Peggy's Place
November 2006
I had the opportunity to return to a personal favorite recently: Alaska again! -- where I taught some and played some. The trip was instigated by an all-grown-up student of mine from Cornish (Seattle), Pauli Jansen Hall. Contrary to current wisdom, Alaska, although a little hard to get to, is pretty darned civilized. In Anchorage, I taught with Karen Strid, the head of the Jazz department at UAA, and a fine pianist herself. We had a great couple of days.
Then on south: Homer reminds me (and GoogleEarth it, so you will see where it is, down the Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage) of a revitalized Woodstock, younger, affluent, and without the hippies. Like the main clothing store carries the same stuff as clothing stores in Woodstock, and the ones in Boulder too -- like uppercrust utility-outdoorsy- made of great materials, etc. - NOT indigenous Eskimo garb, although that is what I want to see!
The concert I gave here was wonderful, SRO w/standing ovation. The musicians did a great job with music from my new CD: John Damberg played a wonderful concert marimba donated for the occasion by a local musician, and Bob Ramponi played bass. What a fun concert we gave; our energy and the audience's combined for a real Happening! These people are educated and hungry! I had a wonderful radio interview on KBBI Homer with Mike Mason; I'm hoping to upload that soon! There was a huge interest in my workshop as well. I am finding that the workshops help me to get to know the people where I play, and vice-versa; to explain a little bit about how we do what we do, and find out what they might like to learn to do themselves. I was treated a bit like a visiting dignitary, which is fun, a little like Europe was in the 90's, so grateful to have me there, how nice is that?! So, in short: the most amazing salmon to eat, bears (to talk about, didn’t see any) moose, pheasant, cold, sparkling, clean, rich, vibrant, raw, primitive, surviving, and young...That pretty well covers it...
After that, it was on to Denver, in the lower 48. I had the pleasure of teaching for a day at the brand spanking new Denver University Lamont School of Music. That school is the most music-friendly environment one could ever imagine! As a colleague said, they built a music school, and they did it right!
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