Wind That Makes Music in November Corn …

Wind That Makes Music in November Corn …

“The wind that makes music in November corn is in a hurry. The stalks hum, the loose husks whisk skyward in half-playing swirls and the wind hurries on … A tree tries to argue, bare limbs waving, but there is no detaining the wind.” (Aldo Leopold)

“’Cause nothin’ lasts forever and we both know hearts can change,
And it’s hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain.” (Guns N’Roses, November Rain)
 

This month Chappell and Dave are in art and poetry mode. Chappell’s “Wings of the Morning” painting, the cover art for our first CD of the same name, was picked as the theme image for the Occidental Center for the Arts show Art as Gifts for the Holidays. The opening reception for this print show and sale is Friday, November 7th, 5-7 pm. The show continues through December 20th.

Dave will be the featured poet at the “First Wednesdays” Poetry Reading on Nov. 5th at West End Café Deli and Bar, 1131 Fourth St, San Rafael, California 94901. This is a great group of poets, readers, and poetry followers with a lot of energy. People start arriving at 7 pm. You can order coffee, food and drinks. At 7:30 pm, Dave Holt will perform for 20 minutes and his reading will be followed by an open mic.

The 2014 FAR-West Conference of musicians, story-tellers, presenters, producers, etc., October 16 -19, was a phenomenal success. Comments from Facebook show what it was like. “We just took a nap so we can make it through the rest of the evening. Got to bed at 3 AM after hours of music. It starts up again at 10:30 pm.”  And that was if you didn’t have to get up to moderate a workshop at 9 am! It was well worth the effort, Dave found out when he moderated the “Music as Healing” morning workshop with panel presenters, Marian Hubler (Bread & Roses), Patrice Haan (Healing Muses) and Greg Beattie, (also from Bread & Roses).

The PGS rooms (Private Guerilla Showcases) are late night performances, very fun especially if you were able to get some shut-eye. Some are song circles where songs are exchanged which Chappell and I think are the best. Many are solo, duo or group performances. This was the first time we held a storytellers circle in our PGS room featuring expert raconteurs Bill Amatneek, Nick Smith, and Tom Hubbard and it was superb. We’ll do it again in our PGS next year. We were also honored to have many of the same fine musicians this year in Oakland as played in our PGS last year in Irvine.

Chappell organized the “Best of the West” Awards Ceremony luncheon, and was the emcee. Her performance at the podium helped make it a memorable day. Chappell secretly organized a flash-mob to surprise Cassandra Flipper of Bread & Roses as she accepted the 2014 Ambassador Award. The volunteers who were there jumped up on stage to sing the organization theme song, as chosen by founder Mimi Farina, “Our days shall not be sweated from birth until life closes, Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread, but give us roses.”

We are currently booking our 2015 tours, first to Southern California from March 1st to the 10th, and then to the Pacific Northwest in May. Please contact us if you are interested in having us play a house concert in your area by replying to this newsletter.
‎
Have a wonderful month and we hope to see you soon!

Chappell & Dave

Please forward this blog to anyone you think would be interested.