February began with performing some baroque music with my good colleagues from the ensemble Floridante. The concert was part of the annual MustonenFest, a long-standing international music festival that explores music from different genres and centuries. The program is put together by the legendary violinist and founder of the 50-year-old early music ensemble Hortus Musicus,… Continue reading
The beginning of January 2015 saw two members of the Ensemble Floridante – Meelis Orgse and me – performing a duo program ‘Sensitive Baroque’ in the Hika Hall of the Hotel Promenade in Liepaja, Latvia. The program mostly consisted of works by the early Italian baroque masters but not only: Girolamo Kapsberger (1580 – 1651)…. Continue reading
After finishing the guitar chord game we have been working on a bigger project called MatchMySound. It is a web app for music teachers that allows them to give their students measurable homework. Basically an automated music teacher that has a very good ear for students’ mistakes. It distinguishes between the timing and sound mistakes… Continue reading
Kristo Käo (guitar) & Leonora Palu (flute) at Nokia Concert hall on 27th of March, around 21:30. This is the annual Tallinn Music Week – the biggest showcase festival in Nordic and Baltic region: http://tallinnmusicweek.ee/artist_2014.php?nid=484 Here is what we will play: R.Eespere / Matbeth J.Reinvere / Water Dance L.Sumera / For BBB and his Friend
Me and my colleague from the university (Margus Niitsoo, PhD) have been working on sound recognition lately. I recorded hundreds of samples on different guitars this summer to form the basis for machine learning. Now our virtual professor can distinguish between different pitches and chords pretty accurately. Rhythm, timing and tempo recognition is under development…. Continue reading
The soprano-clarinet-guitar trio is not very common. But it has it all: woodwind, strings and vocal. “Päike pärast tormi” (Sun after the storm) is specially composed for our ensemble by Estonian composer Piret Pajusaar. The premiere took place in early spring under tough conditions (10 by Celsius in church!) and since then we have played it… Continue reading
I was cleaning up my notes and stuff and found some 7-year old video recordings about me playing a couple of recitals:
It is good to know that there are people out there who enjoy things I’ve done. Here’s a recent letter from an Argentinian who had listened music from “The Dance Album”: Dear Kristo: “First, I want to congratulate you, because I had the opportunity of listening to you on youtube. I was appreciating you playing… Continue reading
Too many guitar recordings are polished in studios for months and are nearly perfect in many ways – put together from hundreds of takes, resulting no mistakes, superb sound and so on. But sometimes I feel that the more you polish the greater is the chance to wash out some essential things in music –… Continue reading