Rafi Pitts

My greatest pleasure being here in Sibiu at this workshop is that I met a guy called Rafi Pitts. He is a forty year old half-English and half-Iranian film-maker working and staying mainly in Paris. He is an editor and director and basically he is not doing documentaries. As far as I know he did one documentary only that's why he is here in Sibiu at Aristotles Workshop... He is such a nice guy! I watched that doc by Rafi about 'Abel Ferrara' - who is a film director too. It is an amazing New York-movie like Cassavettes (Faces and Shadows of New York etc.) about a daily life of a film director in New York. I am so happy that I have met this guy. He is a very warm-heart person, a guy who is good to have fun with as well as the best story-teller. He is kind and knows a lot almost everything about movies and can give advises to young film-makers without being scolastic... He can get their respect, he is focused like hell and has the freedom of thinking. He has an incredible background and life-story not the easiest one I have ever heard...



I will really miss him when I'll be back to my country... Rafi Pitts is an amazing rock and roll man... I wish I could play the guitar on the same level how he makes films...

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www.sandormester.com

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Documentary Film Workshop in Sibiu

My Ester is taking part at a documentary film workshop in Sibiu as a director. I have been being very much interested in other artistical areas for a long a time especially in filming... I learnt a lot about film-making here in Sibiu even I wanted to or not... I met Jennifer Fox documentary film director from New York and have seen four parts of her film called 'Flying'. There are editors from a French television 'Arte' as well as couple of people from the Romanian television, Greeks, Croats etc. There is a Romanian-American actor called 'Dan' who is the leader of the workshop. He is the best host... The most loud students are the Serbian girls... They are very tough and funny..

Classical Guitar Duo Improvisation in Sibiu

Bob Bales, founder and leader of European House of Art in Romania, introduced me Neil O'Grady a brilliant classical guitarist from the UK. He is a nice man and a great guitarist. Bob wanted us to play together but we did not have time and possibilty to arrange to play some nice classical guitar duo that was written by the good old composers like Mauro Guilliani... It was on Tuesday 21th Aug...

I met Neil at 6pm during the sound check and we improvised on stage around 10... He played first in solo pieces of Villa-Lobos as well as one his own pieces and an English folk song arranged by him for classical guitar. He was singing the song and acompany himself on guitar. It was excellent. I played afterwards in solo pieces of Fransisco Tarrega, Agustin Mangore Barrios and Heitor Villa-Lobos. Then two of my pieces: Bagatelle and Lullaby. I wrote Lullaby for my beautyfull daughter Sarah who I am missing her so much since I did not see her for a long time... My Romanian friend called NIC recorded a lot last night...

We could not really reherse with Neil before the concert and it went very well!! We did an encore another improvisation. Audience liked it, we liked it so it was such a great concert. Neil told me that he knew my name but he did not remember why, when and where...

I have such a nice time in Sibiu in European Capital of Culture!

I will miss this place very much!

Good to be in Sibiu, Nagyszeben

I am enjoying being in Sibiu with such an international company like I have here.. I am doing my concerts with the help of The Art of Culture and/or European House of Arts running by Bob Bales who is a great musician, painter and somehow the representative of European culture... He has Romanian and Greek collegues and invites artists all around from the EU. Romanians are very nice to me, they help and support me more than it is I ever could imagine... and of course the local Hungarians help me a lot but there are not so many... I stay at the same hotel than all the other film-maker students and teachers.

Concerts in Sibiu

I play a lot in Sibiu.. I found a cultural online news from Romania where I could see Neil a classical guitarist from the UK who I will play with next week..

I am planning to play pieces by Dowland, Bartok and me.. English and Hungarian music that would fit to our nationality..

Sibiu

I have done three concerts in Sibiu (Romania, Capital of Europena Culture) in the last three days. People are nice and very much open-minded. I like to play here.

A film teacher has made lots of videos on my concerts but we had couple of problems to get it ready to upload to youtube and then link it to this blog.

Bob Bales our Irish friend he is very-very professional cultural program organizer as well as musician and painter.

Sibiu

We arrived to Sibiu last night... I had to drive more then ten hours continiously. I was extremely tired when I woke up Today - around noon..

I wll have lots of classical guitar concerts here in Sibiu. Nice city. As the slogan says:

city of culture. city of cultures.

Sibiu is the Cultural Capital of Europe this year. I will write more but others are waiting for Internet access well...

Barrios

I trained myself in the biography of Agustin Mangoré Barrios, one of the most important classical giutar players and composers of the twentieth century. He had long periods in depression and after these hard times he composed and practised a lot. He was very sensitive.

I like his pieces very much, I am learning Cathedral and I play Madrigale Gavotte a lot.

Read more about Barrios

Cancellation

I had to cancel ten concerts because my left rwing finger was broken in a little accident on my wedding... I will see the doctor tommorrow morning when we can figure out how to restart practicing.. Until then I am holding my breath..

I need to play and I feel my finger well hopefully I dont have to cancel my concert on next weekend...

Romania

I will play couple of concerts in Romania. I found a nice guy a month ago at Sibiu/Nagyszeben called Bob Bales who is the founder of European House of Arts in Romania. He organized classical guitar concerts for me in Sibiu.

The Program:

Discography

My discography page was renewed. Sooner or later there will be a nice and cute online store for my dvd and cds. An online and on demand shop. When? In September I hope...

We are very busy since I'll play a lot of concerts during the summer in Hungary and Romania as well spreading classical guitar music as much as I can..

Until then visit MS3's discography page

Lullaby for Sarah

Couple of years ago when my daughter was a little girl around 2-3 years old I wrote her a lullaby. I thought it would help to asleep. It is a nice piece but did not help her at all... I had four concerts last weekend around the lake Balaton basically in churches. Sound of the classical guitar fits very much to the church atmosphere and acoustics. Ester did the videos, just samples from the whole piece..

The main theme of the Lullaby:



and another part as well:

Gavotte Choros by Villa Lobos

Another video from my live performance at Szekesfehervar. I played Villa Lobos Gavotte Choros. I like this piece and played hundred times on my concerts in the last two years.

This Choros is one of the most important pieces of the classical guitar literature. You can recognize it easily, it has a very simple and nice melody, great harmonies like in a Chopin piece and has an Brazilian-Parisien ambient.

Unfortunately my guitar was not clean because of the windy weather and changes of temperature in my car - outside... Actually I changed the batteries in my tuning machine..



Ester made this shot for me.

Bela Bartok: For Children

I played a lot pieces from Bela Bartok: For Children on 6 string classical guitar on my recitals. I don't have favourites, I really like all of them!!!

Funeral Song and Lento

Funeral Song has to be played basically without any extreme emotions since you don't have lots of emotions on an event like this. You are disappointed but calm and said. Lento is a typical Hungarian song by Bartok. Depressive melody in minor key with pianississimo and fortossimo peak in 30 seconds.

Video on blog

This short video was done my Ester Yesterday at Szekesfehervar. I play my my favorite Choros by Villa Lobos.

It is just a video sample not the whole piece.

Villa Lobos again

www.sandormester.com has been updated at Villa Lobos section and you can watch my Heitro Villa Lobos: Gavotte Choros video. I love this piece and played a lot on my concerts. I played Today as well at Szekesfehervar twice since I had two concerts there this afternoon...

This piece is called Gavotte Choros but it has an ambient that reminds me much more to Chopin's music and not to the baroque sytle. Villa Lobos liked to be in classical or baroque mood that's why he named this piece as Gavotte I think...

Dowland to Bartok

I am practicing for my concerts. I'll do concerts in Sibiu (Nagyszeben in Hungarian) in Romania as well. We have fiexed seven concerts but it is possilbe that I'll do concerts every day for two weeks... We shall see!

You can watch all of my videos on my renewed website. Other latest and greatest videos are coming as well!

Classical guitar solo

Classical guitar duo

and

Baroque chamber music trio music

Balint Bakfark

Balint Bakfark was the first Hungarian classical composer. I like to play his lute fantasies on classical guitar of course - in transcriptions. Last year I always started my concerts with his X. Fantasy.

It is a great start for a concert but very hard to play that because of lots of the polyphonical tricks. His pieces have a kind of religious atmosphere and they are very clear in a way like an early-renaissance painting from somewhere I dont' know Antwerpen or something like that.

You can read more about Bakfark on my main site
sandormester.com.

Rebirth of sandormester.com

My oldest website has been renewed thanks to the team of WebMa. We are continiously building the site but it was in a great state to publish.

You can watch all of my videos that were done by me and my musician friends. Later you will be able to download

Visit sandormester.com!

Not for Kids

This video was done by Oximoris as well as the other non-classical video of mine called Ex.

About the "background" music. I say background music for my composition because the visuals are so strong and impressive. Oximoris (Jozsef Tasnadi) is a fantastic visual artist. He is basically a painter he did lots of things. He studied at following schools:

1980 - 1984
Highschool of Architecture,
Cluj (Romania)

1988 - 1990
"Ion Andreescu" Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Graphic Arts,
Cluj (Romania)

1990 - 1994
Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Graphic Arts,
Budapest

And you can read a lot about his works at his Website. Unfortunately he is not that active on the Web as he was before.

This video is not for kids! Legally lots of paintings should say in the museums "Sexual Warning!" but somehow we do not use it.. As far as I remember Mr Tasnadi said that the basis of this clip is the first photo sequence of the world. It means that they did lots of pictures during moving so its like a movie. And the modell is a nude woman.



I learnt a lot from Jozsef Tasnadi when I was younger. We had lots of chats about philosophy of art, new ways of modern art, philosophy and relationship between music, beauty arts and literature. I remember his words a lot, he was a remarkable man of my youth, he is a fantastic artist and I miss him.

I'm not that old since I'm 33 - Christ's age - but I meant 20s years of mine...

MS3 music

This is a composition by me (MS3). Janos Vazsonyi, great saxophone player friend of mine improvised a nice meditation for my music. The visuals were done by another very good friend of mine Oximoris his name is Jozsef Tasnadi.

This clip is very important for me it was done seven years ago and we worked a lot on this project to get the best result.

John Dowland (1562 - 1626): Air

Dowland was a great lute player and composer of the renaissance age. He was English and he lived around Europe. He composed the only lute/guitar piece for four hands - for one lute of course.



This piece is called Air, the subtitle is As I went to Walshingam - I really like this subtitle since it piece is in a kind of philosophical mood when you are walking and thinking on life. You feel all right and you whistle this piece. The video was shot by Mazur as well as my Guilliani concert video.

Brussels, Hungary and classical guitar

I've just spoken to the Hungarian Institut in Brussels. The lady called Krisztina Remenyi who is responsible for art and event organizing she was studying with a classical guitar teacher that I know very well.

A great classical guitarist friend of mine Mr. Schweigert studied with that teacher as well.

I liked Brussels when I was there - especially the fantastic beer...

Concert around Europe

Mauro Guilliani was planning his European classical guitar tour that was never done. I am planning the same... Lots of us are planning the same...

I have spoken to couple of concert and event ogranizers Today in Rome, Moscow, Warsawa, Sofia, Prague and Tallin. I could not reach Delhi but I tried that again... I will have to do Bucarest and Sofia in one way.

Andreas Segovia could spread classical guitar most I think since he did hundred concerts per year in the 50's and 60's around the world. I'm doing more concerts per year. Surely smaller ones and basically in my home-country or around it. That's why I want to get other countries as well..

Mauro Guilliani: D-Major Praeludium

This video was shot years ago by a very great friend of mine called Mazur. This piece is D-Major Praeludium by Mauro Guilliani. Guilliani was a great Italian classical guitar virtuoso. He played on violincello as well and he did his concerts couple of times on these two instruments. He was born in Bisceglie and spent his youthful years in Barletta. As we can know he studied in Napoli between 1799 and 1803. Then he started his solo guitar carrier in Vienna where he became a leader of classical guitar teaching. In 1819 he had probelms with the authorities - nobody knows why - and returned to Italy. He lived in Rome between 1820 and 1823. He lived in Napoli from 1823 and died there in 8th May, 1829.

Master Guilliani




I love this piece and played a lot on my concerts. When waves of a calm and light blue ocean are moving in different moods but always in piece. It has nice harmonies and I like to play with the dinamycs, tones when the next part comes. So its a lovely classical guitar piece in Italian romantic style, enjoy that!

You can close your eye as well since its a one-camera video but I'm satisfied with the sound. I did the sound afterwork...