At boarding school in England, we were all obliged to learn a musical instrument, whether or not one had a talent. I didn’t. Those with promise were given more exotic instruments to learn, but the mass of tone-deaf pupils like myself, our fate was to be bad violinists. The highlight of the annual Christmas concert was the talentless violinists giving a bad rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
We were awful.
As useless as I am musically, my kids are fortunate to have a very musical mother, and they have both inherited her musical genes, with our older daughter now making great progress on the piano.
Talent is one thing, of course, but so too is inspiration, and this has been a great summer for the latter. Total Hvar Most Junior surprised me when she saw me blogging about Maksim Mrvica last month:
“Dad, that is Maksim Mrvica! He is great!”
And so a family outing was arranged to see the amazing Croatian pianist in Stari Grad – you can see one of his numbers in the video above. I was struck at how many young kids were in the audience for what was a fantastic night, and at least one young aspiring pianist came home inspired by what she had seen and heard, and she seems to be practising the piano with a little more passion.
And so with 2Cellos the other night, a fantastic evening in Jelsa (and congratulations to the Jelsa Tourism Board for its organisation), and a glimpse of what this destination could be if it lived up to its rich potential.
In an age of television and computers, there is plenty of competition for young minds, and the amazing live spectacles offered by Maksim and 2Cellos are an inspiration to young musicians everywhere.
It was a privilege to be able to see both live.
