An immersive musical experience not to be missed. Pajajaran will perform the Metamorphoses of Philip Glass arranged by Kerry Watson for gamelan degung ensemble and 5 string violin. EphenStephen guitar duo will play music by Ivanovic, Thorneycroft and Houghton.
7:30 pm, 14 October 2016.
Tonight marks our last concert for 2015. We’ve had lots of fun exploring a wealth of new & old repertoire through the concert series this year & are very much looking forward to what we can find for the series in 2016. We are already planning a new transcription for the New England Bach Festival in May and some other fun collaborations – we’ll keep you posted!
A special thanks goes out to Kez Watson for hosting our whole series this year – so to say thanks we had an excellent whisky celebration at The Welder’s Dog recently along with some friends from various distilleries… In order of appearance:
First round: Penderyn Peated
Second round: Lark, Laphroiag Quarter Cask, Big Peat
Third round: Talisker Storm, Talisker Port Ruighe and the 10 year Talisker
Fourth round: Octomore
We staggered home feeling fantastic! Thanks to Tom & the guys from The Welder’s Dog!
Tonight’s concert features some favourites that we’ve discovered from the repertoire we’ve explored this year, a new piece, and a couple of old favourites by local composers. The new piece which has really stood out to us this year (that we’ll also be playing tonight) is ‘Still the Sea’ by Welsh composer Steve Goss. What a very special piece of music that we’re just starting to discover and which will stay with us for a long time. Please come along (if you haven’t signed up already) and join us, although seating is very limited.
We look forward to seeing you there and also for the series next year. Happy Christmas and New Year!
It’s time again to stretch some musical boundaries with another ‘Trio of Five’ night this Friday, 7th August at The Armidale Club. 5 musicians, 3 ensembles – hence the name**! EphenStephen will kick off the proceedings, accompanied on a couple of numbers by Steve Harris and Ash Hall (guest artists from Caution Horses and The Ash Hall Trio), followed closely by The Ash Hall Trio featuring Ash Hall (trumpet), Tony Elder (vocals) and Steve Thorneycroft (guitar). Caution Horses will round off the evening – Steve Harris (drums & percussion), Ash Hall (trumpet) and Stephen Tafra (oud, banjo, fretless guitar, accordion).
We’ll make sure as many musical stones are turned as we possibly can!
**NB The name actually came about because of S1’s renowned mathematical skill…
Hot on the tail of quartet rehearsal on Wednesday night, and despite the forecast snow, we had an EphenStephen rehearsal last night in preparation for our upcoming 4th concert in this year’s series. The concert will be in August & will feature music from the British Isles, including pieces by Lawes, Dowland, Renbourn, Glyn, Lennon/McCartney and Mercury… S1 was on the customary spruce/rosewood Howell & I thought that it’d be a nice outing for the 1968 Kohno. Along with the Lagavulin & Twinings (not Yorkshire, unfortunately!), we reckon that’s not bad company for an evening.
Anyone who can pick the composer & piece displayed on the iPads gets free entry to the concert. Comments below please!
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Had a rehearsal with our quartet ‘Totally Plucked’ last night. We’ve got an upcoming concert on the 30th August as part of Armidale’s long-standing ‘Music on a Market Sunday’ series, organised by Benjamin Thorn. Rehearsal was great fun – Matt & Ed were both on fine form, as was S1. S2 had some trouble counting the 8 strings and brought too many guitars along. Can you ever have too many guitars? Probably not. But strings, yes! Scarlatti & Bach may not have been amused…
Our programme will include Bach, Scarlatti, Tommis, Cruz and York. Sunday 30th August at 12.30pm in the Armidale Uniting Church. Put it in your diaries!
Over the past few years, we’ve enjoyed doing a themed concert with other local musicians on the Winter Solstice. This year thought it would be nice to include it in our series and perform it twice – one at 11pm and again the next morning at 11am for those who don’t like to be up too late…
We’re not quite sure what the theme ended up being, but all the pieces seemed to want to fall together as a programme as we were choosing them. Definitely music for the imagination… Any more specific suggestions of thematic content welcome below in the comments!
In S2’s wisdom, whisky was offered to the late night audience. And while this may have increased attendance, we’re still not sure if that was snoring we heard from the back row… Thanks to Tony from Black Dot Music for taking some footage (below) of the 11pm concert.
Houghton ‘Hope and Adoration’
Houghton ‘Three Duets’
Towner ‘As She Sleeps’
Stephen Tafra learning secret guitar duo business from the Assad Brothers! He’d better share at our next rehearsal…!!!
Yesterday we gave the second concert in our 2015 series (that’s the year, not number of concerts!). Held again in Kez’s studio – guitars sound so great in there.
This was our all-Latin programme. We can’t help including some twists though, so we figured a tango by an Aussie composer and some English music arranged by a Cuban composer would be ok! No-one seemed to mind! Programme below.
Lots of fun had this morning with 100 strings…! (Maths check, please!) We’ve been choosing which pair of guitars we’ll play in our next concert.
Unfortunately the cedar Howell is out of action presently, so which combination do you think we went with? All the combinations we tried are documented in the album. Comment away!
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EphenStephen Guitar Duo 