of course, of course
Mar. 29th, 2009 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bliumchikAnd to round off the latest Big Damn Week, I went to a Cafe Carnivale performance with my parents and Stan. It was sort of an eastern-european women themed night, so my parents insisted I come and I insisted Stan come because doing entertainment with my mum is sort of aggravating - I'm glad they brought me now, though.
The first act was the best. It was a Ukrainian and a Belorussian woman, the first, Larissa Burak, with a large Bandura and the second, Lucy Voronov, with a Belorussian instrument whose name I didn't catch that was sort of like a stripped-down piano with no keys - she hit the strings with a pair of elegant little wooden sticks, curved at the ends, that she held between her knuckles, as well as plucking and muting with her hands. Oops, I looked it up and it's called a Belorussian cimbalom. Interesting. Larissa had an amazing soprano. Round and smooth like a high-class yawn, it was a cathedral-arch voice. She would have been a heroine back in the golden days of Opera. They performed traditional Eastern European songs, Lucy's graceful hands ablur with speed.
Next the Marianna Ensemble, so named because it consists of sisters Maria and Anna Okunov. They played Ukrainian ballads and I think some original pieces and misc. on a guitar and a violin. Stan and I were at the side of the stage next to the violinist, and she was fascinating to watch. Her arm was like an extension of the violin, skin rippling like a time-lapse sky, and occasionally she'd lift one or both heels off the ground as though clearing for take-off.
Finally an elderly Aussie lady called Jean Louise? I think? got up and sang some songs in Italian and English. She had an amazing voice but we all agreed that her choice of songs was... sort of odd. Bluntly they all kind of sucked. Really straightforward lyrics, no poetry to them whatsoever, and the tunes were fairly ordinary, and for some of them she had a guitarist accompanying her with weird finger-picking that didn't fit the rhythm at all. The only songs I liked were the blues song she finished on and one of the Italian songs, which she said was about Sirens and which sort of set my imagination racing. She definitely had some friends/fans in the audience though, there were a few shout-outs and whatnot.
In the breaks we chatted with Alex and Liza who were there because Larissa used to be their singing teacher, bringing their boyfriends and also some guy I didn't get introduced to. Afterwards we dropped Stan off and I came home and stayed up on the internet like a moron, which meant I woke up late and did the same thing last night, and oh god I am so sleepy. I had to get up this morning to go to rehearsal. :( And I spent all of yesterday totally failing at my advertising assignment, so I felt guilty when I was doing other stuff even though I wasn't getting anywhere, so I couldn't post here. I just wrote down some vague notes about the concert. And I've incorporated all of them in this post except for "by your powers combined, i am captain salad" because I cannot for the life of me remember the context to that one.
The first act was the best. It was a Ukrainian and a Belorussian woman, the first, Larissa Burak, with a large Bandura and the second, Lucy Voronov, with a Belorussian instrument whose name I didn't catch that was sort of like a stripped-down piano with no keys - she hit the strings with a pair of elegant little wooden sticks, curved at the ends, that she held between her knuckles, as well as plucking and muting with her hands. Oops, I looked it up and it's called a Belorussian cimbalom. Interesting. Larissa had an amazing soprano. Round and smooth like a high-class yawn, it was a cathedral-arch voice. She would have been a heroine back in the golden days of Opera. They performed traditional Eastern European songs, Lucy's graceful hands ablur with speed.
Next the Marianna Ensemble, so named because it consists of sisters Maria and Anna Okunov. They played Ukrainian ballads and I think some original pieces and misc. on a guitar and a violin. Stan and I were at the side of the stage next to the violinist, and she was fascinating to watch. Her arm was like an extension of the violin, skin rippling like a time-lapse sky, and occasionally she'd lift one or both heels off the ground as though clearing for take-off.
Finally an elderly Aussie lady called Jean Louise? I think? got up and sang some songs in Italian and English. She had an amazing voice but we all agreed that her choice of songs was... sort of odd. Bluntly they all kind of sucked. Really straightforward lyrics, no poetry to them whatsoever, and the tunes were fairly ordinary, and for some of them she had a guitarist accompanying her with weird finger-picking that didn't fit the rhythm at all. The only songs I liked were the blues song she finished on and one of the Italian songs, which she said was about Sirens and which sort of set my imagination racing. She definitely had some friends/fans in the audience though, there were a few shout-outs and whatnot.
In the breaks we chatted with Alex and Liza who were there because Larissa used to be their singing teacher, bringing their boyfriends and also some guy I didn't get introduced to. Afterwards we dropped Stan off and I came home and stayed up on the internet like a moron, which meant I woke up late and did the same thing last night, and oh god I am so sleepy. I had to get up this morning to go to rehearsal. :( And I spent all of yesterday totally failing at my advertising assignment, so I felt guilty when I was doing other stuff even though I wasn't getting anywhere, so I couldn't post here. I just wrote down some vague notes about the concert. And I've incorporated all of them in this post except for "by your powers combined, i am captain salad" because I cannot for the life of me remember the context to that one.
