awadablog

Finally...

It's finally happening. Back to the studio to record Brahms Cello Sonatas, and Sonatensatz and Songs with my frequent chamber partner Zuill Bailey. We're up at Oberlin College, recording for Telarc, with our grammy award winning dream team of engineer Bruce Leek, and Producer Elaine Martone and we start today... This has been a project we've long talked about and its great that it's coming to fruition. Today was a day full of photos taken by Lisa Marie Mazzucco, and final piano decision.... So it's been incredibly rich to have been practicing these sonatas for the past month, full of new discoveries. The work of recording is so unlike a performance in that not only does the whole of a piece have to be a gem, any moment, any second, split second that a listener wants to examine must as well be a gem, all facets revealed; so the practicing for such an endeavor is absolutely microscopic. Interestingly of course, Zuill has also spent a month working and we came together the last several days in Cincinnati, and both of us had the experience that certain things we had worked on and perfected in our individual cocoons, were absolutely useless together. That said, without jinxing anything, our work has gone well, and we're very much looking forward to it. I have a couple of other recording projects coming up, and I'll fill you in on those in the coming days. Also note the redesign of the website which is wonderful... and again,, i'll try to be more regular here, and look for some interesting video content in the next couple weeks as concerts start up again... all best ap

White House 3rd time with company

So, here I go again to the White House. It's an amazing honor. The first time I was Joe Cool until I sat down with the President 4 feet from me.... whereupon I became Awadaginfreakingoutwiththepresidentsodamncloseby... The 2nd time was more like a normal concert, ( i.e. the President wasn't in my immediate or peripheral vision... ) This time, back at the East Room, at least I can picture, where President Obama will be.....

It will be a splendid day on account of the afternoon events, a High School workshop/masterclass, and concert. I was actually able to invite some of the attendees for this, so I chose students from the Pratt Music Foundation in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, and from the SCPA in Cincinnati.  There will be 40 students per workshop, ( violin with Josh Bell, cello with Alisa Weilerstein, guitar with Sharon Isbin, and mine). The Pratt Foundation students ( scholars we call them), and the SCPA students will go to the workshop corresponding to their instrument. After the classes will be a concert hosted by Michelle Obama with several young people where I will perform the Schubert Fantasie in F minor with a SCPA student, and a Scriabin Etude. In the evening, I'll be quite busy, with a performance of my transcription of the Bach Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor, Ravel Tzigane, with Josh, and the last movement of the Mendelssohn d minor trio with Josh and Alisa. Some or all of these events will be streamed so i'll try to let you know.

 Meanwhile,... what do you think I should talk to the High School students about???

 all best,

 ap

philly

played a concert on wednesday with joseph silverstein at thecurtis institute.
joey is on the faculty there, and it was part of our preparation for weill on tuesday. some of course argue tongue-in-cheek (i hope) that the move order should be reversed) more on curtis, and the eats, and drinks, and cigars in philly to follow...
out,
a

bloggo numero uno

welcome to the awadablog, the place where you get to see "what condition my condition is in", to get the state of the art-ist. the current affair here is pete blackshaw, chief architect of the awadaweb experience. more on pete later. vitawadagin- the life of awadagin, will just be the general post.
meanwhile labor day weekend finds the trio lunaire.com of ccm  (college conservatory of music, university of cincinnati) on their way to munich for one of the premiere chamber music competitions in the world.www.br-online.de/kultur-szene/klassik_e/pages/ard/ard.html i've been coaching them for a couple of years now, and we had an intensive period of work this summer in preparation for this competition. i believe they will do well, and certainly wish them well.  last night i took them out for a send off to tellers and allyns. negroni's all around, luna merlot 2002, (more on luna later), bell's two hearted and fullers london pride beers rounded out the beverage drinking.
this blog will cover my concerts, where i'm eating , and what i'm drinking, and maybe any notable events on either the basketball court at the cac, or on the tennis court with pete.
holla,
a