We love having hard deadlines - it helps us to accomplish many things!  So being able to perform on the best acoustic instruments has been a challenge, but not impossible to make it so. Here is another story about getting the violin ready: a 40 year old (still outstanding) Barcus pick-up built into the bridge had a bright silver piece that made the old French classical violin look like a 'Borg' - but not anymore!
Thanks Billy Hofmiester at your studio H for your help in meeting the deadline! Here are some 'painting of the metal parts' a dark walnut color to match this beautiful old violin. Pictures below.

Another deadline is getting our application finalized with Arts Northwest today - thanks Jean! That has helped us to accomplish getting our video and audio demos done not only for this application but for many reasons in the future. Now we wait to see if we are chosen for the ArtsNW Fall booking conference showcases. And a BIG thanks goes out to Kris Evans, videographer and vid editor for helping us to surmount the stresses of getting the video done in time. And ESPECIALLY BIG THANKS to Algie Powers, who wears probably more 'hats' than most of us at Lodestar and does incredibly artistic work in minutes sometimes: videography, photography, graphic arts, webmaster, logo creation, color coordination and corrections, idea bin, music critic, video editing,graphic and artistic direction, and a lot of other things that would surprise the heck out of you! See her websites for music here, and her great web and artistic other design work here.  

We spent some time at David Evanoff Sound Designs Studios doing the Demo mix to prepare the audio tracks for our video. Mixing is very important even if there are only four of us. 
The other thing we have had to struggle with is our onstage sound since we are performing acoustically. Since we are waiting for our sponsor or patron to appear, we have to pinch hit in a lot of areas to accomplish our goals. So enjoy some of our surgery pictures with bassist Steve Wesson and Laina Witte hooking up a hybrid mic/pickup for her cello. Playing in a hall that seats 700-900 this Thursday - we all have to be 'heard' and she needs help! Thanks Steve!