"Marie's Dance" by Gregory Coleman

"Marie's Dance"

Gregory Coleman (1949-2005) was an accomplished classical guitarist, composer, arranger, performer, and most importantly to him, a dedicated teacher. He taught at Saddleback College for some 30 years and performed here for the Orange County Guitar Circle many times. He was also my best friend. We sadly lost Greg in 2005 but his spirit lives on through his many students, and his compositions like this next piece.

Greg composed "Marie's Dance" in 1993 for Marie Steiner, one of his guitar students, who was at the time in her late 70s. He much admired her curiosity and vitality, as evidenced by taking up such a difficult instrument late in life. Greg wrote this piece not only as an homage to Marie's vitality but also to her Eastern European heritage as reflected in the rhythms, harmonies and melodies of this lovely piece.

As I worked on this piece with Greg, he told me he set it's tempo as a bouncy "Gigue", as a testament to her upbeat approach to life. I played it for Greg at more of a waltz tempo because quite candidly I just could never play things as fast as Greg :-) But I loved the piece at the slower tempo and as we worked on it together, Greg noted that as a waltz it reminded him what an elegant lady Marie was.

This, then, is "Marie's Dance" - by Gregory Coleman - and for my friend Greg - but still at a slower waltz tempo :-)

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Performed at the Orange County Guitar Circle on February 19, 2011 by Mark Westling - and dedicated to my best friend Greg.


Video by Jeffrey Westling :-)

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Category:

Music

Tags:

• Gregory Coleman
• Marie's Dance
• Mark Westling
• Orange
• County
• Guitar
• Circle
• OCGC

[mdelaneyiii]

This is beautiful Mark. All of your hard work is paying off. Thanks for sharing. Mike

[MarkWestling75]

@mdelaneyiii

How nice of you Mike! Thank you so much! Mark

[tasoguitar]

Great separation of the melody! You "sang" the phrase, congratulations!

[MarkWestling75]

@tasoguitar

Thanks Taso! Your kind words mean a lot coming from a great artist like you! All the best, Mark

[SamFreedom]

Beautiful, thanks, you must miss him but what memories

[oliviajameschiang]

Well performed - a nice piece!!