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Local Food, Local Music

July 16, 2008 at 10:54 AM

I'm on YouTube after all! The Belmont Farmers' Market revamped its website this spring, in time for opening day in June, and they included a blurb about last year's community performers.

This clip starts with 2 of the kids who performed last year playing Bach and ends with me, playing "O Sole Mio." It has me labeled as a violinist, even though I'm playing a viola.

These kids, and another girl my daughter went to see a couple weeks ago, inspired her and she asked if she could play too. So, my daughter and I are planning to play again next week. She only has about 10 minutes of music, mostly duets with me, but she's quite excited about it. I wrote a B part for the viola to accompany her on "Home Sweet Home" and "On the Road to Boston" in the Easiest Fiddling Book that Laurie Niles recommended we do for the summer. If she actually goes through with it (still not a sure thing, given her past experience with performance), she will get a gift certificate from one of the merchants.

Cool! I see no one had an open case for busking for some charity. In a place like Belmont, you might be able to raise some decent money for your favorite charity.
I'm glad that book is working out! This sounds like a good opportunity. Performing is what it's all about, and if kids can do it in a relatively lowess environment, all the better.
I like your Sole Mio. It sounds down home, not like an Italan tenor pulling out his hair and ripping off his shirt and setting his guitar on fire.
These performances are intended to be community service. The beneficiary is the market itself, which is run by volunteers. The vendors aren't volunteers, but the publicity people, the organizers, the people who get permits from the town, and the performers, are.

But last year someone put a dollar in my case anyway, even though I had it closed behind me. I think if we wanted to busk for charity there might be other venues that could work just as well or better. I keep thinking that some day I'll try the Harvard Square T stop, where the cello guy busks (not at the same time as him, but he's not there every day). He plays the same Bach suites I do and sometimes draws a pretty big crowd.

The Square T stop would definitely be one good place to busk. I would not busk at Alewife, but I wonder if busking would work at Porter or Davis. Then, there are always possibilities at T stops downtown. Have fun!
I think it would be wonderful to have a mother-daughter duo in concert, live.