Mezze and Metal

Just got back from an amazing dinner at a Greek restaurant in Queens, where my studio mates (as in, musicians who study with the same teacher), EJ and I indulged ourselves in a set of 20 assorted mezze. By the end, as one of us put it, “My stomach [was] screaming!”

19 more like this on the way...here we go!

And of course, like most pianists who tend to be slightly obsessed with practicing (okay, absolutely obsessed…I won’t deny it!) we would, out of habit, place our hands in position on the table to check how firm our bridges are (the bridge is that row of knuckles that connects the fingers to the palms). Totally nerdy. But whatever, people check their Crackberries at the dinner table, we check our bridges. It all evens out in the end.

Who's is the strongest? I think the girl on the right in the purple shirt...okay that's me. I'm a bit biased

EJ and I had worked up our appetites beforehand at the Gemma Redux jewelry trunk show at debut, where we had consumed champagne on empty stomachs. I had the chance to meet Rachel Dooley briefly, the mind behind the metal. I asked her what Gemma Redux means, and she said that it is Latin for “gems reconstructed.” Apparently she and her father love Latin and he helped her come up with the name.

Gemma Redux, consisting largely of intertwined metal chains and chunky stones, makes a bold statement through excess and contrast. It reminds me of the Baroque era. At that time, music was highly ornamented and had more elaborate harmonies than the music from the era prior, to put it loosely. In GR pieces, a counterpoint exists between the regularity of the chain patterns and the various stones attached to them.

Hmm…maybe we’ll send along some Bach to GR and see if some Bach-inspired jewelry emerges!

Rachel Dooley, right

 

"Baroque" is derived from a Portugese word that means "an irregularly shaped pearl." In this piece, fools gold, with its natural and irregular rough edges, are intertwined with smooth gold chains, providing a striking contrast between rawness and refinement.