Summer of ’69

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Nicolas Lell Benavides is currently a composer in residence with the Elevate Ensemble. He recently wrote a piece titled ‘Summer of ’69’ which is a multimedia work involving projected video and chamber orchestra. This was fun to play and utilized a minimalist composition technique, by giving players short musical games that we would play when cued. This was also my first performance on my new instrument, I picked it up earlier in the week!

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I finally got to perform the Franck Sonata, which I had just been practicing for fun. This was originally a violin sonata and was such a great piece that cellists began to play it as well. I am playing off of the Jules Desart edition of the Cello Sonata which works on the Contraforte just fine. The Pianist is Britton Day (who is amazing!)

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San Francisco composer Joe Colombo wrote a great new piece which premiered with the Elevate Ensemble last month. A wind trio for piccolo, oboe, and contraforte drawing inspiration from Beethoven, Ravel and Xenakis (B:R:X)

Conductor: Chad Goodman

Piccolo: Bethanne Walker

Oboe: Sydne Sullivan

Contraforte: Kris King

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SFCM Concert Hall

I am giving a Contraforte Recital at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music on October 25 at 8pm. This is in the main concert hall, open to the public, and free. The program will be..

Brahms Cello Sonata no. 1 e minor

Erb Red Hot Duets for two Contrabassoons

Franck Cello Sonata

Special guests: Britton Day and Shawn Jones

 

 

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I have had been on a trip to Vienna for the last few weeks. The Hofburg palace houses an antique instrument museum which to my surprise had many bassoons and contrabassoons! So here are a few but not all of the instruments on display

Entrance to Antique Instrument Museum

bassoon family

bassoon family back

bassoons

This Contrabassoon was built by Bradka in Vienna, this was his standard model in 1870.

Stehle Bassoon

This bassoon was built by Johann Stehle who at the time was considered to be one of the finest instrument makers in the German speaking regions. This instrument was an experiment as it has a tuning slide on the wing joint to lengthen the bore between the register vents and tones holes. This bassoon also has an split bell to add on a low A attachment.

Woodwind Family

 This Contrabassoon was built by Bradka for the Viennese Jubilee crafts exhibition in 1888. This design differs from his previous models because of the rounded U-tubes to create less air resistance. “Bradka seems to have oriented this to a model from 1976 by Alfred Morton” (the contrabassophone maker)

The bassoon is a Heckel from the 1880s.