The Downtown Chamber Series

Continuing on my latest quest to be a fancy pants intellectual, I attended The Downtown Chamber Series performance on Saturday night at Modified Arts. The performers were Nokuthula Ngwenyama (that's easy for you to say, and just so you know, she's a woman) on viola and violin and Michael Long on guitar.

In the first half, they performed Renaissance songs for viola and guitar together, Long did two pieces for guitar that were written by Galileo's (he of astronomy fame) Father and Ngwenyama did an AWESOME piece on violin called Paganiniana by Nathan Milstein. After a short intermission (with free wine!), they performed a shortened version of CHE! A Musical Biography on the viola and guitar.

We were all thrilled we went, it was just that cool. The venue, Modified Arts, is an art gallery on Roosevelt and 4th St in Phoenix (scary neighborhood but we had no problems) and, while rustic (think creaky wood floors and exposed walls), it made for a nice, intimate setting for the performance.

Their next gig is a String Quartet show on April 23/24 that sounds great but I'll be at the NASCAR race (thereby blowing any fancy pants intellectual reputation that I may have built up).

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