This weekend: "Performance Opportunities"

Musicians are constantly trying to put themselves in the right place, at the right time, to play the “right piece”. Lucky for me, I get to perform in my home town of Manistee with a local vocal group, Free Spirit. My “right piece” for this concert is Ennio Morrricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe, from the 1986 film The Mission. Morricone, a prolific composer of movie soundtracks, is famous for scoring many Spaghetti Westerns and other films such as The Legend of 1900.

Yo-Yo Ma popularized Morricone’s arrangement for cello, oboe, and orchestra, in their 2004 album Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone. Since then, it has become a standard in the pops repertoire. I feel lucky since performance opportunities for this piece usually requires an orchestra. In this case, I’ll be playing with choir and piano. Morricone is a master of writing beautiful melodies and Gabriel’s Oboe is no exception.

The concert is on Sunday at 4:00 in Faith Covenant Church of Manistee Michigan.

Here are a few pre-concert listening examples. Enjoy.

A Fistful of Dollars: Theme (1964)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqjcoTzhaIk

The Legend of 1900: Playing Love (1998)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgXW6XDnhXA

The Mission: Gabriel’s Oboe (1984)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBLbH6vRwk8