IDRS Day 5, The good, the great, and the Bizarre.
Friday July 25 2008
Day 5 went by in whirl. I marched around the exhibitions with Mr. Weber and went through a bunch of instruments to hear his opinion. Previously, he had said that he thought Howarth XLs were “lovely instruments”, but was concerned about giving up that much flexibility. This time he more than enthusiastic about them, and I was glad to hear it, because an XL is obvously in my immediate future as Adam will be selling me one soon when I get the funds together.
I did get to hear three recitals. One of them was the Gillet Young Artist Competition winner. This year was the first year of this competition, which will occur every other year (when the Gillet competition is for bassoon, the young artist competition will be for oboe). The restrictions are under 22, compared to the regular Gillet competition which has an age limit of 25 or 26 or something. He played beautifully, far beyond his years, and I found it very inspiring.
Another recital I enjoyed very much was Nancy Ambrose King’s recital, in which she played a Jazzy piece to open it, followed by the Villa Lobos duet with Jeffrey Lyman. I really enjoyed her performance, and was rather surprised by her sound, which I found to be quite different than the previous recordings that I had heard of her.
Another recital I went to, which I shall not name the performer, was bizarre. The first piece the oboist played was relatively the simplest and most straight forward, the Bach little g-minor sonata. The performer seemed to let it get out of control in areas; pitch, technically; even putting their pages out of order and having to momentarily stop in the middle, reshuffle papers, and continue. Despite the rocky beginning, the performer went on to put on a technical clinic in true Pasculli-like manner. Certainly not my preference of playing style (loud, brash, in your face, “wah wah”-ish) but you had to respect the performance.
