Yoshi's again and the Stewart Brothers

Lots of playing going on! Lots of weddings, memorials, recording sessions...driving to wine country alot. It's not too bad---like 65 miles...not so bad for some good gigs.

I did Yoshi's the other night with Ramana Vieira and her Ensemble. It was fun. Two shows, at 8pm and 10pm. By 11:30, we were exhausted. Scott came and brought Isabelle. She was coloring while the band played. It gives her great inspiration. She told me that she rated my cello playing that night as a 10. I'll take it!

The real fun was the recording session I did yesterday with the Stewart brothers. They are both dancers with the San Francisco Ballet. Both of them! Matt is recording a CD of his own original compositions. So he hired me in to play on some of the songs. I drove out to a house in the hills in Belmont with my cello, the home of OTR Studios.

From the minute I met these guys---they were smiling. They smiled the whole session. They had such positive energy, it was wonderful to play for them. Matt was the leader of the project, and Ben was a helpful assistant to his brother. Ben had played on the CD too- piano. Matt was the composer, the guitarist and the singer. He told me that he wrote these songs when he was backstage in the dressing room in between rehearsals and concerts at the ballet.

Well, they are both artists with a very prestigious ballet company, so I was not sure what to expect. But the music was fun---and I enjoyed playing on it. The last song we did, called, "Please Sir", sure sounded a bit like early Beatles...These guys were really great. It was one of those fun moments in the life of a freelancer- where you get hired, get paid well, get treated with respect, and all the years of hard work that you put into learning music and your instrument is highly appreciated.

Yay! Horray for the Stewart Brothers. Can't wait to hear the CD, and to go and see them dance.

The Magic

Just a short note here: Isabelle has won an audition with her eighth size cello and she will be performing as a soloist on the honors recital at the Colorado Suzuki Institute at Beaver Creek (Vail) on June 10th. This is very exciting! I am certainly not a competition winner, but, well, she's better than me!

The day we got the congratulations letter in the mail,she said to me, "Mom, why did I win?" I said, "You know what I think? I think the judges watched the video of you, and they saw the magic." She smiled. Later that afternoon when her father came home and she told him that she won, he said, "Wow, that's great!", to which she replied, "Yeah," (turning and running up the stairs, shrugging), "They saw the magic."