Paintings of Maribor Music Festival 2015

My watercolour sketches/paintings of the musicians at the Maribor Music Festival are now online at www.artsmitten.com. I added a bit of a commentary to the paintings this year, for my own benefit as well as for that of viewers.  

Maribor Musicians 2015 online

Gstaad, home of the Menuhin Festival

Where do you go if you want to hear tenor Jonas Kaufmann sing and you find all his opera performances are long since sold out? Well, if it's August, you go to Switzerland, to a tiny place called Gstaad, high up in the mountains.  The road/rail ends at Gstaad - it is as far as you can go before the rock face to the south cuts you off. Over the mountain is Italy.

Switzerland: Zweisimmen (red arrow left) and
Gstaad (red arrow right) and lots of ski-lifts

Gstaad seems an unlikely choice for a famous-tenor concert, particularly when you find Kaufmann is singing in a tent (yes really!), but then you discover this concert is part of the Menuhin Music Festival and that Yehudi Menuhin lived in Gstaad and it no longer seems so outlandish.

Festival Tent in Gstaad

I discovered this concert a few months ago when there were still tickets available and here I am, jetlagged but ready to listen.

I am not in Gstaad yet actually but in nearby  Zweisimmen. A bed in Gstaad costs CHF300 (AUD$412) - way too expensive for artists, or many people really.  There is a piano recital (also part of the Menuhin Festival) in the Zweisimmen church the night before Kaufmann sings, so it seemed an ideal place to stay. I did check the train timetables and yes, there is a late train back to Zweisimmen! I have since discovered that a shuttle bus services operates from Bern and Lausanne for the major concerts so perhaps even the Swiss find accommodation prices in Gstaad a little overwhelming.

Music and lights in Pearl Beach

Isabella Brown plays Double Bass

The Pearl Beach Progress Association is quite a phenomenon. I don't know the average age of the members but whatever it is, they are proof that you don't have to slow down with age.  Among the events they organise is the June long-weekend Music Festival. Four mostly classical concerts over two days in their small community hall. There is always a taste of other music to cater for those less classically interested and this year it was Tango.

This year was also the first year with a new lighting system and the person operating the lights seemed quite captivated by all the different combinations he could produce. We had a very colourful show.

The Taming the Tango concert on Sunday night was the best attended concert and very well received, but my personal favorite was the first concert on Saturday afternoon: the Acacia Quartet playing a music by Elena Kats-Chernin, an Australian composer whose music I very much like.

I am delighted the Progress Association continue to bring serious classical musicians north for  evenings of intimate music in their lovely old hall. There is nothing that quite compares with hearing music in such surroundings.

Music in wet Maribor

Maribor on the River Drava: taken on the only fine day this week

Town square in Maribor

Maribor is a city that captures your heart. There is something about the place that makes you want to return repeatedly, something that is hard to pin down.

The city is quaint, but lots of cities have picturesque quarters. Maribor is safe, but then so are many others. The citizenry are rather old worldly and conservative but they are very friendly and accepting. And they all love music. Perhaps it is the music that makes you want to return repeatedly.

I have been here almost a week and it has been a very wet one. But never mind, I am here for the music. The musicians are busy rehearsing and the concert halls are leak proof. What more could one want?

Rehearsal in progress

Simon Tedeschi and Kevin Hunt

Simon Tedeschi and Kevin Hunt play two pianos

Tedeschi and Hunt

Last night Simon Tedeschi and Kevin Hunt played two pianos at the fourth and last concert of the Pearl Beach Festival program. I didn't have high expectations; I was wondering what two pianos could do better than one and the program was a bit jazzy, not my favourite. But the concert was wonderful. It was almost all jazz apart from one Bach (which they also jazzed up but very sympathetically), very high energy and lots of fun. It was like being in a NY jazz den but without the smoke. As a result I was still bouncing around the house at midnight and I woke this morning at 6 still feeling energised.

The Pearl Beach Festival is a little oasis in the wilderness. It reminds me of the local concerts I've been to around Hamburg, held in small churches and even cow stalls (well, a historic cow stall actually). Small intimate space, great musicians, organisers who care.  Long may they continue.

Maribor Musicians online

It took a little while but at last my paintings of the 2012 Maribor Music Festival are online.
See them at artsmitten.com

Thomas Demenga plays Cello
in the Aloysius Church in Maribor

Painting in Maribor (Photo Dejan Bulut )

Beethoven's 9th at the Maribor Music Festival

Tonight was the final concert of Maribor Music Festival 2012: 'Ode to Joy'. Brahms, Messiaen, then Beethoven's 9th, a truly stirring piece. With combined orchestra and mass choir it was a great way to finish the festival.  A couple of years ago they played Beethoven's 8th in the Cathedral and I remember it was just as powerful.

Listening to a concert in the Maribor Cahedral

Tomorrow the cathedral will again be full of worshippers again, as it was last Sunday when I drew the picture below.

Sunday service in the Maribor Cathedral

Simon Tedeschi plays piano

Simon Tedeschi played piano at the Pearl Beach Festival with Ian Cooper on violin. They were charasmatic and fun. The chairs were in a semi-circle and from my viewpoint far left I could see Tedeschi face-on as he looked across to Cooper. He seemed to be all eyes as they communicated. Great show - thanks guys!
(More here)

Tedeschi plays piano