The CD will be for sale on the Naxos Website and in stores soon.  Or you can buy it directly from me or at Metzler Violins for $20 and half the proceeds go to my camp, Center Stage Strings.

CLICK HERE to watch a video of my foray into “audience engagement”.  Make sure to turn up your volume!

Thank you to James Seligman for his incredible work on a 15 minute documentary about our summer music camp in Three Rivers, CA.

Click here to view video.

The 14th Annual Sphinx Competition, held in Detroit, Michigan February 3-6th welcomes semi-finalists from across the country to compete for a myriad of prizes.   Danielle was the Grand Prize Winner in 2008 and was invited this year to join the judging panel along with Pamela Frank, Michael Tree, Sanford Allen, Richard Aaron and others.   For more information, visit www.sphinxmusic.org

Also, thank you to Laurie Niles for her wonderful article on Violinist.com about a panel discussion called “Musical Toolbox” about the different paths a young musician can take toward a career in music.

I. Eleven Weeks

About four months ago I got a call from Bill Haxton.  He was excited about something. He had met a visitor to Three Rivers outside Sierra Subs, an engaging young woman, who told him that some months earlier her parents had moved to Three Rivers, and she was visiting them.  It was her first time seeing our town, and she was interested to learn about it and its people.

At some point in the conversation, quite by chance, she mentioned she played the violin.  “Really!” said Bill.  They then had quite an animated conversation about the Concert on the Grass, and Bill expressed our eagerness to welcome her to our town and have her perhaps participate in our annual Fall outdoor concert.  They exchanged contact information and resolved to stay in touch.

A day or two later Bill sent me an email with an internet link.  It was to a YouTube video of this same woman playing a beautiful violin solo with a symphony orchestra. Bill implored me, “You simply must hear her!”  He was right.  And since then, some of these YouTube links have been making the rounds in Three Rivers, and now, everyone knows her name, she is Danielle Belen.

Subsequently Bill and Anne invited some folks to their house for dinner to meet Danielle’s husband, Ryan Vaughn, and her parents, Rudy and Deniese Nesmith.  The conversation centered on an idea that Danielle had gotten, based in part on her warm welcome by Bill and other people in town.  What if Three Rivers were to host a summer music camp for extraordinary students, the kind of students that she taught at The Colburn School in Los Angeles? What would it look like? What would it take to make it happen? How much would it cost? Where could it take place, what facilities were available? What pianos were available? How many people might attend a concert or two? Lots and lots of questions were thrown about, and possibilities considered………click to read full story

My good friend and Center Stage Strings cohort Bill Haxton is a talented writer and has graciously agreed to share this wonderful poem with us. .  We share a mutual admiration and wonderment at the masterwork that is Bach’s Chaconne.    Bill took an interesting approach and actually wrote this from the perspective of a skeptic.  Enjoy

Chaconne

Let me see if I understand you.

This moment began three centuries ago

when Johann Sebastian Bach poured his soul into a constellation

of pen strokes?  And you say those notes on paper are like

tiny stars bursting to radiate beyond their musical

fieldlines?  What?  Are we supposed to believe there’s something

more to this—what did you call it—a chaconne or something?  As if

this music had some special power to penetrate, like neutrinos

passing through Earth without touching a single atom of it?

I don’t think so.  There’s not enough space in us, not nearly enough

to enable these ephemerals to get past the hammering clamour

between the ears.  No.  And it doesn’t mean a thing, all us sitting here

transfixed—and I admit it—me too—because it’s not the music,

it’s just the collective consciousness working, our synchronous

background radiation, the human universe in D minor,

which Bach couldn’t have known a thing about.

Or could he?

Oh my god.

©William Haxton 2010

I have done this sort of thing many times at my alma maters, Travis Ranch Middle School and Esperanza  High School in Yorba Linda, California.  In addition, The Sphinx Organization engaged me in school events alongside my performance travels in Atlanta, San Francisco, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Boston.  Read More