Old Time Musketry CD Release Party TONIGHT!

Yes, it is upon us!

I'm very excited to invite you to a special concert to celebrate the release of "Different Times", the debut album by Old Time Musketry.

We're proud of this recording as a document of our music after more than 3 years of playing together. I'm honored to get to play with such dedicated, awesome musicians who are also my good friends. The band has evolved a lot over the years and continues to grow, we have a lot of new music to share with you! We would love it if you would join us for an evening of music and hanging out......

Sunday, January 27th at 8pm
The Firehouse Space (246 Frost St, Brooklyn)
$10 cover

featuring:

Adam Schneit - Saxophone and Clarinet
JP Schlegelmilch - Piano and Accordion
Phil Rowan - Bass
Max Goldman - Drums and Melodica

The latest reviews from Downbeat and Time Out NY:

“4 stars“…”Old Time Musketry weaves through a variety of musical styles, never binding themselves to a single idea while asserting their own identity.”
–Jon Ross, DownBeat Magazine

“…a subtle yet engaging new release…The group’s idiosyncratic sound palette touches on klezmer, free jazz, R&B and sepia-toned marches.”
–Time Out New York

Minerva Brooklyn Tour!

Greetings fellow music lovers,

Tonight marks the beginning of Minerva's 3 day Brooklyn Tour! We'll be playing some new compositions and enjoying the opportunity to explore new directions in the music each night. I sincerely hope you can join us for one, two, or even all three shows!!

MINERVA

Carlo Costa - Drums
Pascal Niggenkemper - Bass
JP Schlegelmilch - Piano

The itinerary is as follows, please see the poster below for the full bill listings.....

Thursday Dec 13th at I Beam (168 7th st) @ 9:30pm
Saturday Dec 15th at Douglass St (295 Douglass St) @ 9pm
Sunday Dec 16th at Firehouse Space (246 Frost St) @ 8pm

Hope to see you out there in the non-virtual world!

jp

Schubert at The Firehouse Space

On Sunday I saw a great concert of music by Franz Schubert at the Williamsburg venue Firehouse Space. The concert was presented by the Brooklyn Art Song Society as the third part of a series focusing on the music Schubert composed during the last year of his too-short life.

"Facing the inevitability of his own untimely demise at 31 years of age, Franz Schubert (1797-1828) composed an astonishing quantity of music of unearthly beauty in the last 365 days of his life. Brooklyn Art Song Society is proud to present the complete song cycles, miscellaneous songs, and representative two- and four- hand piano works from the most inspired year of the most inspired composer of art song."

The music that really drew me to see this performance was the song cycle "Wintereisse", which has been an obsession of mine since I stumbled upon a recording by Sviatoslav Richter and Peter Schreirer in Academy Records two years ago. It was an intense experience to hear the twenty-four songs in their entirety. The music is unrelentingly bleak, as a rejected lover wanders in a frozen winter landscape.

Check out Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake's version WITH MUSIC VIDEO! This is awesome. I think some of the Wintereisse music bears a distant relation to certain hyper-emotional pop music, it's almost proto-goth in a way.



The cycle ends with one of the most haunting pieces of music I've ever heard, "Der Leiermann" (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man), where the protagonist encounters an old beggar playing a hurdy-gurdy at the edge of town. The late, great Fischer Dieskau's version of this is unforgettable.

Firehouse Space

Minerva played a show on Sunday at a new performance space in Williamsburg called Firehouse Space. It's a very nice room in an old converted Firehouse and they've been having some really great concerts featuring New York-based improvisors and composers, check out their schedule here. I'm very excited about the fact that they have a piano, actually two pianos! And so close to my neighborhood, I'm planning on checking out more music there soon.
We shared the bill with Speaking Tube, featuring singer Elie Sorbsel, Frantz Loriot on viola, and Pascal Niggenkemper on bass.