Okay, here’s a verification and correction of the provided text, based on web searches as of today, november 21, 2024. I will highlight changes and provide explanations where necessary.
Revised Text:
The biggest test yet for our system – and my brain.The technical demands are so great that I had a wide range of custom harmonicas built by Seydel,Suzuki and other harmonica companies,so rather than just playing the work on a chromatic harmonica I gained different timbres,techniques and sounds to bring the pieces to life.
The same goes for my accordion: I had to develop new techniques and learn different scales and chord progressions that wouldn’t usually be played on a diatonic instrument. Even more daunting than the technical hurdles was the psychological obstacle of tackling such a complex score without the ability to read it.
Yet learning by ear and resisting the explicit instructions of a score has become my greatest strength: it forces me to approach the music laterally,bringing my own sound world and a unique,personal voice to the work – a voice that is not confined by the dots on the page.
This is not a question of right or wrong: I’ve always challenged the notion that classical players can’t play folk, or folk musicians can’t play classical. Whether you call our tour dates gigs or concerts, the two genres are far more interlinked than we have been led to believe.
Two amazing composers who recognised and embraced these connections feature in the first half of our program: Percy grainger and Benjamin Britten. Despite their mutual admiration – Britten dedicated his Suite on English Folk Tunes to Grainger – the pair only met once: at Cecil Sharp House in London, the headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. That says something in itself.