Midsummer’s Music Festival members Jason Heath, Walter Preucil, and Elizandro Garcia-Montoya

Today’s episode is a live performance of Jon Deak’s quirky quintet Lucy and the Count: Love Dreams from Transylvania.  Written in 1981, this is a theater piece divided into three scenes featuring the solo bass in a dramatic, virtuoso role.  In the first scene, you can hear the creaking of the ship morph into a dramatic first theme.  The second scene is a dinner party and features each instrument “talking” during a dinner party.  The words that the instrumentalists are intended to imitate are written in the parts along with the contours of the speech, making for some crazy sonic effects.  The third scene portrays a ruined chapel with a coffin containing the Count.  The Count turns into a bat and visits Lucy in a particularly twisted finale.

This performance was recorded live at the Midsummer’s Music Festival for their Big Top Door County 25th Anniversary concert.  I’ve had the pleasure of playing with this fine ensemble for the past decade, and it was a real treat to get to perform this soloistic work with them!

Lucy and the Count: Love Dreams from Transylvania

Live Performance: July 12, 2015
David Perry and Stephanie Preucil, violins
Allyson Fleck, viola
Walter Preucil, cello
Jason Heath, bass
Alan Kopischke, narrator

Purchase parts through J.W. Pepper
Recording by Steve Lewis