Last week I gave my Chamber Music Recital at NIU after a weekend of NIU Steelband and Afro-Cuban Folkloric Ensemble concerts.
The concert with the Afro-Cuban Folkloric (run by Mike Mixtacki) was a great success! It was a one-hour non-stop tour of Afro-Cuban Song and Drum. The NIU Steelband did a show that was very different from some of its past concerts. We played a Chris Tanner original with a horn section, added a rockin’ guitar solo to Tracy Thornton’s “In the Groove of Things,” and culminated in a Jit Samaroo original and the pop tune “Get Lucky.” BOTH concerts were a blast to be a part of!
My recital fell on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I was lucky to have Taylor home from Colorado and a very good turnout at the concert… even though it may have been the last event at NIU before the holiday. I premiered one solo written by my good friend Kyle Krause as well as chamber pieces by Kyle and fellow percussionist Todd Jelinek. It was a lot of work to put the recital together, but it was fun to give to a live audience and one on NIU’s webcast!
The NIU Steelband Concert, Cliff Alexis’s induction to the PAS Hall of Fame and my recital all got a shoutout in the Trinidad Gaurdian Newspaper early last week. Click HERE to see the article.
There are many events this spring, so keep checking in for schedule updates!
— mike
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