My Beautiful Mandolin Friend (Alison Stephens)

[Nigel Gatherer]

It was many years ago when I first met the late mandolinist Alison Stephens. I was visiting a conference of mostly classically trained musicians, and as a self-taught traditional mandolin player I felt nervous in their company. Ali embraced me and gave me such love and respect that my apprehension disappeared. We became friends and every time we met up from then on was a joy, especially when we played music together.

When in 2010 I was told that she had been admitted to a hospice, I was moved to compose a piece of music for her; I wrote it, recorded it and sent it off the same day. She died very quickly and while that is a blessing, she was unable to hear the tune I had simply called "My Beautiful Mandolin Friend"."

This piece has been performed by a number of ensembles, and is being recorded by Hamburg mandolinist Jochen Ross. I am delighted that there is interest in it, no doubt because of Alison's popularity. I am happy for anyone who wishes to use it, play it, record it, completely free of charge, and it is available in a number of formats from my website:

www.nigelgatherer.com/tunes/mbmf.html

[CharlieKnuth]

Thank you very much Nigel. I have played this piece on and off for the last couple of years and have really enjoyed its beauty. I never had the honor of meeting Alison Stephens, but this is a lovely tribute to her and a very gracious thing that you have done.

[Andy Boden]

[Andy Boden]

When I first started to play the mandolin (a couple of years ago) I downloaded Nigel's Tune of the Week collection and came across this lovely tune and found it captivating.

Here is my (sequenced) arrangement of it

https://soundcloud.com/andabouk/my-b...andolin-friend

Thanks Nigel

Andy

[Misty Stanley-Jones]

When I first started to play the mandolin (a couple of years ago) I downloaded Nigel's Tune of the Week collection and came across this lovely tune and found it captivating.

Here is my (sequenced) arrangement of it

https://soundcloud.com/andabouk/my-b...andolin-friend

Thanks Nigel

Andy

Thanks for the pointer to the tune a day project! I've saved them to work on. I even played through My Beautiful Mandolin Friend several times. What a beautiful piece!