I returned from my concert tour last Saturday. Since being home I have mainly relaxed and taken it easy – however I have been organizing my belongings and as of yesterday (Thanksgiving) I have begun practicing again.
Reading wise I have taken on “The Blithedale Romance” by Hawthorne, “A Prayer Journal” by Flannery O’Connor and Coleridge’s letters. The latter is to help me understand some of the premises of American transcendentalism, a movement which was introduced to me in sophomore and junior year of high school. Eventually I want to read “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
I basically collect three things 1.) music scores 2.) recordings (LPs and CDs) 3. books. I am a fastidious bookman and always prefer to own a book if I take the time to read it.
One of the things I did upon returning was to organize and curate my book collection. I do not want to have any books that I do not eventually intend to read, and always keep the books I read.
I will be interviewing several individuals next week for a PR assistant position.
The next tour begins at the end of January, and until then I will be juggling two balls 1.) maintaining current repertoire and
2.) learning new repertoire. The later will include John and BJ Sutherland’s arrangement of the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts”, the fugue from the first violin sonata of Bach, “Larghetto and Allegro” by Mozart and other works by Rodrigo, Tansman and Beaser, not to mention the repertoire for my Christmas album to be released fall 2014.
Below is a description of the concert for the next tour.
I plan to post more regularly here, so please come back!
Event item:
This concert is part of a nationwide tour, under the auspices of Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, to promote Fletcher’s new Edvard Grieg CD, to be released in February by Centaur Records.
Fletcher will perform selections from this new CD, an all-Grieg album in which he himself wrote the guitar transcriptions. CDs will be available at the concert.
Other works will include Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, Courante from the Third Cello Suite and Prelude in C minor and Fugue in G minor, BWV 999 and 1000.
Fletcher has transcribed two movements taken from the second of five Divertimenti by Mozart, written in Vienne in1783. The original manuscript is lost, but we do have an arrangement for wind, published posthumously. Their delicacy makes them particularly suitable for the guitar and together the Larghetto and Allegro contain the very essence of Mozart’s genius.
Fletcher will also perform music from Michael Praetorius’s Terpsichore; a passacagli by Girolamo Frescobaldi and the ever popular Leyenda by Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz.
In addition he will perform a very special version of the traditional Shaker Hymn, Simple Gifts, transcribed by John and B.J. Sutherland. The last half of this guitar setting modulates down a step to C major. To accommodate this key change, the bass string of the instrument must be tuned down one whole step in performance, producing a sound reminiscent of a country fiddler.
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