From Mozart to Einaudi - the examination

It may have been a month ago, but our performance in the Hague Library deserves its very own post, methinks.

On Sunday the Second of September, Emma Brown, Florence Rapati, Jelle Chin, Thami Fisher and myself entertained about 150 people for a full hour, and it was awesome.

For a start, we'd decided to create a choreography to "Gretchen am Spinnrade", inluding a spooky Faust/Mephisto personified by Thami. He came up behind the stage, contorting himself behind the barrier there, to eventually vault over and lift Florence. It is perhaps interesting to know that the aforementioned barrier is four meters off the ground.

Another high point was Jelle doing a fabulous tap routine to Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca. He'd come up with lots of nifty moves that copy the melody's rhythm, so at some point I actually stopped playing with my right hand and let him take over. Also, when we got to The Hard Bit in the middle, I may have played a twee bit faster to provoke him... He rose to my challenge magnificently, and got a round of applause for it!

I also performed Jannum Kruidhof's piano ballad, "Daedalus and Icarus". A piece based on Greek mythology, and deeply awesome.... so awesome, in fact, that it inspired choreographer Irene van Zeeland, who was in the audience; I will tell you more about that in another post!

Furthermore, I was forced to publicly scold Emma, who - despite having a broken shoulder - tried to move her own music stand, despite the fact that I'd told her emphatically that she shoudn't. Twice.

Also, she sang Wagner - Isolden's liebestod, to be precise. With Florence dancing the part and me playing it, we suddenly had three Isoldes in the room - normally I'd say a crowd, but in this particular case it was quite perfect!

All in all, it was awesome.

So awesome, in fact, that Jelle has since suggested we might want to take it to Sziget.

This will involve planning, probably a van, and perhaps a quick course in Hungarian. Although I'm not sure those exist...