Last Sunday was a nice and mellow day. We went to church and then came home and slept a good chunk of the afternoon. Then we headed southward to North Canton to meet Aunt Mary at Cheeseburger in Paradise for supper. We had not seen Aunt Mary in a bit, and she wanted to treat us to supper for our joint birthdays, so that was most agreeable. We had good food and a good time getting caught up, and we even got a couple of Christmas gifts that had not made their way to Maine at the time.

After supper, we headed over to Aunt Mary’s church. They were having a concert by a classical guitarist. To be honest, I thought it would be okay – my mind tends to wander during classical music, so while I was sure it would be a nice concert, I did not know hoe engaged I would be. Turns out, quite a bit. The guitarist is going to the University of Akron, finishing up his Master’s degree in performance. He was a quiet but engaging stage personality. He kept his introductions to the songs and longer works short and focused, and that was helpful. He had an understated sense of humor, which I liked very much.

The actual music was pretty amazing to see him play. The pieces were mostly difficult, including some by Bach, who did not write for guitar, making his works hard to play on the guitar. We sat up front, probably only 10 feet away from the artist (Jonathan Crissman), and it was amazing to watch both of his hands. What a performance. He played for about two 45-minute sets, and mixed in classical pieces with his own arrangements of hymns, including a wonderful New Orleans-style blues-influenced “Amazing Grace.” Quite wonderful.

One of the things I like about small concerts is that you usually get access to the musician. Mer and I chatted with Jonathan for about 10 minutes after the concert, and then Jonathan sat with us at our table as we went to the fellowship hall to eat cookies and drink punch. We continued to chat with him for another 20 minutes or more. I like talking to people who are good at what they do – I find it intriguing. As an aside, the pastor prayed that the food we would eat would give us strength; the food was cookies and bars. I like a church that prays for desserts!

I told Mer that I figured that we were pretty special for having heard metal/screamo music on Thursday, having done Shrew on Saturday, and then hearing Bach on the guitar on Sunday. It was an artistically diverse weekend!