Bach at Noon in Bethlehem Starts September 10

Bach at Noon concerts start September 10 at Central Moravian Church. Admission is free. These monthly concerts feature the music of Bach, Mozart and Telemann, performed by members of the Bach Choir, Bach Festival Orchestra and guest soloists. Here's the lineup:

10 September

Johann Sebastian Bach:
Cantata 73 – Herr, wie du willt, so schicks mit mir

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:
Sonata in F Major, KV 332
~ Eugene Albulescu, piano

8 October

Johann Sebastian Bach:
Trio Sonata from The Musical Offering, BWV 1079
~ Robin Kani, flute
~ Elizabeth Field, violin
~ Loretta O’Sullivan, cello
~ Greg Funfgeld, harpsichord

Cantata 57 – Selig ist der Mann
~ Scherezade Panthaki, soprano
~ Dashon Burton, bass

12 November

Johann Sebastian Bach:
Cantata 137 – Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren

Georg Philipp Telemann:
Sonatas for Violin, Viola de Gamba, and Harpsichord

Happy! The World's First 24-Hour Music Video

I'm no music buff, but I love kids' movies. I really wanted to see Despicable Me 2, but my 14 year-old grandson seems to have outgrown them. I can do the next best thing. I can see one of the songs from that movie, Pharrell Williams "Happy". It has just been published on the Internet as the world's first 2-hour music video.

The same song, over and over, for 24 hours.

And I love it.

Shot in LA neighnborhoods, it includes a host of 400 unknowns. You also get cameos from Steve Martin, Magic Johnson, Steve Carrell, Jamie Fox and Jimmy Kimmel.

You can't help watching it without felling ... well ... happy.

Above is a small clip.

For Christmas, Why Not See the Maccabeats in Allentown?

Want to give someone an unusual Christmas present this year? Why not see the Maccabeats? Congregation Keneseth Israel is hosting this terrific a capella group, along with The Muhlenberg Chaimonics on December 10.

The Maccabeats's Candlelight, featured above, has over 6 million views on Youtube! It tells the tale of the Maccabees, i.e the Jewish Hammers, who managed to defeat the Greeks and gain independence after twenty years of war.

The Maccabeats seem a little nicer. You can get your tickets here.

This Kid Can Play That Violin!

When I was a kid, two of my sisters took piano lessons for a few years. They'd play a song or two whenever my parents threw a party, and all the guests would applaud politely. I was to suffer a much crueler fate. The violin.

For seven years, and against my will, I took violin lessons. When the kids at school found out, I took a lot of teasing from just about everyone except my friend Danny. He played the accordion.

In addition to hating the instrument, I was terrible. A violin is no easy instrument to play. One mistake and it sounds like nails being dragged across a chalkboard. My parents knew. I was rarely asked to play for my father's guests, unless he was really loaded.

The funny thing is that, once my parents stopped forcing me to take lessons, I began to love it. As a high school student, I even played in a Moravian College orchestra. I still was lousy, but I was a "second" violinist, and we're supposed to be bad. I eventually drifted off into other things, but to this day, I remain very fond of the violin and its very few masters.

One of them is VCU Senior Eric Stanley. He posted a Youtube video of what he calls a "violin cover" in January, and it has taken off. He has since posted more of them, and is getting invitations to perform. Instead of hitting notes precisely and mechanically, he plays with a passion and an obvious love for his music, and his violin rewards both him and the rest of us.

I wanted to share his interpretation of an Eminem tune with you, and hope you are as moved as I was.

Bernie, Have You Been Hacked on Facebook?

That's the question a friend posed last night.

"A couple of really strange YouTube videos just showed on FB under your name. Either you have a deep interest in other language videos or you've been hacked. I don't want to click on them or I would send them to you, but they're strange foreign things..."

Nobody hacked me. I do have a deep interest in "strange foreign things."

Last weekend, I played around with my Youtube account so I could post video from there to F/B. I mistakenly set it so that any video I "favorite" on youtube automatically appears there, too. So this afternoon, when I favorited two youtube videos that I like, they were automatically listed for all my Facebook friends.

It's a good thing I wasn't watching porn.

What I was watching was talented singer and songwriter Utada Hikaru, the NYC-born daughter of two talented Japanese musicians. She's virtually unknown here, but is quite the diva in Japan. I understand next to nothing when I listen to her, but her melodies enchant me.

You can check her out yourself here.