Wednesday, July 14, 2010

A Little Bit Broque


I had quite a nice time this evening. I went to the Boathouse at Valhalla to see Dream Spirit play. The Boathouse is a lovely setting to watch music in. It was originally exactly what its name implies: the boathouse to one of the stately old summer homes around the lake. I has been converted into a theatre, with a great big window behind the stage that looks out over the lake and the mountains. Most the summer concerts start around 7 pm or there abouts, so in addition to music, the audience is treated to a really splendid view of the sunset.


Dream Spirit Baroque Band is a local group - a quartet, featuring primarily hammer dulcimer, guitar, cello and violin/fiddle, with the occasional bit of hand drum thrown in, and some recorders too. The mainstay of their repertoire is baroque and Celtic music, but they incorporate a wide and eclectic range of music into their sound. Tonight there was a Finnish tune, some Eastern tunes, a number of popular tunes from the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, and a Japanese tune called Sakura, which was probably my favourite thing they did all evening. The music is all played in a chamber music setting, making for a pleasant, uncomplicated, all together charming sound. This appears to be the only video of them on youtube. The first tune is a slip jig called the Red Admiral Butterfly, and I have no idea what the second tune is called.

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