Don't you love it when something turns out even better than expected?

I just had to share my excitement about my February 19 performance at the Culver Coffee Company with Marcy Prochaska on hammered dulcimer and recorder. (I played a bit of tenor recorder myself.) We've performed before, briefly, at St. Mary of the Lake Catholic Church in Culver, during a penance service, and had so much fun that we knew eventually we'd want to prepare something else.

We stayed in the public domain (music out of copyright) which meant mostly folk tunes and classical arrangements. Some of the tunes we arranged were: Hyfrydol, Slane, St. Columba, Do You Love An Apple?, Drive The Cold Winter Away, Canon in D Major by Pachelbel, Sheep May Safely Graze by J.S. Bach, and (my favorite) the Largo from Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D Major.

At first, concert harp and hammered dulcimer might seem like strange bedfellows, but we found that together, the two instruments had a unique, appealing compatibility. The wire-strung hammered dulcimer has a more sustained tone, which complemented the rounder tone of the concert harp.

Enjoy this video, done in a very casual setting among friends, and stay tuned!

music, parents, and destiny

My earliest memories of my home involve music; a dizzying array of various styles of music. My parents, Tom and Elaine Fugate, were music lovers. Mom and Dad played the clarinet in high school, and Mom continued to play piano, mostly for her own enjoyment, and then organ for our Methodist church in Mentone, Indiana. I can't honestly say that she performed on the church organ out of sheer enjoyment. Many a Sunday morning found her at our home organ, fretting about a prelude piece that wasn't coming together as she would have liked.

The Magnavox stereo in our dining room, a combination turntable/8-track, had a storage bin that held, among many others, 8-tracks and LPs of: the soundtracks from Hair, Grease and Midnight Cowboy; An American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin, original cast recordings from The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and My Fair Lady; Switched-On Bach, A Perry Como Christmas, Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, Queen, Beach Boys, John Denver, The Kentucky Woman (South Bend's own Nancy Flanagan), Christmas with Joe Longstreth and John Escosa, (mentioned in a previous post), Hooked On Classics (confession time--I LOVED those recordings!)--that's just a start. Whew--what an interesting mix!

With such a varied musical upbringing, I've been pretty open to all sorts of musical styles. I suppose it wasn't a coincidence that when I first read last spring that Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys would be releasing a new recording titled "Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin" in August, it took me less than a minute to log in to Amazon and put it on my wish list.

One track in particular caught my ear, and, truth be told, the ear of my five-year-old son Alex too. (We finally had to limit the number of times he listened to it at a time.) It's actually a tune that Wilson crafted from two unpublished Gershwin sources. The soaring Gershwin melody, trademark Brian Wilson out-of-nowhere chords, and the tight Beach-Boy-style background harmony make "The Like In I Love You" a truly
ethereal experience to listen to. It sounds as if it would be gorgeous on harp, and I'm working on an arrangement. I hope to post a video very soon!

Stay tuned!

"Beth, how did you ever get interested in the harp?"

I am often asked this question; after all, the harp is a pretty unusual instrument. Here's one of the chapters in the story:

I must have been thirteen or so, when I first became aware of the harp, other than knowing harps existed. My parents had season tickets to a concert series in nearby Warsaw, Indiana, and my younger brother and I were encouraged to dress up a bit and accompany Mom and Dad to the concerts. My brother and I experienced a variety of musicians there at Warsaw Community High School: duo-pianists Ferrante & Teicher, Bill Evans, a amazing organist whose name escapes me, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, George Shearing, and many more.

This particular concert featured Joe Longstreth and John Escosa, duo-harpists. (A quick web search shows that they performed extensively on community concert series during the 1970's.) I was intrigued by the visual beauty of the harps, the mysterious way they pulled their harps back onto their shoulders, the tiny movements I kept noticing near the curved top of the harp, and last but certainly not least, the completely entrancing music they produced.

Years later, as I began learning harp music to use professionally, I came across several arrangements for harp of old standards and popular music by none other than John Escosa. They were all expertly done, utilizing the fun and unique sound effects one can produce on harp such as the glissando, the pedal slide, and the harmonic.

Fast forwarding a little more, one night as I was playing cocktail music for an event at Century Center, a band was setting up on the stage behind me. I performed one of my favorites, John Escosa's playful arrangement of "Ain't Misbehavin'" (not what most people think of when they think of harp music!). Shortly afterward, a member of the band hopped down from the stage, asked my name, and made a little conversation. He observed that I had just played "Ain't Misbehavin'", then extended his hand and said, "I'm John Escosa II, and that's some of the best playing I've heard of Dad's charts."

You just never know who's in the audience.

Stay tuned for more!