Arto
Oct-05-2004, 10:50am
I had the great pleasure to participate in EGMA (European Guitar and Mandolin Association) Mandolin symposium in Trossingen, Germany Sep 29-Oct 3. I´m still dizzy from all there, but I try to put some thoughts here.
It was quite large happening, with 105 participants from 19 or 20 countries. Trossingen is a tiny town in southern Germany, I had difficulties locating it in the map, but getting there proved to be quite pleasant as I was travelling with another Finnish participant, Mr Jouni Koskimäki who´s teaching composing and arrangement in Jyväskylä University in central Finland. Jouni is a board member in EGMA and had been in Trossingen before, and was as nice chap to travel with as you could possibly hope for. The event was located in a youth music education center that was almost in countryside: nice place, good food, and extremely kind and efficient organisers. Special thanks to Mr Rüdiger Grambow and his charming wife!
The program was absolutely fantastic. The theme was historical performing practice, and there were 13 lectures ranging from Baroque music practice in general to certain composers (from Vivaldi to "from Schönberg to Zappa"!) and to Embergher mandolins (extremely informative presentation by our own Alex!)and building copies of old historic instruments (presented by luthier Alfred Woll). There were mandolin concerts in every of the four evenings with performers like Gertrud Weyhofen, Caterina Lichtenberg, Sebastiaan de Grebber and Ugo Orlandi with his students, to name a few. Many of the lectures included live performance examples, too.
The level of both presentations and concerts was extremely high. After two days I thought I MUST have seen the best and the level can only go down after this, but the program got my totally hooked until the very end. The majority of lectures were in German, but there was English translation.
I had NEVER had any real life contact with live classical mandolin music and its performers before. There isn´t much of any classical mandolin scene in Finland, so my contact to this fascinating world has been CDs, a few books, and to name the most important: you, my dear friends here in MC classical section. So, it is difficult for me to express in words how it was to see, talk with, and see performing those classical mandolin heros of my life. (Some heroes could not be present: Carlo Aonzo, Richard Walz, Alison Stephens, Duilio Galfetti and Marilynn Mair).
The atmosphere was very friendly and easy-going. I had expected to hear some flames or at least tension concerning for example the playing and instrument styles in Germany and Italy, or concerning the mandolin nomenclature, but there was none. All the great names were very kind and nice to talk with. In the first days I had some sort of inferiority complex among all those pros, but I got rid of it later: it was not ME who was going to perform, thank God!
PS: There can´t possibly be a sweeter person around among world-class musical performers than Caterina Lichtenberg...
I try to post some pictures, IF I succeeded with my photos and IF I finally learn how to post pictures in this message board!
Life is SOOO good.
Arto
It was quite large happening, with 105 participants from 19 or 20 countries. Trossingen is a tiny town in southern Germany, I had difficulties locating it in the map, but getting there proved to be quite pleasant as I was travelling with another Finnish participant, Mr Jouni Koskimäki who´s teaching composing and arrangement in Jyväskylä University in central Finland. Jouni is a board member in EGMA and had been in Trossingen before, and was as nice chap to travel with as you could possibly hope for. The event was located in a youth music education center that was almost in countryside: nice place, good food, and extremely kind and efficient organisers. Special thanks to Mr Rüdiger Grambow and his charming wife!
The program was absolutely fantastic. The theme was historical performing practice, and there were 13 lectures ranging from Baroque music practice in general to certain composers (from Vivaldi to "from Schönberg to Zappa"!) and to Embergher mandolins (extremely informative presentation by our own Alex!)and building copies of old historic instruments (presented by luthier Alfred Woll). There were mandolin concerts in every of the four evenings with performers like Gertrud Weyhofen, Caterina Lichtenberg, Sebastiaan de Grebber and Ugo Orlandi with his students, to name a few. Many of the lectures included live performance examples, too.
The level of both presentations and concerts was extremely high. After two days I thought I MUST have seen the best and the level can only go down after this, but the program got my totally hooked until the very end. The majority of lectures were in German, but there was English translation.
I had NEVER had any real life contact with live classical mandolin music and its performers before. There isn´t much of any classical mandolin scene in Finland, so my contact to this fascinating world has been CDs, a few books, and to name the most important: you, my dear friends here in MC classical section. So, it is difficult for me to express in words how it was to see, talk with, and see performing those classical mandolin heros of my life. (Some heroes could not be present: Carlo Aonzo, Richard Walz, Alison Stephens, Duilio Galfetti and Marilynn Mair).
The atmosphere was very friendly and easy-going. I had expected to hear some flames or at least tension concerning for example the playing and instrument styles in Germany and Italy, or concerning the mandolin nomenclature, but there was none. All the great names were very kind and nice to talk with. In the first days I had some sort of inferiority complex among all those pros, but I got rid of it later: it was not ME who was going to perform, thank God!
PS: There can´t possibly be a sweeter person around among world-class musical performers than Caterina Lichtenberg...
I try to post some pictures, IF I succeeded with my photos and IF I finally learn how to post pictures in this message board!
Life is SOOO good.
Arto