Eastercon Diary Easter Sunday 16th April 2017 Thomas Bloch And Pauline Haas Recital

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The Eastercon science fiction convention has always allowed for many outstanding and often unexpected events and it is normally extremely hard to decide what is the best event seen or participated in at any convention. The Sunday night mostly science fiction themed classical recital by internationally acclaimed virtuosos Thomas Bloch And Pauline Haas has to be seen as a supreme highlight though. Thomas Bloch is a major French performer and composer who specializes in rare instruments, in particular the Ondes Martinet, Cristal Baschet and the Glass-harmonica (which features in the Youtube below). He has worked with pop musicians too, including Radiohead and Marianne Faithful. Pauline Haas is an equally talented harp player from France and as we discovered later, also a spell-binding singer. They have worked on film scores, and TV themes themselves, some of which they mixed in with a thirteen track recital of pieces from various scores, and general classical pieces. A piece by Bloch relating to a French version of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea included audio dialogue (pre-recorded) by French actor Michael Lonsdale, who played Drax in the Bond movie, Moonraker) and the live score was Michael Redolfi’s Some Dreams On A Suspension Bridge. We were also treated to, among other work, Angelo Badalamenti’s Laura Palmer’s Theme, from Twin Peaks, Fluffy’s Harp, a piece composed by John Williams for Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, Formula, a piece Bloch composed himself for an episode of TV detective series Monk, Haas’s own harp composition, La Lyre d’Y’s, and Gaotano Donizetti’s Fantasy On Themes Of Lucia Di Lammermoor, as featured in the Diva’s performance sequences of The Fifth Element. We also got an exclusive presentation of Bloch’s work on Johann Johannon’s score for Bladerunner 2049, which is still a work in progress but it sounded brilliant. It was no surprise that the show finished with a standing ovation from the audience. Vincent Docherty did a great job of introducing and compering proceedings, while Bloch explained his fabulous array of instrument and translated for his co-performer too. Absolutely wonderful. Here is a Youtube of the duo performing a piece not included in the recital. Arthur Chappell