The second concert of Spring 2012 was in Des Moines, Iowa for the Heart of Iowa Classical Guitar Society. It was one of the nicest weekends on tour. I arrived around noon on Thursday afternoon. My flight out of New York was at 6:30am which means my alarm clock went off at 3:30am – I’m not going to even bother say anything about that… After arriving in Des Moines and having a nice lunch at a local diner we were off to Ye Olde Guitar Shoppe where I got a chance to try some really cool guitars, one of them was a Fleta previously owned by John Williams! How cool is that? Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of it. I must have tried eight or ten in total. It’s always fun to play other instruments to see what they are about.
After the shop visit I got a driving tour of Des Moines and a glimpse of the State Capitol, which I would see the next day from the inside. It had one of the most beautiful libraries and the view of the central dome from the inside was magnificent. Can’t put all the pictures I took in this post but you can find them here. The dome of the building is plated with gold and looks absolutely gorgeous from the outside as well as from the inside.
The concert was at the Capitol Hill Lutheran Church, a really nice venue for classical guitar with warm acoustics that carried all the way back without distorting the sound. I definitely lucked out with acoustics in the last two concerts. At the reception there were the best guitar shaped cookies I had ever seen. The details on the “classical guitar” were amazing. They all had six strings and nice tuning pegs and they tasted as good as they looked. I chose to eat the one with the broken 6th string…
And of course I couldn’t not share THIS:
Found in Des Moines parking lot.
Nevertheless, I really enjoyed performing at the Fynette Kulas Music Hall and it has definitely made my top five “best halls to play in” list.
I also got to meet Armenian-American composer Loris Chobanian and clarinetist Boris Allakhverdyan.
