by Kurt Knecht | Jul 18, 2012 | Eliot, gigging stories, kurt knecht, Little Gidding, manatee, Uncategorized
Playing on the circuit in any given town is the closest a religious musician ever gets to the existential despair that flourishes the “bar scene”. You show up and have an intimate experience with people that you barely know. Of course, after...
by Kurt Knecht | Mar 8, 2012 | gigging stories, kurt knecht, ravel concerto, the florida orchestra, Uncategorized
Part of my prize in the Florida Orchestra’s Young Artist Competition was the opportunity to perform the third movement of the Ravel G major Piano Concerto three times with the Orchestra. We were to play two “Coffee Concerts” and one evening concert. Each concert was...
by Kurt Knecht | Jan 23, 2012 | gigging stories, kurt knecht, Uncategorized
My wife has often said that I have a “European” sense of personal hygiene. My socks seldom match. I don’t iron my shirts. I stopped combing my hair around the time I successfully emerged from my 80s New Wave look. I don’t shave regularly. It’s not that these are...
by Kurt Knecht | Jan 4, 2012 | gigging stories, jason mendelsohn, kurt knecht, Uncategorized
One of the unspoken rules of gigging is helping your fellow musicians when they receive unwanted advances from listeners. If someone comes up to the stage with a song request, there are ready made phrases to thwart them. Normally, you say something like, “The next...
by Kurt Knecht | Dec 19, 2011 | gigging stories, kurt knecht, organist, Uncategorized, wedding
I always wanted a great wedding story. Every organist has a wedding story, and for years, I did not have one. When we gathered for our secret organist meetings to complain about brides requesting “It’s a small world after all” for a processional and grooms requesting...
by Kurt Knecht | Dec 17, 2011 | gigging stories, kurt knecht, Uncategorized
In the late seventeenth century, there was a fantastic musician named Dietrich Buxtehude. He landed a sweet gig as music director in the city of Lübeck.. He could play the organ so well that people flocked from all over Germany to hear his concerts on Sunday...
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