Street musicians

[Siedler]

Which city has the best street musicians? And why does it seem that many of them select Four Seasons? It's the same thing every summer in Helsinki when I go there, there's the string quertet playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons to a group of tourists! Perhaps I should bring them some notes from my local library so they could play something else. 

[Szykneij]

I had fun listening to some of my former students busking in Harvard Square (Cambridge, Massachusetts) a few weeks back. They had Tracy Chapman's old spot -- not too shabby. No Four Seasons, though. Just lots of good fiddling.

[Mozart]

Switzerland for sure.

[Mahlered]

I was very impressed by the ones in Munich. One group, the Tal Consort, had this virtuoso bassist who took all these melodic lines within the group's arrangements of larger-ensemble pieces, and also played some arrangements of bass arias from operas, transferring the vocal flourishes to his instrument. They were out on Karlsplatz often while I was in the city, and I ended up buying their CD near the end of my stay there.

[Kullervo]

The only ones I encountered in my fourth months in Boston were various people playing cover songs on a guitar, an accordion player that could only play two chords over and over, and an old man playing an erhu very badly.

[KevinP]

And why does it seem that many of them select Four Seasons?

Because you live in Europe.

[m_gigena]

Washington DC, they have this young violinist in the Metro; he is so good I think he should appear in international concert halls. What was his name?



...


Joshua Bell, I think.

[paul]

When I visited Stockholm, there were often students from the conservatory that played around where I was staying and their performances were always great. I find most of the buskers in New York to be annoying.