Wednesday, April 26, 2006 so it's official now

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

so it's official now. I will be the new professor of saxophone at the Fontys Conservatory in Tilburg, next to my job in Artez. That will be two teaching days. A big change for me. But I must say, teaching young professionals in training is artistic to me. I am more of a coach than a teacher. The students theemselves are responsible for their playing and I try to show them how they can get the best out of themselves.

Friday Ailed and me will go to Mexico. Holidays! I need it! The night before the quartet will play at a provate party at Martijn Sanders' place. The luxury flyer to hand out to his guests is finished. It was quite some work, but rewarding. We're proud of it!

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Sunday afternoon, at home, listening to Gould playing Bizet. Long time since I've listened to that recording. I have this periods I discover my old records and go through them all. Especially with my new speakers they sound great.

It's Easter today and yesterday I saw the beginneng of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ on tv. What a bad movie, at least, the first 20 minutes, then I fell asleap. I never fall asleap during movies, not even bad ones!

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Thursday morning. ABout to go to a Escher Ensemble rehearsal. Although I quit the ensemble some time ago they asked me to do a small project in the Meervaart in Amsterdam. Why not! It's a school project and I think it will be a good experience.

Yesterday I taught at Artez. I had a good time again, the students worked well yesterday.

Not much news today...

Saturday, April 08, 2006

8 in the morning, saturday. 4tet rehearsal at 900 and then off the Luxemburg for a concrt on Sunday. Those Luxemburg concerts are always a lot of fun but they break the week using two days.
Yesterday we had the presentation of the first draft of the new graphic material by artmiks (www.artmiks.nl). It will be very nice! A lot of money but I think it's worth it!
Also,
if you have nothing to do tonight, check out my good friend Ivo Bol, he's got a performance tonight in Korzo Den Haag, www.ivobol.nl.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Very busy these days. Arranging a lot of stuff with our new management in the States. A fantastic opportunity for us to play abroad, something we've always wanted and we've been looking for. They're great people with a lot of heart for music and very enthusiastic. They're really putting a lot of effort into it (www.concertartists.org). In the mean time I haven't had the time to put time into my new CD. One of these weeks should work finally.
Also, I ad an invitation to teach in Venezuela, which will be a lot of fun I think. They can pay for my flight, that's very nice and I just love to go there. Preferably with Ailed of course! I have to find a date to go there but they urged me to come soon.
In the mean time I am teaching at the Artez Conservatory, as a regular professor of saxophone now. A steady jod, who would have thought. I love to teach, but I still have to find out a lot of things. The students are great and hard workers for the most part.
The quartet isa going well. We've had coaching to work better together as a team and I feel that has been very helpfull for us. The coach, Peter Hellema was great. We needed some input from the outside. Now musically we will explore more things also. We have made an appointment with Pieter van Dijk for a lesson in Sweelinck and Bach. Pieter is a great organplayer in Alkmaar. He also teaches at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and he has great students. We have worked with him before in his festival in Alkmaar and that was always a lot of fun.