Concertos of a Troubled Time

A good article from WSJ: Concertos of a troubled time.  Here is a link to one of the works that Gil Shaham is planning to do.

Christian Ferras plays Sibelius Violin Concerto

My favourite version.

First Online Violin Lesson

Had been talking with Vadim for ages about the possibility of online violin lessons.  Finally gave it a try yesterday morning via Skype.  It turned out to be much better than we anticipated.  It was our first try and we were not used to it at the beginning.  But the physical distance and the barrier melted down after 10 mins, thanks to Vadim's extensive experience in teaching.  He made our girl play the C major scale in 3 octaves in different bowings (legato, slurred, at the frog, at the tip, etc.)  After listening to her for a few minutes, he was able to identify the areas that she needed to work on. It was quite something to watch and kind of magical. Vadim had not watched her play for more than 18 months but the lesson was like the continuation of the lesson that they had started the day earlier. They then went through some vibrato exercises and Brahms' Hungarian Dance (No.5).  After about an hour I was called upon.  "I need to give your dad a hard time", Vadim told her.  He then asked me to play the C major scale in 2 octaves (I knew he wouldn't ask me to do 3 octaves) starting in the 2nd position on the A string.  After listening to me, he handed down his prescriptions: bowing exercises, some other bowing exercises, and some more bowing exercises.

Life is good, isn't it?  Thank God (whatever it is) there is internet and there are friends and teachers like Vadim.