Lot of exciting news
Mood:  amorous
Now Playing: Opera, Contemporary Mexican music, Accompaniments

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." (William Shakespeare)

Dear friends,

let me apologize for the long silence. In the previous months I've found myself occupied with plenty of both professional and personal issues and couldn't find a single minute to write to the blog... Well, even though my affairs are not solved at all and considering the fact I have the most busy "holidays" of my life It is just the need to share the information about my recent events as I promised and didn't keep for long, to be honest.

Well, to take it step by step, I went through rather turbulent times of hard-work, finding myself on the beginning of May in Belgium, touring with Jakub Pustina and just a week after coming back serving as the only one accompanist of the 1st International Vocal Competition Zdar nad Sazavou. Meeting charming and gifter singers was just a pleasure, to work 14 hours a day with only few short breaks was not that nice. Well, stretching hard makes one's muscles strong... For more information about the contest, please see the official page www.pustinacompetition.cz

I also prepared my solo recital with the Magic Quartet featuring (thanks to all who took part in our poll for choosing the proper name for the ensemble), where I also performed very nice work by my talented friend, Mexican composer Edgar Omar Rojas Ruiz. If interested, listen to some excerpts from the event here: http://www.last.fm/music/Richard+Pohl/The+Chamber+Evening+%28featuring+The+Magic+Quartet%29

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Speaking about my dear friend Omar, there was another wonderful collaboration of us, and that was the premiere of his multimedial opera, La Llorona. Based on well-known Mexican legend, the performance was entirely standing on a single soloist, Mexican mezzo-soprano Amanda Sundberg Perez. Charming guest star proved her level by studying the complete score in less than two weeks. Working with her was immense pleasure and I hope we could do more collaboration in the future for she is not only great musician, but also an amazing human being. After all, applause for her and the chamber orchestra led by Petr Lichnovsky as well as Mr. composer was more than eloquent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also our another project of the 1st International Janacek-Revueltas Award brought impressive results. All winners submitted works of surprisingly high quality. All information about the project and its events shall be published at the official site www.skarka-pohl.com/projects.html Also we are proud on the official support of CIEM, Janacek Academy of Music, Mexican embassy in CR as well as Hudebni Rozhledy, prestigious Czech music magazine, taking the official medial partnership of our festival. Now we keep our work to prepare the best possible renditions of all the pieces to be premiered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to post here further information and also some more images soon. I am right in the middle of rehearsals for various other concerts, so hope to keep you informed.

Well, my life stays within the music for music is life and art shall prevail after our short staying on the Earth would pass... But still, I believe it is not only about that. If there was not real joy within experiencind being itself, there wouldn't be real reason for carrying on with our burdens. In those moments I recall how Janina Fialkowska was describing Arthur Rubinstein's usual attitude towards life... They were once together going trough the traffic in the New York City in quite late evening... Rubinstein was all the time full of energy, suggesting even going to movies while being almost blind. But then once, sitting in cab, he said with a sorrow in his voice: "I am depressed..." She started trying to consolate him (as he had really terrible times broking his marriage and losing his sight what definitely finished his long-time music career), but he replied with sort of wise smile: "No, no, it's fine... I enjoy being depressed!"

I wish you could allways find reason to smile even in difficult times. And hope there will be allways someone to keep you up. Have a good time friends, enjoy our new performances available online as well as a lot of new videos on our Youtube channel (pohlpiano).

Sincerely best wishes, Richard.

P.S: After being Facebooker and occupying also MySpace and Last.fm I recently joined also the Hi5 network. Find my profile at http://richardpohl.hi5.com