Madison Friday: Glory!
Yesterday was all about preps for the participant concerts. I dawdled over breakfast, being social, as I had an extra half hour before I needed to be at school. I warmed up on the pipes, went onstage for the runthrough at 9:05. Then we went into another room to run the loud band stuff. Loud band was due onstage at 11:30, but Bob told us to blow it off as we'd run it already. Most of us didn't get the message though, and since Bill Baylis, Mike Allsen and I were ready to play anyway, we ran our little trio. Then off to eat sushi for lunch.
The gig went well. My piping was about as good as it gets after a week, though I was cheating by having the drone blocked. We pulled a little stunt: we had signsd pinned to our backs, and on the last note we turned around to reveal the message "Piffaro farm team". Priscilla Smith really is on the AAA Piffaro farm team (she's on their new album), but me? How low does the pro baseball system go? (But I could make a tenuous claim to being on the Ciaramella farm team because of my appearance in Anna's play.) The concert was filled with inspiring performances. Priscilla led and Marion Verbruggen coached a recreation of Loeki Stardust's transcription of Sweelinck's Mein junge Leben hat ein End, in which ALSQ's size-12 shoes were filled with size 11 1/2 feet. Case's own Concerto delle Donne sang wonderfully with a chalumeau (!). (Whenever I said I was from Cleveland, singers felt they had to make positive comments about our ladies...Sarah, Sherry, Cheryl, you GO girls!). Ockeghem's Petite Camusette was ably sung by the channelled voices of Musica Reservata. Then there were a few performances that were, uh, inspiring in a different way. And I knew then that if I crashed and burned, I would be better than that. So the loud band went on near the end, and I played as well or better than I'd ever played. Laura's hubby got it all on Ipod and she has promised me a copy. And at the end, Ellen Hargis made her public dance debut.
Afterwards was mass rehearsal, and Josquin's Virgo salutiferi went exceptionally well. Afterwards, Bob and Joan, Priscilla, Liza, Christine, Laura and her husband Rich and a few others went down to the Memorial Union for beer and brats on the lake, coming back just in time for the King's Noyse concert. I will admit that my critical faculties were in liquid abeyance for the first half, but there was nothing to criticize, this being the King's Noyse. The show was Josquin, Compere, Phalese, Willaert, and Lasso, and KN brought new life to old chestnuts like El Grillo. Grant, Christa, and Tom Zajac played with them. Case's Julie Andrijeski seems to be part of the band these days, and forsook her viola to do a dance number with Grant. And of course, Ellen was singing, doing a particularly effective job of miming Willaert's O bene mio.
Comments
Posted by: Matthew Smith-Soley
Posted on: August 1, 2007 03:22 PM
Hi Jeffrey! Nice to "meet" you! I work with Piffaro on the office-side, and your blog came up on my rss feed today. So glad to hear of your experience at Madison! J&B came back exhausted, but pleased I think. They haven't discovered the blogosphere yet, but I printed out a copy of your entry to pass along. It's so good to see Piffaro being talked about out there. :-)
Best,
Matthew
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: August 1, 2007 03:54 PM
Well, Bob and Joan did a damn fine job, and they SHOULD be pleased! There are very few groups out there doing anything like what Piffaro is doing, and it's highly honorable that they're doing so much to generate their future competition!