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.

sandormester.com in Russian

When I was young we had to learn Russian in the school. Everyone had to. I liked it very much when I was 12-13 years old but I did not learn it at all later because it was a must... Must is not the best motivation for a teenager espacially how I was thinking at that time... Anyway I still love Russian literature, music, painters and I will fly to Russia soon with my Ester.

And my website has a Russian version as well!

Strings

I have been practising on my 8-strings guitar made by Tihamer Romanek in the last three days. Mr. Romanek, he is a Hungarian harpsichord, guitar, lute and lute-harpsichord maker. It's much better to play scales, plucking or arpeggio exercises on this guitar than on a normal classical 6-string guitar. Practising on 8-strings is a serious physical work for the left hand since the neck is wider. Playing chords takes a long a time to learn on it but then it is so nice like on a piano! You 8 notes at the same time.

And it trains your technic much more. The instrument is more heavy than a normal 6-string classical guitar.

Doing lute, piano or cello transciptions is easier on 8-string classical guitar because you have more strings more range of sound. You can tune it on many ways. I tune it as normal guitar tuning (E-A-D-G-B-E) plus A (bass) underneath and another A at the top. Others normally tune it as a lute or a normal classical guitar plus two more bass strings.

This is not my 8-string guitar but I have exactly the same type - I got this picture from Romanek's website.

Updates on sandormester.com

Finally we could integrate the concert videos from Sibiu (Romania) to my main site sandormester.com

Neil O'Grady and MS3 play classical guitar duo improvisation together

MS3: Lullaby for Sarah

Neil O'Grady and MS3 improvise in Sibiu

And finally you can watch the videos about our intercultural improvisation with Neil in Sibiu at Astra Park.

Nik did a nice work shooting this video.

Tarrega and Villa-Lobos

A little Francisco Tarrega and more Heitor Villa-Lobos from Sibiu by ms3.. My Romanian friend Nik shot this as well..

Lullaby for Sarah from Sibiu

Nice Lullaby for Sarah - for my beauty. I played it in Sibiu at Astra Park during the European Capital of Culture. I love my daughter. I hope you can hear and feel it on this video. I told her that "I always think on you my sweetheart when I play this pieces"... "Dont think on me dad I am hear with you now" - she says.

My Romanian friend Nik shot all the videos on my concerts.

MS3 Tarrega Live from Sibiu

So here are the videos from Sibiu! Francisco Tarrega and Agustin Mangore Barrios by Sandor Mester MS3 from Sibiu, Romania - European Capital of Culture.

Thanks to WebMa team

Sting and Dowland

As everybody knows Sting released an album last year called Labyrinth. He sings John Dowland's songs on this album playing with a guy called Edin Karamazov - a lutist from Bosnia. I have never heard this name before but I like the family name 'Karamazov' anyway since my favorite writer is Dostojevskij. I have read majority of his works and when I was young I have read Karamazov Brothers and have fallen in love with Fjodor Mihajlovic's works...

I really like Sting's previous works and think that he is an intellectual pop-star singing basically rock and roll, plays on bass and double-bass very well... not that much on classical guitar...

... Spreading classical or renaissance music is important...

... But I had some disapproval with the fact that a popstar sings Dowlands works... Sting is fantastic. I checked listened to these songs on youtube this night and I can say that Sting is a sensible artist who can do anything he wants. If he cannot do that he does not do that. He did this Dowland album on a very natural way that every classical singers should do.

What do I think about Karamazov? He is a professional lute player did his job, nothing special.

My favorite Dowland video by me: Downland's Air.

What do I think about my performance...? Well, I dont think that I am the best person to ask about that but I think I did my job at least...

I started to miss Downland's pieces...

Leaving Sibiu

So I leave Sibiu tomorrow early morning. I stayed one more day to be with my Ester. My daughter is still in Greece and my next concert will be only tomorrow so there was no reason to rusg at all..

Bye-bye Sibiu and Cisnadioara!!!

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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