Photos

I just wanted to share a couple of photos of a male white-winged crossbill that I took, the last time that I was in Jasper. The first photo shows the bird through just my camera zoomed in as far as my camera would allow. The last two photos were taken through my binoculars. Yes, you read that right: through my binoculars. I put the camera lens right in to my binoculars zoomed in a bit more, brought it home, Photoshoped a bit and Voila! Okay, they aren't very good pictures, but they are pictures nevertheless, pictures that are useable enought for IDing birds. Cool!

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #4

I listened to Rachmaninoffs' 4th concerto today. Its Rachmaninoff's least known and least liked piano concertos. It's a good concerto though, in my opinion. Perhaps one of the reasons that it isn't so popular is the lack of a really defined cadenza. I think that the cadenza is one of the best parts of a concerto. Its sort of the pianist's big solo, the chance for him to really give all he's got. The concerto as a whole seems slightly disconnected. However, I know that if I listen to it more and really try to understand it, the more it wil make sense and the more I will love it.

-Daniel (still humming the them from the first movement)

New blog!

I have started a new blog! I will still continue blogging on this one, but I have started specially for classical music. I will post my favorite pieces, analysis of them etc...Here it is.

ATCs

A few days ago, some of our friends introduced me to ATCs, or Artist Trading Cards. They're basically really small peices of art, 3.5 inches by 2.5 inches to be exact. People all over the world create them and trade, not sell, with each other. Here is the first one that I made. Sorry for the lousy picture quality.

Wow!!!

About a week ago I attended probably the most amazing concert I have ever attended! It was called Firebird Festival and it was sooooo good. The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra played Shostakovich's Festival Overture (one of my favorites), Sibelius' Finlandia, The Firebird Suite by Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff's first piano concerto, with soloist Hong Xu, who I actually talked to afterwards! Rachmaninoff's first concerto is one of my favorites pieces so it was sooo exciting to hear it played by with an incredible pianist!