Concert in Elvas

I had my concert in Elvas on this Thursday. There was a "problem" there that effected to my concert as well and was a terrible story in itself... A boy from the school died in a motorbike accident this week and had his funeral on the day when I did my concert there... It was in the auditorio - which was an amphiteatrum-like hall.

There were mainly teachers on my concert because of the funeral- Pedro told me that they liked it very much. I hope it was like that...







He is Pedro our friend. We stayed at his place for a night and had a great chat and dinner together with him.



I gave my demo stuffs to the local centro cultural (cultural centre) in Elvas as well as at all the other places where I go to. But they have already schudeled their music festival for this October! Maybe next time!

We stopped at a "monument" that is the saint phallus. (Not a joke - seriously!) What a nice one!!!



Then the way back to Lisbon we stopped at Villa Vicosa. The city of marbles. There are lot of marble around there.



Then we stopped to drink a cofe in Evora where I will play on 26th October.

We stopped at Monsaraz where I talked to a guy is running an amazing venture called Sem-Fim where they are doing concerts, private parties etc. 2 hours later he gave me a call to play there in November! He was so nice!

And it seems that I will play in Fabula Urbis in November in Lisbon. And the other great thing is that we are negotiate with Lorinha organisers to play there too!

So everything is on the right way - I am just so tired. I drove 6 hours Today - and it was to much for me....

Concerts in Portugal

I had couple of very good and succesfull meetings Today. I'll play in LX Factory's open day on 23rd of October. The concert will be in the bookshop's galery. Amazing place for a concert!! I'll play at midnight... Then I went to Casa de Lafões with André checking the place, stage etc. for the Sunday concert that we will do with other three guys. They will play rock, jazz and folk, me - classical guitar - guitarra clássica... Amazing place as well. Like in South-America. That is basically a cultural centre - but the concert hall looks like a big flat and it is on the first floor view to the Rua Madalena.

Then I went to Fábrica do Braço de Prata meeting with the concert organiser lady. She told me the best feedbacks I got in Portugal. She told me that lots of people told her to invite me for a concert so "you must have lots of fans! Lisbon was waiting for you!" - she said. Which means that all the boys and girls who told me that they would help me they really did and talked to the cultural organisers. I love it.

Someone has stolen our GPS from the car during the night couple of days ago breaking the window at the backseat. It was a bad experience... But we got a car repair service 50 meter from home and they fixed it for a very much reasonable price. We got a problem in the bathroom as well and an old lady in the house called a guy to fix it - for free. But we gave him a bottle of great Hungarian wine. He was grateful but we were grateful so much for his help...

We did a journey around in Portugal last week and we went to Spain as well for two days staying in Sevilla at a nice family's flat. Sevilla is unbelievable, elegant and rich - but I prefer Lisbon.

Before we got to Sevilla we were in Sines and in Lagos in Portugal. In Sines there was a huge and enormous fog which is very extraordinary there during the fall. It happens in the winter more often but very rarely in the fall. It was like in a Tarkovskij movie... I found a music centre where I gave my demo stuffs - dvd and brochure - to a lady who promised me that she would give them to the cultural organisers - organizador cultural. And if they need me that will give me a call.



Me walking during the foggy and mystical night in Sines...







In Lagos we were staying at a lady's house called Fatima who was a teacher of Portuguese literature and French language and litareature. We were talking about literature a lot and figured out that she was a fan of Paul Auster just like me. She had couple of books with Auster's signatures. She met him personally! She is a fan of Sandor Marai - me not. She was also very educated in Russian and Checz literautre. Me too. I was looking for a cultural centre - centro cultural - in Lagos and finally found it. We even had the GPS at that time... But the organiser lady was in vacation so I gave my demo stuffs to the receptionist lady. To way back to Lisbon we stopped at Tavaria which was magical as well. Had a fantastic lunch there...

Last week when we were running around like idiots I did not focus on practising. And my level of playing decreased a lot. Which always gives a bad mood for me... But in the last couple of days I practised on a very focused way so it got better.

There is only one but very important thing that I could not solve yet here in Portugal: sporting. I could run at the sea shore in Caparica twice and I found great gyms but they are very complicated and burocratic - so I could even buy a ticket to do fitness - or they are so expensive. I have a pain in my back because of prastising and driving. I hope it will be sorted out somehow in the future...

It is too late so I go to bed - I'll play in Elvas in a Secondary school. Elvas is a marvellous city as well - according to the pictures found on the Net.

11th October

Running around in Portugal

We are running around in the south. We were in Sines at Rui's appartement and then in Lagos at Fatima's flat. Now we go to Sevilla.

Dinner

We had a dinner and party in our flat Yesterday with our Portuguese friends Rui, Antonio, Paulo, a Brittish guy called James. And some Hungarians came as well - Barbi, Kinga and Gyuri.

I was cooking for hours and of course I Played on my guitar and others did.

I cooked lots of stuffs. 'Lecso' as well.

Setubal Newspaper

From the local newspaper

And the article from Setubalense (local newspaper)

And the kids

More Pictures rom Setubal

More pictures from Escola Secundária D. João II







In the school yard.

Setubal

We arrived to Portugal on 20th September. I was so scared that I was not going to have that much concerts as I usually do in Central-Eastern-Europe. (When I say "we" I speak about my wife, our daughter, Manuella and myself.) And now I am so tired I have so much concerts here. Portuguese people are so culturally active that is unbelievable to me.

Today I played in Setubal, a very nice city approx. 50 km from Lisbon. This was my first school concert in Portugal. I played twice for two group of kids (50 kids). Around 45 minutes for each group. I played Tarrega, Villa-Lobos - latin repertoir. And of cours Bela Bartok's pieces. Kids were around 15-16 years old and totally open-minded and brave to ask me about art, my life, repertoir my thinking about art, music, why I'm doing this etc. They were very much intelligent. And actually they started to ask me on their own without any teacher pressure. Maria Joao Reis organised me these two concert and I am very thankful to her. And I got a great bottle of wine too!

They published a short article about me in the local Setubal paper called Setubalense.

Pictures by Maria Joao

Doing more and more concerts in Portugal

I am very happy now because I am doing couple of concerts in Portugal. I am still waiting for confirmations to do more.

Here you can find the list of my concerts sandormester.com
I am looking for an agent...

A nice guy, André - a guitarist also - is organising a concert where three of us will play on 11th of October in Lisbon. The place is called Casa de Lafoes looks cool on the website.

Today we were at Isabel's place in Sintra - she was very nice to us. I tried piri-piri which is a hot, extremely hot chili paprika - you can not imagine...

I still practice 3 hours a day, everyday - that is only enough for me to keep my level of play....

Concerts in Lisbon

Yesterday I played on a wonderfull quare of Lisbon at Eschadinhas de Sao Miguel. There was a silent movie that I played with as in the old times. Before that I was playing some Tarrega pieces. I enjoyed it very much. My friends Joao and Frederico organised it. I was playing on 'Cinalfama' project Then I went to Miguel's place to meet him, he was so nice as well. People here in Portugal are so nice and helpfull I can not believe it..

Pictures from the concert









And some pictures from Joana's party

Sintra - and Lisboa

Today we went to Sintra to look around in the historic center. I went to the local cultural centre called Centro Cultural Olga Cadaval and gave my demo dvds to the cultural organiser lady. Maybe I can play in Sintra - it would be so cool.

At the evening we met Rui who is a nice guy and helping us a lot.

Then we went to Joana's flat for a dinner. There were couple of Portuguese boys and girls, a girl from Belgium and Romania. Frederico and Joao organisers of the event 'Cinalmafa' which is an outdoor cinema and music event. I'll play there...

Picures from Tejobar

Pictures of my play in Tejobar in Lisbon. And I also tried fado guitar.

First days in Lisbon

We arrived to Lisbon two days ago on Sunday 20h September. Isabel Chaves - film prducer - found us a great flat to rent so it was the first great surprise in Lisbon. On the second day we went to a Fado place with Antonio and then to Tejobar which seems a cult place in Lisboa. They gave me a guitar so I played two pieces of Heitor Villa-Lobos there. They liked it very much.. It was around 2-3 at the morning.

They played different kind of music with guitar and they were singing very nice. Guests, musicians...

It was my first experience in Lisbon and it was so fantastic. Cool and nice people love guitar music

Lullaby

Lullaby
MS3 tour in Romania

Hungarian, colour socio-musico documentary, 2008, 53 min.



Director: Eszter Hajdu
Cameramann: Viktor Csaba Nemeth, Edit Blaumann
Sound: Ferenc Gerendai
Editor: Sandor Balczer
Riporter: Andras Takacs
Producer: Balázs Wizner, Metaforum Bt.

Cast:
Sandor Mester
Elvira Budai
Anna Detari
Miklos Hadnagy
Istvan Toth

My wife's website

Visit my wife's very new website: www.hajdueszter.com

Focal Dystonia in my life

I won the Hungarian Classical Guitar Competition in 1991 at the age of 17. I was a great virtuoso. I started the Music Academy (Franz Liszt) in Budapest in 1992 then I had to stop my classical guitar carrier in 1994 because of focal dystonia. I was studying at Jozsef Eotvos at that time. Then I changed school and teacher. My friend and mentor called Ede Roth helped me a lot. The Most. I had to relearn to play the guitar. It took me more then ten years. I could not move my forefinger at all but only on the guitar during playing. I could use it on piano or typewriting. I was so depressed for years and felt that I am good for nothing since I was handicaped person.

Focal dystonia of the hands: this amounts to a disorder of muscle tone. From one day to the next, a musician’s fingers are incapable of coordinated movement, and the simplest movements become impossible. Male pianists and guitar players are at the highest risk, largely because of the enormous expectations that accompany the concert repertoire.

Many successful career musicians have had their lives ruined by dystonia. The first musician definitely known to have suffered from dystonia is Robert Schumann. He died in a mental institution after – as legend has it – using a knife to sever the tendons between the fingers of his right hand.

At that time, the disease as such was unknown. Today, an international research and treatment institute in Spain is dedicated to focal dystonia.

Alcoholism, depression, self-destruction, self-mutilation. Desperate loneliness and a longing for death. The struggle between the will to live and the will to die. This is the road traveled by artists suffering from dystonia.

In the last years from 2003 my right became better and better but I had to restart my life as well but I had no energy for that. Then I met my wife in January 2007. We get married 30th June 2007. Then we decided to make a documentary about my story as well as about focal dystonia helping lots of other musicians. My wife, Eszter Hajdu she is a film director. I would like to help people surviving focal dystonia since I know how to relearn to play an instrument. Simple but if you are in it you are incapable to do it alone.

Abstract of the documentary
By chronicling the experiences of the main character, this film introduces us to focal dystonia, a disease affecting thousands of musicians. The main character is a classical guitarist, who 15 years ago was stricken by focal dystonia, causing the partial paralysis of his fingers and ruining his professional and private life. Total despair, self-destruction, longing for death, and, finally, starting over: this is the road traveled by our main character, who made a careful record of every phase of the disease, in a disturbing and excruciatingly honest style. Through these written records, and through the intimate disclosures by the main character and other artists currently suffering from dystonia, the film introduces us to a disease that affects thousands of musicians - yet no one dares talk about it. This is a film about taboo sufferings in the world of classical music, about a disease that caused Schumann to end up in a mental hospital, where he slashed his own fingers. It is a shockingly personal drama of the life of a classical guitar artist who lived through the experience of seeming to lose the very thing that makes life worth living.

Couple of videos

Couple of videos were shot in my concert at Balatonmariafurdo

MS3 plays Heitor Villa-Lobos Choros
Manuella Mester and Sára Mester



MS3 plays Heitor Villa-Lobos Choros
Manuella Mester and Sára Mester



Barrios



Barrios



Francisco Tarrega Praeludium, Manuella Mester



Francisco Tarrega Praeludium

Concerts around the Lake Balaton

This my 4th summer around the Balaton. I play solo concerts as well as baroque trio performances. We are playing two Sonatas by Jean Baptiste Loeillet this summer. Last summer we played the works of Handel, Bach etc. Last week-end the bass was played by Istvan Rozsa - he plays on tuba! It was very unique arrangement of Loeillet Sonatas! On Friday the melody was played by Andras Somos, he a flute player. My brother played on Saturday, he plays on alt saxophon. It was nice too. Flute, tuba and classical guitar - alt saxophon, tuba and classical guitar. It was the first time in my life playing with tuba.

I am getting closer to my 400th concert of my tour that I started in 2005. I play concerts around the lake Balaton every summer. It seems that 400th concert will be placed in Bucarest, in Romania. I negototiated with Hungarian concert organizers in Romania and they are working on doing a tour for me and my baroque trio in this September. I would love it!!

We shall see.

Tarrega and Loeillet again

MS3 Barqoue Trio

Daniel Mester my younger brother on alt saxophon, Györgyi Papp on violincello and myself (MS3 - Sandor Mester) on classical guitar...



... I played a concert - actually the final concert in the school... My teacher, mentor and friend Mr. Ede Roth was satisfied... It was in a nice and great synagogue in Gyor... this synagogue has the best acoustics... unbelievable... I enjoyed to play, no stress just pleasure... I have been playing so much in the last five years... so I can not stress at all.. The synagogue was recently renovated...



My brother Daniel Mester played in my baroque trio (MS3 baroque trio) on at saxophon... He plays very well we have played G-major Sonata by Jean Baptiste Loeillet...

It was done on the rehersal before the concert..



My wife Ester Hajdu did the shots... and all the pictures

The Synagogue
in the city of Gyor



The acoustics perfectly fits to the sound of classical guitar.

Jean Baptiste Loeillet de Gant by MS3 Baroque Trio

Couple of pieces by Loeillet. Played by MS3 Baroque Trio at Visegrad Church. There was a great temperature - around 10 degrees... Loved to play these Loeillet pieces especially in a church. The arrangement was classical guitar, alto sax and violincello.

Jean Baptiste Loeillet was a great French baroque composer son of a great French musician family. Jean Baptiste Loeillet (1688–cca. 1720) "de Gant" since he was born in Ghent. He had a cousin Jean-Baptiste Loeillet of London (1680–1730), who was a famous and populair composer and performer living London. Jean Baptiste Loeillet de Gant was working at Munich court then in France. His works were printed in Amsterdam.

Janos Vazsonyi on alto saxophon and Györgyi Papp on violincello.

Loillet

We are playing pieces of Loillet as a barowue trio on classical guitar, alt sax and violincello.. I prefer these kind of mediterrean baroque... Easy to learn these Loillet pieces quickly and fits to the church acoustics...

Bartok on guitar

I am still practising Bartók pieces from For Children. Still on 6-strings... I still cannot switch to 8-strings..But I will.. I play on my concerts the good old Tarrega, Barrios, Villa-Lobos classical guitar pieces.I am Hungarian so I hope I can play Bartók very well. I have been playing these pieces for 4-5 years and i think I will do this 40 years later as well...

Juan Lopez Aguilarte

I think I found the brother of my guitar. Or my sister? I dont know. I call it sometimes my beauty so maybe that is she... My guitar way made by Juan Lopez Aguilarte in Granada in 1988... Lovely sound, wide range of tones and volume. I have been using it for fifteen years.

The photo of the other Juan Lopez Aguilarte guitar downloaded from the owner brother Nacho Bellido:



The brother

I started to learn using rock and pop guitar tabs since I need to know it because of my young pupils.. They download a lot from the Net.. I teach orincipally classical guitar but in the 21th you can not do that without teaching some pop music. I wanna teach a mass. When you have a mass then you can choose one or two guys to be professional classical guitar. But you need a mass first.

Great website I have found to start with tabs:
http://www.guitartabs.net/

34

I am getting older and older.. I will be 34 soon..

People usually re-think their previous years what they did or did not..

I am getting old enough to relax when I want - dont stress when I dont have to...

Do you like Anima Sound System Trubul Ek Vorba. This is a great Hungarian pop band..
I am getting ready to make a great DI song on classical guitar? I am always asked by my business partners... At present I am fully scheduled for my concerts of I am doing to get fully scheduled. And I teach a lot. I have couple of new methods how get more and more young boys and girls to play on classical guitar. They need to play pop music or learn playing chords of popular songs.. They hate learning music theory very much..

Russia

We were in Russia for almost two weeks with my wife - actually we were on honeymoon. We were in St. Petersburg as well as in Moscow. We were saw an excellent performance of the legendary Kirov Ballet in Mariinsky Theatre. St. Petersburg is an old cultural centre of Russia and has a great ambient

In Moscow we were on a concert of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in the Great Hall of (Bolsoj Zal) the Tchaikovsky Conservatory which is a
legendary place as well. Sviatoslav Richter, David Oistrakh all the great Russian (CCCP) artists used to study there. Lots of old poster and pictures on the walls give you a feeling that time does not go by, they will train and "manufacture" the best musicians, composers for the world every time. They played Igor Stravinksy: Petruska, S.Prokofjev Violin Concerto No 1 in before the break and then Alexander Borodin: Symphony No. 2.

We haven't seen any kind of classical guitar concerts and we did not meet local guitarists at all. It is interesting when I have couple of days somewhere in the world I neve meet classical guitarists I prefer other instruments as well as other arts such as literature, paintings etc.

We were in Dostojevski museum but it was not that great. It was good to see his manuscripts, plans and drawings of his characters. He was a very talented draughtsman as well. I have read a lot of his works and planned to go through all the Fjodor Mihajlovic's books.