F 1 D 0 -- 02 03 10 at 11 50 Art and Music. Well, nobody asked me about the Beethoven Festival, but still, I liked it, and this is my writing place. TBSO Festival 2002 Beethoven Rediscovered The theme of the festival, which ran Feb 28 Mar 01 02 03 was that an awful lot of the music written by Beethoven is ignored or forgotten. They endeavoured to perform some of these lost works. Feb 28 An die ferne Geliebte Op 28 Cycle of Six Songs String Quartet Op 18 No 1 in F Major Septet for Strings and Winds in E-flat Major Op 20 (I was packing during this performance) Mar 01 The Ruins of Athens Overture Op 113 Romance for Violin Op 40 Romance for Violin Op 50 The Creatures of Prometheus Op 43 Tarpeja Triumph March Symphony No 1 Op 21 (I was on a Greyhound Bus during the performance, arriving at 1030pm that night) Mar 02 Serenade Op 25 in D Major String Quartet Op 18 No 4 in C minor Symphony No 7 arranged for winds I *did* get to see this one. You may argue that Symphony No 7 is hardly a lost or forgotten work, but it turns out that a lot of the symphonies (etc) were re-written for smaller orchestras. Beethoven didn't write the arrangement, but he did authorize it, which is special. The music was played by two oboes, two bassoons, two clarinets, two horns, and one double bass. It was effective. Geoffry Moull, the conductor, explained that this arrangement wasn't just for less musicians, but was also shorter. I recall it took about 40 minutes to play the four movements. Mar 03 King Stephen Overture Op 117 Egmont Op 84 Name Day Celebration Overture Op 115 Symphony No 8 Op 93 Moull talked about why people play symphony 7 more then 8. Was it Beethoven who said, "Because that (number 8) was the better work." I found all of the music was new to me, so I had nothing to compare it to. Too bad, because I get so much from seeing films and hearing music that's familiar. On Fri Mar 08, the Art Gallery here had the opening for the display of all of the student work that was in the competition. It gathered so many people. Lots of students, lots of teachers, lots of average folk too. The process went this way. The five faculty go through the works, all of them, with bright post-it notes. They each tag their favourites. Anything which has five tags is in the show For Sure. Anything with four is probably in the show, and so on. They work together to pick the best. They used to have outside jurors come in to pick the (above). This was painful. One year, there was a guy who said things like, "Well, there won't be any abstract work, since I don't like that." Well, when you consider that a lot of this work was class work, where Abstract was what was required by the assignment, that is craziness. Or a line like, "There won't be any sculpture, as I only like flat works, myself." Uh, that excludes One Fifth of the pieces. The university teaches Sculpture, Painting, Drawing, Print Making and Ceramics. They are exposed to different styles, so the students can explore the different media as part of their study. So, the faculty judges which pieces will be taken to the Art Gallery. Once there, the outside jurors choose works. There were about 5000.00 in prizes this year, and most of the donors judged their favourites personally, thereby picking the recipient. At the ceremony, these same people handed the artists their envelope too. Some donors were unable to attend, so there were three artists from the area called upon to serve, and they choose accordingly. The show went well. It was such a good thing. Near to the gallery is Caribou, a fancy restaurant. We met with some others for 'drinks'. Except that I'm not really into going out and paying for alcohol. So we shared some Black and Blue Ahi Tuna, with wasabi sauce. It was not Japanese, but it was friendly and nice. We kept running into others we knew at the Caribou. I suppose I had better get used to this experience. It is not a big town, and I'll continue meeting friends over and over. There were five of us at the table, but having one conversation between five seems rough. Some are just so far away from the speaker person. So on our end, Mike, Julie and I were talking about bread makers, and what I liked and disliked. Ann and Lori were talking about how long they'd not seen each other, and the things Lori did in Africa. I'm surprised I was able to take all of it in. Yesterday was Saturday. My routine is to play in the Acoustic Bluegrass circle at Colisimo's Music from 100-300pm. Ann likes to go for a swim during this time. We get back together, pick up some newspapers, and head for afternoon coffee at a local place. We went to Kanga's. I think this also means we had to have the pancakes they make. We chatted with our server girl, and talked about how hard it is to make them. "Yes, our cooks who do them here cannot make them at home. You need a grill which gets very very hot. Most just won't do that." Well, that was the clue I needed. I need to superheat a nonstick pan to make these flat things. They're thin like crepes. A bit greasy, from butter, to be sure. They have a nice mottled toasty appearance, and the browing is where the taste happens. I like the doughy near-pasta consistency. I'm sure you're supposed to pour syrup onto these guys, and use a knife and fork. But me, I roll them into a torpedo, and bite the thing. I don't season it, as when I do, I can't taste the crepe any more. I always order with a side of strawberries. These are ostensibly for putting onto them. But I prefer just spooning them out of the bowl. The first taste of berries each time is the brightest taste. After that, we should have gone shopping, but found our way to a workshop at the university, where we assembled Stretchers. I've not done this before. The canvas needs to be connected to something. A strong wooden frame. We will add a dark border strip of wood around the works, and then frame around that border. Perhaps today. But yesterday, I learned how to deal with wood. I realize that last time I did anything like this was Grade 7 and Grade 8. I was age 12-14. At school I was NOT good at this. Uh, last night I was not so good either. But my ability to learn this has changed. I was free to figure things out. 1. The stretchers had to be flat when complete. That isn't so easy to do when the wood is all twisted up. 2. The stretchers had to be to specification This makes sense. The painting is (say) 12 by 22, with a border of a few inches. So the product I make has to be rectangular, and be that size. 3. C-clamps are my friend. When I started hammering into the small strips of wood, I had the same sense of helplessness I remember as a kid. But all of that went away when I figured out how to hold the things still that I was trying to nail. By the end, while each stretcher seemed to take a long time to make, they were flat, sized to spec, and strong. I didn't hurt myself by hammering. Ok, I hit a finger gently ONCE. I did hurt myself in a way I didn't predict. I got a bruise from always tightening the C-clamps the same way with the same hand with same fingers. Even now my right forefinger is still red there. It was just how I was gripping them. I maintain the clamps made *all the difference*. I clamped the frame flat to the table, square to itself, and anything which tried to get away was held in place. I enjoyed it. That's all I know.