The bits of stuff that fall in the cracks between Life, Music and outrageous fortune.		  
 
 
 
February
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No pictures please - no kidding

Mike gets more culture
21.2.12 - Dick's MAMIL* mate, Doug Macrae, had purchased some tickets for the ACO concert at the Town Hall on Sunday arvo, and as Mary was unable to attend I got the guernsey in her place. But first, lunch; and after a fraught ten minutes sorting out a parking spot I arrived at The European at precisely the agreed time to find Dick, Doug and Terry already seated inside. Doug's daughter Catherine arrived a few minutes later to complete the party, the pinot was ordered and the menu fretted over. Dick, Terry and I went for the wild rabbit pie.
There was quite a bit of chat, some of which I actually heard, and a second bottle of pinot ordered - and despatched. After desserts and teas and coffee we wandered down to the Town Hall and found our seats on the balcony. (pic) In no time at all the ACO trouped on stage and began lightly scraping their instruments with their bows, which turned out to be the first piece of the program, Paganini's Caprice on Caprices. The tinnitus in my right ear was somewhat louder than all of

this scraping business, which was when I began to suspect we were seated rather too far away from the stage to fully appreciate the subtleties that were to unfold.
That aside, I approved of the next offering, the Morricone Adagio, but then found myself nodding off during the Chopin concerto - I was however favourably struck by the way the pianist, Ms Polina Leschenko, lithely leapt from her piano stool immediately she'd concluded the piece. After the intermission the Henryk Górecki. Piano Concerto was a bit of fun, (I've only heard mournful Górecki in the past), and a beaming Ms Leschenko positively bounced from her stool when that jolted to a stop.
The Russian's part in the afternoon's proceedings concluded the grand piano was wheeled to the side of the stage and Richard Tognetti and the ACO, sans the bassist and the really short girl who had her own riser, finished the program off with Mendelssohn's Octet, the first movement of which I've heard lots on radio, but which on hearing live, even if a little on the quiet side, seemed to rekindle itself for me at least and I marvelled at Mendelssohn's precocious exuberance and deftness of touch.
It was a curious program though, and I could perhaps understand some purist failing to be moved by any of it. Being in the pleasant position of being gifted the afternoon's entertainment however, I enjoyed every moment, even the snoozy bits.

*MAMIL - middle-aged men in lycra
 

Denis and his band sweating		 Rehearsal with Denis
16.2.12 - The couple of days of heat Melbourne's been experiencing broke with a desultory thunder storm an hour before I was due to leave for the Denis Walter rehearsal I'd insisted on attending, but it was still oppressively humid when I arrived in Prahran. I wasn't even sure where Revolver was, never having worked there, but I remembered there were stairs. It was only after I'd clambered to the top of those wretched stairs that it occurred to me that there must be actual rehearsal rooms somewhere else in the building, and so I was relieved when a friendly Jack Black-type gently steered me to the back of the café I'd not suspected was there and all the way downstairs again to the Revolver Rehearsal Studios.
Eventually I found the steamy room Denis and the lads (pic) were in, and after they'd run through Ginger Man I was on. My rehearsal lasted all of four minutes and then I was back on the damp Prahran streets wondering what was for tea.
 
 
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