Sarah Wallin » Reviews

ASTA Results

Sarah — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:32:43 +0000

Hooray for Marissa John, who placed Second, and for Sharon Tang, who placed Third in the ASTA Recital/Competition this past Saturday!!!

Now we await the helpful comments from the judges…

Thought for the Day

Sarah — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:07:58 +0000

In the midst of my intense contemplations concerning my current in-progress work - my thesis composition for my Master’s degree, to be exact - I came across this fascinating interview with renowned composer, John Adams, concerning his Violin Concerto.

Excerpt:

Did the concerto genre and the expectations associated with it—especially that of virtuosic writing for the solo instrument—affect your customary compositional process in any ways that you can single out?

I think it did affect it a lot. I was very slow to come to the concerto form. In fact, even after finishing this work, I’m not entirely sure I’m comfortable with the form itself.

(...)
Read the rest of Thought for the Day (324 words)

Copyright © 2004-2008 Sarah Wallin | Permalink | No comment | Share This

V.T.C.M.A. - 5

Sarah — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 07:23:11 +0000

Being a part of the MIDI Band at Cal Poly, Pomona, now on six-string electric fiddle, the performing group of this V.T.C.M.A. really excites me! They’re called Soul in the Machine, and they hail from San Diego, CA. Their innovative presentation of electronica music, their visually entrancing, original instrumental creations, and their extraordinary musical talents are stunning. I encourage you to check them out!

This first video is a ten-minute medley of the group performing a few of their tunes, and the second video is a behind-the-scenes interview with the group, to find out a little more about them.

Nigel 2.0

Sarah — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 06:29:51 +0000

Introducing the newest member of the family!

Nigel 2.0:

(...)
Read the rest of Nigel 2.0 (59 words)

Three Excellent Sites to See

Sarah — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:25:36 +0000

First off, I am excited to announce that Music Program Notes, a community-shared database for performance program notes, has moved and become simply Program Notes, “to accommodate program notes for both music and stage productions”. The new look is really fabulous - clean, easy to navigate, and available to a much wider contributing-audience!

I fully endorse this idea; what better way to enlighten listening audiences, and to aid students of music and other stage productions? So, don’t hesitate - check it out, spread the word, and contribute what you can!
_____________________________________
Update:
Check out my recent article about my brand new work, My Tribute!

(...)
Read the rest of Three Excellent Sites to See (266 words)

V.T.C.M.A. - 4

Sarah — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 03:22:15 +0000

Check out this excellent video of the 1972 composition, A Flight of Virtuosity, for Six Handclappers, by Greg A. Steinke. This performance was conducted by Stephen Rochford (and featured my friend and colleague, Alan Mautner as one of the handclappers!). Stick with it - there is a moment in the middle that is especially hilarious! Thanks to Kay Pech for sharing this!

New Additions to My Fiddle Family…

Sarah — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 08:17:15 +0000

As of the past few months, my violin Tommy

now has two new siblings!

Introducing Nigel:

And Flora:

(...)
Read the rest of New Additions to My Fiddle Family… (518 words)

MusicProgramNotes.com

Sarah — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 05:38:24 +0000

Congratulations to James for the official unveiling of his incredible new site - Music Program Notes!!

“Music Program Notes is a free, volunteer-powered, collaborative database of program notes for all genres and ensemble types, and anyone is welcome to contribute or use the program notes in our database for any non-commercial or educational purpose.”

You can read more about the site, and James’ comments on it, here.

I highly recommend this site as a great resource for notes on music history and performance, and I really hope to see this idea flourish. If you have any knowledge on at least one piece of music, please don’t hesitate to submit a little note on it! Not only will you be contributing to the preservation of music education, but your participation in a worldwide community project can be a wonderful source for networking with others in the music field.

I’m always excited to see opportunities for members from all facets of the music community to unite and share knowledge, and I hope you will come join us!

Excellent Online Source - Quinn Violins

Sarah — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:47:40 +0000

I have the great pleasure of being invited to play with Collegium Musicum, an Early Music ensemble at CGU in April (more details on the performance to follow shortly…). Well, to do so, I needed to purchase a set of gut strings for my Tommy - it would not suit the performance for my brilliant Evah Pirazzi’s to sing out brighter than the rest of the ensemble’s more mellow gut strings!

Anyway, in my search for the Pirastro Chorda set (Medium gauge) - which my Baroque violin teacher specifically instructed me to purchase, to best accommodate the more modern set-up of my instrument - I first tried my usual search through Woodwind Brasswind’s collection, but I could not find the specific sizes of Chorda that I needed. So, after some surfing on Google, I was delighted to stumble upon a Minnesota based shop - Quinn Violins. As you can see from the above links, their prices are the best I’ve seen so far! As an example, the only other site I found with these specific strings was Shar, and their pricing was $30 higher than Quinn’s!!!!

Needless to say, that encouraged me to try this shop out! And I’m very glad I did. They were very prompt in sending my strings out to me - I received them, nicely packaged, in only a few days. Though I hadn’t received confirmation that they had shipped, when I emailed to ask for confirmation, they sent a friendly and prompt response to let me know when I could expect them to arrive. I believe I’m going to try purchasing my regular Evah’s from them next! So, kudos to Quinn Violins; keep up the great work!

V.T.C.M.A

Sarah — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 05:26:29 +0000

This is to say,….Videos That Caught My Attention.

I just really like these two music videos… perhaps this will inspire a multi-media variation on my spontaneous “Thought for the Day”s.

The first is a clip from Bollywood’s excellent film, Devdas. There are several moments I enjoy from it (one of these days maybe I’ll actually see the film… hee hee…), for the melodies, Indian instrumentation, rhythms, dancing, lavish sets… this one is titled “Silsila Ye Chaahat Ka”.

“And now for something completely different!”

This next video caught my attention as I was searching the internet for material to use in this Monday’s MIDI Band concert of Video Game Music. Created by a user who goes by 42project, this is a music video detailing the adventures of a certain avatar through the many ages and mysteries of URU, set to Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now”.

What can say? I’m a HUGE Myst and URU fan!!