Cornelia Street Cafe...

The concert tonight at Cornelia Street Cafe went really really well.  It's funny how after three performances of Moon, Tides, Cycles, there are still technical difficulties that come up but fortunately, I've been getting better and better at troubleshooting under pressure.  Plus, we've been getting better at performing the piece together.

The night begins with me arriving early and having to wait upstairs since the previous show was still going on and the venue was packed.  So, I'm thinking already, it's going to be pretty small downstairs.  Old West Village building, tiny staircase leading to basement performance space.  I sat drinking my wine at the bar upstairs trying to imagine how little space we'd have to set up.  When Tania arrived, the downstairs was emptying so we wiggled our way downstairs, me with all of my equipment taking up the whole width of the stairs practically, making it near impossible for people to get out.  So that took a bit.

When I came to the bottom of the stairs and through the doorway into the space, I saw that it was, in fact, fairly long with many tables lining the walls with a full service bar just to the right as you walk in the door.  The stage, though small, fit a baby grand piano with just enough space for me to tuck myself into the corner with one of the tables from the dining area to set up all of my equipment on top of, and still have room to stand comfortably without knocking anything over.  No rickety music stand for my laptop this time either.

Once I finished setting up my equipment, we tested the sound.  Our sound guy, a Bulgarian as well, hit it off with Tania right away.  In fact, they were conversing in rapid-fire Bulgarian from the moment they were acquainted leaving yours truly half confused as to what they were discussing.  He was very helpful though when it came to setting up my equipment and understood all of my requests without questioning me or seeming confused.

So, I was pretty confident from the beginning that, barring any problems with my equipment, we'd at least get good sound.  However, upon powering up the M Audio Axiom 25 that Lacy gave me, I realized it wasn't talking to my audio interface.  Instead of freaking out, (okay, I freaked out a little), I used the track pad on the laptop to twist some knobs so we could at least test the audio, while the place was empty.  After that I tried talking to my equipment a little until it occurred to me to use their wifi to download the manual for the keyboard and figure out how to do a hard reset.  I remembered that the other night, while we were rehearsing, I may have hit some buttons and changed some settings inadvertently.  I was trying to get the USB cable to function (which it won't because I stupid broke it…long story) because I didn't have my  MIDI cable with me that night and in the process I was aware that some of the things I was doing to test it might need to be undone.  Luckily, I had the presence of mind to remember that little episode so, I knew exactly what to look up in the manual: how to do a hard reset.  After clicking on a few articles, I learned all one must do is hold the + and - buttons while powering up the keyboard.  Easy.

After that, I twiddled the knobs to check it was working, solicited a high five from the sound guy and slipped out to use the restroom.  On the way out, I overheard someone in the ticket line coming in saying they had heard about this event in the paper.  Wow!  I thought. Then I looked at the crowd and realized that they were mostly comprised of people who looked as though they either were regulars there or just walked in off the street for dinner and a show.  A co worker of mine also showed up along with a lot of Tania's friends whom I've met before.  So overall a great turnout.  I think it was even one of the best turnouts we've had, other than the Metropolitan Room.  I, unfortunately, had to come right in here to work on the overnight so I didn't get to socialize a whole lot with the audience and Tania's friends but I did get to chat a bit before leaving.  But I did get to hear some compliments and talk with one of Tania's friends about the software that I use.  

There's been some talk about us doing this again in Boston but now I'm looking forward to the next piece that we will perform together, a new longer version of a piano sketch that I'm turning into a piano and electronics piece.  This should be pretty awesome…I will say more about it in another blog soon hopefully.  For now, I must get back to work.  Good night! Pictures from the concert are coming soon!