Super Cool
Friends
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I have some super cool friends. Why they put up with me I don't know. Maybe it's the jokes. Maya Angelou, giving the best eulogy at Coretta Scott King's funeral, said one of the things she did for Coretta was to be the friend who occasionally told her an adult joke. It is a hope of mine to meet the great Angelou one day and after telling her how great I think she is, mention that eulogy and say "Okay, I'm an adult, let's hear one."
My super cool friends are smart, talented, lovely people. The ones that don't have websites, you'll just have to imagine in your mind.
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Adina Mornell. The Cosmos smiled on me the day I met Adina Mornell, and from that first day, I knew I wanted to be her friend for the rest of our lives. And this was even before she became a world famous pianist, and now, Professor and Chair of Instrumental and Vocal Pedagogy at the University of Music and the Performing Arts in Graz, Austria. Now mind you I haven't taken her classes, but I have all of her recorded music, and have attended many of her concerts. Her interpretive skills are nothing short of genius. Here is what she can do. She can play Beethoven's Sonata In D Minor, Op. 31, No. 2, "The Tempest" one way, and you'd think Ludwig himself was sitting at the piano. And then she can play the same piece again, emphasizing the more unusual and discrete musical ideas in the composition and you'd think the piece had been commissioned by the Modern Jazz Quartet or maybe the Grateful Dead. Her ability to pull a multitude of flavors from the same composition is truly staggering. The second pictures shows her in performance (isn't she even just stunning to look at?!) - and not too bad to have as your setting an incredibly beautiful painting by Detlef Levin. |
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Russ Lorenson. I knew Russ Lorenson for several years, when one day he announced, "I'm leaving my job to go back to cabaret." At first, I didn't believe him. Well, I'm a believer now! Who knew he was one of the best cabaret performers on the planet?! Based on the west coast, you can always find Russ either in a musical theatre show, or doing his solo act in the best clubs. That is, if he isn't on tour, or hanging with the best cabaret singers in New York City. Russ is "not just a crooner covering the traditional Sinatra style or trying to be the next Connick, he is his own man." I didn't say that - Jazz Review did! |
If you have questions about these super cool friends, just click on their pictures or their names to head to their websites. Or, if you know a story about them that I need to hear, click
. Thanks!
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