AgiotFest '09
Villa Theodora ~ Sept 7
Agios Ioannis
Let me just quote from the programme notes and leave the reviewy stuff to Democracy Don.
Program
INTERVAL
Born Thessaloniki, graduated at age 18 from the New Conservatory of Thessaloniki, continuing her studies at the Anton Bruckner University of Music in Linz and the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Freiburg.
She studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and her postgraduate work includes “Breathing and Voice Education for Windplayers”.
As a soloist, RG has performed with orchestras in Greece, abroad and at international festivals.
Since 2005, she has been teaching flute at the Department of Music Studies of the Ionian University in Corfu.
A church chorister, LM played the pianoforte from the age of six and later the viola and oboe. At the tender age of twelve, he found himself organist and choirmaster of a church choir of twenty-four boys. They were locally famous, determined to remain so, and therefore made sure that he quickly learned his job.
Following military service, Mann studied at the Royal College of Music.
After holding church and cathedral appointments, he became a concert organist with N.Z.B.C. and the N.Z.S.O. Together with scholastic appointments, he has performed for radio and television and with orchestras and choral societies in Britain and New Zealand.
Dr. Mann retired to Corfu in 1994 where he makes music and teaches.
The electronic organ used in this performance was the smaller of Dr. Mann’s two Ahlborn instruments. Its twenty-five registers faithfully reproduce the tone of a German instrument of 1750.
Note: A most relaxing soirée in a stunning setting that I must monitor for future treats of this kind.
Expert staff, good nosh, and the perfect chance to catch up with old pals who'd gone into aestivation during the hurly-burly of summer.
Lèse Majesté Revisionist Note: Blog it not in Gouvia, Twitter it not in the streets of Arkadades lest I be defenestrated from the Wednesday church luncheons, but I had some uneasy encounters with some of the more agile notes issuing from Dr Mann's noble machine.
Others, including my near-nonagenarian mother, pleaded doddery old age on Il Dottore's part but alert stool-pigeon "Paul" outs LM as a mere 82 [see comment].
Loipon, there sinks the senility card.
Not that I know this posh music, which segues me splendidly to the evening's pertest put-down - did you hear it?
One of Holy Trinity's more redoubtable songbirds asked who was on the programme. Quick as a crotchet came the saccharine squelch: "You wouldn't understand it".
My dears, her face.
By the bellows of Bacchylides! I nearly fell into the chlorine laughing.
Back to the music, I was mesmerised by the 'Fantasie Mélancolique' by Mathieu-André Reichert. If only I'd met it when Cost Centre#1 was still fluteneering: There's a perfect guitar accompaniment waiting to be worked up there.
Smarming up to her, I put this to la belle Georgiadis who gave me a most quizzical look.
I can't find Fantasie on YouTube so here's M-A R's Reverie in A Minor for a taste.
2 comments :
Well, he is eighty two
As young as that?
Ah well, I must go back in and write what I really felt at the time.
I was mentioning my disappointment to my mother and how it was difficult to separate the melodious flute from the occasional organ clangers, and she too cited mitigating age.
I don't know how old we all think/thought dear LM is, but your comment makes clear there's room for revision.
Thanks. 'S what blogging's for.
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