We were up at 7. I live about 15 minutes east of the western edge of the eastern time zone so it's almost 8:00 a.m. and the sun still isn't up yet.

MG is catching the 9:00 express train to Chicago and then I think KK and friend and i will to a quick tour of Notre Dame before she heads back up to the Wolverine.

I'm uploading pics and writing captions. The next post may grow so check back!!! KK is on her way back to the Wolverine and MG should be on his second train by now.

Well what a fun time. Thanks to all forumites who attended, including KK and Rach On!

Like many guests, MattG went right to my organ.

He really loved that it's really a combination of several different kinds of organs. It has Hammond, Lowrey, Cathedral, Chamber, Theatre and more on it.



Another shot of Matt G.



Here's how the table was set:



Here's the apartment before people started arriving:



Another view of the apartment with Matt G. still obsessed with my organ:



TO be fair, he also enjoyed the piano:






Guests started arriving around 6ish. Here are some pics of the guests:





A group pic before we headed out to the concert -- on foot. I didn't realize it was like 30 degrees so some people hitchiked home. RACH ON! is behind the TV standing, and behind KK's head in the group shot.



Here we are hoofing it past the Purdue Engineering building on the campus of IU South Bend. Always bring bouquets for the performers is my mantra. They work so hard and flowers are hardly compensation for the incredible amount of effort they put forth:



This pic was taken after the concert, which was FANTASTIC. Here is Matt G., KathyK, and Alexander Toradze. Pretty awesome huh? This is what I like about IUSB, everyone is accessible.



Me and KK:



For Axtremus: KathyK sightread the moon my heart and blew everyone away. It was like she had been playing it all her life!!! That gal can really burn up a keyboard!!!





People's jaw hit the floor when she say down and played:





She got so into it that she became one with the piano and my high-tech camera couldn't even BEGIN to keep up with her hands, so they just became a blur:



A fun time was had by all:



My little dog Angel Rose was the center of attention. People seemed to love giving her veggies from the veggie tray, like dogs need help being regular. She had a ball:

March 27th Afterglow:

Anytime people come in from out of town, I love to have a "morning after" with a nice breakfast and one short tour of a major landmark. It was SUPPOSED TO BE the Notre Dame basilica and grotto but as you will see we inserted another stop:

Matt caught the express train to Chicago bright and early at 9 a.m. KK and her friend from Michigan and I went to breakfast and in the shopping center she said "Look honey! A piano sale! as if I was Jack Frost or something.

(Note to Jack: I used to work for the world's largest piano shipper. Don't worry I got a good rate on shipping. It delivers Tuesday. . .)





Look Big John!!! A Piano Store!!! And look! There's a sale going on!!! Can we stop please please please?????



I turned KK onto the top-of-the-line Clavinova digital grand -- a digitally sampled 9' concert grand stuffed into what is basically a piano-shaped box of high-end speakers and amps. Really fun:



Being the organ afficionado I am, I immediately went for the Lowrey Teenie Genie -- I think it was on sale. I almost bought it:



But I really loved the Lowrey Royale. I played a little "Spanish Eyes" and "Malageuna" for them with the "latin 2" harmony, FX effects, and automatic block chording:



KK couldn't believe the deals. I think she picked THIS ONE:



After we left a cloud of dust in the piano store (LOL), I showed them Notre Dame's recreation of the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. We lit candles and had a quiet moment:





Then we walked over the Basilica. What a place!!!!

Finally, we stepped over to the "Golden Dome" and took a little self-tour:

Matt G. and KK also took a slew of pics. I imagine they will upload them when they have time. . .

Thanks for coming everyone! I really needed to be around piano types!!!

Outside the basilica (video: CLICK ON THE IMAGE):

We'll see if it works. If it does I might upload some short clips of people playing:

I managed to get a few second of playing time in before KathyK knocked on the door...







[SPOILER ALERT] the piano also has a player system installed -- 650 songs in 12 digital libraries plus floppy and CD and when I have the organ close to it I can wire the organ through the MIDI interface so I can play the organ keys and the piano keys depress and play -- with expression no less.

I am a very lucky man.

Here's MattG on the organ (video):

another picture of the beautiful ceiling of the Basilia. You could eat off of it !!! (with anti-gravity dishes of course):

Wonderful pics BJ!

It was almost like being there.

KK is amazing. I have yet to hear Matt but I understand that he as well is.

Who in the pic is Rach?

Still have not heard whether you played piano/organ duets?

I went back and added references to Rach On! in the group pic and he is the tall one standing behind my TV as well.

In the picture walking to the concert with everyone holding flowers, Rach On! is the tall young guy in the center. Sorry. I have to go back and add some labels.

We did not have time for much playing plus the final crowd after the concert got pretty large (13 total).

I hope KK or Matt will write about the concert, but we left the house at 7:05, walked there, got seated around 7:20, the concert started at 7:30 and was over by about 10 including an intermission.

As I said, I hope Matt or KK will write about it. It was stupefyingly awesome. After movements of the Prokofiev, people involuntarily gasped and were like "WHOAH" and stuff like that. The piano was often vibrating on the dolly -- the steel arms were literally vibrating and the piano was moving up and down like it was being electrocuted. So much power needed to play those pieces.

Afterwards, we got back about 10:15 and everyone went home about 11:15 or so, so there wasn't much playing at my place except Matt and I diddled all day because he got here at noon so we had lots of time to play around and have fun.

Great pics, great videos - looks like it was a wonderful time. Wish I could have been there. If nothing else, I'd have been able to take care of one of the things on my bucket list - meeting Matt G.

Now, I'll go back into hiding...

Oh, great photos and videos! Thanks for posting them!!

Sadly, the pictures I took looked great on the camera but horrible on screen (they're mostly totally out of focus). I did get a nice one of Big John playing the piano, though:



Here he's playing "I'll Walk With God" from the 1954 movie musical "The Student Prince."

What a great time I had! It was such a pleasure to meet KathyK finally, and Rach On in person. It's funny how even though we had never met in person, they were like old friends who I just hadn't seen in a while.

Big John was kind enough to pick me up at the train station, and since I was quite early, he gave me a quickie tour of some of South Bend's cool spots, followed by a nice lunch. Then we went out to pick up a few items for the gathering (beverages, snacks, etc.) and floral bouquets for the evening's concert performers.

At the store where we went, the bouquet selection was rather limited and not very attractive. But Big John persevered and made the staff retrieve huge unopened boxes of bouquets from the stockroom just so he could find the perfect flowers.

The evening's concert featured Alexander Toradze and a number of his students. With one exception, the works were all concerti, and were accompanied by a second pianist playing the orchestral reduction.

The first performance was of the first movement of Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto. It is a piece that I daresay is familiar to many of us. But, familiar or not, this is a piece that requires quite a bit of technical prowess. The soloist did a great job of bringing out the lyrical quality of Rachmaninoff's melodic style, and seemed to be in full control of the instrument's voice. She did flub a few passages, but she recovered instantly. The accompanist did a yeoman's job of bringing a dense transcription to life, cajoling a full gamut of timbres out of the piano to suit the passages.

The second performance was by Mr. Toradze doing Prokofiev's fifth piano concerto. Toradze has won numerous awards for his interpretation of Prokofiev's concerti, and this performance displayed why. The fifth concerto is a relentlessly percussive work and Toradze's muscular playing style was a perfect match for the concerto. A somewhat dark work, it was nonetheless breathtaking in hands of a master. The accompanist, whose job was only slightly easier, was a marvel. She followed Toradze's cues flawlessly, and it was clear that he relied on her quite heavily. Both pianists had such power that both pianos were literally bouncing after some passages! A bravura (and encore-worthy) performance.

After an intermission, the second half of the concert opened with a solo performance of Liszt's Sonata in b minor (H moll). This is a piece with which I was not familiar, but it was full of the usual Lisztian fireworks and inventive, Wagneresque harmonies. The pianist was able to bring this work to life by emphasizing its intimacy and lyricism, fully supporting the melodic line even when all hell broke loose around it. His technique was above reproach, and he gave us a performance that is memorable in its evocative power.

Finally, we were entertained with that hoary old chestnut, Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto. This is a piece that requires a whole lot of everything from the soloist, and the young soloist gave a whole lot of it! One thing that distinguished this piece from some of the others was the broad dynamic range the soloist exhibited; his pianissimos were achingly beautiful while the louder passages were played powerfully. The soloist was in complete control over both his prodigious technique and the instrument's voice. His accompanist fared quite well also. This was another dense transcription of the orchestral part, but she managed to evoke all the right colors to express the proper setting for the soloist. And in those passages where the orchestra takes the theme, she shined.

What an amazing concert that was!