Relax, recharge, and open up your playing at Meditation for Musicians: A City Retreat
Led By Madeline Bruser

Shambhala Meditation Center, 118 West 22nd Street, 6th Floor, New York, January 30-31

Saturday, January 30, 7pm: Public Talk
Sunday, January 31, 10am – 7:30pm: Meditation and Music Workshops

Come to a relaxed, noncompetitive environment and discover how meditation can help you cultivate the physical ease, mental focus, and emotional range you need for both practicing and performing. The program will include meditation instruction and practice, discussions, a contemplation to help you transform stage fright into confidence, and music workshops, for all instruments, combining physiological, meditative, and musical principles to help you

Sunday schedule
10:00 a.m. Meditation instruction and practice
12:00 noon Discussion
1:00 Lunch (order in or bring your own)
2:15 Walk to nearby Tenrii Cultural Institute
2:30 Music workshops
4:45 Tea break
5:15 Music workshops
6:45 to 7:30 Closing discussion

Performing participants (by application only): $190 full program (includes Saturday)

Nonperforming participants: $95 full program (includes Saturday)

To register, contact the Shambhala Meditation Center: 212-675-6544

Madeline Bruser has presented seminars and workshops at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Southern California, the Canadian Conservatory of Music, the MedArt World Congress on Arts and Medicine, the World Piano Pedagogy Conference, the Music Teachers’ National Association convention, and college music departments and music teachers’ organizations in the United States and Canada.

The Avian Orchestra presents Fantastic Music for a Fabulous Time: Chamber rock for the 21st Century.

Wed, Jan. 6th, 2010, 8:00pm @The Cell, 338 West 23rd Street, NYC (bet. 8th and 9th Avenues.)

Tickets $20/$10 students
Seating is LIMITED so buying tickets ahead is strongly encouraged.
Purchase tickets on-line here.

Celebrating their new CD release, The Avian Orchestra, a seven-piece chamber band, once again returns to New York City to rip through a program of rock-and-roll inspired music. They’ve been polishing up with performances in the region over the last month and are ready to give you a great show on Wednesday night at The Cell. The CD will be available for purchase at the low price of $10 and the composers will be around to sign and customize your copy. Even better, hang around after the concert for a WINE AND SWEETS RECEPTION while you chat with the musicians and composers!

The program, a modern mash-up of high and low culture, includes:
• Fantastic Music for a Fabulous Time – Peter Flint’s full-on homage to the musical excess.
• I Wish They All Could Be – Conrad Cummings’ Beach Boys piano fantasy.
• Cable Ready – Michael Gandolfi’s virtuosic trio, quoting Bach, Brahms, and the blue
• Smoke n’ Wid – Richard Belcastro’s slamming quartet for electric guitar and chamber rock trio.
• The Vinyl Six – Jonathan Newman’s tribute to the theme and variations power ballad.
• Swells – David Laganella’s full deconstruction of California surf guitar music

as well as some other musical surprises.

Hear samples of the music here.

The musicians of the Avian Orchestra are among the top free-lance musicians in New York City and will challenge, enthrall, and entertain you with this evening of exciting new music by some of America’s top living composers. A perfect way to add some sizzle to your winter weekend!

The Avian Orchestra is:
Peter Flint, Jr. – artistic director, piano
Arash Amini, cello
Cyrus Beroukhim, violin
Oren Fader, electric guitar
Blair McMillen, piano
Chris Nappi, percussion
Ann Cecil Sterman, flutes
Andrew Sterman, saxophones

For more info visit: http://www.avianmusic.com

The New Stage Theater Company is remounting its critical and audience favorite, cabaret show Oh! Those Beautiful Weimar Girls in late January and early February at the Club at The Club at La MaMa, 74A East 4th Street (between 2nd Ave. and Bowery) in New York City.

Performance dates: January 29, 30, 31 and February 5, 6, 7
Fridays & Saturdays at 10pm
Sundays at 8pm

Tickets
$20 General Admission
$15 Students & Seniors
Box Office: 212.475.7710
Online tickets available at www.lamama.org

Conceived & Directed by Ildiko Nemeth
Written by Mark Altman & Ildiko Nemeth
Choreography by Julie Atlas Muz & Peter Schmitz
Costume Design by Javier Bone-Carbone
Lighting Design by Federico Restrepo
Original Music by Jon Gilbert Leavitt

With

Chris Tanner, Kaylin Lee Clinton, Catherine Correa, Gary Hernandez, Markus Hirnigel, Lisa Kathryn Hokans, Denice Kondik, Sarah Lemp, Florencia Minniti, Fabiyan Pemble-Belkin, Madeleine James, John Rosania, Christine Ann Ryndank, Jeanne Lauren Smith

Nevsky Prospekt, a new composition by Terran Olson of the band Kayo Dot, will premiere at NYC’s The Stone on Wednesday, February 3rd at 8pm. Terran Olson (composer and pianist), Toby Driver (guitar), and David Bodie (drums), all of Kayo Dot, will perform.

The Stone is located at the corner of avenue C and 2nd street. Admission is $10, students 13 to 19 are admitted half price, and children 12 and under are free. There are no advance ticket sales — all admissions are at the door prior to each performance.

Nevsky Prospekt is based on the story of the same name by Nikolai Gogol (set in Gogol’s contemporary environs, Tsarist Russia). The title refers to a central avenue in St. Petersburg, and is superficially about two young men pursuing women they meet on Nevsky Prospekt. Its thematic focus is on the often-symmetrical relationship between dream and reality.  The music is structured into 22 short movements, each based on an excerpt from the story which will be projected (in English translation) during the performance. Continue reading “Nevsky Prospekt: A new composition by Terran Olson”

Jeremy Udden’s Plainville is featured as part of Winter Jazzfest at Kenny’s Castaways at 157 Bleecker street, in Manhattan on Friday, January 8th at 8:40 pm.

The band Plainville is Udden’s newest project and features a more folk-influenced twist, finding a niche on bills with country and folk groups as well as jazz, featuring Udden on sax, backed by a unique combination of pump organ/rhodes, banjo/guitar, bass and drums. Plainville is named for Udden’s home town in Massachusetts.

Described as “folk, rock, free build upon the underlying jazz” (JAZZMAN – France) and “an appealingly dreamy roots-jazz combo” by Time Out New York, Plainville is Udden’s most recent album on Fresh Sounds New Talent records (Spain) featuring: Pete Rende, pump organ/rhodes; Brandon Seabrook, banjo/guitar; Eivind Opsvik, bass; RJ Miller, drums; and Udden on saxophone.

Here’s what the press has to say about PLAINVILLE:

“Jazz for Wilco fans-a rural vibe that has a dash of a New England starkness to it, even when the aggression takes over.”
— VILLAGE VOICE

“Some of the freshest sounding jazz to appear in some time.” — THE VANCOUVER PROVINCE

“A pluralistic stylistic orientation (rock, free, folk build upon the underlying jazz) Udden has created a resolutely new music where eclecticism and personal experience play an important role.” — JAZZMAN (FRANCE)

“The soprano and alto saxophonist Jeremy Udden reaches for rusticity and sincerity on his warm new album, ‘Plainville’ (Fresh Sound New Talent), and sometimes he finds both…” — THE NEW YORK TIMES

“Melodic, ruminative, nostalgic and fresh at the same time.” — SEATTLE TIMES

“Plainville is an appealingly dreamy roots-jazz combo, driven by Pete Rende’s pump organ and Brandon Seabrook’s banjo” — TIME OUT NEW YORK Continue reading “Jeremy Udden’s Plainville at Winter Jazz Fest”