Highlights
- Keith and Becky with Nightingale
- Keith with Ruthie Dornfeld and Joel Bernstein
- Wild Asparagus dance week on the island of St. Croix
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(by Keith, March 2006)
I have been home in
Brattleboro for a few weeks preparing for various upcoming
projects while Becky is in Hawaii playing with Wild Asparagus
for the Tropical Dance Vacation organized by George Marshall.
She, of course, is a having a great time but it's also
a good chance for me to get ready for concerts with Lui
Collins, a great singer song writer on whose album I played
last year. Also, I'll be playing again with Hanneke Cassel
which I am looking forward to. And then there is the series
of three concerts featuring material from Bound for Canaan
with Mark Simos, Shannon Heaton and Becky. It's the first
time I have been able to organize this group to perform
that material and I am excited about it happening. Details
on the calendar page.
Nightingale had a great time playing our now-annual
New Year's Eve concert in Brattleboro with our close friends,
the Amidon Family. Nightingale also had a mini tour in
California in mid-January stopping in Berkeley, San Luis
Obispo for the Contra Carnivale weekend and Los Gatos.
Later in February we went to Knoxville for another dance
weekend. We saw a lot of old friends at all those stops
which is always a great part of travelling in those areas.
After the California trip, I went to Seattle and hooked
up with Ruthie Dornfeld and Joel Bernstein, two great
players with whom I made a CD of American Old Time Music
(or at least our version of it) years ago called Ways
of the World. We hadn't had a chance to play together
for quite a while and it was great to pull out all those
tunes again.
Becky and I did an intensive tour of school shows in
the Brattleboro area at the end of January - nine schools
in three days. Our show was an overview of contra dance
music - what the basic musical forms are, a bit of a picture
of what a dance might have looked like a hundred or more
years ago and how the music has changed in recent years.
They also got a little intro to French Canadian foot percussion.
But the question and answer period was always the most
fun. It's good practice in learning how to field very
personal questions in a public place. We hope to do more
of these shows in the future.
And again this year, I was invited to play with Becky
and Wild Asparagus for their dance week on the island
of St Croix in the Caribbean in February. Describing that
week just sounds like gloating so you will have to come
and see it for yourself.
Nightingale has a lot of things coming up in the spring
and we hope to have the details of those events up soon
on the Nightingale site - NightingaleVT.org
Hope to see you at one of our events soon. Happy spring.
Keith
--Keith Murphy and Rebecca Tracy
Blackislemusic.com
104 Washington St
Brattleboro, VT 05301