UKELELES TO CHAMBER MUSIC

This morning we got up and took a nice long walk down to the end of Kalakaua Boulevard where there are some really cool historic homes that were built in the 1930s to, for some reason, look like English Tudor houses. I don't think it Tudors ever had a big presence in Hawaii, but I could be wrong.

Then we spent some quality time at the beach, which is all time at the beach. We listened to the ukulele group. Then John came back and exercised and I went back to the beach, This time in my bathing suit. I wore my whale watch shirt in order to distinguish an actual beached whale.
I amused or tortured myself counting how many women were fatter or thinner than I. More were thinner. If I could have taken the Asians out of the mix it would have been a little better percentage, but I realize a lot of work needs to be done.
Tonight we went to hear a chamber music ensemble at the Doris Duke Theatre. The ensemble is called Tresemble. They are a mixed group, tonight consisting of first a wind group, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and French horn. They played a piece by Ferenc Farkas written in 1959, that in many parts and one whole movement could easily have been a Renaissance piece. Then they added violin, viola, cello, bass and piano for the piece by Samuel Coleridge Taylor, not to be confused with the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge . This was an exciting piece, though I thought the piano was too overwhelming.

I

felt sorry for the page turner. The first time she had to turn, she got two pages instead of one, tried to remedy it with her other hand, which she somehow got caught in her necklace, and finally managed to get the job done about 10 measures into the next page. The movements in this piece were much longer than the first one and showed off every member of the ensemble. The composers were all early 20th century composers, but very tonal and not at all 12 tone or anything like that. The Paul Juon piece was really beautiful. Every melody that started a movement seemed like something you could go home humming. This one was an octet, so the bass player was relegated to the audience. Anyway, a good time was had by all.