Jeremy Goodwin has a great piece in the Berkshire Eagle’s 413 section today about Medeski Martin and Wood.  If you owned a record store what genre would you put MMW in?

Concert is TONIGHT at 8 PM. Tickets still available. Standing room only.

Photo above is another great one from MMW show in Lancaster by G Slice

Gearing up for the MMW concert on Thursday, November 12 we’ve been passing the Radiolarians III CD around the office. Almost everyone who has had the disk in their hands has been interested in the cover art. My super amazing pal Meredith did some research about the art and the object that inspired MMW. Gracing the cover of all three Radiolarians discs, the drawings taken from The Radiolarian Atlas of 1862 by Ernst Haeckel document the life cycle of a radiolarian, a type of single celled organism with a dazzlingly intricate exoskeleton.

Haeckel is credited with discovering and naming thousands of new species and popularizing the studies of Charles Darwin in Germany during the late 1800’s. You can learn a little more about the radiolarian here! 

Haeckel’s radiolarian drawings served as visual inspiration for MMW’s trilogy of disc’s which has reversed the ‘normal’ recording procedure: the songs were written, then toured on extensively, and then recorded at a later stage in their evolution.

Photo by G Slice.

In an interview with Glide magazine John Medeski commented “Radiolarians was a way for us to create new music all year, keeping the music fresh and keeping ourselves alive as a band as well… the whole point was to keep the improvisational aspect of the music alive. We wanted to stay in the moment.” Watch a trailer for “Fly In A Bottle” a feature DVD the band is releasing with Radiolarians: The Evolutionary Box Set scheduled for release at the end of November. 

Check out more photos of the trio playing live on the Medeski, Martin & Wood Flikr Group page. 

We can’t wait to see what they have in store for us. Is it Thursday  yet? 

Cheers, 

Brittany

Ralph (aka Rafael) Farris from ETHEL offers a final update before their performance with La Nave de los Monstrous TONIGHT!  Tickets not available online but you can get them at the door so come on down!

Hola Amigos!

First of all, SORRY! Massive typo in my last posting. At the end, I had MEANT to write “Abrazos, Rafael”. But it looks like my spell-checker didn’t like the word “Abrazos”, and took it upon itself to write “Abrams, Rafael” instead.

…Abrams, Rafael? Wow. I’m a but wacky I know, but I ain’t THAT wacky. Anywho, moving on…

So we just had our run-thru. And it went swimmingly. Only a few page-turn problems and 3 or 4 note switcheroos, nothing really big to fix. Yay.

Again, very strange to feel so… calm.

Mary was playing drum rolls on her chin rest, Neil auditioned (and rejected!) a kazoo, Dorothy perfected her penny whistle performance, and my recorder playing has almost returned to a second grade level. Woo-hoo!

This movie is great. The music is a blast to play, Dorothy’s dance captain-ing is absolutely priceless, and the whole show is just darn good fun. We do hope y’all can come by. It’s gonna be a craaaaazy fiesta!

Abrazos(!),

Rafael

Our good friends Larry Murray and Caleb Hiliadis at Berkshire Fine Arts and Gay in the Berkshires did an interview with ETHEL’s Ralph Farris.  We recommend the piece as a fun read AND a great primer on how to collaborate on a film score.

In a Mexican mood thanks to their upcoming performance, ETHEL’s viola superstar Rafael (aka  Ralph Farris) reports on the quartet’s prep for their visit to North Adams.  ETHEL will accompany La Nave de Los Monstrous (Ship of Monsters) on Friday, October 30.

¡Hola Amigos!

Dorothy, Neil and I just finished a marathon work session and I’m thrilled to report that we FINISHED editing and formatting our revised parts for Friday’s show! Woo-hoo!

Now Dorothy’s off to the printer and Neil’s cataloging our ever-growing collection of percussion instruments.

This is a highly unusual turn of events. We’re normally editing parts right up until show time, so I’m going to have to find some other drama to consume me for the next few days. Any suggestions?

We’re all coming together for the final touch-up on Thursday. That’s when Mary breaks out the drum sticks, and Neil and I get to practice our recorder intonation. Folks, it just doesn’t get any better.

OK — I’m going to take a nap now. Catch y’all on Friday!

Abrams,

Rafael

We asked our dear friend director David Eppel, a native of South Africa, to tell us about the time he spent with Abigail Nessen Bengson and Shaun McClain Bengson in his birth country this summer.   The duo are performing Ain’t That Good  News (directed by David) here on Saturday, November 7.

Abigail Nessen and her husband, Shaun Bengson and I, traveled through South Africa together, last July. They performed their show Ain’t That Good News in Cape Town and in Johannesburg. They participated in the work of a choir in Khayalitsha, and taught the students at the Market Theatre Lab in Johannesburg. For them, South Africa was a new experience, for me, a revisiting through a fresh lense. I worked with Abigail when she was a student at Williams College, and I knew then, the extent of her remarkable talent. Read the rest of this entry »