Hands Off has quickly grown into a thousand-hand, all embracing, theremin convergence of players, builders, and aficionados from across Great Britain and the globe.

This year will feature performances by
Lydia Kavina,
who will also give a talk and master class,
and ThereminWorld Memebers(!):
Chris Conway,
Alexander Thomas,
and Beat Frequency,
aka Gordon Charlton, founder-director-publicist-&-handyman of Hands Off.

There will be a
Theremin Cello duet
too, and a Grand Finale of twenty thereminists!

A public interactive theremin installation will up up for the week.
The installation uses 16 custom built theremins by
Fred Mundell of
Fundamental Designs Ltd.

I couldn't possibly thank and congratulate GordonC (and Mrs. GordonC too I'm sure!) enough for Hands Off. It has become a major and inspiring theremin event and has been the most consistent and fastest growing festival for the theremin.

Saturday, 17 April 2010

Clore Ballroom, Royal Festival Hall,

Southbank Centre

Belvedere Road SE1 8XZ, London

painter unknown

Today is Clara Rockmore's Birthday. I've thought and written about her so much I find myself at a loss for words this year. For me Clara is more than an areal finger-ist. She inspires me as a musician and as a progressive humanist. In her life I know she faced big challenges and discomforts and still made great art and held fast to her ethics, and I am inspired by that.



Do you have any sense of influence or inspiration from Clara Rockmore?



Happy Birthday Clara!

Click here to view the embedded video.
Night Shift by Beat Frequency – experimental theremin music with effects.
via GordonCharlton:
moog etherwave theremin + marshall echohead + alesis airFX. Recorded in a single take, no overdubbing, loopers or post-production effects apart from some low pass, a little reverb and faux stereo. Public domain video footage from archive.org

YouTube via GordonCharlton
"moog etherwave theremin + marshall echohead + alesis airFX. Recorded in a single take, no overdubbing, loopers or post-production effects apart from some low pass, a little reverb and faux stereo. Public domain video footage from archive.org"
<!-- Via the best synthesizer site on the web: http://matrixsynth.com.-->

TheremWorld member
Fred Mundell
has posted extensively about theremin engineering in our forums.

Lately Fred's been furthering World Thereminization by getting his knowledge out to the general public with a comprehensive document
"Understanding and Calibrating a Theremin"
which is a detailed introduction to how theremins work and expert guide to actually making one play. It is currently available on his
element14 blog
.



Great work Fred, Thanks!

photo unknown

Sometimes our work as musicians intersects with works of humanitarianism much greater than our normal sphere of rehearsal and performances.

Ruth Katherina Martha Pfau was born in 1929 in Leipzig, Germany and grew up during the horrors of the second world war. After studying medicine during the 1950's Ruth joined the order of the 'Daughters of the Heart of Mary' and was sent by the order to work in India. In 1960, while awaiting a visa in Karachi, Ruth visited the McLeod Leper Colony, little more than a beggar's camp at the time, deciding to stay to serve the leprosy patients and her great work began.

In less than five years, Sister Ruth established the Leprosy Control Program and working with a Pakistani dermatologist initiated training programs for local medical workers. In 1979, she was appointed Federal Adviser on Leprosy to the Government of Pakistan and by 1996, leprosy had been controlled in the country and Dr. Ruth Pfau's work was assisting leprosy and public health initiatives across the word.

During March 2010, the German and Pakistani governments are celebrating Dr. Ruth Pfau's work in Karachi. March 6 - 9 Theremin player Carolina Eyck and her music ensemble from Berlin will be performing at the German Consulate and three of the schools where Ruth worked and founded.

Carolina tours almost constantly, this Pakistan trip however
is considered by her and her musicians (Peter Schmidt - lead-guitar, Axel Merseburger –
guitar, Roman Eyck – bass, Jan Bilk – keyboards, leader) to be the most important concert series they have presented.

More information will be available at
Carolina's site
and the Goethe-Institute in Pakistan.

Kevin is going to be one of the featured concert performers at The Pocono Skies electronic music festival produced by electro-music.

May 15 and 16, 2010

Shawnee Playhouse

Shawnee-on-Delaware, Pennsylvania

photo Peter Schaaf

Composer and thereminst Elizabeth Brown will be performing her work "Rural Electrification" for theremin, voice, recorded sound and video, on February 26 at 7:30 pm at the Art League of New Britain, CT.

It's a beautiful blend of voice and theremin, and echos Lev Termen's Russian electrification tours with the story of electricity coming to rural America. Nicely written.

Elizabeth will also be teaching a workshop on February 27, 2 pm at the Art League.

Thereminst Eri will be performing at the AMUSE MUSEUM, which houses a collection of classical art of Japan. It promises lots of theremin in this collaborative production.

Click here to view the embedded video.
Sunday Synth Jams: This is a virtuosic theremin rendition of Albert Ketelbey’s In A Monastery Garden, performed by Peter Pringle.
It’s an “unabashedly sentimental” work from close to 100 years ago – and a part of theremin history.
See Pringle’s notes, below, for details.
via copperleaves:
One of the very first theremin recordings ever made was thereminist Lennington Shewell’s transcription of British composer Albert Ketelbey’s hugely popular 1915 composition, IN A MONASTERY GARDEN. It was released in 1930 by RCA at virtually the same time as they began to distribute the first RCA theremins.
This is a wonderful piece of magnificently schmaltzy, unabashedly sentimental, early 20th century “light” program music and it launched Ketelbey into the forefront of the popular composers of his day and made him one of Britain’s first music millionaires. This piece of music was wildly popular and would have been very familiar to our great grandparents. We need to remember that it was written after the start of World War I, and Europeans were reeling from the tragedy and brutality of the destruction of the world they had known.
The score calls for birdsong, chapel bells, an organ, and for a chorus of monks to be heard singing “Kyrie Eleison” (a phrase from the Greek meaning, “Lord, have mercy”) in a nearby cloister. The monks’ voices were to be (according to the original score) the “gentlemen of the orchestra” who were required not only to play their instruments but to sing as well!
Here’s what Ketelbey himself wrote about this composition: “The first theme represents a poet’s reverie in the quietude of the monastery garden amidst beautiful surroundings – the calm serene atmosphere – the leafy trees and the singing birds. The second theme in the minor expresses the more personal note of sadness, of appeal and contrition. Presently, the monks are heard chanting “Kyrie Eleison” with the organ playing and the chapel bell ringing. The first theme is now heard in a quieter manner as if it had become more ethereal and distant; the singing of the monks is again heard – it becomes louder and more insistent, bringing the piece to a conclusion in a glow of exultation”.
The theremin in this video is a Moog Ethervox and I used it not only for the melody but also for the birdsong. The voices of the monks singing “Kyrie Eleison” are me singing into a Digitech VOCALIST.