Equipment failure at a crucial moment

Hurrying down the Grassmarket after my performance, I was on my way to get filmed for STV, when the guitar-containing bit of my guitar case fell onto the cobbles with a bang leaving me with just a handle in my hand.

Red Dog Music happens to be at the bottom of the Grassmarket so hugging my now uncarry-able case I went in there.

It's quite nice to be forced to buy something new from a music shop although I was in such a hurry I probably seemed like I'd spent the day thus far drinking black coffee.

Thank you Red Dog, for saving my sanity. I only had to carry the guitar in the hugging fashion for one more day and then I was able to pick up a lovely new replacement. This time I've gone for a Hiscox. Not that there was anything wrong with the Gator - it had seen a lot of action and safely protected my guitar to Adelaide and and Toronto and back.
And seeing as I'd been thinking that I should save my wrists and fingers I also got a sling for it and now I can carry it hands free - much better for eating chips and icecream and so on.

I'm on the telly - on the STV Player for a few more days...

If you missed my appearance, you used to be able to scroll through the episodes for  Monday 17 August (7.05 pm) - and find me  in the same line-up as Mark Thomas and the magician Pete Firmin but it's too late now so I've removed the link.  I played a truncated version of the Turlough O'Carolan pieces. Why truncated? Things have to fit very precisely into TV programmes! After we did the first take the producer asked me if I could lop 15 seconds off. So we did another take and, at the end of that, he zoomed over from behind the monitor and asked if I could lop another 10 seconds off. So I played it again and left out another repeat, hoping it would fit and was still making sense...
Yes. Nervewracking but it was fun to do and the crew were fantastic. Here they are sorting out all the technical stuff...

Great review in today's Scotsman!

I got an axciting tip-off last night from a friend who has an inside contact at The Scotsman that I was getting a review and that it was favourable. So I was up early this morning and here I am reading it at the crack of dawn... and for those who can't get hold of a copy of the paper, here it is:- 

Classical Guitar – Jonathan Prag
C Too (Venue 4) ****

Even in these early days of the festival, a simple show can feel so refreshing. Classical guitarist Jonathan Prag is a Fringe stalwart, and his daily lunchtime solo recital feels a bit like a cool breeze of sanity amid the Edinburgh mayhem. That's not to say Prag is unambitious: he delivers a wide-ranging programme journeying from music by 17^th century blind Irish harpist, Turlough O'Carolan through to a flashy showpiece from the 1980s by Russian composer Nikita Koshkin. But it's the quiet authority with which he plays and his natural unforced musicality, that mark his show out. He gives gentle but characterful accounts of two tunes by O'Carolan and picks out voices sensitively in a rippling Bach Fugue and Allegro. His command of tone colour is impressive in Barrios's 'La Catedral', especially a beautifully fluid transition into ringing harmonics, and he ends his programme with a nicely characterful 'Suite Del Recuerdos' by Jose Luis Merlin, providing poignant perspectives on the work's shifting moods and dance rhythms, put together in memory of the Disappeared of Argentina. It’s Koshkin’s fiery, Poe-inspired ‘Usher Waltz’ that’s most impressive though, slowly fracturing and disintegrating a piquant waltz tune with all manner of grotesque effects, and drawing Prag’s most extrovert performance. Elsewhere his playing can be a bit self-effacing, even undemonstrative, but there’s no doubting his technical dexterity nor his intense focus, and he has an easy, natural way of talking to his audience. For an hour of calm thoughtfulness and yes, maybe a bit of introspection, Prag offers something quite special.

[David Kettle, The Scotsman 8 Aug. 2015]