On tour with the Wallfisch Band

I'm writing from a motel room in Hamilton, NZ at the moment. Today is a day off in the middle of the Wallfisch Band's tour of the North Island. We played in Wellington two days ago, then in Napier last night. Tomorrow night we play here in Hamilton, followed by the final concert in Auckland on Monday night. This final concert is being recorded live by Radio NZ concert, so we'll all have to nail our music then! It has been an awesome experience working with Elizabeth Wallfisch, her colleagues and the other NZ musicians - I just wish the tour could have been extended to the South Island; it would have been fantastic to take the programme down there and to travel around the breathtaking landscape.

Today was a travel day - we drove from Napier to Hamilton and had time to stop off for some touristy activities. It was a beautiful day with fantastic countryside views. We were all squeezed into one travel van, which made it feel like a real band tour. We stopped in Taupo for lunch, then had a small break at a great place called the Honey Hive; a shop selling fantastic honey and honey products. There was free tasting too, so I took advantage of this and sampled some very tasty honey wine and even some honey whiskey, which was my personal favourite. With a manuka chestnut icecream in hand, we continued on and stopped at some local mud pools. It was just a look though, as the mud pools were boiling and blurping like mad. If we'd jumped in for a dip, we would have quickly bobbed to the surface as screaming, steaming carcasses of burnt flesh.

The Europeans amongst us were delighted to see all the sights along the way - for some of them it's been their first time in NZ. Hopefully they will be inspired to return, for Wallfisch Band tour No. 2!

Venetian Fun

I'm chilling out in my hotel room in Auckland, NZ at the moment, halfway through a 6 day period of rehearsals for a concert tour with the Wallfisch Band, led by baroque violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch. After a couple more days, we head back to Wellington for the first performance, followed by a trip up the North Island back to Auckland, stopping for concerts in Napier and Hamilton along the way. It's been a fantastic experience so far, and the music is coming together fabulously. Elizabeth Wallfisch is an awesome director, with a perfect balance between bringing out the fun and spontaneity in the music, and kicking ass when needed, to make sure that everyone's playing in a unified way. She introduced 9am scale warm-ups for those who want to attend, so I went this morning and will be going again in the next couple of days. It's a nice way to warm the fingers up before 10am rehearsals, and a good chance to get some tips from the master herself as to how to get around the technique of playing the violin without chinrest or shoulder rest (though she does get around the problem a little by using a rolled up spongy device of some kind under the violin, held by a rubber band).

The programme features some great music by Locatelli and Vivaldi - a mixture of concerti for solo violin, two violins, two violins + two cellos, and four violins; and concerti grossi. The music is fantastic - I particularly love the Locatelli - one of his concerti features ridiculous pyrotechnics for the solo violin. You'd think he was just another shallow Paganini, but then he pulls out some amazingly beautiful and harmonically surprising slow movements, that are to die for. It's not particularly taxing music for those who are just playing the 'orchestra' parts, like me, but then again, the small size of the band means that we're all that much more exposed, so we have to all be individually on top of our parts - there are some moments where I'm the only one playing my part, which is cool. Maybe I'll pull out some ridiculous ornaments in the concert - haha, no one can stop me! Other than myself, of course, as it could potentially sound stupid...