Blog for Pianist and Video Artist Anthony Tobin
This is Chopin’s Prelude Opus 28#6 with scenery from around Paris and Lugano, Switzerland.
I have negotiated to go on a Europe Tour with the Austin Eurythmy Ensemble during January – February 2008. We are not certain it will happen, but if it does I will play again with violinist Christian Hofer and return to the Fazil Say Sonata, Paert Fratres, and Ginastera.
The tour would cover England, The Netherlands, Germany, and three venues in Switzerland.
I’ll keep you posted.
This short film is a combination of Debussy’s Brouillards Prelude (1911) and video from June 2007 in Big Bend National Park, Candelaria Texas, and along the Rio Grande and RM 170. I have known this area since March 1993 and feel a special kinship with the region. I consider this short an experiement, but it is one of ten I plan to distribute in a DVD. I will let you know when it is done, and available to purchase from this website via PayPal.
Auguries of Innocence, William Blake
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
This is a video of the water, people, birds, and motion of Paris set to the Opus 32#11 g# minor Rachmaninoff Prelude. I welcome any comments and impressions.
I am working on my latest CD and music for the Debussy Film. I am really enjoying the process, and feel the last trip to the Pacific Coast was a great inspiration. My DVX-100B camera is proving a useful tool for the recording, coupled with Oktava mk-319 microphones and Final Cut Express software. I am working on a Big Bend and Rio Grande short music video set to Rachmaninoff’s G# minor prelude. Since I have not been in snow in awhile, the desert should be an interesting foil.
I recorded the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata:
I also re-recorded La terrasse des audience du clair de lune:
Last weekend I adjucidated the Rock and Jazz ADMTA festival held at the University of Texas. I had not judged in several years and it was nice to see the overall level had risen. Students were for the most part well prepared and interested in playing. I hope to do more in the future.
I returned to LA mid-September and saw my friends Robin and Jim Patterson, and heard my former student/friend Rob Thies on Palos Verdes. Rob won the Prokovief competition several years ago and is a freelance musician in LA. Robin has a private piano studio in Hermosa Beach 3 blocks from the pier. It was a wonderful time.
I return to Orange County and San Diego October 11th. I will follow some leads and see my cousin in La Mesa.
November 21-30 I will return to Tokyo to shoot a personal narrative based on my experience. I will return to Minami-Senju and the New Azuma Hotel, a hostel that is very cheap. There are single rooms, and it is 2 blocks from Kozukappara, or Boulevard of Bones, where the skulls were lined after executions during the Edo period. It is a stark contrast to the rest of Tokyo, and the glitzy image the West has.
The Debussy film continues to progress, and I will give an update and a trailer soon.
