Violin for Vasculitis concert

Before our 2013-2014 season opens, Apple Orange Pair will be collaborating in this special concert to benefit vasculitis on July 30 in New Haven:

July 30, 2013 at 7:30pm
Violin for Vasculitis: An Evening of Music to benefit the Vasculitis Foundation
In collaboration with professional violinist and vasculitis survivor Allison Lint
Venue: Christ Presbyterian Church / 135 Whitney Ave.

If you haven’t seen us perform recently, we’d love to see you at this concert! Not only will you get to hear the wildly creative piece, “Roland,” that Michael Weinstein-Reiman wrote for us last year, but you’ll also be regaled by music ranging from Mozart and Brahms to electronic music performed by the composer himself. And need we mention that it is for a really great cause? The concert is FREE, the musical portion is 50 minutes long, and you’ll have an opportunity to learn more about vasculitis, meet survivors, and mingle with the performers afterwards. We’re hoping for a good turnout from the medical community as well as local music lovers, so spread the word!

For more information about Violin for Vasculitis, check out the event’s Facebook page (you can RSVP there), the organization’s Facebook page, and the Vasculitis Foundation.

May recording wrap-up

As of May, we have successfully concluded recording all 60 minutes of our CD in the studio. Since then, we have dived into all the details of preparing for mastering: weekly phone meetings, shared spreadsheets, emails, and listening a collective six or seven times to every single file we recorded. (That’s a LOT of listening!)

The long road to mastering our project is almost complete: We meet with our recording engineer for final mastering sessions in New Haven at the start of August. Then we finalize design and written content with our composers and designer, and send our recording to be manufactured into CDs!

In the meantime, here are some photos from our May session. We look much happier than we did back in dark, cold January!

Always tuning

This is what the harp has to compete with

Mute parade!

Trying out headphones

Enjoying a little more light than in January

All finished! With Mateusz Zechowski, our engineer

Revised recording schedule

We are back together, this time in Guilford CT, for rehearsal, and looking forward to wrapping up recording in May (better not be snow!) when we will record the remainder of our album. During that time we’ll record S. Beth May’s Three Pieces for Horn and Harp and our transcriptions of Piazzolla’s Café 1930 and Debussy’s Nuit d’étoiles.

Due to the delay in our recording schedule, a June 2013 release is pretty much impossible. We are now shooting for an early fall release, depending on how post-production proceeds.

In the meantime, we are keeping busy assembling other elements of the project. We are pleased to announce that we are working with the creative Casey Reagan of Lime and Ruby Design on design work for the album and a brand-new Apple Orange Pair logo. We can’t wait to unveil the new logo soon!

Snowstorm Nemo edition

Production schedules are great…especially when they leave you three or more months of wiggle room to allow an apocalyptic blizzard to blast through town and obliterate your last recording sessions.

Although we were set to finish recording February 11-13, Snowstorm Nemo arrived February 8-9, dumping as much as 40 inches of snow in less than 24 hours on much of southern Connecticut.

While Emily was trapped in her house for a few days, state-wide driving bans kept Colleen trapped in her New London hotel, even after her orchestra cancelled its Feb 9 concert. Once we realized our engineer and his recording equipment were also snowed in, and all major roads in and out of New Haven remained closed the 11th and 12th, we decided to postpone until a comfortably snow-free time of year. Like May.

Although we were not able to rehearse or record during Colleen’s visit, we were able to briefly meet right before she drove to an engagement in New York. Here we are in front of an enormous pile of snow!