Join Bonnie G as she welcomes the talented harpist Christian Chalifour, who shares exciting details about his upcoming musical game show event, "Name That TV Tune," taking place on October 19. Christian, known for his unique flair, combines trivia about classic television shows with live orchestral performances, making for a truly entertaining experience. He reflects on his journey with the harp, which began in 1977, and discusses the challenges and joys of playing this beautiful instrument. Additionally, listeners will learn about a fantastic grand prize associated with the event, offering an all-expenses-paid trip to Guadalajara, Mexico. Tune in for an engaging conversation filled with music, laughter, and insights into the vibrant cultural scene of the Coachella Valley.

Takeaways:

• Christian Chalifour shares his journey into becoming a harpist after a chance encounter with a famous musician.
• The upcoming event features a unique musical game show where participants guess TV show themes from four notes.
• Chalifour discusses his move to Mexico and the vibrant arts scene he expects to find there.
• The event will feature a twelve-piece orchestra, which has expanded to twenty-four members for this performance.
• Listeners can expect a mix of trivia questions and music to engage the audience at the event.
• Tickets for the family-friendly concert are affordably priced, making it accessible for everyone.

More Detail:

Chalifour is an accomplished harpist and musician. His journey through the world of music is both inspiring and entertaining, as he recounts how a chance encounter with a renowned harpist ignited his passion for the instrument. With nearly 50 years of experience, he shares insights into the unique techniques of playing the harp, contrasting it with the more familiar piano, and elaborating on the physicality and artistry involved in performing this beautiful instrument.

The highlight of the episode is the discussion surrounding Chalifour's upcoming event, Name That TV Tune, scheduled for October 19 in Idyllwild. This musical game show promises to be a family-friendly affair, where attendees can flex their knowledge of classic television themes while enjoying a performance by a 24-piece orchestra. Chalifour’s playful spirit shines through as he details the interactive elements of the show, including trivia questions and a four-note guessing game designed to engage the audience in a fun and dynamic way. With affordable ticket prices, he emphasizes the importance of community and accessibility in the arts.

As the conversation flows, Chalifour opens up about his impending move to Mexico and the vibrant arts scene he anticipates there. He paints a picture of a life filled with music, culture, and the joy of sharing art with others. The episode closes with a sense of optimism and excitement, highlighting the transformative power of music and the connections it fosters across communities. Chalifour's journey serves as a reminder of the joy that creativity can bring, making this episode a delightful exploration of passion, community, and the arts.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• El Portal Mexican Restaurant
• Spirit Mountain Retreat
• Desert Chamber Orchestra

In a land of sunshine where the palm trees sway there's a special show to brighten up your day from rockin festivals to Broadway dreams. Tune in with Bonnie G. It's The Desert Scene, The Desert Scene with Bonnie G.

Meet the stars and feel the beat from the Coachella Valley is the place to be for all the culture, fun and harm I need The Desert Scene. yeah. With Bonnie G.

Mutual Broadcasting welcomes you to the desert scene featuring conversations with the people who make culture, art and entertainment happen in the Coachella Valley. From local theater to live music, art exhibits to cinema and beyond. The desert scene is presented by El portal mexican restaurant in Cathedral City.

Now here is your host, Bonnie G.

And welcome to the desert scene.

Have you here and very happy to welcome to the show Christian Shalafour, who is a very talented harpist musician, also a buddy of mine I've known for a while and through Eric, and he is hosting this really fun event. Sounds like fabulous family fun with the friendly forest Philharmonic. Say that fast three times. Hi Christian, how are you?

I'm just fine. And make sure they know that Philharmonic is spelled with an f to match all the other F's.

Yes, it's wonderful. So musical game show. Name that tv tune. So this is just, sounds like such a fun event. How did this come to be?

And was this your idea and how did it all,..

You know, those who. have known me the 30 years I've been here in the Coachella belly know that I can't, I just can't do a straight concert. There's no way. So I always come up with weird gimmicks and ideas and this has got to be the strangest yet.

I will admit it came from watching too much. When the pandemic hit four years ago, it was suddenly found myself watching a lot of me tv and tv land.

And so naturally it's impossible to avoid shows like leave it to and greenacres and Perry Mason and you name it. Right like that.

Then when I realized I was doing this concert October 19 and Idlewild as a farewell concert because I'm moving lock, stock and barrel to Mexico. I even sold my heart last week. More on that later. And yeah, so I said, well, how about if we do this as a musical game show where you are?

So my twelve piece orchestra has doubled now to be 24 piece orchestra. I have two fabulous guests. Wayne Bryan, who I got to work with in the fantastic, reimagined CB rep, and Derek Lewis, who will be singing as well.

And everybody knows Derek, of course.

Absolutely, absolutely. He's been around for. What a fun concept. And by the way, this is the Desert chamber Orchestra in association with Spirit Mountain retreat.

And this is going to be the Spirit Mountain retreat Garden on Oakwood street in Idlewild. Tickets are $10. That's such a deal. $5 for children under twelve. And so tell me exactly how it works. So when you start out. So do you start out okay?

You play four notes and they guess the show. Tell me how the day evolves.

Okay. Well, just to kind of kick it off and get people interested.

And there'll be an advance telling everybody to make sure they brush up on their tv trivia and all that before they show up. When they arrive, they'll be given a name tag so that we can read their name from a distance of hopefully no more than 5ft.

And they'll be answering a trivia question. And if they get it right, then the orchestra plays a happy major chord and if they get it wrong, they play a horrible dissonance chord. And then they.

Before we even do any is we're gonna play two medleys of show tunes, I guess you could call them, except they're tv show tunes. And that'll be just to give people an idea and remind them of some of the shows.

And then I'll make it clear, though, that all of the questions and the four note guessing game will not be using any of those 14 songs you just heard. So then we.

I mean, when you start digging back into the early sixties and fifties, you can find some pretty obscure things like, dare I say, the real McCoys. Or maybe lassie. Make room for daddy.

You know, shows like that that started back in the fifties and often came from radio shows like Terry Mason and I see.

Tell us about the grand prize. This sounds like a fun trip.

Okay, well, and this has a backstory that's too long to go into to tell, but it turns out this place I'm moving to is just paradise. I've known about it for the whole 30 years I lived here. It's called a he ic, or if you prefer, the j's, to the x's.

So this is, I figured this is my, I'm 73 years old. This is my final page in my chapter in my life. I want to. I want to go play there and enjoy. Then there's music, arts. I've never seen so arts.

So I figured, well, gee, at that price I can fly down to people who win the prize and all expenses paid and they'll enjoy. It's Guadalajara is what we're talking about. It's south of Daraba, 45 minutes.

Okay, that sounds great.

That's the grand prize.

Excellent. All right, let's gonna take a quick break here. We're talking to Christian Chalofer on The Desert Scene. We'll be right back.

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And we are back on the desert scene with Christian Shalafour, who is a wonderful, wonderfully talented harpist and host of this fabulous event. Coming up Saturday, October 19. Fabulous family fun with the friendly forest Philharmonic Philharmonic spelled with an f musical game show.

So let's. I want to go back just a little bit. How long have you been playing the harp?

And what made you just lean towards the harp as your instrument?

I had no interest in it whatsoever. I was working in Alaska's largest music store in the mid seventies.

I kept seeing the ads on tv for this guy named Lloyd Lindroth, who also, hands down, was liberace of the harp. And we're talking pop and jazz harp here.

You know, there's plenty of harpists in the world, but pop and jazz harpist narrows it down to maybe less than 100 worldwide. And I went to see him and he's playing laser beams and smoke blown through the strings.

He's playing big things like, oh, slaughter on 10th Avenue and Rhapsody Blue and bridge over troubled water. And it was too much the first time, so this can't be real, you know. So I go back on a quiet Sunday night and I look up to him.

I said, would you show me how you do that? And he must have sensed that I was serious. He finished his last set.

We put the COVID on the harp, go down to his room, open the door at the Golden Lion Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska. And lo and behold, if there are two more harps sitting there in the room he had just bought.

The pear harps are made in pairs because there's so much gluing and drying. Time involved. Two people, about four months to six months to build one harp or two pair of hearts. And he bought the pair from MGM studio.

So these are the very harps that would have recorded gone with the wind and Casablanca and all the films of that era. So he sat at one and I sat at the other from two in the morning until noon the following day. I don't remember one.

And I said, I gotta have one of these and the rest is history.

A couple questions. I mean, harp isn't. It's not like, you know, walking in with a guitar or just sitting down a piano. You gotta schlep that thing around that.

How difficult is that?

Well, if I did it correctly, it would be more difficult. But I'm usually on the road so much and gigging so much that it's simply they come in these monstrous trunks that weigh 200 pounds themselves.

And the women who played got real tired in the eighties and nineties. And they asked the heart benzies, can you come up with some other way for us to move these things?

And so they came up with transport covers and you put them on and it's perfectly safe for moving them in a vehicle locally. And I keep the trunks around, though, because it answers that question, you know, how do you move something like that?

So my harp trunk, an empty, unopened harp trunk, is always part of my set dressings when I'm doing a concert of my own.

How much does the harp, harp weigh? Normally?

80 pounds on the average for concert grams. It's six foot one, six foot two, and priced anywhere.

Now, I bought my original one for just under $7,000, including the trunk, that model is now 35,000. And the trunk, if you want it, is another three.

So, yeah, so they're only. Only 80 pounds. I was thinking it was more than that.

It seemed they look like they're people see the gold leaf ones and they figure they must be made out of solid gold. Yeah, right.

What other unique challenges are there? I for harpists, for playing?

If you're coming from piano, this is really easier. First of all, you only, you don't use the pinky on either hand. They tried right up until about Mozart's time.

And so all the patterns are done with the thumb and the first three fingers. So you only have eight notes at a time, possible instead of ten like you have on piano. Also, it's like a piano only. Take away all those black keys.

Don't need them. It's like the white G's of the piano only unless you want those notes, then your feet start getting busy.

You have seven petals at the bottom, and I never knew that, and most people don't because usually it's a woman in the long, flowing gown and her dress covers.

You don't see them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I just figured, well, you know. Okay, so I always tell people in Palm Springs series, how many of you envisioned a woman in a long, flowing green dress with red auburn hairs?

Well, if it helps, if it makes you feel better, I used to be one.

Well, it's. I mean, and I've heard you and Christian is wonderful, and it's a beautiful instrument. So again, I would highly suggest you check this event out.

Saturday, October. Desert Chamber Orchestra in association with spirit mountain retreat.

Fabulous family fun with a friendly forest philharmonic and it benefits the Spirit mountain retreat name. That tv tune. Sounds such fun. Well, thank you, Christian, for being here, and thank you for coming up with this fun event. It should be a great day.

Thanks so much.

Thank you so much. I'll leave you with one quick cue.

Dun dun dun dun bewitched. That was easy. Okay. Thank you, Christian. We'll talk to you next time. And we'll see the rest of you the next time. On The Desert Scene.