Bach on sax
How about just a little Bach today? Yours truly with accordionist Lidia Kaminska, playing an arrangement of the fourth movement from the Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord No. 1 in B Minor, BWV 1014.
Sounds Like Now
A blog by saxophonist Brian SacawaArchive for Blog: Winter 07
Inner loop
Hybrid Groove Project’s been busy in the lab experimenting with ways to expand our live sound. Erik’s augmented his arsenal with a brand new melodica and theremin. And I’ve unearthed the effects pedal that’s been dormant in my closet since some performances of James Tenney’s Saxony a couple years ago. The pedal’s best feature is its ability to record, play back, and loop up to 23 seconds of material. And, even better, after recording the first loop, you can keep adding new layers on top of the original. So I’ve been releasing my inner minimalist recently. Here’s a short 4-part bari sax loop I came up with this weekend based on three 3-bar phrases from HGP’s work in progress a firefly in the belly:
Gramophone review
Well, 2008 is off to a grand start as The Album continues to garner some good press. Though my appeal for a recount is still being processed by the Academy, the CD review in the December issue of Gramophone Magazine, which occupies the better part of an entire page, more than makes up for the Academy’s oversight.
Unsilent feedback
Â
Unsilent Nighters may have noticed a mysterious man giving a play-by-play of the evening’s activities into a small handheld recording device. It turns out that our interloper was none other than Ed Schrader, whose Feedback article appears in this week’s CityPaper.
Movin’ on up
SLN has received a bump in the polls this year—the polls being Scott Spiegelberg’s annual Top 50 Classical Music Blogs. Using a new, and I might add, improved ranking system, we’ve skyrocketed from tied-for-49th to a very respectable 15th. This actually makes SLN the 4th best performer blog, though it’s not fair for us to be in the same category as the Violin Diaries, since I am but one person and they’ve got bloggers posting from all over the world on their aggregate site. So with that little adjustment, SLN is the 3rd best music blog by a performer. But if you put SLN in its proper instrument category—that being woodwinds—its the Number One Woodwind Performer Music Blog. Woo-hoo! We’re Number One!
Unsilent Aftermath
Baltimore’s 2nd annual performance of Phil Kline’s amibient Christmas masterpiece Unsilent Night took place last night and was by all accounts a smashing success. We had a record crowd of nearly 100 totally awesome participants. New for the 2007 edition of Unsilent Night in Baltimore was the summoning of aliens as we gathered in a circle around the infamous Male/Femal sculpture in front of Penn Station; convincing the Amtrak police that we were the “carolers” they were expecting and we did indeed know where to stage—after sharing the joy with everyone in the train station; and making our way in and then out of the lobby of the Charles Theater. Many thanks again to all the folks who helped out and spread the word about this year’s event. We’ll see everyone again next year!
P.s. Some photos of the event can be had here. And, by the way, if you came out last night and took some photos and would like to share them, that would be great. Just send me an email!
