GIVING

Christmas is one of my very favorite times of the year. December normally swoops in on the tail of frigid winds and blustery weather. Unfortunately, that is exactly when it is time to drive to the airports and pick up family, who are swooping in on blustery tailwinds of their own.

Our small house bulges at the seams to reaccomodate the ones we love. We have been food shopping numerous times to be sure to stock our refrigerator with everyone's favorite things.

Air mattresses are inflated and disguised with a pile of quilts and pillows. Our dog squeezes in between the chair legs under the table to hide from the fray.

Unless Christmas conveniently lands on the weekend, the week that people come in remains a work week for us. That means that our students tiptoe around suitcases with their cellos and the sight reading portion of lessons becomes holiday duets.

For our family, the official musical week of the holiday season always begins with a trip to the Flynn theater in Burlington to see a musical version of “A Christmas Carol.” brought in by the Nebraska Caravan Theater. Our kids know every line by heart and the post performance walk to our car is essentially a re- production of the performance.

Next is something most musicians are familiar with, Handel's brilliant Messiah. Paul plays in the Messiah performance in nearby Stowe. It is a sing-along and he is an original member of the orchestra going back 21 years. He is sedately dressed in musician black while his family fills the pew closest to his seat wearing our ugliest of ugly Christmas sweaters and various sparkly attire. He can't miss us, voices withstanding.

Another budding tradition is to bring members of both of our cello studios to Woodridge Nursing home the week before Christmas. We arrived this year with around ten cellists, one violinist (we like those numbers) and two bassists. The music has three parts guaranteeing that anyone who would like to play can fit into one of the parts.

We begin arriving with our cumbersome cases in tow. Some of the residents are already seated. A few will be in regular chairs and many in wheelchairs. Often as we come in we will get a weak wave or a small smile to greet us. Sometimes we get neither, just a vague stare.

This year one of our students made a handbook with the words to the holiday music that we were playing. We moved hopefully among the residents handing them the books so that they could sing along.

I conducted the group and Paul sat in. We began with a very familiar piece and, as we started up I could hear voices begin to sing from behind me.

As we moved from piece to piece I became much more adept at the “conductor swivel” One minute I would face the musicians, the next I would spin and face the residents. Flapping my arms like some kind of a Christmas bird to keep the musicians in tempo behind me and to encourage the chorus in front of me.

As we continued, people became braver and more animated. We watched them begin to clap their hands to the pieces that were as familiar to them as the hands they were clapping. Some of the voices were tired and weak but others rose above the music, strong and clear. The best part was when we would forge on to verse three, one that carolers rarely sing, and all of us, including this conductor, were forced to keep repeating the phrase “fa la la la la” as it was the only line we could readily remember.

I found that as I continued to swivel between orchestra and musician the line began to blur. One side was laughing and singing, the other smiling and laughing. Music and laughter becoming the ribbon that was tying this package together.

As the clapping died down we packed up to leave. We had made a plan with our students to meet for pizza and so they were hefting cases onto their shoulders and lugging music stands down the hall toward the elevator. At the same time many of the residents were being wheeled down that same hall to their rooms. But, as there are only so many “wheelers' available at one time, many remained in the space with us. Now that the music had ended they sat silent in their wheelchairs. Smiles replaced by vague stares.

I found it difficult to leave them. I knew that I was headed to a warm space filled with holiday cheer and laughing friends. I knew that when I left the restaurant it would be with my husband and son and we would be going home to turn on our familiar Christmas records and sit by our beautiful tree and, I knew that, at one point, the residents had lived this life as well.

But no longer.

Often we struggle to find and then describe what can make holidays special and important.  In this case, with those voices singing and faces smiling, no words were needed.

 

Melissa Perley

Thanksgiving 2015

What if today were the day when everything was enough?

What if, when you picked up your instrument, every squeak, the low percentage of right notes, and even all “unscheduled solos” were okay?

If today could be the day that your focus became on the process instead of on that far off perfect end point?

If those things were enough, could you be grateful? Could you be grateful for the ability to simply draw your bow across the strings and make resonant, beautiful sounds?

For the sheer power of the instrument?

For its smooth, curving beauty?

For your hands?

For you?

Today everything is real and good and it is all enough , including you - be grateful.

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Melissa

The Path That We Have Chosen

I 'm driving home in the late afternoon deep in thought, my brand new studded snow tires crackling against the stones as I pass over the familiar dirt road. I come around the bend and am struck by the light on the water of the pond. The conifers on the far side of the water look as if they have a spotlight shining on them. Staggeringly beautiful and in the water in front of them an equally stunning reflection- two for the price of one.

I pull my car over to the side of the road to take a moment and breath it in. Overhead geese honking their goodbyes as they fly over the water. Small ducks, permanent residents, bob up and down looking for food. Someone drives past me, dust from the dirt road swirls around my car, as it settles back the view reappeares as if it has been hidden behind a scrim just waiting for my show to begin.

The brilliant colors of the leaves have rusted out. But there is something in the faded color, in the new sparseness that pulls at my emotions. I think it is the ache of loss coupled with the anticipation of things to come.

I know this view. Every day I see the pines rise up from the shoreline. Their almost black- green creating aggressive stripes against the soft deciduous trees. I need each of them to be able to see the other.

The pond curves out ahead of me as I drive. One day it will be dark and capped with white foam, unsettled and rough. The next it will be beautiful blue green, peaceful and calm. I find that as it is reflecting what is around it to me, I also feel peaceful and begin to reflect it.

Today I notice my neighbors gathering their wood. One man comes out in red plaid carrying a maul. At the next house someone is pulling a tractor out of his shed, cranking his neck around to miss hitting the cars parked in the driveway. Like squirrels bravely darting across the road, we, too, are preparing for the next season. Each of us gathering. Friends are getting the final brussel sprouts off the stalk and forking potatoes into a bucket to be stored in the basement and brought out later when the ground is white.

I know this dirt road. Beautiful in the fall, hard and solid. Winding through the fiery colored landscape. Peaceful in the summer, long and dusty, passing in and out of the cool, green shade. Icy in the winter, almost unrecognizable with its white coat on. And treacherous in the spring. We take in big gulps of air before heading out on each journey anticipating the bumps and jolts of mucking though mud. Wondering if we really will ever get back home.

This is where we choose to live. We could choose somewhere that is placed on the side of smooth, black pavement. It would be quick to get to and the road easy to drive on. We would know what to expect each and every day. But we don't want to know what to expect from day to day. And we want to have to experience the struggle of living here because we need that to be able to appreciate the good that we have.

This is our road, why we are here and this is the path that we have chosen.

Melissa

The Art Of Ensemble

                                            

I woke up this morning and noticed a dusting of snow on the grass. In response to this offense the trees seemed to be tossing leaves to the ground in a swirl of defiance. Protesting winter's early visit. We had to feed the stove big chunks of maple instead of poplar to keep the wood floor warm under our feet while making breakfast.

I put a whole chicken into a pot to roast the day away and made a pumpkin pie for dessert. It is fall in Vermont.

The younger students are back onto their weekly schedules both in school and for private lessons. It is not just math skills that gathered dust over the summer. We revisit our bow grips and climb down the scale to begin the climb back up.

They gradually remember my teaching subtleties - when my eyes drift over to an elbow that is cowering too close to their side- out it pops as if by magic. The quick turn of my head to catch a wayward pinkie having British tea brings it back in line avoiding a scribble in the notebook that will indicate the need for a week of bow-skill work.

At the end of each session we play duets. It is the cake of the lesson. Students get to pick their duet (something they have not played before) and their part, (top or bottom). It offers the opportunity for each student to be in charge of at least one part of the hour and that is important. There are laughter and mistakes but there is also growth. I liken it to adding chopped broccoli to spaghetti sauce, my kids never knew and yet they got the value of the vegetable. Amidst the laughter the student learns to sight-read - an invaluable tool in their cello drawer.

As the music programs in many schools falter and even stop, it becomes important that the private teacher offer some kind of ensemble opportunity to their students. Perhaps there is a youth orchestra in the area that can help with those skills. But, for some, for different reasons, that may not be feasible, and for many early-learning adults it is not possible.

Paul and I have run an ensemble (known simply as “ensemble”) for many years. It began life as a way to give students the chance to learn how to play as part of a group, how to work under a conductor, and what it means to be part of a musical community.

We decided on music and there were normally four levels of parts matching skills. We, (and when I say “we” I mean Paul) transposed various instrument parts into cello parts. It was the ideal orchestra to our minds- all low strings- all the time! We met bi-weekly in the basement of a local church and through cold Vermont winters the lights of that church would blaze out over the snow and the sound of music and chatting would fill that basement.

As word spread of ensemble more people asked if they could join us and before long we were dealing with a small chamber orchestra by adding violins and basses. At one point we had five basses lined up, backs to the windows.

Each session opened with music and closed with cookies. They performed at every recital and could hear as well as feel the results of their new experience. It was exciting to watch students begin in the fourth cello part, mainly half and whole notes, and each successive year move up through the ranks- a shy smile on their face on their first day of being with a new section. One year our oldest student was an eighty-six year old Japanese man and the youngest was an eight-year-old little girl and they sat side by side. Kazuhiko spoke very little English but, fortunately, the language spoken was music and it was enough. 

This year our schedules have not allowed us to run a full-on ensemble and it is a disappointment - both to them and to us. However, Sunday evening we will be holding a Renaissance Night as a collaboration between our two studios and our friend Margaret Gilmore's studio. They are from the Upper Valley so we will meet in the middle at a church in Randolph, Vermont. There will be players of different abilities and each will have their own part. There will be a potluck dinner and pie, always pie. This time the lights will blaze out over colored leaves and retreating snow and there will be the sounds of chatting and of music filling another basement hall. And it will be a chance for us all, teachers included, to remember that an important part of learning music is remembering to “play” together.

Melissa

Photography & Music

Recently I had a great experience pairing solo cello music with photography and painting. It has been so interesting to put all three art mediums in one space - there is an element of sensory overload that is edgy and exciting. It has certainly made me more appreciative of the visual arts.

Photographers and painters “see” in minute. They pick up interplay between colors and textures and enjoy the world of sight with a magical tilt. Musicians “hear” in minute- we hear the rhythm in the calls of the crows outside the bedroom window each morning. We listen intently to the background music in film and we are never unaware of how sound affects the way we feel - in fact - we rely on that sensory intertwining and understand the need to be able to tap into it.

For our Paul Perley Cellos website we set up a photographic space to take pictures of the cellos and bows for sale. We put it in our basement both due to lack of appropriate space as well as to insulate the blue language involved as we figured out how to best shoot the instruments. In studying luthiering Paul was taught that varnish is holy. Above all else, avoid altering the varnish on an instrument. We respect, understand and appreciate that, but the sheen off that varnish with big lights makes photographing the cellos without big “hot spots” nearly impossible for lay photographers (that's us...)

So we did what all respectable photographic wannabees do- we hired someone!

The team that we hired, John Snell and Rob Spring are fine photographers and they loved working with the instruments- the beautiful shapes of the bouts, some magnificent peg designs and the impressiveness of thirty cellos are hanging shoulder to shoulder -the sense of waiting to be played palpable. They did a fabulous job for us and our web site is testament to their artistry. However, Rob also added extra photos of our shop and instruments to his website  http://www.robspringphoto.com/emily-london/   The web site is well worth exploring in it's entirety- to both appreciate the feminine shape of the cellos against the geometric angles of gray barns in the mist.

He helps us to remember that everything, including what we see and hear each day, is beautiful.

Melissa

robspringphotos.com

Practicing

There are many things that happen as time begins to slant toward autumn. The angle of light changes and everything is cast in a faded lemony yellow. Slowly we are losing our long and warm summer evenings. We have to hurry to the garden after dinner to get any weeding done and walks are often in the cool of the twilight. The pulse of the summer pace is quickening.

It feels like yesterday that we finished teaching our school year schedules and eased into the more relaxed summer routines. Recitals and end of year concerts are over and the sigh of relaxing is perceptible.

Interestingly, it seems that when things are at fever pitch is the time when I am most efficient with my practicing. I find pockets of time to tuck practice in between students- I become more focused and diligent about utilizing my free space to work with my own instrument. When I am in summer mode it becomes harder to feel pushed to get to the cello. Aren't there still tomatoes to pick? And this heat makes it a perfect day to take the dog to the river for a swim. I become the practicer that I discourage my students from being, the “leave it to the last minute” practicer.

What this normally means is that I end up working late into the night. Entering the dark studio becomes the challenge, the music is silent on my stand, it seems that where during the daytime hours it is calling me, exciting me with possibilities, in the nighttime it seems very still, as if to say “why not tomorrow?” Sheer stubbornness (and, okay, a performance looming) makes me get to it and I find I pass through degrees of both simply being awake and yawning in tempo, into focus and intensity. Although it sounds like a good teacher to say “so- practicing really does excite me”, there is something about feeling the music move under my fingers and watching struggle morph into success that drives me forward.

Albert Einstein once said that the reason people enjoy chopping wood is because the results are apparent and immediate. In many ways I find that is true of practicing as well. If you use your time efficiently and zero in on problem areas of your studies you will feel, at some point, movement in your progress. It is part of the path to mastery and, while necessary, it is also quite thrilling and addictive.

And so, while I will miss the warm days and the slower pace, I also know what is coming, I feel the rhythms changing and look forward to, perhaps, practicing in the daylight.

Melissa

Your Special Day

Tis the season- not the season with decorated trees- tis the season for weddings!

Every musician looks toward the spring/summer with a mixture of anticipation, excitement and occasionally dread.

The process begins with a phone call or an email - excited brides or grooms are calling to see if we would be willing to share in their beautiful day.

Most of the time Paul and I perform for weddings, as the cello duo, Soavita.. And the first thing we discuss with them is what they are interested in having us do within their wedding. Almost always we are asked to play pre-wedding music as the guests are seated (standard wedding fare) and, in the last few years, we have been asked to replace “Here Comes the Bride” from an organist, with two cellos playing “Trumpet Voluntary.” I have to say - I play a mean trumpet with strings.

The standard postlude (think “Ode To Joy”) as many times as it takes to empty the church. The challenge is sandwiched somewhere in between pre and post and that is the bride's, groom's or, to be honest, the mother of the bride's, choice of ceremony music.

The choices are usually the fodder for dinner conversation between Paul and I. The question becomes:

“Can Paul, as arranger, make Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven rock with two cellos?”

Or “Can cellos actually twang in a Johnny Cash song”

Or, “Can Melissa somehow fit the Dvorak concerto into 3 minutes?”

There seems to be a gap between what they hear on the radio and what instruments will actually be playing the piece during the wedding.

Once we have the music in place we talk logistics. Where, what, when, certainly how, and more often than not, why?

In New England, outdoor weddings are popular. The ideal is sunshine and roses, the reality is more likely to be blowing rain and black flies.

Long ago we decided it would be a good idea to come up with a contract that would detail the weather conditions under which we could/would play. This contract was borne from weddings (painfully, this is all true) where, even after explaining that wood instruments and water did not mix- we tromped across a soggy yard, heels sinking into soaked earth, to be placed without cover near the bride and groom who are safely nestled together under their canopy. And when the sky began to spit drops on us- we suggested that we, too, needed to be nestled under the safety of a canopy! Only to then be unceremoniously placed under the family porch next to the lawn mower, peering out from behind lattice work for cues to begin playing.

Or, the reverse- we play the ceremony and head to the reception where we will be playing for a cocktail hour. The sun is baking everyone so they all retire to the cool shade of the porch for champagne while we plant our chairs next to the garden and begin to slow roast. Water and wood do not mix and I am here, through experience, to tell you that direct sun and wood are not the best of friends either.

On the car ride home, with another performance looming, my string height and pitch dropping further than I care to remember- and more tears and swearing than Paul cares to remember, is the time when one begins to contemplate purchase of the “wedding cello”.

We have arrived at a wedding to discover that the bride and groom are being married in Star Wars outfits, we have watched many a ceremony from behind the backside of a large attendant and we have ratcheted up the dynamics of the music to cover the sounds of a sobbing bride coming from the bathroom.

Our wedding “kit” contains:

Sunscreen

Raincoats

Water, water, water

Bricks to keep our stands from flying into the swimming pool

Clothespins to keep our music from following

and duct tape- because it is duct tape.

So if you are planning a wedding- we might include a few suggestions. If you need it, ask for a bit of help when choosing music- we are happy to do it and would much rather (trust us) offer up some suggestions than default to Pachelbel's Canon....again.

Feed us. Even cookies. because believe me, eating black flies does not constitute a meal.

Pay us when we are finished, we have worked really hard.

There are many details that you will not remember about your beautiful wedding day- but your music may just be one of the things that you can both recall with fondness - hopefully we can as well.

Melissa

End Of Season

End of season is always challenging for both player and teacher. It is a time for auditions and recitals: end of school. The beginning of the long, untethered days of summer hang, tantalizingly close.

In order to be fully prepared for it all there needs to be repetition and lots of it. Weeks of the same scale and piece mean two very different, yet ironically similar things to the teacher and student.

The student feels repetition as tedious work. The question “why” seems to pop up frequently. The explanations and answers illicit “the look”- eyes glazed and unseeing and ears hearing only the Charlie Brown teacher voice.

To the teacher repetition means surprise. Surprise that the E major scale in four octaves could wander into so many keys over the course of weeks. I often ask the question “Are you sick of this piece yet?” and my students are always interested that the  “yes” response is the good and correct one.

Recitals and auditions bring fear, pride, angst, tears and always, at some point, laughter.

I feel a true compulsion to mother my students, adults, teens, and children alike. To wrap warmth and empathy around them while simultaneously gently, but resolutely, pushing.

There are the students who will triumph in the manner of the tortoise and the hare. They will listen as I instruct and will take suggestions and step over the hurdle of talent.

And then there are the students who will cram for the recital, ignoring the repeated messages penned into their weary notebooks. In the early preparation stage the notes are filled with cheering and encouragement and as time passes slide into the philosophical with a dose of crankiness.

I have to make the difficult decision to let the inevitable happen. The lesson to be learned is bigger than preparing for cello work and it is organic in it's simplicity. The inevitable result of lack of preparation is disappointment in performance. My own children learned more form falling down and getting up than from being carried.

It is now, in the twilight of the season, that I know more fully what it means to teach. For now is the time to bring forth all of my talent, creativity and, if all else fails, the box of Popsicles. At the beginning of the term everything is shiny and new. I am a rock star with stickers. Now it is hard not to feel hurt by my students watching the clock.

But I teach - it is much of what I do and who I am, and if I have to I will fireman-carry each and every student across the finish line of May.

Melissa

And so we wear mud boots....

Most of the northeast U.S.enjoys four diverse seasons but Vermonters will tell you that we have one more, a fifth called mud season.

If you have the pleasure of living on an unpaved road, it is the coming of both mud and guilt. Our business lives at the end of a dirt road. Customers and students must travel more than 3 miles off pavement to get to us.

Somehow I'm always surprised by our fifth season, until the first time my car bottoms out. Then I remember.

 

This year had one of the coldest, snowiest winters on record. To give you an idea of how cold, I can tell you that a lot of Vermonters ran out of wood. Enough said.

I, incredibly, did not bump heads with winter this year. Incredibly, because I don't need a lot of encouragement to bump heads with most anything. This winter, however, I just threw more wood in the stove and photographed the five foot snow banks that tucked our home deeper into its surroundings. I decided to follow the rhythm of the season. We repeatedly got snowed in and each time we simply shoveled out.

There is a long, crystaline peace in winter, but then it thaws. It is now early April and the thermometer has finally broken single digits and pushes to fifty five. To celebrate we take our dog to the bike path in Burlington and are amazed to see people walking, running and skateboarding in shorts, t-shirts and even tank tops.

With spring comes the sap and exposed toes. We all feel the “push” with the sunshine, our clothing reflects the fact that we know that the seasonal clock has begun to tick and the time our skin is out from cover is limited.

We gobble up tulips from the store before our own bulbs reveal themselves so that we can convince ourselves that spring is here. To enjoy color after so much white.

The car that we drive in April is our “mud” car. Its only requirements are height and four wheel drive. It is the time when people carry tow chains alongside their groceries in their trunks. I forget what color the car is because it is iced with mud frosting.

Mud is the Everest of seasons, the one time of year when there are places you simply can't get to. At its worst, any morning travel can depend on last night's freezing temperatures to make solid the surface. When I schedule a lesson or an appointment I always preface it with “ what type of car do you drive?”

But one of the many reasons I love living in Vermont is the character and resilience of its people. Someone told me that “soft climates make soft people” and I believe them.

By the time April comes, I am so excited to not be in snow boots that I head out in little spring shoes, tiptoeing around puddles and globs of mud...only to sink, only to fail. And so, inevitably, out come my thick, green, rubber mud boots. No flowers, no polka dots to clash with the dirt,. Utilitarian mud boots. And I notice them all over Vermont. At the grocery store, at restaurants, school plays and music lessons!

But while I may feel guilty when people have to traverse the mud to get to us, I notice a certain pride of success on their faces and in their voices at making it to us. Everest.

The Nile Project

Every year Paul & I like to attend some of the concert series that happens annually in nearby Burlington. This year's events included an interesting-sounding ensemble called The Nile Project and last week on Sunday night Paul and I went.

The Nile River provides the water that is tied to all aspects of life for the eleven countries situated along it. It is the spring that feeds this endeavor.

The Nile Project brings together artists from the eleven Nile countries to make music that combines the region's diverse instruments, languages and traditions.

As these nations face water stress: tensions inevitably rise. The Nile Project is a grassroots effort to create a cross-cultural dialogue and collaboration.

Seeing the cultural diversity in the musicians' clothing and hearing it in their music made me remember that we are all made of water and perhaps that explained why the language of their music was strange to my ears but familiar to my center.

It is continually interesting that, when words fail us, music has the power to bridge.

Melissa

The Cracks Of Winter

The act of writing this blog is painful....not because of the material but the actual ACT of writing is painful as the pads on the second and third fingers on my left hand (and yes, I am left handed) have split open in this cold, dry weather.

Each day as I practice I can feel the rhythmic pulse of my heart beat in each of those fingers. Sometimes they even bleed while I am demonstrating something for one of my students.That has its advantages as I appear extremely sacrificial to my instrument with blood running down my fingers: if only they practiced a little more, they too could bleed.

It then stands to reason that our living, breathing wood instruments would be reacting to the lack of humidity as well. We are repairing weather cracks left and right in the shop. There is something facinating to me about my cello shrinking and swelling in response to its surroundings. Something that shows it is, indeed, a living thing. I knew it all along but this just proves it.

We are lugging water jugs back and forth to our shop and to the music room in our house. Twice daily we fill the humidifiers. Each time we pass by our instruments I imagine them sighing in relief to see more water being added to the air.

I know that this will pass, it always does. But, as with the extreme winter weather, there is something special in the effort to keep things going. Lugging water jugs to and fro makes me feel a bit pioneer-ish and that without me, where would my instrument be?

Melissa

A New Look for Paul Perley Cellos

We launched our new Paul Perley Cellos web site this week.

Simply making the decision to change the site was a hurdle. Our website has always been well regarded and we have had good success using it. However, even your favorite clothes begin to look tired after a certain period of time and we decided that, after 10 years, it was time to change things up.

In reality- our daughter in law, Elyse gently coaxed us into modernization. She is a marketing expert and her work includes teaching at a graduate school in North Carolina and she offered her brilliant services.

And so it began- we found a terrific team of photographers to work with, John Snell and Rob Spring. Often John's work involves photographing animals in the heat of Africa and so, given the challenge of shooting individual cellos in the heat of our shop, who better?

Cellos are difficult to photograph. It seems that their individualism extends to their varnish and how it reflects light. However- Rob & John persevered and did some amazing work.

Once we had the inventory (which will be different almost weekly) it was technical time all the way.

Figuring out what to move and where, what policies to keep and which to change, shipping options, etc., etc.  Not to mention the reality of life swirling around all of us. Shop work and practice and teaching and performing leave less than desired amounts of time in a twelve hour day.

But after all that. we did it and it is here. We have changed the clothes but who we are remains. We understand the very personal process of finding a new instrument and with 26 years experience with bowed instruments, we understand strings.

Our goal is the same - to help every musician find the instrument that helps them to make their very best music.

Thanks Elyse!

Melissa

Reflections

In thinking about the part that music has played in my life, I realize that it has not been just about listening to music as such.  My earliest memories of experiences have always had musical soundtracks playing behind them. They still do.  Much of this music is comprised of things I've heard although some seem to be original.  

Recently this has prompted me to contact friends: John Snell an amazing photographer, and Hope Burgoyne, a terrific painter, asking them to collaborate with me on a project called Reflections.  Both Hope and John use themes of nature in their work, so Hope painted two large, identical landscapes, the second of which was made up of numerous smaller sized components, each of which stood on their own, and John used a sizable series of photographs of water taken during all four seasons.  While John's slide show (ingeniously projected on a light fabric hung from the ceiling, gently flowing in the breezes created by human movement), I play unaccompanied excerpts from cello pieces, a few of which I wrote for this project, that are my reflections of John's and Hope's work.

It's happening on Montpelier's (VT) winter Art-Walk, and on Valentine's evening in nearby Waterbury. Three performances in each space.

I love the the idea of the cello being a collaborator in a non-traditional way, jointly expressive with the work of other artists.

Best,

Melissa