Recapping

It feels almost unusual to be home and settled for awhile.  Two of my travel-based aspects of the Lilly project are in the history book.  I thought it'd be useful to contrast the two festivals that I attended.   My original grant proposal was written with the intention to attend one of Richard's Gillacamps on Amelia Island, Fl.  The venue for that camp unexpectedly closed so alternate plans were formulated and my trip took me to the U. of Miami instead.  This was a longer trip so my husband was unable to attend.  Also my travel plans morphed into flying to Miami and Birmingham, renting cars and acquiring lodging.  As a solitary traveler this just made more sense, but it did have me hopping planes and limiting what I could bring with me, specifically the number of guitars(one).  It's useful to reflect on how I would have changed my approach to this trip.  I think I did pretty well but for one person I had too much to lug around.  My idea of shipping back my laundry and items that I no longer needed did work out beautifully and this was an excellent test run for Ireland.   Although shipping redundant items will not work for the up-coming Ireland trip. My Hiscox guitar case did a great job of protecting my instrument.  I actually observed the guitar being loaded onto airplanes twice and both times the airlines handled it respectfully.  Thanks Delta and American luggage handlers.  I noted that three of the classical guitar students at the MIGF also had Hiscox cases.
    Now in contrast the ODPC festival was an adventure shared with my husband and it served as a vacation break for him.  We drove to this four day event and with our Scion XB for transport we were able to pack it liberally.  In fact our clothing was packed into one medium sized case and everything else occupied the bulk of the space.  This included our cooler, two guitars, two mandolins, a banjo, a bodhran, video equipment, camera, and my trusty little Asus netbook.  We joked about how the proportion of clothing to "music stuff" was skewed in favor of the later.
    As would be expected the "expenses" of each trip were sharply contrasted.  My lone Florida adventure exceeded the fifteen hundred dollar mark to complete..  I am almost afraid to tally the whole cost.  There is no way I could have afforded this without the funds the fellowship provided..  My participation fees alone were around $350.  The fee for attending the ODPC funfest was a one time $5 fee for all four days.  One must keep in mind that the festival does run solely on volunteer efforts.  The only people making money were the vendors and those who were selling off their used instruments.  Of course we had hotel, travel and meal expenses.  ODPC was not free and it did reach into the $600 plus range. Again since our finances have been tight we could not have afforded this trip without my portion being aided by the Lilly grant.
    Now I want to contrast the "feel" of both events.  Here is what they had in common.  Participants who were dedicated and enthusiastic, teachers who worked very hard to engage and help their students learn, performers who were top-notch and well prepared for the performances they delivered, and venues that seemed perfect for the sort of event presented.
   MIGF and ODPC were quite different in flavor.  MGIF performances attracted both families and friends of the performers and folks from the community who would be characterized by middle class and above.  The audience was likely to be college educated(if they were old enough yet) and whose musical interests bent towards classical traditions.  The traditions of classical performances seem to revolve around maintaining a strict decorum of black clothing for the performers, specific ways to enter and exit the stage, little to no verbal communication with the audience(Mir Ali broke this commandment and it was quite refreshing) and a certain stiffness that comes from trying to accurately play a piece of music with respect for the composer.  This does not mean that personal expression was restricted, it just seemed to take a back seat to written music. Now I will admit that I was not familiar with much or any of the compositions presented so my analysis probably exposes that ignorance.  I was truly surprised that some of the performers had their music in front of them during the performance.  Now much of this seems to shatter when the Flamenco tradition creeps in and takes over the performers spirits.  Richard's participation in this series was definitely a mould breaker since his mastery of many traditions clearly results in his own interpretations of the pieces he has chosen for his extensive repertoire.   As he presented material to students who are nurtured in the classical tradition with material that expected them to experiment, they had definite difficulty.  Mir Ali, another master, who performs and teaches within this classical tradition did not fear bending the music to his own personality.  He has a special gift for arranging multiple performers, pushing them out of their comfort zones. 
    ODCP was definitely the "common" peoples event and families participated together often spanning generations.  The participants spanned the gamut of raw beginners to seasoned professionals.  Much emphasis is placed upon being able to develop the skills to jam together with other musicians.  Instead of inhabiting the hallowed grounds of academia this festival populated the local county fair grounds and had much of that atmosphere permeating it.  Great strides were made to make everyone feel welcome, young, old and all in-between.  It was a very fluid event with people and their carts of instruments, chairs(you had to bring your own) and accessories shuttling through aisle ways and in and out of barns with wonderful titles like "swine", "rabbit", "poultry" and "beef".  As one acquaintance described it, "looks like an exodus of refugees".   Neither bovine or bunny were in sight and the only birds spied were the occasional swallows and wrens that fluttered their ways in an out of the structures.  It is easy to feel comfortable in a situation such as this.  Certainly there is less stress about attempting new material and making the typical newbie mistakes.  Since there were so many people, most wouldn't even hear your clunkers.  The musical foundation for those who play chording instruments was learning the basic three chord progressions in the major keys and throwing in the occasional relative minor. The focus of this sort of event is trying to make it possible for the masses to participate in the joy of music.  Old Timey music dominated and Celtic traditions were an extremely strong focus as well.

Richard Gilewitz Sound Checks prior to his Friday night concert

Miami International Guitar Festival-1st Concert Day

This was another busy day. It started in the morning with workshops over slide and sound. After those two experiences I, along with the rest of the students, had the opportunity to watch and listen as Richard and Mir Ali practiced and jammed together. They experimented with a number of different tunes and seem to have settled on combining efforts on Greensleeves, Romancsa(I have this title wrong), a medley that begins with Anji and wrapping up on Freight Train. This is subject to change since they are currently meeting here at the hotel to go over more details. They have another rehearsal scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. We attended a concert in the recital hall that RG will perform in Friday evening. It opened with Rene Gonzalez, head of the U of Miami classical guitar program, he was joined by a flutist later in the set. The show was wrapped up by a newly formed classical guitar trio, The Miami Guitar Trio. Their performance was nearly perfect. All of this provided a great experience even though I wasn't able to play much today. Because of my association with Richard I was to able attend a post concert informal get together at a local sports bar. It was interesting to listen to all of the conversations between these artists as they shared information about their careers and devotion to playing their instruments. I had very little to contribute except when the talk became more purely social. RG is wondering how the audience will react to his non-classical approach to playing. It will be quite interesting to see how everyone adjusts to having a performer break all of the rules of a classical concert. I believe tomorrow I will be spending my day doing two things, playing guitar on my own(haven't actually had much time for this) and providing an anchor for another of RG's students,Camille, who is coming into town for his concert. The concert will open with Mir Ali, a spectacular classical/flamenco style player and RG has the second set. At the end they will join forces for a few tunes. I'm going to bring this to a quick close and focus on some of my playing.

I Made It!

It is around 8pm and a very busy travel day has concluded. I am settled into my hotel room in Coral Gables near the University of Miami. Fortunately everything is quite convenient because the traffic is horrendous. Yesterday I awakened feeling like a cold was doing its best to threaten my guitar bliss. Well I'm not giving in! Today I do feel worse. My plane flights were a bit on the stressful side, beginning with a 60 minutes delay at SBN which ultimately left me with 20 minutes to navigate myself to my Miami bound plane from Atlanta. It seems that every time I have had a connecting flight it was necessary to practically run to the next boarding gate but this was the ultimate. I deplaned with less than 20 minutes to make it to the next gate. In fact once I made it to the gate most of the passengers had boarded and my name was not in the system leaving me concerned that they had automatically moved me to later flight. Now my biggest fear was that my guitar would be loaded on a different flight. It was a tense 45 minutes as I waited at the baggage carousel for my guitar and luggage. Kudos to Delta, they got it right and I have my trusty 6 string with me. My cold has caused some complications in fact during the descent into MIA I thought my ears were going to burst. It was pretty darn unpleasant and has currently left me hearing in mono because my left ear has been left with reduced hearing. I hope I didn't pop an eardrum or something. I guess the sinus meds I took weren't effective enough. Once I checked into my room my next goal was to find a drug store and to get some more meds which I have done and am getting some relief. I have talked and texted with John numerous times. It is going to be pretty tough to manage 9 days without my soul mate at my side. I probably won't see RG tonight. He has commitments with the festival organizers and some of the other performers. Workshops begin tomorrow morning so we may touch base to make plans to meet. In the meantime I will take advantage of this "me" time and get some practice in.

If All Goes Well

I will be flying out of South Bend in about nine hours. I plan on hitting the bed earlier than usual tonight. I did wake up this morning feeling kind of sick. Not a good thing with so much on my plate for the next 9 days. Maybe it is a little bit of a cold that I will shake quickly. I've been downing Vitamin C and fluids to battle this bug. It is affecting my throat, not sore but scratchy with the feeling that if I spoke a lot I just might lose my voice. Also a feeling that my asthma wants to kick in is lurking. Positive thing about this Richard won't have to hear me whine when I hit a rough patch in my playing. By now I had better have everything prepped and ready because the point of no return is looming and if I have forgotten something hopefully it is something that is easily acquired in Miami. So I had better hang onto my brain and focus.