Guanajuato mini-tour a Success
The first concert in the beautiful Museo Iconográfico de Don Quixote in Guanajuato, Mexico on August 7th turned out to be one of the best concerts I’ve ever given. The museum is a converted old hacienda near the center of town and it has a great concert space in the sculpture garden with wonderful acoustics. I’m happy that Armando Lopez Valdivia joined me on stage again. He played with me there 2 years ago and it was a fantastic show. Armando is an early music specialist and has a collection of nearly 200 instruments - and he plays them all! You can see my recap of the concert with photos and video here. On the strength of that concert I was offered another at the Museo Dieguino also in Guanajuato. You can read the recap (also with vieo and photos) here. Between the two concerts, I traveled to Mexico City to do some recording with drummer Javier Sosa and bassist Edgar Sanchez. I’ll post some audio of that session when it’s mixed down. I then went to Paracho, a small town in the mountains of Michoacan to purchase some instruments. If you’d like to read the blog of the whole trip, you can read it here.
Concert Tour of Mexico, Europe and Africa
I was invited to tour as the guitarist in the band of Koulsy Lamko, an African vocalist currently residing in Mexico City. The tour visited several cities in Mexico, France, Italy, Mali and Burkina Faso. The band was part of “The Caravan Tom Sank” which celebrated the life of Thomas Sankara, the former president of Burkina Faso. Although the tour had a number of logistical problems, it was fascinating to see Africa and to get to know the people a little bit. We had a couple of fantastic opportunities to play with griots in Mali. The griots are a caste of musician/poets that are raised to be artists from childhood and keep their people’s cultural story and wisdom in memory through song and spoken word. I have never played with more natural musicians in all my life. If you’d like to read the blog of the trip, go to the following link:
Mexico, Europe and Africa Blog
Nicaragua Trip Recap
I spent two and a half months in Nicaragua in early 2007. It was an experience that affected me profoundly and I won’t ever forget the things I saw and felt there, nor will I forget the fantastic people - both the kids in the schools and the other volunteers. I worked with an organization called “La Esperanza Granada” (www.la-esperanza-granada.org) that sends volunteers into four schools in poor areas around Granada. They have a variety of health and social work programs too, but their main focus is sending volunteers into the schools to do private tutoring. I worked with a group of first graders, teaching them to read and write in Spanish and to count, add and subtract. I never figured myself to be a good teacher for five and six year olds but I had a great time and the kids seemed to think I was doing OK. I also had the opportunity to teach a few guitar classes at another school and I wish I’d had a little more time for that. I had two opportunities to play on a local radio station and in a little street concert as well. I didn’t plan on doing that much playing there but it wound up being a pretty musical trip after all.
If you’d like to read a blog I kept of the trip (with plenty of photos), go to the following link:
Nicaragua Blog