Closure.

Ok, friends, explanation/apology time…

I’ve been away for a bit more than a week but there IS a good reason…

Yup.

Now, let me explain…

A week ago (last Wednesday) I was supposed to have this super busy day with a recording session, job interview, lawyer meeting for my visa application, an Opera rehearsal and of course, performing with Simone…

Yet, life has this very interesting way of flipping the table where you’re building your destiny’s puzzle and well, long story short, I had a bike accident that broke my left clavicle and unfortunately one of the extras of this incident is that playing my cello won’t be an option for me at least for the next 6-8 weeks

As you might infer, It’s been a tough week, you guys… this project that we work so hard on had to be stopped just for a stupid accident and it was painful to see it crumble

I couldn’t even get myself to write a post… but it’s only logical, I think…

After a few days of mourning, I had a long talk with Simone about what to do and we came to the conclusion that we had gone so far with this project that it would be unfair if we didn’t find a way to conclude it as we planned

In Colombia we have this saying that goes “it’s better to have friends than money”, so honoring that wise train of thought I decided to ask a friend of us if he would be interested in playing our final concert with Simone and luckily, he said yes

His name is Simon and he is one terrific Cellist, one who he was so kind and willing to take my place which was something that gave me great relief.

Naturally,  having covered the “we don’t have a cellist” issue I was able to have a more focused idea of what my role could be in this final step of the way and I decided that the least I could do was to be there and introduce the concert.

In spite of this obnoxious shoulder pain I’ve been carrying for the past week, I went there and talked about the project in front of our audience. To my surprise there were 8, yes, EIGHT people that saw our performances somewhere at an MBTA station, park or else and felt attracted enough to come to the final one!

When we started I said to myself that it would be great to get at least five people that saw us somewhere to come for the Pickman concert and well, we got 3 more than what I aimed for so as Kermit puts it

Yay indeed, Kermit…

After I introduced the concert I took my seat and I couldn’t help myself being filled with the nostalgia of not being able to play those notes one last time before Simone and I part ways (she leaves the US for good in a week which is really sad)

Safe to say, I looked a bit sappy through the whole thing…

Didn’t I?

But anyway…

The duo of Simon and Simone (no joke intended) were set to do the final performance of this journey and boy they did a great job at Pickman

My point of view during the performance

I think everybody present at this concert had a good time but I’m sure not as much as me. It was tremendously rewarding to see the culmination of a project unveil the right way, even though we had this major bump down our path.

In conclusion, I wanna come out and say that if you are a musician, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is for you to take your music to people out there, everywhere, in any way you find suiting to reach out for those uncharted audiences.

You will be surprised how much they will want to listen

We would like to thank Longy and our teachers for the support given to us in this journey, it was indeed priceless

Thanks to Simon for his kindness to step up and cover for me and allowing this to have the proper ending. I’m in big debt to you, my friend

Of course, I have to give the biggest thank you to my partner in crime, Simone.

Thank you for being such a trooper and basically have no buts when we made this crazy initiative take place

You were always up for anything… You’re simply the best, “Dani”!

Last but not least, thank YOU, kind reader for following us in these adventures, even if you did so for a little bit… it was so nice to find out that this blog was being read up to 60 times a day in some cases

I wish you the best and know that if you have any questions for me or Simone, you can always contact us at davidhurtadocellist@gmail.com, we will be more than happy to answer them if we can

Take good care, y’all!

See you somewhere down the road!

 

Viva L’Italia!

Another gorgeous day in Boston, sunny, not too warm nor too hot and a bit of a breeze going around was just the icing on the cake to get us motivated enough to be outdoors today, so, you guessed it, we played in a park this morning

Not just any park, by the way, we went to the Paul Revere Park in the North End (or the “Little Italy” as some call it) which is just right outside of NEMPAC (http://www.nempacboston.org/), which again, is one of the places I work at and I don’t know if you’ve ever been around this area in Boston but this park is just a fantastic place, surrounded by this magic atmosphere this neighborhood has

This is MY spot!

We found a really nice spot to play at, we sat down and we enjoyed our time there, we had some people listen to us who thanked us for being there, but the problem is that we STILL haven’t been able to find away to get people to take a card to be invited for the concert so the experiment continues to be unsuccessful…

Told you it was a nice spot!

Also, one thing that we learned today is that we might wanna get a mosquito repellent to be outside because that was a really annoying part of this, this green annoying little things kept landing on my cello but anyway, the performance was a nice one and we even ran into one of our teachers from Longy, the great Dr. Dudas (also known as Dr. D) who complimented us in what we we’re doing which is nice because he is one of the early music gurus at out former school!

Yay!

For today I have no more stories for you, my friends but I do wanna of course, invite you again to come to Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music of Bard College (27 Garden St, Cambridge MA 02138) on July 2nd at 7:30 pm to listen to our closing concert and remember that it’s free so please do bring a friend!

Thanks for reading, friends and have a good night!

 

 

When in doubt, just go where everybody knows your name

So yesterday we had a bad experience playing at North Station that it was kind of a let down, it didn’t feel good to be ignored by people passing by given that so far we have had some sort of a perfect record in getting people’s attention… we got spoiled…

So as we wanted to go back on our feet we looked for shelter again at one of our very successful spots in the past: Harvard Square

This chairs on the spot are so so convenient!

Playing here is so rewarding, people always pays attention, plus, we got one of the best compliments we have gotten so far: “you guys are so brave! thank you for bringing light to this station with your music…”

Heart. Melt.

Not everything is good and dandy, though.

One problem that I have detected is that the business card/invitation strategy is not quite working out a lot, people don’t make an effort to read so I really need to re structure the way I present them to the audience

After that we moved on to Copley Station which has a space with really nice acoustics and on the plus side, here the cards/invitation strategy took an interesting turn because we had many people taking one with them. Who knows, maybe they could eventually come up to the final concert.

Still have to work on a more attractive strategy, though

I always think these old columns are always something very nice to see… don’t ask me why…

I’m hopeful for what’s to come as we approach the end of this journey

Again, please remember that if you are in the Boston area on July 2nd, come at 7:30 pm to Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music of Bard College to get some good dose of Bach

Also, if you can’t come, catch our performance through livestream at http://www.longy.edu/livestream

Thanks for reading again and have a very good night

Another one goes down

 

Sometimes you win and sometimes… you know how it goes…

Beautiful day here in Boston, not too warm, not too hot, just perfect to be outside without thinking you will melt Today we were excited because we were on our way to North Station which is always a very transited spot but unfortunately my calculations weren’t the most accurate ones…

She looks happy to be there, though… which is nice…

When we got there I had high hopes for people being receptive but it just didn’t happen, many people just flew past by us and it wasn’t very pleasant to see that for the first time we weren’t being acknowledged…

People just stood in this platform without paying attention to us just a few feet away from them

So in all honestly, this is the first day of this project that I can count as a fail, nobody picked a card to come to the concert or even took the time to listen for a little bit but I guess a rushy society is the one we live in and rushing through the station is what everybody did

No more things to tell today and I have nothing left to do but to invite you to come on July 2nd to Pickman Hall (27 Garden St Cambridge MA 02138) at 7:30 pm to enjoy an evening with Bach

Also, if you’re not in the Boston area catch the livestream broadcast at http://www.longy.edu/livestream Thanks for reading, my friends! Good night to all!

One more down!