Two for Texas, pt. 2 (live from CMSA Santa Rosa, November 17, 2018)

Two for Texas, pt. 2 (mp3) (pdf score)

Last month I posted an audio recording of a performance from the Saturday Open Mic session of the 2018 Classical Mandolin Society of America convention in Santa Rosa, CA. This month we have video evidence featuring a chamber group of plucked string instruments (including me in a ball cap playing a very fine Collings MT-O mandolin), augmented by a trio of recorders, from the same lunchtime session. I'm also including links to an mp3 recording of the performance and a pdf of the score.

I was greatly honored to have so many of my CMSA friends (plus a couple of folks I didn't know before this who were doing this for their friends) spend the time to work on the music in advance of our only rehearsal. That rehearsal had occurred around 11:00 the night before. Despite our lack of practice together I think you will find very few mistakes if you follow the score.

Two for Texas was commissioned in 2012 by the Dutch mandolin orchestra ONI (led by Cor Roozendaal) and the Rio Brazos Recorder Trio. This came following a big fun weekend in May of 2010 traveling around the Dallas-Fort Worth area with ONI+ and the Rio Brazos trio. I had this opportunity thanks to Alice Derbyshire, Alberdina Markus-Gronefeld and Cor Roozendaal. ONI+ was playing my Louisville Suite on this tour and thought it would be fun to meet me. We all had a terrific time. 

The performance here, by a stellar group of CMSA convention attendees recruited and organized by Alice Derbyshire, was the North American premiere of the piece. We only played the second part of the piece, due to time constraints.

I've written a few pieces for recorders over the years but this was the first time I was ever asked to write for mandolin orchestra and recorder trio. I had a lot of fun adding a "horn section" to the plucked string ensemble sound. 

Special thanks to Sue Weber for agreeing to conduct this group and for doing such a fine job, with minimal rehearsal, of pulling us together. Thanks also to Authentic Audio & Sound and especially to Michael Tognetti for capturing the moment and preparing this video.

The enthusiastic applause at the end was very gratifying and is indicative of the spirit that prevails throughout the CMSA conventions, especially during the Open Mic sessions.