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News News News
***New website! www.grancinoeditions.com
* NEW NEW NEW! I have a new Musician's Page on Facebook:
* I have a facebook profile. Many "new" (not posted on myspace) photos to be seen there.
* I have a myspace music page, www.myspace.com/baroquecello , where you can listen to some of my recordings on baroque cello - enjoy!
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Recent Events
*Pyron Master Class. Westmont College, Santa Barbara, October 19-22, 2007
Performing the Cirri Concerto with soloist Lorraine Wallace.
October 22, 2007. Photo courtesy Sarah Spisak.
*Bad Dog and Other Plays by Michael Smith . Center Stage Theater, Santa Barbara, September 14-22, 2007
Jeannot Maha'a with Melissa Rose Ziemer in
Bad Dog and Other Plays , September 14, 2007.
Photo courtesy Michael Burridge.
So you want a blurb ...
I follow an uncharted course. Every now and again I'll change directions but I never quit, never. My passions are intense and my actions decisive. I know what I want and I know how to secure those things. Time is a critical variable and few people take advantage of it. Time is yours to make of it what you will. We all have some role to play in life, some means of making a contribution. Find the role in which you shine and excel. Excellence is rare. My role, like most, is mutable: to care for those I value and nurture those I love, to lead those less familiar and to follow those who's examples stand the test of time. Desire holds great power and so I choose to pursue those things that I consider ideal, honorable and noble like truth, balance, art, science, good food, love in all its incarnations, and music. Be alive and be glorious in life ... blah, blah, blah ... how's that for a blurb?
... Here's one more, it's not mine but it is good: "A cello's soul is the resonance that makes it unique: how it was made, when it was made, who's played it. Mine may be who my parents were, what I know about life, who I love and have loved." - Ben Kingsley
What's in a name?
My name is Jeannot. It's not hard, just French. Say "zha-NO."
Photo Op
Nona Pyron and Jeannot Maha'a in concert
Santa Barbara, February 19, 2006.
Photo courtesy Barbara Cleveland.
Pet peeve
People who say "I like classical music because it's so relaxing" ... if listening to "classical" music makes you relaxed you're doing it WRONG!
About me: Bits and Pieces
As you can see from much of this page I’m a musician. I’ve been a cellist for about 15 years. My first instrument was the clarinet (argh!) but that did not do. Fortunately for me the cello found me shortly after that and I’ve never looked back. I also play double bass (the stringed instrument not the percussion). The “proper” English name for the instrument is “double bass” but it’s called many things by many people including contrabass, upright, stand-up, string bass or just bass. Whatever you call it it’s big and bold, both beastly and beautiful. I’ve always been a bigger is better kind of guy. ;-)
My background is a bit eclectic. I’ve always been artistically inclined with music being just another artistic medium to me. My grandma is an artist of the Jack-of-all-trades variety and she gave me a good head start in the visual arts with painting and drawing lessons and unconditional support for any whim that took my fancy. As a teenager I developed an interest in print design and general graphic design. At about the same time I worked as a freelance writer on pet and wildlife topics together with a bit of technical writing for local nonprofits.
19th c. lithographs of a radiated tortoise and a softshell turtle
by Edward Lear (1812 - 1888)
from Thomas Bell’s A Monograph of the Testudinata (London, 1832 - 1836)
Another trait inherited from my family is a tremendous appreciation for nature, wildlife and indeed all creatures great and small. This led to one of the great dualities in my life: a deep love for the biological sciences, an interesting juxtaposition with the world of art and aesthetics. For a time I was firmly set on a path to a career as a biologist, evolutionary zoology and systematics to be precise. I interned in Florida at a marine bio lab (the Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota) and spent the summer tracking dolphins, anesthetizing nurse sharks, and digging up sea turtle nests. It was great. Before that I interned at the Chaffee Zoo in Fresno where I worked with my dear friend and mentor the late Sean McKeown . Sean was a herpetologist (a biologist who works with reptiles) and he groomed me to follow in his tradition. Few people know the exhilaration of catching wild monitor lizards in the western Pacific or working with captive crocodiles and other animals that are truly awesome. I treasure those experiences.
Plate LXIX. Crocodile with a coral snake.
from Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (The Hague, 1726)
by Maria Sibylla Merian (1647 - 1717)
What are you?
I get this all the time. Or they’ll say “where’ you from?” when the mean “what are you?” and because I’m proud of my ancestry I say: My dad’s from Tahiti , French Polynesia. His side of the family is Tahitian, English and French. My mom’s from Hawaii and she’s half Portuguese and lots of other things too like Chinese, Hawaiian, Dutch, German, Irish and on and on and on. My grandfather's family was Portuguese from the Azores. So all of that makes me a mutt and in my humble opinion (not) that’s pretty cool. Plus, since my dad’s a French national and I was born in the US (Honolulu) I hold dual citizenship which is also cool. The questions that always follows is “so do you speak French?” My family lived in Tahiti for a time when I was a boy and I went to school there and learned to speak French (mom has recordings to prove it) but when we returned to the States I left the French behind. I’m told I should be able to recover it without difficulty, we’ll see. I studied French, Spanish, German and Russian at different times through middle and high school but I’ve decided that the only way to really learn a foreign language is to live it. So ... what language should I live next?
18th c. oil on canvas. Tahiti Revisited. (1776)
by William Hodges (1744 - 1797)
Official Draughtsman, Cook Expedition (1772 - 1775)
*This page was edited with a little HTML code and my brain. (and Ian)