CGT December 1998 Update:
from Bert Lams

On the performance night the vicar let me use a small dressing room (with heater!) in front of the church. The audience was luckier: They had built in electric heaters under the benches...

The performance went over well, thanks to a supportive audience. That evening it became evident how much an audience can contribute to the music itself. Afterwards the choir director said that the people were "spellbound". I felt I could have cut the attention with a knife in there...

I played without score and almost everyone who came up to me afterwards asked the same question: "How do you remember all the music?". It's a natural thing to me and something that we acquired with the CGT as well. The score becomes redundant, even a distraction and I want to focus on the music itself.

On the evening of Monday 7 Dec I picked up my good friend Wolfgang Meyer at the train station of Salisbury. He arrived from Hamburg. He brought fifteen DAT tapes with recorded music from four years of guitar circle projects and performances in Grossdershau, East Germany. (All the recordings happened between 1992 and 1996 in a converted farmhouse. Martin Schwutke, member of The Gauchos, had taken the initiative to buy an old farm, fix it up and have it available for Guitar Craft courses and related projects. The CGT has been there on several occasions.

Students from all over the world attended courses. Special projects included long retreats as well as performances in churches, hospitals, clubs in the city (Berlin was nearby), and homes for the mentally disabled or elderly. It was an incredibly rich experience for most of us.

Wolfgang and I listened to it all for three days and made notes of all the material. Perhaps it will turn into a document of that period. The highlight of the recordings is a performance in the church of Neustadt (1993) with a circle of more than 30 guitarists. There is a beautiful version of Hope by the full group and a rendition of Bach's Sixth Brandenburg Concerto by CGT and The Gauchos. This is going to be a worthwhile project and I am very excited about the music.

On Friday the 11 of December Wolfgang and I took the Eurostar train from London to Brussels, under the channel. He traveled on to Hamburg and I stayed in Brussels to visit my parents over the weekend.

happy holidays to all,
bert