New Website!

Lawler & Fadoul are movin' on up. You can see our new website here:

www.lawlerandfadoul.com

And you can find us on Facebook, too.

Our blog will be continued at our new website, we promise.

Yellow Barn Residency, Day 3: Can Phones

Day 3 of our Yellow Barn residency:

We've been experimenting with can phones as a way of expediting communication between pods, and as a diversion from the 10 hours a day of rehearsal. Check out the video, which includes a cameo by our coach and colleague, the awesome Christina Dahl, and features our recording of Ravel's Habanera:




And, if you're in the area, come to our concert! Christina is playing too.
Monday, October 11
7pm
United Church of Putney
15 Kimball Road
Putney, VT
$12

Yellow Barn, Day 2

As I mentioned yesterday, Yellow Barn strives to create "an environment conducive to undistracted study." Let's see how they do in a back-to-back comparison with New York City:

Yellow Barn Residency

We are here in beautiful Putney, VT, doing a residency at Yellow Barn. We are refining, rehearsing and performing our brand spanking new transcriptions of Bach and Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues.

Holy Smokes it's gorgeous here:


Paul and I drove up separately, and each realized that we did not bring any sort of recording device with us. Immediately upon our arrival, however, Anna presented us with a Zoom to use! That was the first sign that this is going to be an awesome residency.

The next sign that this was going to be an awesome residency was the Pods--the music practice buildings where we are to rehearse. It's as if someone said, "Now what would you like in a practice space? Abundant light? A beautiful view? Solar power? Climate control? Check and check." Here's a me practicing there the first night:
Here's the same view, in daylight:


At Yellow Barn, they strive to create an "atmosphere conducive to undistracted study," and there will be more about that in future posts. Today, we practiced and rehearsed a full 10 and a half hours. That's more than 10, in case you were wondering.

Have another look at the Pods:

Paul and I each have our own Pod. Here's what we look like to eachother:

I have only one suggestion for the folks at Yellow Barn: how about a zipline from Pod to Pod?

If you're in the area, please come to our concert on Monday!

Notes "on" Performance: On the Interpretation of Bach

Introducing a new video series, a satirical look at music: Notes "on" Performance.

Here's our first installment, filmed before our recent concert at the Hopper House:

This Flamarimba Duo brought to you by Megabus

Here's a picture of me, writing this entry on the Megabus (I LOVE Megabus), on my way to DC tonight.



PJ and I are meeting with the awesome Gary Race tomorrow, to start working on a program that will eventually become an in-school performance workshop for elementary schools, under the auspices of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO).

We know Gary through Tales & Scales (how we know each other, btw). Gary directed several Tales & Scales shows, including The Arabian Nights, The Odyssey, The Little Dragon, and for those of you old enough to remember it, The Enchanted Horn. He also is a consultant for the NSO, and helps prepare all of their outreach performances. Oh, and he's also an opera director and vocal coach. He's amazing at what he does, so we're very excited to get to work with him again in this new context.

We know the NSO, or rather, they know us, because PJ was one of the stars of the DC youth orchestra scene, and won, in both 1996 and 1998, their Young Artist Concerto Competition (high school and college divisions, baby).

Our program is going to focus on dance in music, including a tango, a waltz, two menuets, and Soulja Boy Tell'em's Crank That. The idea being that, in their times and places, the menuet, waltz and tango were as popular as Soulja Boy.

Of course, by the time our shows happen (fall semester of 09-10), Soulja Boy will be so 2007 that we might have to come up with another idea.
I thought maybe that first photo was too serious.

Video Greetings from Flamarimba Camp