Victor Rangel-Ribeiro vrangel...@aol.com Planning a concert programme is something like picking a field of candidates for a crucial general election: you have to make sure that each of the pieces you perform will please at least some section of the audience.
So when our soloist for the Goa String Orchestra concert, Goan (and British) pianist Karl Lutchmayer said he would like to perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 14, Fr. Eufemiano Miranda and I were both delighted, he as manager of the group and I as its conductor; it is a light-hearted and lively concerto, and we knew it would be a winner. I was less happy when Fr. Eufemiano suggested that Handel's "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" should be the opening piece. My objection to it is that, in order to perform it, you need not a conductor but a coachman; someone who knows how to get horses started, is smart enough to let them keep going at their own steady pace, and is also savvy enough to bring the carriage to an abrupt stop without giving Her Majesty's neck a nasty jolt. Still, I knew the audience would love it, so the "Arrival" stayed in. I scheduled two charming and very tuneful works by the British composer Edward Elgar to be played immediately after the Handel, so as to give the audience something sweet to listen to after the relentless clipclop of horses' hooves. Mozart's Serenata Notturna (Nocturnal Serenade) was picked to be played after the intermission; in this witty piece Mozart has two small groups of players competing with each other for the public's attention while occupying the same limited space. We had performed it once before at the Monte Festival in 2009 and the audience had loved it. Finally, both Fr. E and I wanted to end the evening with one or more Goan selections. The former headmaster and current choral director Anthony Calisto Vas had arranged two pieces from 'Kunbi Jacki', and to them I added my own 1958 arrangement of 'Adeus kortso vellu pauta' as the orchestra's surprise farewell to one of its own members who was flying off to Europe the next day for musical studies in Europe. The orchestra read the 'Adeus' music at sight, and it must be mentioned that all three Konkani selections were applauded warmly. -- Rangel-Ribeiro, at 88, is a long-time Goanetter and continues to spen an amazing amount of energy in actively mentoring younger people in Goa, in writing, music and other fields. He spends part of his year in the US, and another large part in Goa. Goanet Reader is compiled and edited by Frederick Noronha (FN). Below are some recordings from the concert. Your comments (in the box below the videos) and corrections would be appreciated by all those who worked hard to stage this unticketed event! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOhGXfBX8pY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmjqshYwzTU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRw0SOAewzs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-xNVG2RXpw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEWTLRxGOTw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXs-EU4Bhys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhttGinUeQk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So3JsILQZYg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIk32tL2d1o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yNfk8i3e5Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGuMjwCyUFk