Reception at Spurwing Country Club

Well, April has dropped the ball on updating our posts for... a long time.  However, it's time to share!  This weekend, we got to play for a wedding reception at Spurwing Country Club.  We have played there before and love the beautiful venue.  This reception was for a very worldly couple's New York wedding that in 2017.  Their combined families are from two different countries, so they waited to have this reception until all of them could come visit.

We played a variety of music for them, including lots of romantic favorites.  Diane has recently written arrangements of several popular songs, so we included those in our set.  Some of those are A Wink and a Smile, When You Say Nothing at All, Make Someone Happy, and Hallelujah.  We also included some jazzy tunes like Oblivion and Moonlight Serenade.

The family was warm and inviting and the guests enjoyed hors d'oeuvres, a full dinner, and mini-desserts while we played.  Families shared some warm messages of love, and enjoyed each other's company.  What a great way to spend a Sunday evening!

Blast from the past!

We haven't updated for a while, despite our musical busy-ness!  But Diane was digging around and found some pictures from the past.  These are from our wedding gig at the Boise Train Depot several years ago.  I remember the place had great acoustics, and that we had a great time!

Wedding at the Riverside

Yesterday was Prism's second gig in a week, and it was a great one! 

We played for a wedding at the Riverside Hotel in Boise, Idaho.  This wedding was held on the Sandstone Terrace, a lovely, breezy patio alongside some convention rooms at the hotel.  One of the brides has Japanese ancestry, so the wedding included elegant Asian elements.  The ceremony took place in front of the two double doors in the picture, and they created a backdrop of red paper fans, red hanging paper lanterns, and streamers of folded paper cranes.  The brides both wore Asian inspired clothing with matching red woven fabric, and the young ring bearers wore kimonos.

The couple also included some Japanese music in the ceremony.  They requested that one of us play a melody called Sakura while the attendants entered, so Nell was able to find the piece and did a beautiful solo rendition of it.  We don't have a recording of her playing it, but here is an idea of what it sounds like.  It's a simple, melancholy sort of song, but it sounded just perfect.

The rest of the ceremony focused on great wedding classics, plus lots of sacred worship music.  OneJesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by JS Bach, and the second entered to Canon in D by Johan  Pachelbel.  During the ceremony, friends of the couple read inspirational prayers, and a worship team with singers and a guitarist performed several hymns.  You can see the first two pages of their wedding program to the right; the couple included the sheet music to the hymns so that the guests could join in.  What a great idea!  Dave couldn't resist and especially enjoyed singing along to the hymns.

bride entered to

After the ceremony, the couple exited to Hornpipe (from The Water Music) by GF Handel, and everyone adjourned to a reception room to mingle before dinner was served in a nearby convention room.  We got to join the guests there and help provide a jolly atmosphere until dinner was ready.  We played lots of uplifting favorites like You Raise Me Up by JB Graham and Rolf Lovland, Top of the World sung by The Carpenters, and Makin' Whoopee by Donalson. We got a request to play some Beatles, so we played Hello Goodbye (sadly, we have no recording of it yet) and When I'm 64. 

What a great way to spend a Friday evening!

Art Sip 2016

It's been a while since we've updated you on what's happening in Prism Quartet land!

Good thing we've got a couple of fun gigs to talk about.  :)

Last night, Prism performed for the third year in a row at Art Sip, an event sponsored by the Meridian Arts Commission.  (Check out their Facebook page or their website for more detailed information, events, etc.)

This event is a fund-raiser to help raise money for support of arts programs in Meridian, Idaho.  The Meridian Arts Commission supports arts education, awareness, and participation by providing grants to people who need it.  At this event, people enjoyed: delicious catered food (our favorite were the chicken kebabs), wine from two different local wineries, performances from talented children and adults who are members of a local theater company, classic old-style pies (like bumbleberry and shoofly), a local artist exhibiting her work and creating a painting throughout the evening, a chalk art competition, and a silent auction of great arts-related items (wine, homemade foods, paintings, gift baskets, handmade pottery, etc.).

Prism loves this event and the Meridian Arts Commission.  To help support the organization, we donated a certificate for a one hour quartet performance.  We are looking forward to this fun opportunity to provide music for someone's upcoming event.

For our musical choices, we did a lot of our modern favorites with a few baroque/classical pieces for variety.  Here are some of the selections we played last night (click the blue text to hear clips of us playing selections of those pieces):

• Makin' Whoopee by Donalson
• Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 by JS Bach, Movement 3
• Habanera from "Carmen" by Georges Bizet
• Close to You sung by The Carpenters
• Orinoco Flow by Enya
• You Raise Me Up by JB Graham and Rolf Lovland
• Londonderry Air (a traditional Irish song) 

Thanks to the Meridian Arts Commission for planning such a fun event!

Black Tie fun!

Last night, Prism got to perform at NNU's Black Tie event at the Rose Room in downtown Boise.  It was a beautiful, noisy, crowded, fun event.  The Rose Room was packed from front to back with stylishly decorated tables and place settings, flowers and lit candles, and bottles upon bottles of Martinelli's sparkling cider.  Over about an hour and a half, almost 400 stylishly coiffed coeds enjoyed a catered meal and chatted while we provided the music.  Then, they were picked up by limousines out front and delivered to The Powerhouse, where they continued their evening with dancing.

NNU asked us to provide a mixture of upbeat music with classical influences.  Here are some selections (and new recorded clips!) of the pieces we performed last night: 

Somewhere (in D)
After the Battle of Aughrim
Amazing Grace
Concerto in A minor for Two Violins (arranged for quartet, of course)
Besame Mucho
Love Me Tender
The Irish Washerwoman - Swallowtail Jig
Londonderry Air
Suite from The Fairy Queen (movements 1, 2, 3, and 4)
Christmas Concerto (movements 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6)
Trumpet Tune and Trumpet Voluntary
Passacaile
Habanera
Tango 1


The Tango earned us some rousing cheers.  When you are considering music for your event, keep in mind that tangos are always a great hit! :)

Sorry for the hiatus

Well, it's been a while since our last post.  We've weathered another winter, played some more weddings and Christmas gigs, and now we're preparing to play for an NNU black tie event at the Rose Room in downtown Boise.


We're happy to spice up the doldrums of February with a little music!  We also hope to record a few more song snippets to put on our repertoire page soon.  But for now, we leave you with a silly comic to brighten your day.

From: http://thecomicssection.blogspot.com/2010/09/rhymes-with-orange-i-knew-them-when.html

Photography from the past

We are often photographed at weddings.

However, since we only get to experience the event for an hour or two, we don't often get to see the professional photos that were taken. But, to our great excitement, today we got to see some great photos from two events... from years ago!

Firstly, the Crosby and Seidl families joined during a Saturday morning ceremony at the Shakespeare Festival amphitheater in 2013.  We provided the music for the prelude, ceremony, and for some of the reception afterward.  Here is our blog post about it.

Now, we get to enjoy seeing the happiness in all those photos on the Stephen Smith Wedding Photography website.  We were (or specifically, April was) featured in one photo (from
http://stevesmithweddings.com/blog/tag/prism-quartet/):

Secondly, you may remember our blog post about our gig performing for a 1920s themed party. 

Though the photographer gifted us with some photos, Bliss Events (who organized and catered the event) had some more gorgeous photos posted on their blog entry about the party here.

There too, they posted a photo of us, plus some of the gorgeous scenery from the host's garden (from
https://blisseventsboise.wordpress.com/2013/02/):

Even years later, it gives us a thrill to see little reminders of the fun we had at past events.