American Public Media has featured Mike Marshall's "Mandolin Concerto No. 1" on their program Performance Today. In Hour 2 of the broadcast, they play the full Mandolin Concerto which Mike composed himself for the New Century Chamber Orchestra and was influenced by his love for bluegrass as well as Bach.
For more information on the New Century Chamber Orchestra visit their website at ncco.org.
We are proud of all our artists who have dedicated their time teaching students online via our online learning platform, and always happy when they find time to record new albums. Within the past 12 months, 10 out of our 25 online teaching artists are either releasing, or have already released new albums. This recent surge is more evidence that our online learning model is working - passionate students are able to access these talented musical geniuses, and the artists are able to balance teaching with recording new music. Here's what's new:
ArtistWorks Mandolin instructor Mike Marshall has a new album coming out with the Turtle Island Quartet. The famous string quartet has been playing together since 1985 - ArtistWorks Fiddle instructor Darol Anger was actually one of the original founding members. The current lineup consists of David Balakrishnan (violin), Mark Summer (cello), Mateusz Smoczynki (violin), & Benjamin von Gutzeit (viola).
The new album is appropriately titled Mike Marshall and the Turtle Island Quartet and contains four original Mike Marshall compositions including his signature mandocello tune "Gator Strut" (which he teaches in his Mandolin school here at ArtistWorks). They also recorded Darol Anger's arrangement of the Robert Johnson blues tune, "Crossroads".
Mike served as producer for the album, which they recorded in Berkeley from 2011-2012. It will be released on March 18, 2014 but you can pre-order your copy today at the links below. For more information on the Turtle Island Quartet visit their website: http://turtleislandquartet.com.
Here's a new 7-part mandolin lesson on using the Circle of 5ths. Mike breaks down the logic of how to use the circle of 5ths for mandolin and how to find common patterns to use and gives you some new ways to work out relationships between keys. He's also put together 2-5-1 patterns for every key around the circle, giving you an expansive way to practice and familiarize these concepts. There are useful diagrams attached to the lesson page for you to print out and use in your own practice spaces.
This is also a new VE category, so feel free to submit your 2-5-1 and Circle of 5th related questions and performances directly to the topic now. Find it in the Additional Lessons & More sections of the lessons!