Vision
Word
A report by Alessandro Bruno.
Some of us arrived in Rolo on Friday the 27th already in the early afternoon hoping to do some extra work before the official beginning time, but it didn’t happen, the house and the kitchen needed to be set up properly, so that’s what we did.
We had our first meeting at 18.15 when everybody arrived (except Stefano Simioni who arrived on Saturday morning):
Alessandro Bruno
Alessandro Papa
Aldo Garuti
Massimo D’Avanzo
Anna Cefalo
Mattia Clera
Adriano Clera
Roberto Deiana
Filippo Guerini
Massimo Di Giacomo
Massimo Di Giacomo is the only one who’s not part of the performance team for now, and came to help us.
During dinner preparation, Anna, Massimo, Adriano, Filippo and I checked out Filippo’s arrangement of Thick As A Brick (8 minute long suite that we learnt at a distance), and we realised it was not ready to be recorded and/or performed yet, it needs more work and refinements.
After dinner we had the rehearsal session in preparation of the one-day-recording session on Saturday: mainly to see where we were. Another piece called “Se Solo Sapessi” (a beautiful piece by Adriano with a balcanic flavour, of which he sent scores to Filippo and me) turned to be not ready for now, like “Thick As A Brick”; not a surprise also in this case. A bit of disappointment came instead when we realised that we didn’t have all the parts for “Perpetuum Mobile”.
Anyway, we went through the rest of our list of pieces and decided to give all of them a go the following day. At half past midnight we called it a day.
Saturday the 28th
06:45 Rise
07:15 Sitting
08:00 Breakfast
09:00 Warm up
10:00 line/sound check
10:30 Recording session begins
13:00 Lunch
14:30 Recording session continues
19:30 Dinner
21:00 Rehearsal/run through for Sunday morning Performance
Thanks to Massimo, we had the privilege of a professional set up for our recordings; we decided to have just 3 chances (almost immediately raised at 4) per piece, so we did, beginning with:
Chanson Balladèe
Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter
Funeral March For A Marionette
Rescue in M.B.
Then after lunch:
Circulation C harm min. (with Massimo Di Giacomo)
Morrison jig
Tango Apasionado
Saltarello
Gymnopédie Nr. 1
John Barleycorn
A brand new experience for us as a Circle, and, for some of us, an absolute novelty; to the point that, as we went along, it lost its edge with talks, laughter, un-requested comments/opinions and so on. I’ve no clue of what ended up onto that hard disk, but it got to be a photo (more or less accurate) of what we are and what we’re doing in this moment.
At dinner I initiated a discussion about our attitude and what we recognize as a GC attitude, what are the differences and why; then into the difference between being prisoner of the automatic reaction of, let’s say, always having to be/make fun, and the intentional choice of, having noticed some strange and unnecessary tension in the air, saying something funny in order to release it.
I think something was stirred within each of us…
After dinner we took away cables and microphones, and went through the pieces not included in the recording session but part of the set list for the performance:
Bach Prelude Circulation
An Easy Way
Hope
Nin Se Na La
Thrak
Music For A Found Harmonium
Short break, then back for a run through. It was by far the more focused and efficient meeting of the day; I felt in fact less exhausted than before dinner. Our standard was a notch higher and some of the pieces came out remarkably well, maybe as a result of the pretty draining work we did during the day…
Sunday the 29th
06:30 Rise
07:00 Sitting
07:45 Breakfast
08:30 Warm up
09:00 Guitars ready at the door
09:30 Download/Setup/Sound-check
10:30 Performance time
The schedule was necessarily tight but we managed get through smoothly, although the few minutes delay accumulated brought us to sound check while the first members of the audience was walking in the church already.
The se list:
Bach Prelude Circulation
Morrison jig
Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter
Chanson Balladèe
Circulation C Harm. min.
Tango Apasionado
An Easy Way
Funeral March For A Marionette
Circulation G Maj.
Hope
Nin Se Na La
Thrak
Saltarello
Rescue in M.B.
John Barleycorn
Music For A Found Harmonium
In the pocket:
Circulation Any Note
Dancing With The Moonlit Night
The Eye Of The Needle
The audience filled up only half of the church but was very attentive and supportive, while the noise of the village feast just outside the door was very disturbing.
We played honourably and recorded the whole thing, although there won’t possibly be traces of Music peeping out at moments as some of us experienced…
After few minutes of socialization we split in 2 groups: I went home with Aldo and Massimo Di Giacomo to prepare lunch, and the rest to pack up the gear.
Quick lunch at 13:20 and then a final meeting at 14:15 with comments about the performance and a quick look into our next future.
Then we zoomed to the train station left at 15:21 to get in Modena at 15:46; then another train at 15:53 arriving in Bologna at 16:16; then another one at 16:46 arriving in Rome at 19:30. There I left my scooter and, trolley between my legs and guitar (soft case) on my back, I got home at 20:00 where Luisa and a wonderful dinner were waiting for me: not bad…