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Featuring Frank Carlberg-piano, John Hebert-bass, Gerald Cleaver-drums

Tuesday, September 22nd,2009 at 8:00 PM
@ The Douglass Street Music Collective
295 Douglass St., Brooklyn, New York 11217 (between 3rd and 4th Ave)
Suggested donation $10

Although a classic jazz piano trio instrumentation, consisting of piano, bass and drums, the music of Tivoli Trio is an eclectic mix. Carlberg’s compositions for the group mainly draw from cinematic and circus inspirations. The Tivoli Trio with John Hebert and Gerald Cleaver is going in to the studio in September to record a new CD which is to be released by Red Piano Records around the New Year. In preparation for the recording the trio performs at Douglass Street Music Collective, in Brooklyn, on Tuesday September 22nd.

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J&E003janetmayacroppedAs a tie-in to the Toronto International Film Festival’s premiere of documentary film Stolen, this unique concert featuring musicians, composers, and farmers John McDowell (piano and African drums), and Emmanuel Vukovich (violin and African drums) will be held at Toronto’s Heliconian Club, 35 Hazelton Avenue, on Friday, September 18 at 8pm.

McDowell is best known as composer of the score to Oscar winning documentary Born Into Brothels and has toured with platinum selling rock/world music band Rusted Root and with singer Krishna Das. His world music band Mamma Tongue has performed at venues and festivals internationally. Juilliard and McGill trained Vukovich is the recipient of Canada’s first Golden Violin Award, as well as the Canada Council for the Arts Orford String Quartet Scholarship. As a member of the former Lloyd Carr-Harris String Quartet, which won the prestigious Fischoff Competition, he has toured throughout North America and Europe. Both musicians have collaborated on the sound track to the film Stolen which is premiering at this year’s TIFF.

“Music for Farms” is an international initiative which works to revive and sustain local organic agriculture and farming communities through the arts. The duo will weave an evening of music inspired by an exploration of connecting opposites – such as in their original work based on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parcifal legend, the meeting of Eastern and Western classical music in their own transcription of Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin’s Swara Kakali, in their personal backgrounds of jazz and classical music, and finally in their own lives of practicing music and farming side by side.

Program will include:
-Parcifal by Emmanuel Vukovich and John McDowell 
-Beethoven Sonata, Op. 8, second movement 
-Argentinian Tango pieces and Black Orpheus – arranged by McDowell/Vukovich
-Swara Kakali by Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuin – arranged by Vukovich/McDowell 
-Selections from film scores by John McDowell

The performers will also share some of their experience as farmers and present an excerpt from a film about music and farming entitled Bach in a Barn. Violinist Vukovich states: “Traditionally, music (and all artistic culture in general) was inter-connected with our relationship to nature. In agrarian society this was expressed most strongly in the various seasonal rituals – such as harvest festivals. As we began to migrate to large urban centres, artistic-cultural life began to separate from agricultural life. Today, we go to concerts in the city, and we get most of our food from farms out side of the city. This has often created a void and famine of culture and arts in rural farming communities, and a corresponding disconnect and abstraction in the arts.” To this end, the proceeds from this event will go towards the creation of a foundation which works to connect world-class music-making and artistic culture with local sustainable agriculture and farming communities.

Tickets are $15 (students/seniors) and $20 (adult) in advance (check back shortly for more information on how to purchase), and $20 (students/seniors) and $25 (adults) at the door. For more information, call 416 922 3618 or 773 484 8811.

www.heliconianclub.org

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muccapazzahighlineMucca Pazza is Chicago’s amazing 30 piece punk rock marching band. Their performance on September 13th at Mercury Lounge is a must see!

More specific information on this performance here.

Mucca Pazza. Often mispronounced, seldom mistook. 30 grown-up dorks with too much energy and too little self-restraint, stupefying their audience with music that should never be performed by a marching band. To their credit, this band of misfits only has one march in their repertoire, a bizarre stomp played on the usual marching band instrumentation: snare drums, glockenspiel, sousaphone, speaker-helmet electric guitar, etc. Their other music includes zombie-mambo, snake-charmer-metal, gypsy-reggaeton and classical. Their completely mismatched uniforms and plastic bag pom poms dazzle revelers while their chaotic movements and strange behavior dazzle the police. The hardest smelling band in show business, Mucca Pazza is a sight to be heard.

“When was the last time you saw a marching band that just completely rocked? Until I saw Chicago’s own punk rock marching band, Mucca Pazza I hadn’t [seen one] either. This 25 to 35 member marching band nearly blew the Bluebird (St. Louis) down a couple of months ago. This was a really incredible night and an astounding performance.”
– Bill Streeter (Lo-Fi St. Louis, May 2008)

“…Mucca Pazza (Italian for “mad cow”) may not quite have 76 trombones, but they have enough other instruments to make a serious racket – including woodwinds, trumpets, accordions, strings, drums, cymbals and electric guitar.”
– Jason Toon (St. Louis Riverfront Times, February 2008)

“…[Parades] — some planned, some impromptu — are part of the Mucca Pazza experience. There was the time the band wrapped up a show in an Iowa City bar by marching out a door and down an alley. The audience followed, and the band had to march them back in. And there was the appearance at a record store — an empty record store — in Brooklyn. The musicians went into the street and started playing. A crowd of 200 materialized and the band Pied Pipered them back to the store.”
– William Hageman (Chicago Tribune, March 2008)

Mucca Pazza…proved to be a marching band that dodged any sense of convention. Yes, they dressed predominantly in uniforms, none of which even remotely matched… The ensemble’s preferences for gyrations and shimmies and a repertoire that touched on funk, ska, rhumba, Balkan folk, surf and klezmer music as well as covers by such unfathomably disparate artists as Nubian singer/bandleader Ali Hassan Kuban and Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich.
– Walter Tunis (The Musical Box, May 2008)

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poster as jpegA Music for Farms Benefit Concert for the Rockland Farm Alliance will be held on Sunday September 13th at 3 PM at the Threefold Auditorium, 260 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY. A reception following at 4:30 PM will feature locally grown treats. Tickets are $17 Adults and $12 for students in advance and $15 and $20 at the door (please visit www.rocklandfarm.org to order tickets); The performers are musicians, composers and farmers John McDowell (piano and percussion) and Emmanuel Vukovich (violin), performing an original composition based on the Parsifal legend as well as classical and tango pieces. McDowell is best known as composer of the score to Oscar winning documentary Born Into Brothels and has toured with Rusted Root. Juilliard-educated Vukovich is a former member of the Lloyd Carr-Harris String Quartet, first place winner in the prestigious Fischoff Competition.

Come support The Rockland Farm Alliance (RFA), a broad based community coalition of farmers, community groups, community activists, local and county officials and interested citizens. The RFA was formed in early 2007, with a simple mission to preserve, create and enhance sustainable agriculture in Rockland County, NY. This grassroots effort, which started with the passionate vision of a single farmer, has grown into a powerful community force of over 400 members. With nearly every facet of our community represented, they draw on the expertise of individual members from every walk of life. Several exciting initiatives will be announced at the reception.