Here is another song from the new “les Frères Méduses” DVD.

“A light dry table wine” written by Rami Vamos and myself during our undergrad years at Oberlin Conservatory.  It is the first of a series of compositions called “12 Silly Songs for 12 Silly Strings”.

Here is a film taken of “Les Frères Méduses” live in Agen, France on April 2nd, 2010.  The balkan-inspired music is entitled “No Feathers on this Frog” by Dusan Bogdanovich.   This and a series of other videos will be available on DVD this June.

Very Special thanks to Christophe G. who has put so much time and effort into the filming and editing.  Merci mille fois Pierre M and Pierre C. Also a thank you to our favorite camera lady, Lauréne.

A higher-quality video has been posted by Ben at www.benoitalbert.com.

14 days, 12 performances, 2 radio shows and a lot of teaching.

Les Freres finished their tour of the US.  Final stops were at the Katy Guitar Guild, TX and the String Theory Chamber Music Series in Chattanooga, TN.  After the 10 Austin outreach concerts, we were ready for these last two events.  A LIVE RADIO BROADCAST of the Chattanooga concert will be heard on radio WSMC 90.5 on Friday, April 2nd at Noon.  www.wsmc.org

On March 6th, Les Freres performed for the Katy (Houston) guitar Guild at the residence of Valerie Hartzell/Robb Nejako.  This being my sixth performance in Houston, I saw a lot of familiar, friendly faces.  We performed a program of originals, improvisations and music by Piazzolla, Brouwer and Bogdanovich.   The following two days were masterclasses and private lessons.    I’ll be back in Houston this June for the Classical Minds Festival, and hopefully Ben will be able to come along as well.  (Pleasant discoveries of the trip were the Alamo Movie theater – a movie theater with full kitchen service – and Robb’s new rib sauce.)

After Texas came a trip to Chattanooga (bigger than what I imagined) to perform for the newly inaugurated STRING THEORY Chamber Music Series.  The Series already had David Shifrin, Arnaud Sussmann and other renowned chamber musicians on the roster… you could still hear the distant echo of applause from the previous concerts.  Fortunately, the concert proved to be our best to date.   The Museum space was truly inspiring, and the audience was warm and very enthusiastic.     Look at this place!

I’d like to thank all the people that made this part of the tour possible: Matt and Glenda, Florence and Charlie, Robb and Valerie and Gloria and Ning.  Thank you for your kindness, hospitality and invitation to come and perform. Hope to be back very soon!

Ben and I just wrapped up our trip to Austin.  In five days, we crammed in 10 performances in Austin City Schools as part of the ACGS community outreach concert series.  We really enjoyed having the chance to perform for so many – the students were really engaged and asked some pretty amazing questions.

When we weren’t practicing or playing, we managed to sneak in a few dinners with long-time buddies Matt Hinsley and Glenda Lee.  During our trip we also taped an interview with Tony Morris, host of the Classical Guitar Alive radio show to be broadcast at a later date.

We’d like to express our sincere thanks to the Mayne’s for their hospitality, and for Matt, Glenda, April, Jeremy, Joey and Travis for making us feel at home.  We hope to be back very soon.

Benoît and I just came back from a week of performing and teaching in my home state, Ohio.  We had stops at the University of Akron and the Massillon Museum, along with a private performance at my father’s workplace, Hennis.

The Massillon Museum hosted a Stark County artists exhibit and we were invited to give a performance for the 400 attendees.  Photographer Brian Thornberry was there to take photos of the event.

The University of Akron guitar department hosted us for two days.  During our visit, we taught a 3 hour masterclass and were on the judging panel for the Jim Stroud Competition.  We heard some compelling performances over those two days. Congratulations to all the participants, and to the finalists: John, Adam, Stephen and Margaret. Benoît and I gave a performance that included some solo music by Benoît Albert and Ralph Towner, and duo performances of the Brouwer’s Micro Piezas, the Piazzolla Tango Suite, Silly Songs written by myself and Rami Vamos.  We dove into two separate free-improvisations entitled “Noise I and II”.  We decided to make a third “Noise” for the encore.  Comments about the improvisations ranged from “Amazing” to “Bizarre”.

We’d like to thank all the arrangers for inviting us: Steve at Akron, Christine at MassMU, and the Hennis family.  We hope to be back again soon.