Madison Milonga with the Band

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

The first weekend in October we traveled with an entourage of friends to Madison, WI to play and sing for the Madison Tango Society's monthly milonga. Me, Andy, and Avik played with Gabriela Contreras and Daniel Castro who traded off singing with us. Sung Yi was our official roadie.

The milonga had a great energy and was well attended! Madison has been one of the strongest supporters of our tango group, and we always enjoy playing for their enthusiastic milongas.

Afterwards, we hung out with the tango bums. I got to try my first "car bomb" at the Irish Pub at the coercion of Avik and Gabriela who also (not for the first time) had car bombs.

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

On the drive home, Andy and I were super excited to pick up some local beer (New Glarus Rocks!) and seven different local raw milk cheeses, including Pleasant Ridge Reserve!

Isle Royale CD Release Concert

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

We took a quick journey back to Isle Royale in late August. We stayed with our friends Pat and Liz who hosted us on Mott Island. We were a bit spoiled, eating fabulous food and tasty beverages brought over on the boat, but we figured we needed the rest after the long journey to Kansas City and back just the weekend before.

We spent our week on Isle Royale practicing and composing a little bit, and then gave a concert on Friday August 22. As usual, the concert was well attended and it was a beautiful warm night.

The only difficulty of the whole trip was the bumpy, sea-sick ride home on the Ranger III. We rode 6-9 foot waves all the way to Houghton (about a 7 hour boat ride...) THEN, we drove 9 hours home to make it back for our Sunday morning church gig. Just another 16 hour travel day...and I used to think that I wanted to be a full time touring musician...

Below is my attempt to catch one of the ferocious Lake Superior waves from the side of the boat.

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

Performance at the National Flute Convention

In August we performed with Tess and Scott for the National Flute Convention in Kansas City, MO!

Our program was taken from our Latin Dance Project and included all original pieces and arrangements including a new piece by Scott called Tango Fantasy and stuff from our Maufo Vega CD.

It was a hell of a drive! We rented a van and drove down 12 hours on Wednesday and back 12 hours on Sunday!! Thankfully we stayed with our friends Stephanie and Eric who live out in Lawrence, KS. They cooked us fabulous food and took care of us with lots of tasty beverages while we rehearsed during the day and made trips back and forth to downtown KC.

Our performance was well received. I would say about 150 people attended and many of the friends from the West Michigan Flute Orchestra (who also performed on Saturday of the convention) where there to support us.

Northern Michigan Concerts

The last weekend in July we played two concerts in northern Michigan on three different great lakes!

Our first concert was at a coffee shop and book store called Falling Rock Cafe in Munising, MI on the Lake Superior shoreline. We were pleasantly surprised with the well attended audience and the enthusiastic and informed response! We featured our new works from Waterway, and many of the folks were engaged with the music and had a lot to say to us afterwards about how the music affected them (every musician's dream right?)

Check out the video of us playing Gauntlet of Death:



We played a concert the next night with our friends Scott Harding and Tess Miller at St. Anne's Church on Mackinac Island. We featured Waterway in the first half of the concert and then works from our Latin Dance Project in preparation for our August performance at the National Flute Convention.

Check out the photo below. Now there is something you don't see everyday. Our Mackinac Island Roadie...on a bike.

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

Composing on the Appalachain Trail

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

Andrew and I took our much needed nature time in June to clear our minds and get to work writing some music!

We spent a week hiking the 70 miles of the Appalachian trail that snake up and down through Smokey Mountain National Park. Our time in the smokies provided some much needed strenuous exercise and open space for brain flow. It was also a very social time as we spent every night eating and sleeping with different people in the community hiker shelters.

After the smokies we drove north and spent two days tasting wine in the Monticello wine region of Virgina before hiking into a rustic cabin in Shenandoah National Park where we stayed for a week.

We cooked a ton of good food, drank delicious wine (Barboursville Vineyards! got to check them out), hiked another 70 miles of day hikes, and slept in about 85 degree moist heat :(

We wrote music and practiced in the mornings. Andy ended up drafting a whole piece for his bell choir at Bethlehem Lutheran Church called Liberation, a three movement work inspired by the book of Job. I drafted a piece for two flutes, guitar, and percussion based on Ravel's piano work Gaspard de la nuit. Even with the heat, we didn't want to come home.

Albuquerque Anniversary Tango Fest

From 2008-2009 Blog Photos

We had a fabulous spring break in New Mexico playing and teaching for the 10th Anniversary Tango Festival for the Tango Club of Albuquerque. Avik Basu joined me and Andy for the two festival milongas, making for a little trio band reunion. Yelena and Avik taught most of the classes on Friday and Saturday, while Andy and I gave two musicality based workshops for dancers, one on dancing to the off beat in tango and one on dancing to different beat structures in vals.

Luckily the weather was awesome, even for the backpacking trip that we took down in the Gila Wilderness after the festival was over. The only jam we had was during our hiking on one of the north facing slopes at the end of our hike. It was literally covered in ice...and after walking ten miles and meeting this steep slope, we really had to keep from crashing. I think our total fall count on the ice was at least ten times between all of us.

Thanks to William Gruner for the sweet shot of us playing for the Friday milonga, and for the ABQ tango club's support of live music!