Dec. 9th Celticity Concert

Celticity Trio returns to Christ Episcopal Church with their ever popular Celtic Christmas Program! This exciting trio combines cutting-edge artistry, passion, and a contemporary touch to traditional Celtic music. With a unique blend of instrumental sizzle, vocal beauty, and captivating arrangements, Celticity puts forth an immensely exciting and highly musical performance. 

Free and open to the public. 

Donations accepted ~ Building accessible. 

Reception to follow performance.

Christ Episcopal Church,

78 Washington St, Norwich

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9TH, 3:00 p.m.

Christ Church School of the Arts, Inc.
78 Washington Street
Norwich, CT 06360
860.425.0663
www.ccsarts.org
ccsartsmail@yahoo.com

Join them on  FACEBOOK !

Free and open to the public

Donations accepted ~ Building accessible

For more information on the Chamber Music Series

please contact Christ Church School of the Arts@ 860.425.0663, ccsartsmail@yahoo.com or visit us on the web @ www.ccsarts.org

I've been a bad blogger

I know... I know.. I haven't written in a bit.. but sometimes life happens and I just didn't have the time and/or energy to post. I've been trying to keep my ears open to any events coming up in the area but not much has surfaced. I thought I heard something on the radio about Mystic Arts Council but when I went online, I found their website to be not very helpful.

Well I suppose for now I could go back to the ever-so exciting fundamentals I have neglected to discuss in quite some time.

Y'know, that really is very boring and from what some readers have told me also very much over their heads, so I'll stick with history and if you have any fundamental or theory related questions please comment or email me and I will do my best to provide you with an answer.

We use the word style in reference to everything from clothing to cooking, cars to paintings. In music, style refers to a characteristic way of treating the various musical elements: melody, rhythm, tone color, dynamics, harmony, texture, and form. The particular way these elements are combined can result in a distinctive or unique sound, and we can speak of the musical style of one composer, a group of composers, a country, or a period in history. Compositions created in the same part of the world or at about the same time are often similar in style, but individuals using the same musical vocabulary can create a personal manner or expression.
     Musical styles change from one historical era to the next, but these changes are continuous, so that any boundary between one stylistic period and another is only approximate. Although there are some sudden turning points, even the most revolutionary new styles are usually foreshadowed in earlier compositions; and few changes or style sweep away the past entirely.

  Western art music can be divided into the following stylistic periods:
       Middle Age (450-1450)
       Gothic (1150-1450)
       Renaissance (1450-1600)
       Baroque (1600-1750)
      Classical  (1750-1820)
      Romantic (1820-1900)
      Twentieth century to 1945
      1945 to the present

     Music is not created in a vacuum. To fully understand the style of a composition, one has to be aware of its function in society. Is a piece meant to provide entertainment in an aristocrat's castle, a concert hall, or a middle-class home? Is it designed to accompany singing, dancing, religious rites, or drama? Musical style is shaped by political, economic, social, and intellectual developments as well. And often, similar features of style can be found in different arts of the same period.
      Music is probably as old as the human race; and we know - from art and other evidence - that it existed in ancient Egypt, Israel, Greece, and Rome, but hardly any notated music has survived from these civilizations. The first stylistic period to be considered is the Middle Ages, from which notated music has come down to use - allowing compositions created more than 1,000 years ago to come alive today.

Upcoming Benefits

Two musical benefits, both to support the New London Homeless Hospitality Center.  (http://www.nlhhc.org/)

Sunday, March 25 at 2 PM – The MetaFour String Quartet will present a chamber program at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 19 Jay Street New London as a benefit for the New London Homeless Hospitality Center.  Suggested donation is $20. 

The MetaFour String Quartet will perform Mozart’s “Dissonant Quartet,” and the Debussy Quartet Opus 10. 

Members are Julia Pettersson and Lisa Gray, violins, Irene Rissi, viola and Barbara Metz, cello.  Julia and Barbara  will be joined by pianist John Metz for the Beethoven Trio Op. 1 No. 1 in E-flat.

And --  on Sunday April 22 at 2 PM also at All Souls, a solo piano recital by Sarah Masterson, the winner of the 2001 Young Artist competition.  

Her interesting and varied program will include the “American” sonata by Elie Siegmeister, Beethoven Sonata Op. 10 No. 2, lovely post-impressionist preludes by Olivier Messiaen, and a real barn-burner by Franz Liszt. 

Suggested donation $20.  

For more information on either program, please contact:

John Metz

12 Lamphere Road

Waterford CT 06385

            860 437-7170      

            602 400-3114       (cell)

www.MetzMusic.com

A Little, But Not Entirely...

If you read my father's column/blog today, you'll know that I am a bit of a nut job. Literally, but hey I can't have real pets so I consider the habitual squirrely visitors to my house pseudo pets.

You might be wondering what that has to do with the arts, and really it has absolutely nothing to do with it, but I felt the need to defend myself because I was as surprised by the subject of his column today as probably most of the Bulletin's regular readers.

Any who, I just finished watching The King's Speech for the what might be the 20th time in the last two months? I can't help it, every time I find it playing on some channel, I watch it I just love it so much. But is it just a music nerd thing, or do normal people fall in love with movies because of the soundtrack and background music? This movie has the best music. Period. In fact, I love the music so much that for the New London Community Orchestra next concert, I suggested a song that plays during the final scene.
Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Mvt. II

Tell me that is not a beautiful piece. Now our concert is not until June, but we are having an open rehearsal on May 15th at the  Groton Senior Center which is at 102 Newtown Road (map).

What's that? Beethoven's not really thrilling you? Well how about Tchaikovsky? Huh? Huh? Yeah, that's right, were also playing Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in C Major.

If you're still not feelin' it, well then you're very difficult to please but I have one more trick up my sleeve. Can anyone tell me what this thing is?

If you said piano, you would be close but not quite. It's actually a Harpsichord and we have a guest musician joining us to play a Harpsichord Concerto.  The below clip is not the song we're playing but I wanted a short video that demonstrated what a harpsichord sounded like, which is kind of a piano meets a duck.

Although it's a few months away, I hope you will come to our rehearsal or concert or both and support local arts.

Chamber Music At Christ Church Presents:

Music in the Key of G 

Sunday, March 25th at 3pm

Christ Episcopal Church

78 Washington Street, Norwich CT

Join organist and composer Jesse N. Glaude for a program of new works for piano, voice and cello.  Aided by soprano Phred Mileski and cellist Carlynn Savot, Mr. Glaude will guide the audience through the genesis of his latest compositions, ranging from art song to piano solos to sacred music.  

Meet the musicians for a champagne reception following the program.

This concert is free and open to the public. Free-will donations may be made to help support the Joanne C. Lillpopp Scholarship fund, which grants full-year, need-based music lesson scholarships to students at Christ Church School of the Arts.  

Please call             860-425-0663      , or visit the Christ Church School of the Arts website; http://www.ccsarts.org for more information.

 

Christ Church School of the Arts, Inc.
78 Washington Street
Norwich, CT 06360
            860.425.0663      
www.ccsarts.org
ccsartsmail@yahoo.com

Join them on  FACEBOOK !

Soup For A Song

Christine Berry of Canterbury, owner of Vocal Expressions Studio, will be hosting a fundraiser event to benefit St. Vincent de Paul Place soup kitchen of Norwich.

The event will be held Sunday March 4th from 1pm to 5pm at the Lucky Tokyo Restaurant in Plainfield. The event will include a gift basket raffle and performances of 50 songs from Berry's students while collection plates circulate.

"This is a great opportunity to show the students they can use their talent to do good. It helps a local restaurant and bring in money for the soup kitchen, too. And the singers get to perform in front of a crowd in a nonrecital environment." -Christine Berry, Norwich Bulletin's Newsmaker of the Day.

Exciting Opportunity

On Friday, March 9th at 6:30pm, Park Church will be hosting the Destiny Africa Children's Choir from Uganda. They will be performing a concert featuring African singing, dancing, drumming, and story-telling. They are an internationally known group who have performed all over the world-- including for the Queen and Prime Minister of Britain!

Here is a little more about the group:

Destiny Africa is a children's choir from Uganda that will be touring New England from March to June 2012. Destiny Africa choir members are 10 to 16 year old boys and girls who are orphans from Uganda and their choir has performed in the USA, UK, and Europe. They began performing publicly in 2007 and have since performed for the Prime Minister of the UK, and for the Queen’s birthday!

The children are dynamic singers and dancers that love sharing their talents with others. Despite the trauma in these children's lives from surviving in a country torn apart by civil wars and losing their parents to violence, diseases, and poverty - the children want to share their talents and hope for a better world. Destiny Africa will be performing throughout New England (providing 150 performances). Children and their families attending the performances will learn about the culture and life in Uganda, and will be directly impacted by the choir members' inspiration and hope. Please visit www.DestinyAfrica.org for more information.



Park Congregational Church
United Church of Christ

283 Broadway
Norwich, CT 06360

(860) 887-3747
Visit them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ParkChurchNorwich

Just put it on the bed, I hope it's nice and hot.

No, it's not what you think. It's a line from Sir Evelyn Oakleigh, a character in Anything Goes, referring to his cup of tea.

Yesterday afternoon was the closing performance of Anything Goes by the Colchester Community Theater at Bacon Academy, and it was excellent! Congratulations to the entire cast and crew for a wonderful production.

additonal upcoming chamber events

this just in: I was alerted to another chamber ensemble performing in the area in the near future.

CHAMBER MUSIC @ CHRIST CHURCH

Presents:

 

The Genesius Piano Quartet

in

"Romance a la Carte"

 

A Savory Menu of Classic and Romantic Works from Haydn to Vaughan Williams

 

Sunday, February 26th

3:00 pm

Free and Open to the Public

Handicap Accessible

Champagne Reception to Follow

 

Christ Episcopal Church

78 Washington Street

Norwich, CT 0660

Please call 860.425.0663 or visit www.ccsarts.org for more info.

Join us on  FACEBOOK !

Duration

Well now that we've had our own duration between posts (yeah I know that was awful), I'll tell you about musical duration.

Notation of Duration
The notation of duration is illustrated in the following chart:

The Tie
The tie is a curved line that connects two adjacent notes of the same pitch into a single sound with a duration equal to the sum of both note values. In other words, it will make the note sound longer.

The Dot

placed to the right of a note head, the dot lengthens the value of the note by half again its value. A second dot (yes they do that sometimes just to mess with us) lengthens the dotted value by half the length of the first dot. Dots may also be used with rests and affect them the same way.

Irregular Division of Notes

A note value may be divided and subdivided into any number or equal parts, as shown in the chart below. Those divisions and subdivisions that require added numbers are called irregular divisions and subdivisions. 

Rhythm

Rhythm is a general term used to describe the motion of music in time. The fundamental unit of rhythm is the pulse or beat. Even a person untrained in music generally senses the pulse and might tap their foot or clap their hands.

Meter Signatures

Meter can be defined as a regular, recurring pattern of strong and weak beats. This recurring pattern of durations is identified at the beginning of a composition by a meter signature (time signature). This may also change throughout a composition, and is identified at every change.

The upper number indicates the number of beats per measure, and the lower digit indicates which note gets the beat (2 signifies a half note, 4 refers to a quarter note, 8 for the an either note, etc.).

For instance: 

3 beats per measure, and quarter note gets the beat

Forgive my crooked pictures, I haven't perfected the art of scanning yet haha. I'll pick up next time with simple and compound meter, they require more room and attention that I really should force into this one entry.

Read this and other blog entries at my blog: http://watercolorhalfnotes.blogspot.com