Category: Flute Performances

LGEM – The Music of Robert David Billington and Friends Promo Video

Flute Performances, Flute Teaching and Students Leave a comment

My Media Consultant, AndeeMedia.com, decided that it was high time for a promo video for my LGEM musical groups and teaching.

The musical backdrop for the video is the LGEM Duo video recording of Atrevidinha a choro from Brazil by Ernesto Nazareth.

LGEM, for those in the know, is an acronym for Latin Gringo Elevator Music.

My first demo tape of pop music in Miami (ca. 1989) was a compilation of popular and Latin music selections performed with flute, guitar, and conga. One initial listener likened the sound to “Elevator Music.”

So, okay, my brain stormed, “Hmm. Elevator Music. Huh! Wait, I’m a Gringo, the guitarist and the percussionist are both Latin. Why not Latin Gringo Elevator Music!?!” And a whole new musical genre was born. 🙂

If you like the video, please note that AndeeMedia.com is available for photo and video editing at very reasonable rates.

Aria – Eugene Magalif

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Okay, so you get a call to play in a couple days at one of your churches.

You perform at this particular church fairly frequently so you need the occasional new piece to add to your repertoire.

Where to find music?

Well, your physical copies of the standard repertoire are always useful. CD’s and DVD’s of .pdf sheet music certainly come in handy, but that’s all public domain music and composed by the decomposed. The same with the legal music at IMSLP.

So where to find living, breathing composers?

Well, Facebook is one place. If one posts one’s performances on FB, especially of pieces by other living composers, the occasional composer who perhaps is a FB friend of your posted piece’s composer might take note and contact you to promote his or her works.

As was the case with Eugene Magalif. He contacted me and introduced me to his works. And, this past Sunday, I was able to perform his Aria for flute and piano at the nomadic Church by the Sea Bal Harbour.

It’s a great piece – in the perfect idiom for the setting. I hope to perform more of Mr. Magalif’s works in the future. http://www.eugenemagalif.com/

So, we musicians are all in this together. Let’s all help each other out and promote living, breathing composers and, of course, performers. 🙂

Two Compositions by Contemporary Argentinian Composers

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Modern South American classical music composers often blur the lines between strictly classical and indigenous folkloric styles.

But that kind of classical/popular music fusion has been going on for eons as evidenced by the French secular song L’homme Armé which became widely tune for settings of the ordinary of the mass in the 1400’s and 1500’s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27homme_arm%C3%A9

Here are two examples of classical/popular fusion in the works of two contemporary classical music composers, Jorge Cardoso (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Cardoso) and Jose Luis Merlin (https://www.joseluismerlin.com/). From the Billington and Gonzalez Duo (http://www.rdbflute.com/bg.html) concert at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Sunday, November 22, 2015, in Palmetto Bay, FL.

Al Compas de la Viguela (2002) – Jorge Cardoso (b. 1949)

Brota un Lamento Sentido (Milonga)
Meticuloso (Choro)

Agua de Trapiche – Jose Luis Merlin (b. 1952)

Lago de La Florida
El Ramanso
Rio Grande