreading throughout the country. I’m in El Paso, Texas and the early music scene here is relatively new but growing and it is sure exciting to see…and we are planning on having performances at bars and restaurants! I’ll need to save up money to find a place to study early music performance somewhere, but in the meantime, I’ll do my best to help build up the scene here.
PS-I am totally impressed with all of your performances as well as those of the Seville Conservatory recorder class! They are fantastic! I can sure learn a lot from you! If you ever find yourself in America (or if I find myself in Spain) I would gladly go see you perform live and discuss the music of the Odhecaton! If I were you I would try contacting the San Francisco Early Music Society, The Amherst Early Music Festival, and/or Early Music America to see if they would be willing to book you as a performer or instructor for some of their events.
Dear Ricky! Thanks very much for your comment, suggestions and compliments 🙂
Yes, I think taking early music to bars is one of the best ways to get people to listen to it, take it out of its academic “boring” context! Maybe tell me about it when you get it going? I’d love to hear how it’s going 🙂
I wish you loads of luck with your projects!
You’re welcome and I sure will 🙂 By the way, if I ever decide to spend a few months studying abroad, what are your thoughts on good yet reasonably affordable places to study or experience early music in Europe? I’ve heard Basel is pretty much the most ideal place, but like you’ve said, it’s very expensive. I’ve also heard a lot about Amsterdam, and from your videos it seems that there are great things happening in Seville. Any other places that come to mind?
That’s a very difficult question 😉 It depends as well on what you’re looking for. If the most important thing to you would be your teacher or to have many people with whom to play chamber music. In Seville there are not many students, especially of the other instruments, but Vicente Parrilla sure is a very good (and very demanding) teacher. I haven’t travel around for music purposes so I can’t really tell you about the other places. But all the answers I got to this post were either Basel or Holland (Amsterdam & The Hague). I think the recorder class in Bremen, Germany is quite big as well and then there is Susana Borsch teaching in Trossingen, Germany. But you should rather talk to some people who studied there. Anyway the perfect place doesn’t exist. Good luck!!