What a strange and winding road life can be sometimes. It sometimes brings people back into your life that you’d otherwise consider long lost and forgotten. So you can imagine my surprise when I joined the Austria Facebook network and discovered that a fellow student from my time at Eastman was living in Austria. Living in Vienna as a matter of fact (are there other cities in Austria?).
Chanda Vanderhart is a fantastic pianist that achieved her undergraduate degree from the Eastman School of Music, studied opera coaching in Milan, and then moved to Vienna where she collected two more graduate degrees in vocal accomaniment and chamber music.
She’s also a co founder of a musical production company by the name of Talespin. Talespin is an endevor which seeks to combine elements of story telling, music, graphic design, and multi-media. Together with her partner Anna Lea Stefansdottir, the duo commissions original works from various composers to set relatively unknown fairy tales from around the world to music. Performances are conducted either in English or German, depending on the dates and schedules.
It was my great pleasure to photography one of these performances about a week ago. Not only is Chanda a seasoned pianist, but I recently learned that she modeled for Kodak while in Rochester. Needless to say, she does very well in front of a camera. The entire performance was very well done. Obviously focusing on a childrens market, the Talespin crew packed 3 fairy tales (none of which I knew of prior to this session) in an enjoyable hour. When dealing with children, it must be mighty difficult to engange, retain and entertain them, so the hour long program was perfect.
Anna Lea and Chanda share a remarkable connection while on stage together, and there simply wasn’t a ‘missed note’ anywhere to be found. Both cue off each other brilliantly and I sometimes wondered if they even needed to look at each other at all. The music and visuals fit very well together, along with a variety of various percussion and wind instruments that are handled by the narrator.
All in all, I was quite honored to do the shoot and have been asked back to take some more performance photos along with some new headshots. Thanks Chanda and Anna Lea!
To view the entire series, visit the Photo page.
