Hello Kombrig...Thanks for the beautiful Waltz...I'm sorry you have had to wait for this reply but I have been quite sick this week and am only now feeling like getting back to normal. Next on my agenda is to do an arrangement of "The Hills of Manjury" so that when we start rehearsals in February it will be ready for them to try.
I understand what you are talking about when you advocate commercializing music and for you that is fine, you are still working on your career, mine is over and not being a professional any more allows me greater choice over the music I wish to perform, also my audiences are now all seniors, hospital patients and other institutionalized older people. I play the kind of music they are familiar with, old songs and ballads and country music etc... they like nice melodic solos to so I am expecting "Manjury" to be quite popular, where does it come from??? it has a Russian like flavour to it, we have a strong Ukrainian community up here and they would like it I'm sure. I played Accordion and Bass Clarinet with the Edmonton Ukranian Orchestra for three years back in the 90's, it was a lot of fun but the music could be quite tough at the high speeds they required for some of the dancers, they were quite spectacular the way they threw themselves all over the stage.
That's it for today...Have a Good one..TTYL....Derek.