Sunday, September 17, 2006

Guitars in Gardiner

Excellent concert by Ernesto Tamayo last night. I arrived to New Paltz by bus and friends met me. We wound up cooking outside and enjoying ourselves quite a bit, so much so time slipped by - we ended up scoring the last parking space to Unison, a wonderful concert space up on the mountain when we got there.
Ernesto suprised us by playing four different guitars throughout the evening - none of them his own, but by a local, yet world renowned, guitar maker, Thomas Humphrey. Ernesto's program drew from his new cd, Classical Persuasions. The Bach was simply stunning...he dedicated a piece (that he had written) to the owner of LaBella Strings, Richard Coco; and in the second half, dedicated a piece by Leo Brouwer to me! We chatted with the friendly folks afterwards and went over to Thomas and Martha's for some food and drink...and it turns out more music. Ernesto played some more of his pieces and some Weiss. What a evening!
The next morning, Stu and Julia made pancakes with fresh fried apples; then smores! They got me to the bus just on time (by about 10 minutes!) Oddly enough, the bus broke down and there was a 1.5 hour wait while another came to get us. Oh, and a passenger trying to get to the back restroom had me move (I hadn't noticed him as I was trying to get my bag settled) and I ended up ripping my slacks - the only ones I had packed for the trip! yeee. oh well. easy come easy go, right? So I'm now back in the city and looking forward to dinner and seeing friends.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

John, you are amazing! It was fun to have you, Stu and Julia at my concert at UnisonArts in New Paltz, NY. Going to Tom Humphrey's house afterwards was one of the many very special moments of the evening when we got a chance to relax, chat, play more music, eat, and drink very good wine. Thank you for your friendship, it mean a lot to me.

A big hug from your friend Ernesto.