In February, Josh and Mark had a lovely time visiting southern California for the Pantasia Handpan Gathering organized by Stevan Morris and hosted by the Mental Physics Retreat Center in Joshua Tree as well as the infamous Integratron. The desert was blooming in it’s most vivacious and juicy season while the warm temperatures were a nice reprieve from the cool icy and snowy weather of the Southern Appalachians. It was great to see old friends and customers while also meeting new friends, some of whom are on the Saraz waiting list. It is a pleasure to attend these gatherings because we get to meet some of the people that truly make it possible for us to build these instruments. It is always more meaningful for us when we have met the person whose instrument we are currently building. It is also interesting to visit all of the data that resides in each instrument from each builder. We got the opportunity to revisit some older Saraz that ranged from Prototype #20 to some rolled shell Saraz built in 2014 and some of the most recently released creations. One of the delights of the festival was having Shion Yamakawa, an exquisite Violin player, sit in with Josh, Rusty and Mark during their last improvised piece of the Saturday night concert. Mark and Josh hope to explore some further composition with Shion and others sometime in the future. Thank you to Sylvain Paslier for recording our first appetizer!
Josh, Mark and Jason will attend Handpangea Farmington April 23rd-27th 2015. Most of the Saraz crew will attend HangOut USA July 16-20th 2015. Josh and Mark will also attend HangOut UK September 10th-13th 2015. Josh and Mark will be happy to give any Saraz a tune up that might be in need. Please contact us in advance of the event to discuss the instrument and tune up costs.
