Fiddling but not traveling

Just because I don't get vacation yet with my new job, doesn't mean I can't still write about traveling with my fiddle! Actually, I have recently bought a plane ticket to go somewhere that I intend to take my fiddle AND play it with another musician (fingers crossed)! But that won't be until early November. In the meantime, I've still been playing in and around Winnipeg this summer.

Alfie Mella, my band mate and founding member of Half Man Half Elf, the band I currently play with (and the author of the blog elfideas), and I were trying to put together a slide show and performance to share stories of our trip to the Philippines but we found ourselves without any other band members. So I did a few gigs with other musicians and focused on my solo set.

Playing Ukranian folk songs for our respective nieces with my bro-in-law at Riding Mountain after taking part in a family relay team at the Triathlon (Ken swam 1500 m and I ran 10 km)

This summer I my accordion-playing brother-in-law and I shared music at a senior's hospital and Folklorama's Ukranian Kiev pavilion. I also performed at a Dragon Boat Race festival with some fellow Forks Buskers: Nova Scotia's Mike Simon and new Winnipeg bluegrass band members, the Flat City Folk.

Myself with Susan and Mike Simon with fellow busker,
mandolin player Dave Labovich

Donovan Locken from the FCF joined forces with me for one of the Grant and Wilton Coffee House's summer sittings.

More recently, Half Man Half Elf has recovered and managed to get a small set together with some new bandmates to appear at Manitoba's first annual Filipino Street Festival (my camera died as usual so no record of that event!). We have another gig on Sept 22 (a fundraiser for the Red Cross for Philippine flood victims), and I have two more weddings plus a solo gig coming up over the next few weekends.

Then Alfie and I have to get our acts together for a rather prestigious upcoming performance on November 1st for the noon-hour Skywalk concert and lecture series, curated by the Virtuosi Concerts series director, Harry Strub. This time it MUST be acoustic and we MUST be on our best classical behaviour!

So music is really taking charge of life. Even Chester is making requests! Tonight he started to yowl at me and scratched at the underside of my upright piano. He wouldn't stop crying at me until I sat down and practiced Couperin's Les Baricades Misterieuses. Weird for a cat who usually yowls at me to STOP practicing!

Chester insisting I practice the piano.

So I sat still long enough to practice this piece which I love and has special meaning to me: someone once told me it expressed my personality in music - so out of curiosity I had to learn it!

I still haven't learned the whole thing perfectly though...so if this works, this is just the beginning.

Meantime what travel I HAVE done has involved paddling and hiking with NO fiddle. There is no WAY I'm lugging that thing 63 km down the Mantario Trail or into high waves on big, unknown lakes. This past September Long weekend I hiked Mantario for the 9th time in preparation for my 10th time in 10 years anniversary hike coming up in October. I assure you, my fiddle will again stay at home.