It was a busy and fulfilling summer.  My first time in 15 years NOT to travel for 3 months…  amazing!  In fact, turned down work as I’m hoping to find a perfect balance between my time on the road and my time at home.  My focus this summer was creation.  I started off by recording an album of French Music with the fabulous French guitarist, Jeremy Jouve.  We recorded at the best recording studio in the world:  George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in Marin for the audiophile record label, Reference Recordings.  What a pleasure this whole project was!  The South Bay Guitar Society helped create a mini tour for us just prior to recording so that we’d be in tip-top shape.  Our repertoire included a new works by Roland Dyens and Atanas Ourkouzounov and our own arrangements of French “standards” by Ravel, Faure, Satie, Bizet.  The album is scheduled to be released January 2012.

Next on my summer agenda was creating two music videos.  I embarked on what turned out to be a successful fundraising drive and managed to triumphantly find contributors who donated generously towards the creation of my Music Video in 3D.   This video was then premiered at a beautifully renovated art deco movie theater in Moraga, CA.  This showing was followed by a European Premiere in Edinburgh, Scotland only to be followed by another showing at the Orinda Movie Theater (this Sunday, Sept. 18th at 7pm!) near Berkeley, CA.  It was a pleasure to work with Aldo Chaidez and Gabriella Prado and their crew on this music video.

I then embarked on filming one of my own compositions, The Lady of the Lake Music Video which is still in production at the time of this posting.  After two intense days of filming,  I am hoping to view the finished product soon.  According to the legendary “Tales of King Arthur”, The Lady of the Lake was the bearer of Excalibur and Merlin’s Mistress.  Her name was Vivian (or Viviana in Spanish).  My father named me after this popular fairy tale.  In this music video I show how The Lady of the Lake gives Viviana the magical sword and when she takes it, the sword turns into a golden flute thereby curing Viviana of her physical ills!  Half mythological, half biographical, I look forward to unveiling this video soon.

In short, It was an incredibly productive and rewarding summer and for this I need to thank my dear mother Clara for providing me with the gift of music, my dedicated father, Mario (RIP) for endorsing the pursuit of my dream, and for Steve, Anika & Sue for providing the inspiration and platform to continue to live a life in the arts full of music, dance, poetry, and above all, MAGIC.

 

Honor Roll of Distinguished Contributors towards the making of my Music Video in 3D:

Phil Berolzheimer                   Lori Lee

Drita Protopapa                     Ted Viviani

Steven Dibner                       Steven Weinmann

m muranami                          Kristin Douty

Paulina                             Mark Volkov

Linda Shum                          Peter Inglis

Lance Albertson                     Christine Holding

Christopher Lee                     Elizabeth Pickens

John Tyler                          aragons

harpo marx                          Gustavo Rabin

Karen Bentley Pollick           Mari Kimura

joan madson                         Lainie Veenstra

Steve Manning                       Ted Adams

Robert Foss                         Diane Grubbe

Elizabeth Gaston                   Veronica Barzelatto

Evan Herberg                        Nancy Tyler

Juan Carlos Bacino               Tina

Carmen Barruel                      Emely

Jane Heaven                         Rajarshi Chaudhuri

Judith Malear                       Sue Rupp

Dave Karlin                         Adnane Raiss

Nicole Esposito                     Robert Arns

JOHN SINGISER

T H A N K   Y O U ! ! ! ! ! !