Happenings in Glasgow

My last post was from a cafe in the West End, the trendy neighborhood by Glasgow University.  I walked around there for a while and it seems like a great place.  I plan to explore of a bit of the Uni campus because some of the buildings look spectacular and there are also a good amount of bars and such to go to. Sunday night I went to a jazz gig at a place called The 76.  Not only is it a cool bar with live music and lots of people, it is a vegan restaurant.  Everything they serve, including the wine and beer, is completely free of animal products.  I got a pretty delicious veggie burger and chips.  They have jazz every Sunday and for next time I will try to get a seat closer to the group because I had trouble hearing.  It was quite crowded but a cool atmosphere and the music was good from what I could hear.

On Monday I visited the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) which is right in the city centre, and has more exhibits than I thought from looking at the outside.  I went to a few of the exhibits and plan to see more later. One of them was all contemporary sculpture from Glasgow artists.  The pieces were quite varied as far as materials and representations challenging the perception of sculpture.  Some were figurative and others were just what they were, without trying to represent something else.  I also saw some drawings by Alisdair Gray who was the city recorder and did a series of drawings of people around Glasgow in 1977.  His style of portrait I thought was interesting but the set was more about showing the lives of real people in that time.  There was also an audio-visual room with video art from the Videonalle festival in Germany.  I liked watching the bizarre and unique forms and stories that people can come up with on video.  I will be back to this museum for sure.

On Tuesday I had another piano lesson where I played through a lot of pieces to give my teacher a better idea of what to focus on.  I agree with his overall impression and hope that he will help me stretch myself so that my musical instincts can be more clearly communicated.  Right now, I play with too small a scope of expression even though it is correct and sensitive.   He is getting me to work on expanding my sound to reach a wider range of possibilities.  I feel I have a long way to go and though somewhat discouraging at times, I already feel better today than I did after that lesson.

Tuesday night I went to a bar in the West End called Brewdog, a Scottish brewery.  Located outside of Glasgow, they produce craft beers in an environmentally sustainable way and are trying to go against the grain of mass produced British beer.  And, I must say, it was delicious!  

Wednesday was a slow day but I went to a performance class of some students from the conservatory and got hear them play and listen to the comments of a professor.  It felt good to be back in a setting like that and I plan to go to more of their performance classes in the future.  

 (Very) Modern Glaswegian sculptures

 Statue of the Duke of Wellington outside the GoMA.  The traffic cone is placed on top of his head and every the authorities remove it, it shows back up again.  This represents the lighthearted glaswegian spirit.

For those who think that it is always cloudy, here are some pictures of sunny Glasgow...though not for very long.