Here are a couple of extracts of me showing off. Quick notes are, of course, the easy bit, but they can't be avoided... Just to counter-balance this, I plastered on a few nice slow bits for the soul. Due to copyright issues, I often had to castrate tracks in one way or another. Many apologies, but if you want the whole lot, go and buy the CD!
Recorder:
* A long, long time ago, but very important to me as it's a piece I wrote for (and played) at the first anniversary of my maternal grandfather's death in 1996:
Recorder:
* A long, long time ago, but very important to me as it's a piece I wrote for (and played) at the first anniversary of my maternal grandfather's death in 1996:
* A lovely Ars Subtilior ballade from an Ensemble La Morra CD I am very proud to be on. Beautiful music done effortlessly. Many people get scared off by the complexity and difficulty of this music, or get bogged down in executing the technicalities. Not these guys! Corina is the ensemble's recorder player, so I am playing the lower instrument in this extract.
* A recent recorder recording, which did not involve too much playing, but I was nevertheless very chuffed to have been asked. I did have a chance to assist with the notational interpretation of the original, and was nearly recruited into the Violin orchestra when a power-cut played havoc with the recording timetable. In the end though, the power cam back on and I had to quickly try and remind myself of some vaguely appropriate ornamentation figures!
Fiddle and Gamba:
* From the first recording I made having moved to Switzerland. Was very proud to have been asked to play along with the serious grown-ups! Only played in a few in the recording, but was lucky enough to do more in subsequent performances. Some amazing music in that programme. Look out for it.
* Proper show-off stuff from a very special CD of 14th century Italian music. Was involved in choosing some of the works for this one, as well as preparing editions.
* From a project very dear to my heart, performed with my dear lady wife and a good friend, we've been living with this music for so very long we feel we know it inside out. Especially nice for me, as while the other two have really difficult parts to perform, I can just sit back and enjoy the music!
* Another piece which was designed to impress, even though this one looks more complicated on paper than it sounds in practice. Played for a Ensemble Leones project led by Marc Lewon, with whom I probably play most often now-a-days.
For the more visually minded of you, there are videos of me playing floating around YouTube. Most are just audio illustrated by pretty pictures or scores of the music played, but there's the odd one where you can actually see me play. Here's one from an Ensemble Leones concert in Worms, Germany, where Baptiste Romain, Liz Rumsey and I are playing Cecus non judicat de coloribus by Alexander Agricola. Much of that concert is available there.
Most of what comes up in YouTube has been uploaded as part of my work as a member of the Machaut Edition project at the University of Exeter. As the links attached to these videos will quickly demonstrate, these extract illustrate various discussion on our project website, and were specifically chosen and recorded for that purpose. For more information on this project, see the relevant section of the Musicology part of this website.
