Extra Orchestral Uploads

The Meg Quigley Vivaldi Competition and Symposium was fun and I got to meet a lot of very talented and dedicated bassoonists as well as see some dear and familiar faces. Congratulations to the first place winner Ivy Ringel, who is a great person! We got to carpool on the way to the airport with equally awesome person and second place winner Sandra Bailey, who played beautifully. Congratulations Sandra!! It was a fun ride and I had the honor of exposing these out-of-staters to the Texas phenomenon otherwise known as Whataburger. It was as glorious as to be expected... hahahaha

David and Julie Threatte of Barton Cane. Hook'em

Also, if you don't get your cane from Barton Cane, you're missing out. I've gone exclusive with their product because it is so consistent and high quality. Plus, they take the time to get to know you, where else do you get that? You can thank me later. 

Thanks to my amazing pianist Wenci Fan who put up with me!

I was really inspired by Sergio Azzolini's interpretation of the Vivaldi and Klaus Thunemann as well. Click here to hear Sergio's inspired performance! I feel that Azzolini's performance sounds very improvised which led me to make the daring decision to improvise the second movement of the Vivaldi live in concert. Playing in a style that sounds improvised is currently stylistic for baroque music.. however actually improvising on the spot, especially in a competition setting isn't done that often, but my gut said it would be a good move. I have my own theories of how baroque music was once performed... muahahaha. But in all seriousness, I don't think humans have actually changed that much in the past few hundred years and that what we once found amusing would still be amusing today... including a live improvised performance.
A lot of the music that I write for my pop band calls for improvisation, so it was a very natural thing to improvise Vivaldi. It was exciting, nay thrilling to improvise for an audience, as well as a freer experience for me as an artist to be able to make decisions that fit my current mood while playing.


Speaking of, my band is gearing up to make some recordings soon. We have six pieces so far and the idea is that once we have the recordings, we'll be able to interest venues with our music and get some gigs. FINGERS CROSSED Y'ALL!!!


In other news, I, with the amazing help of Kamryn Armstrong and Parker Johnson have recently released a music video on YouTube featuring the bassoon. Don't forget to 'like,' and subscribe to my channel!

There will be a blog on the making of this video coming soon! Peace out y'all!