Blog- June 2012

Blog- June 2012

I am now officially a graduate of Berklee College of Music.  Time has flown so fast.  Wow.  It’s truly a great honor to have graduated from a school as prestigious as Berklee.  But I still have one more semester (Fall 2012, my seventh semester) before all my classes are done.

The graduation ceremony was on my 20th birthday (May 12), and I celebrated my birthday later that day with a concert at the Acton Jazz Café, the very first venue at which I ever played in an ensemble.  The concert and my graduation were featured in an amazing front-page article in the Boston Globe.

My 20th birthday was the best one I’ve ever had!

I have two gigs in July.  The concerts will be in two completely different places whose names just happen to rhyme… Maine and Spain!

The Maine concert will be on July 5 in Freeport, ME.  If Freeport sounds familiar to you, it’s because the town is known worldwide as the headquarters of L.L.Bean.  L.L.Bean will celebrate its 100th anniversary this year with a series of free concerts in Discovery Park on Morse Street in Freeport.  My trio will be one of the bands featured; we’ll perform on July 5 at 6:15 PM.  John Funkhouser will be on bass, and Steve Silverstein will be on drums.  The L.L.Bean celebration is a big multi-day event; for more details, check out this article from the Portland Press Herald.

Two weeks after that, I travel to Spain.

I’ll be playing at Heineken Jazzaldia in San Sebastian, Spain on July 20 at 11 PM.  What is Heineken Jazzaldia?  It’s a humongous jazz party!  Massive doesn’t even begin to describe this festival.  There are eleven stages, and the festival lasts for five days.  The largest outdoor stage also features rock and pop-oriented acts; that stage alone draws tens of thousands of people every year.  I’ll be playing at the Coca-Cola Space at the Terraces de Kursaal, a gorgeous outdoor venue on the beach that accommodates about 400 people.  I’ll perform in a trio with amazing local sidemen (Javier Mayor de la Iglesia on bass and Hasier Oleaga on drums).  The concert is free of charge.  Again, it’s July 20 at 11 PM (that’s not even late, by the way; that’s when the real party starts over there!)

The day after (July 21), I will play a concert for children with autism at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre.  The concert will be for the local autism society, GAUTENA.  It’s going to be wonderful to reach out to these kids.

I’m looking forward to seeing San Sebastian as well; San Sebastian is a gorgeous beach city on Spain’s northern coast, right next to the border with France.  It’s in the famed Basque country, which has a unique culture and language of its own that’s unrelated to any other in Europe.  Lots of languages are spoken in San Sebastian (but Spanish is still the primary language).

(Y sí, voy a hablar mucho español en San Sebastián, como Costa Rica en el año pasado.  I’ll speak lots of Spanish, just like in Costa Rica last year…)

I’m on the farm in New Hampshire right now, but I’ll be going to many different places in New Hampshire and Maine over summer vacation.  In August, I’m playing some more concerts around New England.  I’ll keep you posted about those.  But best of all, I’m going on another big international trip.  It’s a four-concert tour of Japan.  Check out my TOUR page on my web site for more detailed info.  That trip will be another blog by itself.

See you soon,
Matt