Performing Again

It's been around two and half months since the first Pendon concert of the year, but the time had once again come for the various guitar schools around London to strut their stuff.

Our class also returned, albeit in a smaller number. We were also the least able of all the performers and so opened the programme this time. We played:

• Song of the Mountains
• Spanish Dance
• Ukraine Folk Song

All of which were the closing pieces from The Guitarist's Way, Book One, a popular resource for guitar schools. Unlike the previous concert, these were less "toy" pieces and actually begun to sound like music played with a classical guitar!

However, once again, the nerves got to us. There were a few trivial mistakes made by all of us, and I kinda blanked out for periods. Still we had warmed up by Spanish Dance, and our performance of Ukraine Folk Song was one of the best we had ever done, including those in the safety of the classroom. All in all I think we did ok.

The guest artist this time around was Eurico Pereira. Like last time, I didn't stay for his complete performance, but what I did see was pretty amazing. Technically he was superb, and the music he produced was, finally, what I had expected from a good classical guitarist. You could almost visualise the Spanish dancers.

The day was kinda marred with the news that our class had been cancelled, and that without any warning. It seems that there hadn't been enough students attending to justify the course (even though everyone had paid up months ago and there were only five weeks left!). Its a bit of a shame, and couldn't have come at a worse time; most of us have turned a corner and without
continued tuition we may lose the progress we've made. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do, but this is something I'd like to become good at. We'll see, I guess.