Hey Improvisers,
Well, I’m midway through my 2-week stint here in Alaska, teaching and performing at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival.
It’s wonderful to be back here after missing last summer due to travel restrictions, and this is an important year for the festival in terms of continuity. Just like with music, an organization such as the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival needs to keep it’s momentum and I’m delighted to be helping this great festival continue into the future.
On Wednesday, the vocal performance class I’m teaching gave a lunchtime concert at a local community center and it felt great to play for a live audience again. Afterwards, I realized that this was the first concert I had played in over 16 months!
I began the concert by playing Antonio Carlos Jobim’s beautiful Bossa nova, “How Insensitive.” The vocalists in my class then sang a song or two each. Hey sang great and then I ended the concert with my piano/comedy number “The Coronavirus Wipes Piano Blues.” I had originally wrote this piece for a video at the beginning of the pandemic, and it was fun to perform it for a live audience.
If you haven’t seen it yet, here it is:
Before I left New York City, I made a couple of Journey Through The Real Book videos and we’re now up to #199. Here it is:
I’m looking to the 2nd week of the festival, and I wish you the very best.
Enjoy the journey, and “let the music flow!”
Ron
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