A blogette from our tour experience:
MH: Beginning with Wisconsin and Illinois in April 2009 - the 1st shows featuring music from our brand new duo CD Wind & Fire.
In May, we continued with St. Louis, MO, Tulsa, OK, Austin, TX, and Weatherford, TX. All of the cities were evening concerts - our format was a 75 minute extended set. It seems that all in attendance enjoy this format as to the variety of flutes and percussion instruments used .... (along with our usual humorous banter and ethno-musicological insights. A highlight for myself was meeting all of the people from around the country as we shared our music - I love listening to their stories and the relaxed visiting. This tour the drive was very easy going (even though long at times with only one exception when our GPS freaked out and tried to take us to a road that didn’t exist).
While in Tulsa, the membrane for the Dizi (Chinese flute) bit the dust, and I forgot to bring my pack of rice paper. I couldn’t remember the alternative, so I gave Peter Phippen a call and he reminded me it was rolling papers. So, I asked a friend to find a smoke shop and he came back with some ZigZags - ha! It worked and on with the show.
We had a blast hanging with Keith Glowka and his wife Rhonda along with our friends
Daniel Benes and Deanna Whaley. We played with all of Keith’s musical toys into the wee hours. Great weather - sunny and 85 degrees F. While this tour was on Memorial Day weekend and we found that some graduations were going on as well, it did not mar the good vibes and musical communication. I love the harmony and peace the flute brings throughout the community.
It is a real joy to meet folks for the first time or play for someone who knows the music from recordings but hearing it live for first time or seeing familiar faces and friends on return trips.
Our performances consisted of 10 duos from the new CD Wind & Fire along with a few solo items. Since it was Scott’s first time in OK and TX, we gave him 2 solos where he just shreds the Tambruello and the Riqq. My solo piece was with Anasazi (on the album it appears as a duo with cello) I was packing 15 flutes and Scott about the same amount of percussive sounds. Saturday morning Scott and I hosted a workshop at a local world percussion shop in Austin called DRUMZ (NSR: Great place!!!).
Our last stop was at Butch and Laura Hall’s - "Summer Breeze" event. Our concert was in their backyard - a beautiful setting, a still and quiet evening - with strands
of electricity in the distant skies - a natural light show. It was great seeing Butch and Laura again along with Mark Slater and his wife, Karen and Robert and Julia Gatliff and Maurice Bigham and his wife and many others. Robert and Maurice gave an Anasazi presentation in the early afternoon followed by a major Texas BBQ (and vegetarian fixin’s for a few of us veg types).
After our concert - we invited anyone who wanted to jam with Scott and I to do so. This
went well into the late evening, there was some very nice flutin’ goin’ on!
This was a wonderful first outing with about 3 or 4 more similar tours scheduled in support of Wind & Fire. Thanks to all who hosted the events and to everyone who attended and participated. We hope to see you on the road and look forward to sharing our music.
COMING SOON - Impressions from our OR & CA tour in July!