Crossover newgrass on a renaissance instrument

**Woody Turner** · May-07-2009, 10:36pm

Not strickly a mandolin performance, this piece by lutenist extraordinaire Ronn MacFarlane shows off a more contemporary side of the courtly ancestor of our instrument.

**man dough nollij** · May-08-2009, 1:38am

Holy Cow. That's all I can say.

**JEStanek** · May-08-2009, 8:36am

That was fun.

Jamie

**JeffD** · May-08-2009, 6:58pm

Lesson to learn from it - look how totally relaxed his left hand was. Both hands actually no tension at all.

**Woody Turner** · May-08-2009, 8:41pm

"Not strickly a mandolin performance" = Not stricTly good spelling.

**Woody Turner** · May-22-2009, 11:15pm

Tonight I had the pleasure to see Ronn McFarlane perform in DC and to talk at length with him afterward. Here's a player and composer whose equal on the lute would be hard to find (Bream???). If you live near Eugene, OR (July 3), Indianapolis (July 10), or Silver Spring, MD (July 18), don't pass up the opportunity to hear him live. For details, check out his Web site: http://www.ronnmcfarlane.com/
NFI

**vkioulaphides** · May-23-2009, 6:17pm

What a FABULOUS performance! Voice-leading does not get any better than this; at times, one would have sworn there were no fewer than FOUR distinct instruments playing!

We engaged McFarlane a couple of times during my decade-plus in concert management, and were always glad to have done so. Once he played an all-Weiss program; another time, we gave him carte blanche on programming, and he returned with a lovely set of his own compositions. A fine artist, indeed; a gracious gentleman, too.

Cheers,

Victor

**CES** · May-23-2009, 6:34pm

Too cool...don't think I'll be getting LAS anytime soon, though...I have enough trouble with the 4 courses on a mando!

**vkioulaphides** · May-23-2009, 6:39pm

Indeed... in some respects, I think that fine lutenists deserve all the more praise for playing so beautifully DESPITE the lute.

Yes, four unison-courses are maddening enough— especially for those of us who have toiled with four, single strings since our youth.

Ron's a gem, anyway one looks at it...

Cheers,

Victor

**Woody Turner** · May-23-2009, 7:56pm

At first I wondered whether the beatific smile in the clip and on stage was for theatrical effect, but after the concert McFarlane insisted that decades of touring hadn't jaded him a bit and that he still loved to play before an audience (even though he hadn't been home to Portland to see his family in over a month.) Although he's now nominally 'West Coast,' he remains a member of the Baltimore (early music) Consort, which performs all over.

A fine bassist, Willard Morris, accompanied McFarlane with lively continuo. I wonder, though, how the performance would have sounded with an unplugged bowed bass. Too bad you weren't there, Victor, to carry out the experiment. You're right, Ronn seems like a great guy.

**margora** · May-23-2009, 10:36pm

The music for Pinetops and Ronn's other pieces was recently published (I have a copy). I took a lesson with him (on lute) last summer, very helpful. I've also discussed with him the possibility of arranging one or more of his lute pieces for the Providence Mandolin Orchestra. He has some familiarity with the idiom, as it happens, from his many years in Baltimore on the faculty at Peabody.

**Woody Turner** · May-23-2009, 10:57pm

I'd be curious to see what he would score for mandolin orchestra (or would you do the arranging, magora?). When I mentioned my own involvement with mandolin/mandola, his only response was to express his fascination with the mandore. I wonder what his sense of the modern mandolin is.

My favorite piece of the concert, BTW, was the rollicking tune Snapdragon.

**margora** · May-23-2009, 11:20pm

"I'd be curious to see what he would score for mandolin orchestra (or would you do the arranging, magora?). When I mentioned my own involvement with mandolin/mandola, his only response was to express his fascination with the mandore. I wonder what his sense of the modern mandolin is."

He would do the arranging. I've given him scores of some other PMO pieces to look at. When I talked with him he knew all about the Baltimore Mandolin Orchestra. I'm not expecting the piece anytime soon, though.