This season started off with a contract with Estonian State Concert to introduce the dance music with guitar, dancer and cajon to children. Sometimes we have 3 concerts a day, some day even more. Here is a short video they shot for commercial:
Celebrating Birthday with the Dance Program Live
Maria and Reigo giving me the roses after the show
Yesterday we performed our dance program in a very-very suitable environment. It was as if the classic black box and a good sounding chamber hall had a child. In fact, it was a theatre hall built to an old bank. High ceiling, good stage, audience sitting around the stage.
It was a very special show. On one hand, the organizers had done great job and the house was packed. On the other hand I had a birthday and Maria and Reigo did a special dance number to me in the end of the show, right after our encore. Snow was snowing outside and wind was blowing like hell. It is normal here. But to play Spanish music at the same time? Well, a big contrast indeed.
Our program had many numbers from my Dance Album but the accent was on the Iberian culture this time. So we had Albeniz, Malats, Tarrega, Serrano and Turina on the program. I was playing the guitar, Maria Rääk was dancing and then we had Reigo Ahven on cajon and palmas.
The Dance Album on Amazon
Did I mention that you can buy my Dance Album and other CDs from Amazon? There are at least 5 sellers who sell new and used ones. Check it out and buy The Dance Album.
A serious tempo school for a guitarist
For two days I was asked to help my friend Maria, who runs a flamenco school in Tallinn. We have been performing together for a few years but this time she asked me to participate in her special Farruca-class to accompany her students. Usually they practise with music from CDs so it was a special occasion. I know, one flamenco dancer can make a sound to beat a guitar orchestra, so what about 15 of them? It went fine though.
I was repeating sections and different parts of the Farruca and didn’t feel bored at all. I’ve thought about it before and it came to me again: accompanying dancers should be a must for all guitar students. Especially the classical guitarists who mostly play alone and don’t have to keep an even tempo. And believe me, they even cannot do it. Last week I listened to our students’ technical exams and problems with rhytm and tempo were among the most common ones. Yes, they have chamber music classes but playing together with a bowed instrument or a wind instrument doesn’t help. Those instruments have slow attack enough to let the guitarist still fool around and pretend to play.
When we started my Dance Album project I had thousands of serious sessions with metronome, dancers, clappers, percussionists etc to make it clear to myself – accompanying a dancer demands extreme precision. Imagine that a dancers jumps up and you are not ready with your next chord. A singer could wait for you but not a dancer who’s in the air! If you think that as a rock guitarist you don’t have those problems then it is not completely true if you’re not a bassist. These guys together with the drummer have to be real pros while the soloists can float around as they wish.
So I will try to find a way to get my students at the Academy to accompany dancers. It’s a pity we don’t have dancers at the academy but I’ll find some, no problem.
Audience gives feedback
It is good to know that there are people out there who enjoy things I’ve done. Here’s a recent letter from an Argentinian who had listened music from “The Dance Album”:
Dear Kristo:
“First, I want to congratulate you, because I had the opportunity of listening to you on youtube. I was appreciating you playing Spanish and south America music.
Some guitar players can only play excelent baroque music, others classical, others some composers, but I can feel that you are one of the few players that can play any music, old and new of any composer.
I belive that from the begining of youtube, people all over the world can appreciate the first class teachers of several instruments who are living in Estonia.
I was following the quick advance of Katariina and Marcel Kits in violin and cello. Both have talent, but is only possible to advance so much if the teachers are first class.
Then I congratulate you in addition for showing to the world the quality of Estonian music teachers.”
The Dance Album on sale in UK
My favorite solo guitar CD “The Dance Album” reached today the guitar music store at www.guitarcds.net and got positive critics. So here it is:
By the way, without much planning my new solo CD came out – much different from “The Dance Album” but people seem to like it. Check out my “Live at cafe Sadhu”:
Dance album live at Vana-Vigala manor house
Vana-Vigala manor celebrated the 1st of September with a guitar and dance concert. They’ve just ended a massive renovation and the house looks prettier than ever. Estonia has plenty of manor houses but most of them are in a bad situation. But all of them have their own character and to play music in such place is always a pleasure.
This time we picked mostly the Spanish pieces from our Dance Album program but I played some Brazilian music as well. By the way – I’ve just relased a new CD to accompany “The Dance Album” in my discography. It is a live CD – “Live at cafe Sadhu” and it includes my own music besides Brazilian composers. See more about the “Live at cafe Sadhu” from here.
Seems that we’ll have some more Dance Album lives in close future. People like live music and dance and we’ve developed a good program. That’s nice.
Almost Dance Album live in Haapsalu
Yesterday I performed a dance program with Maria Rääk (dance, castagnets, clapping, choreography) and Reigo Ahven (cajon) at the Haapsalu Kuursaal (look at the second picture).
Haapsalu kuursaal
The program was partly same as my Dance Album tracklist but we’ve taken everything non-Spanish as this show was a total Spanish romantic era program.
We played:
- Turina Fandanguillo (with castanets and clapping)
- Anda jaleo (with dance and cajon)
- Albeniz Tango (solo)
- Spanish romanza (the famous anonymous piece, with dance)
- Seguiriyas (cajon, clapping and dance only)
- Tarrega Adelita & Lagrima (solo)
- Serrano Farruca (with dance and cajon)
- Malats Serenata Andaluza (solo)
- Albeniz Asturias (with dance and cajon)
- Albeniz Cadiz (with dance)
- Tarrega Malaguena (with dance, castagnets and cajon)
- Some Sevillanas as encore
Hall was packed but sound was a little bit uneven – the stage room is round and is made to amplify sounds but the sound doesn’t often find its way out from there:)
Here’s a little sample of what we did (sound is poor as always:)
The tap dance show with Guillem Alonso 2010
It was one of the first posts to this blog, where I was talking about the initial impulses to create this kind of guitar album, and I was then talking about the influences of the reknown tap dancer Guillem Alonso. Now, two days ago he was here again and I had the chance to accompany his dancing on the guitar. The event was tha annual “Jazz’n'tap” that is enourmously popular so that this year we had two concerts: 27th and 28th of Apr. Both nights full theatre! This year it was also connected to the celebrations of Alexander Ivaskevitsh’s jubilee.
When I first met Guillem in 2007 then we did the Asturias. That is also why it is on “The Dance Album”. This year we used it as encore but we had to do it on both concerts:) The new things for me were the “Candilejas” by Charles Chaplin. Guillem’s father had arranged it for the solo guitar and I know you think now: “But this is not a dance at all, it’s a song!”. Anyway, that’s what I thought when I first saw the score. But it was a very beautiful dance after all.
The other thing that we did, was the famous Arena, a sand dance by Guillem. You can see the DVD version from here. So that’s what I had to study and memorize and when in 2007 it came so suddenly that I had to play Asturias from the sheet (see the old picture above) then now I had time to prepare and of course played everything by heart. In fact – it took just one day to memorize the rumba and the Candilejas.
I don’t play flamenco rhytms often so now I had a good chance to spend some time with the rumba flamenca right hand strumming patterns. At some point I feel quite confident, especially together with the dance. But alone with the metronome I’m not happy yet 
Thanks to Guillem and Alexander for a wonderful dance event like that!
