In the Cortland Repertory Theatre’s 2022 season, only two performances were able to be completed, due to unfortunately timed cases of COVID-19 within the theatre’s cast and crew. The scheduled play, Agatha Christie’s “Murder On The Orient Express” was never executed.
Luckily, Artistic Director Kerby Thompson said the set, props and costumes from were stored over the winter, so the Cortland Repertory summer season, celebrating the organization’s 51st anniversary, will kick off at the Little York Pavilion in Preble, NY on June 7, with Christie’s chilly murder mystery.
The 2023 season will contain three plays and two musicals: the Agatha Christie, Tony-nominated “Xanadu “by Douglas Carter Beane, “Unnecessary Farce” by Paul Slade Smith, “The Cake” by Bekah Brunstetter and wrapping up the season, “The Wizard of Oz.”
“Xanadu” will be showing from June 21 to June 30. This performance is based on the 1980 cult classic, with music and lyrics by Jeff Lyne and John Farrar. For fans of 80s pop, look no further — “Xanadu” features renditions of iconic hits from the period like “Strange Magic,” and “Evil Woman,” between hilarious story lines of forbidden love and greek gods on Venice Beach, California.
“Unnecessary Farce” centers on an embezzling mayor, his accountant, undercover police and a Scottish hitman. It’s one of Cortland Repertory Theatre’s most popular comedies, planned to show in this 2023 season between July 5 and 15.
“The Cake” was originally planned for the theatre’s 2020 season, but had to be canceled because of the pandemic. This comedy centers on a woman living in North Carolina who is cast onto an Americanized “Great British Baking Show,” but her life is complicated while she bakes a wedding cake for her late best friend’s daughter’s wedding. It will be playing July 19 and July 28.
Finally, closing the season, is Cortland Repertory Theatre’s original telling of “The Wizard of Oz.” This stage version, premiering August 2 to August 19, was adapted by John Kane for the Royal Shakespeare Company and is based upon the classic movie.
Cortland Repertory Theatre is now selling 5-show summer subscriptions along with 5 or 6 pack Flex Passes. The 5-show subscription allows the patron to see all 5 productions; the Flex Passes allow the purchaser to choose the shows they see. Special pricing is available for youth, seniors, military and first responders. Get tickets at their site.
In December, Long Island-based alternative acoustic rock band, Phil Firetog Trio & Co. will close out the holiday season with a festive and heartwarming set at Beach Brewing Co. in Westhampton Beach, NY. Their first show at the brewery is on December 30, the perfect way to end the year. The show follows their newest holiday single, released today, that speaks directly to their home community, “Long Island Christmas Eve.”
Thanks to the musical talents of Phil Firetog Trio & Co — Firetog on lead vocals and guitar, Johnny “Pots” Potocnik on drums and Liam Gordon on bass — anyone can fulfill a secret desire to be from Long Island for the duration of the song. The tune is catchy, as most Christmas songs are engineered to be, so I’ve been singing it while home in Washington, D.C. for the holidays. This has been confusing, I’m sure, for family and friends.
Phil Firetog Trio & Co. have an indie-pop take on rock and roll, that feels nostalgic for decades past and, overall, spreads positive messages through chords. Their upcoming gigs come as they arrange and prepare material for 2023, so there is much to look forward to in the next year from the band, including two more shows at Westhampton beach Brewing Co. on January 21 and February 4.
Tickets to their show at Westhampton Beach Brewing Co. are on sale now on their site.
As the family-friendly holiday activities start rolling out, consider a live music event, like the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes’ holiday concert this December 3. The concert will showcase diverse vocalists and genres, as well as compositions created by international musicians. The OSFL will explore themes of healing and community; encapsulated in the season’s felicitous motto: “Together We Are Sound.”
To ensure the event includes all holidays in its festivity, the OSFL commissioned an Israeli-American composer, Avner Finberg, to write a medley of iconic Klezmer dances. His composition, Dances in Freygish, will put Hanukkah in the global spotlight, as the December 3 concert is its world premiere.
This concert also promises big band fun, the Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes will play a collection of 40s jazz favorites by Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and more.
The concert will take place in the Clemens Center Powers Theater at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $20-$50 for adults, $10 for college students with ID, and free for youth under 18 (if accompanied by a ticketed adult.)
While many found the sudden lockdown spurred by 2020’s COVID-19 pandemic depressing, isolating and fruitless, Marco Benevento found the time trapped in his Hudson Valley dilapidated home studio to be inspiring and invigorating. In that room, surrounded by outdated technology, malfunctioning drum kits and eclectic instruments, the Woodstock keyboardist found his latest album: Benevento. Benevento will be celebrating the album’s release with a tour across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest in March 2023.
The production of Benevento took place over many solo jam sessions, rife with experimentation and improvisation, things Benevento is no stranger to. Within the keyboard, Benevento finds and exploding breadth of sound and texture, and he wanders into the realm of psychedelic funk in his latest album, taking with him notes of rock, jazz and especially dance.
Benevento is pulling a two night stand in his home town of Woodstock at Levon Helm Studios in January, 2023. Tickets go on sale November 18 at 10 a.m. for the March leg of Marco Benevento’s tour. He’ll have a couple shows in the New York area, including on March 10 at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City. See the complete list of tour dates below; tickets here.
MARCO BENEVENTO Complete Tour Schedule
November 17 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg ^
November 18 – New Haven, CT – Space Ballroom ^
November 19 – Holyoke, MA – Race Street Live ^
December 29 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre *
January 13 – Woodstock, NY – Levon Helm Studios
January 14 – Woodstock, NY – Levon Helm Studios
March 10 – Jersey City, NJ – White Eagle Hall
March 11 – Philadelphia, PA – Underground Arts
March 12 – Baltimore, MD – 8×10
March 13 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird Cafe
March 14 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Ballroom
March 15 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
March 16 – Milwaukee, WI – The Back Room at Colectivo
When you listen to “Without A Me,” you are brought into an intimate space: a belfry filled with fluttering bats, a cluttered room, the side of a highway where people hold signs and implore honks and kool-aid condenses in its paper cup, an attic — evoking those bats again — all imaginary, all in the mind of Syracuse singer-songwriter Stephen Mullane. Except of course, that the song was recorded in Mullane’s own self-contained world as well: the song is his first to be written, performed, recorded and produced entirely in Mullane’s home studio, a space he fashioned by himself for himself.
“Without A Me” is Stephen Mullane’s newest single; it follows two albums he released in 2021, recorded at More Sound Recording Studio in Syracuse. Mullane is an independent — it’s just him, his voice, his guitar. His lyrics are the highlight, they’re ripe with imagery, wit, ad-libs and inconsistent rhyme schemes that all seem to work out in the end. Called to mind are Elliot Smith’s slowly unfolding “King’s Crossing,” Pavement trading incomprehensible verse in “… And Carrot Rope,” or Bob Dylan’s self-critical look at current affairs in “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”.
Mullane thrives in this folksy, rambling space of sound because his lyrics hold enough interest and nuance to be stark against the minimal acoustic background. The stream of consciousness is overwhelming, but the consistent rhythm and vocals hold strong against the current.
The song is out now, listen below. To see Stephen Mullane live in Syracuse, his next gig is at Skaneateles Brewery on Sunday, November 27, his third show at the brewery.
Circles Around The Sun have announced their new album, Language, will release Spring 2023. The psychedelic jam band will continue their US tour by the same name, adding more dates to close out this year and into 2023, including two stops in New York — at Lark Hall in Albany and the Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn — in January of next year.
Circles Around The Sun was founded by the late guitarist Neal Casal, when Casal was called on to record interludes for the Grateful Dead’s 2015 “Fare Thee Well” concert series. The interludes, inspired by Dead songs, were then recognized at the concerts on their own merit, prompting Circles Around The Sun’s first release: Interludes for the Dead. The band went on to record two more albums of their own sound, before Casal’s passing. On this upcoming album, Language, Adam Macdougall on keyboard and synth, Dan Horne on bass, Mark Levy on drums and John Lee Shannon on guitar have set out to oscillate through genres of disco-funk, soul jazz and psychedelic rock to create new sounds and ongoing dance jams.
When the four reconvened in the recording studio to record their newest, it meant working through the tragedy of their founding members death, and setting out to use the framework he left them to create something beautiful and new of their own.
Tickets to the new legs of this tour went on sale November 11, and can be purchased here. See complete tour dates below.
TOUR DATES
Dec 29, 2022 – Roanoke, VA – 5 Points Music Sanctuary
Dec 30, 2022 – Winston Salem, NC – The Ramkat
Dec 31, 2022 – Richmond, VA – The National *
Jan 20, 2023 – Albany, NY – Lark Hall
Jan 21, 2023 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bowl
Jan 22, 2023 – Ardmore, PA – Ardmore Music Hall
Jan 25, 2023 – Pittsburgh, PA – Thunderbird Music Hall
For the past couple years, Daisy the Great has been processing the experience of growing up, of changing. Their sophomore album, All You Need Is Time is a veritable coming-of-age catharsis. Armed with crystal clear, soprano vocals and an ironical approach to the absurdities of girlhood, their newest is a surprisingly relatable and honest self-examination.
In All You Need Is Time, Daisy the Great ditches allusions and ambiguity to tell it like it is. Not only are their lyrics astoundingly authentic, but you can hear the earnestly in their voices. While much of recent pop and indie has turned to heavy use of technology to disguise and distort vocals, Daisy the Great often drops the backing instruments to let their voices stand alone, so you can hear this addictive kind of girlish airiness and texture behind their voices. It’s that sound that broke them, with their 2018 song “The Record Player Song,” which quickly went viral on TikTok, accumulating over 20 million streams, and counting.
Daisy the Great started when Kelley Nicole Dugan and Mina Walker met at NYU. The two were acting majors, and Daisy the Great originally started as a musical they were writing about a fictional band, until they realized they should just actually start the band themselves. Now, Daisy the Great is a six-piece band, with Matt Lau on guitar, Bernardo Ochoa on bass, Matti Dunietz on drums, and Brie Archer on additional vocals.
The band is still finishing off their North American Tour, supporting The Happy Fits; and of course there will be a stop in NYC’s Webster Hall on December 17, where the band was formed and the album recorded. Tickets can be found here, see the dates below.
DAISY THE GREATNORTH AMERICAN TOUR 2022
November 8 – South Burlington, VT – Higher Ground +
November 9 – Hamden, CT – Space Ballroom +
November 11 – Washington, DC – Union Stage +
November 12 – Pittsburgh, PA – Spirit Hall +
November 13 – Columbus, OH – Newport Music Hall
November 15 – Detroit, MI El Club +
November 16 – Indianapolis, IN – Old National Centre +
November 18 – St. Louis, MO – Delmar +
November 19 – Chicago, IL – Metro +
November 20 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue +
November 22 – Denver, CO Summit +
November 23 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex +
November 25 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom +
November 26 – Seattle, WA – Neptune Theatre +
November 29 – San Francisco, CA – August Hall +
November 30 – San Diego, CA – House Of Blues +
December 1 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre +
December 5 – Dallas, TX – Trees +
December 6 – Austin, TX – Scoot Inn +
December 7– Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall +
December 9 – Orlando, FL – The Plaza Live +
December 10 – Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade (Heaven) +
December 11 – Nashville, TN – The Basement East
December 13 –Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle +
December 14 – Washington, DC – Union Stage +
December 16 – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock +
December 17 – New York, NY – Webster Hall +
December 18 – Philadelphia, PA –Theatre of The Living Arts +
+ w/ THE HAPPY FITS “UNDER THE SHADE OF GREEN TOUR”
The Chapman Stick is the instrument of the absurd, of the surreal, even the extraterrestrial. It encompassed the strangeness of King Crimson when Tony Levin played it on “Elephant Talk.” It encompassed the strangeness of space when Gurney played it in David Lynch’s original “Dune.” In “Aimless,” by Chapman Stick specialist Bright Brown, the instrument encompasses the strangeness of just being alive.
Bright Brown is Alex Nahas’ solo project, where he focuses on recasting the Chapman Stick from its previous role as novelty instrument of the prog-rock era to spine of a song and counterpart to a songwriter.
Alex Nahas
The Chapman Stick was devised in the late ’70s by Emmet Chapman, a jazz guitarist who wanted to expand his two-handed tapping technique on guitar. Think of the Stick as a guitar and a bass at once, but also a piano, and also a drum. The instrument has 10 to 12 strings, each tuned differently, and no sound hole, just a long neck that can adhere to a belt loop. The fretboard is flatter than a guitar with sensitive pickups, because it is mostly tapped rather than strung.
The Stick first found its way into Nahas’ hands 30 years ago, at Pierce Community College in California, in California, where Emmet Chapman connected him with a Stick seller after Chapman gave a performance on campus.
Nahas started bringing the instrument to band practice. He was still figuring out how to use it and integrate it into songs, with not much to go off of, since the instrument isn’t really brought out in contemporary music as much as it was closer to its invention. Nahas said the Stick was often overshadowed in the mainstream because rock music was so defined by its band structure: guitar, bass, keyboard, lead singer.
“As a result, a lot of music sounds kind of formulaic, and the Stick allowed me to break the rules,” Nahas said.
But there is a new generation of Chapman Stick players swimming upstream to keep the eclectic instrument alive.
Dan “Chef” Zahal, a second year bass student at Berklee, has been teaching himself to play a Chapman Stick with 12 strings since he was a senior in highschool. He said he hasn’t been able to find any faculty at the music school to integrate his studies on the Chapman Stick into any legitimate classroom environment, but Zahal plays the stick in his band, Trophy Husband. He said part of a reason for the rarity of Stick players is because of the dizzying prospects for inventing sound through electronic music production.
“The whole technical aspect was a lot bigger in the 70s and the 80s with bands like King Crimson and Rush. It was all about who could play the coolest lines, the flashiest, the cleanest,” Zahal said. “A lot of more modern music is based on, because we have a lot of shortcuts in production and studio, who can manipulate those the best.”
In the way that producers can employ techniques from a variety of instrumental groups on an electronic program such as Ableton or Logic, the Chapman Stick employs dexterity and intricacy to create new sounds using both rhythm and melody in tandem. Because of its multifunctionality, both musicians found the instrument’s capabilities keep expanding as they study it. Zahal has been using drum rudiments in his playing recently, treating each hand — one on the guitar side of the Stick and one on the bass — as a hand in a drum line. Nahas also is inspired by the percussive elements of the Stick.
“Its very nature is percussive because you hammer onto it. So there’s that attack from the fingers,” Nahas said. “You can emphasize that and be really simple and routine, or you can move the notes around and, by playing a little lighter, make it sound more melodic.”
Alex Nahas has released three albums and two EPs under Bright Brown; “Aimless” is the first single to come from his next album, releasing in January. But when Nahas picked up the Stick it wasn’t immediately apparent to him how best to express his art with it, until he started letting the Stick lead.
“As I started writing, I thought ‘Oh, what if I approach this instrument as the core of the song, as the thing I write on, like it was a piano. And as soon as I started doing that, it made a lot more sense to me, and I haven’t put it down since,” Nahas said.
Gurney Halleck plays an Emmet Chapman piece on the Chapman Stick (called in the film a ‘Baliset’) in an extended scene from David Lynch’s “Dune.”
Nahas began forming bands around songs he wrote on the Stick, and Nahas’ playing took on its own life. While Tony Levin plays the Stick mostly on the bass side, so the sound can sometimes be twangy and rapid, Nahas’ playing more resembles a piano; it’s tender and earnest.
That tenderness is what makes the instrumental loops in “Aimless” so addicting. It’s a vague, wandering, circular song, that exploits both sides of the Stick, to fill you up with emotion and let you down easy with cathartic lyricism. Nahas started the song as just a little improvised lick back in early 2020, before the pandemic even started.
Once the pandemic settled in, the song’s lyrics took on new life: “Why take aim / because aimless is drifting / and drifting’s easier / easier brings peace / till it lies in pieces / and so we go / into our silence.”
He recorded the song and his upcoming album at his friend’s studio in Joshua Tree, California. Members of his first band, Eddie Avakian and Jamie Muhoberac played drums and keyboards, respectively; and Ava Nahas, Alex’s sister, was on percussion. This intimate group and the flat, stark, vast landscape of Joshua Tree is infused into “Aimless;” heard in the clarity of production and seen in the album’s cover art — an iPhone picture Nahas himself took on a break from recording.
“It has a real openness to it, that I probably wouldn’t have gotten writing in my tiny little apartment and recording it there,” Nahas said. “ The songs have patience to them. And, a sort of ease about them. It’s always been my goal to just let the song lead me through it.”
The newest video from Venezuelan cuatro player Jorge Glem and American accordionist Sam Reider is about unlikely combinations that end up blending perfectly. Like peanut butter and jelly, like a cigarette and coffee, like navy blue and black — in my opinion, at least — , Glem and Reider’s folk musicality, heavily influenced by their respective country’s musical traditions, fit together like pieces of a puzzle. This harmonious amalgamation is exemplified visually and auditorily in their latest music video to “Homer the Roamer/Sabana Blanca,” off their album, Brookly-Cumaná, just released on November 4.
The video focuses on duos, how two separate entities can come together to create new sounds that celebrate and even emphasize their differences. “Homer the Roamer/Sabana Blanca” is set in a latin bar, where Jorge Glem is strumming passionately on the cuatro to a cheering crowd, glowing with a summer sheen, clinking drinks and vibing to the music. Sam Reider, the American accordionist, pianist and composer watches from a tall table as Glem finishes his set, then comes over, accordion slung around his shoulder, asking Glem to play with him: “You start,” he says.
They launch into “Homer the Roamer,” and soon enough a beautiful woman is spinning in a gold skirt while men vye for her hand in dance with some moves of their own. With each tempo change comes new energy, as the unlikely pair’s contagious sound coaxes more personalities out onto the dance floor.
Suddenly, Jorge Glem and Sam Reider are standing, the rhythm is palpable, and everyone is involved: a man does the robot in slacks and a work tie, a girl in knee high pink boots vogues, someone drops into the splits and someone grabs a tambourine. It’s “Sabana Blanca,” and strangers twirl each other around as the “strangers’” instruments spur.
The whole video exists in this one scene, a total celebration of the singular experience of live music. During the pandemic, I would play Bill Evans Trio’s live recording, “Porgy (I Loves You Porgy) – Outtake,” on repeat, closing my eyes, pretending I was at a jazz club, a concert, anywhere but alone in my room. If I had had this video during that time, I would have died of FOMO, but still probably would have had it on repeat as well.
“Homer the Roamer/Sabana Blanca,” is a superb translation of music to film, a video you can get lost in, something you don’t just watch, you experience. It’s a beautiful addition to the album, which features a fusion of esteemed Latino and American musicians. Listen to it here.
For most 15-year-old musicians, playing Carnegie Hall is a feat, marked by years of strife, effort, apprehension and excitement. It’s the event of a lifetime, a venue that represents decades of tradition in music and excellence. Most 15-year-olds won’t know the pressure of playing Carnegie Hall. But for bassoonist Dmytro Tishyn, playing Carnegie Hall on November 20 with the New York Youth Symphony is far from the first thing on his mind. In February 2022, Dmytro Tishyn hoisted a backpack and his bassoon onto his back and boarded a 24-hour train ride to Poland as a refugee, leaving his Ukranian home, parents, grandparents and brother behind.
Instead of looking at it as an evacuation, Tishyn looked at his three month departure from Ukraine — the days long train ride, the cab ride across Poland’s border, the three month long stay in Berlin — as an adventure.
That adventure has culminated with Tishyn taking the stage with the New York Youth Symphony, under Music Director Micahel Repper, with violinist Francisco Fullana. The concert will feature Gabrieela Lena Frank’s “Escaramuza,” Édouardo Lalo’s“Symphonie Espagnole,” featuring Fullana, Ari Sussman’s First Music Commission “I hope this finds you well” and Georges Bizet’s “L’Arlésienne Suite 1 & 2.”
The show is on Sunday, November 20 at 2 p.m. and tickets are starting at $18. Even though Carnegie Hall is a long way from Ukraine, Tishyn still manages to keep his family close. When he takes the stage on Sunday, it will be with his father’s bassoon.
