Sketches: The Living Room Concert

Live music is more special than can be described, no matter the genre. Like seeing an original painting, watching musicians perform a program of music can’t be equaled  in any recording.

And hearing it in the comfort of someone’s living room makes it all the better, with no real distance between the performers and the listeners. It’s really the way music was meant to be appreciated.

This was another concert of the “Living Room Chamber Music Project” in Pittsburgh, this time at a friend’s  house. Feeling more comfortable in this venue I carried my Big Bag of Art Materials intending to sketch if I could, if the muse was with me and I wouldn’t distract or interrupt the musicians or the audience. And so she was with me while I produced three sketches and lots of ideas for paintings and possibly collaboration. I love to sketch musicians while they play, letting their performance and the music itself carry me along.

The group has two pianists, Billie Jo Miller and Jack Kurutz, who play at alternate times and act as page turners for each other and sometimes play piano four hands, and a violinist, Ashley Buckley, an oboeist, Lenny Young, and a vocalist who did not perform here tonight because she is in another performance. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire concert, but hearing Spiegel im Spiegel live had me spellbound.

Read about another concert by these musicians, and more about chamber music.