A Far Cry

The second installment of World War Two poems written by soldiers drives home an interesting point – music, particularly jazz music, was a huge part of their lives. The poems below are parodies of well-known tunes, including “As Time Goes By”, which we’ll play tonight, a blues, and “Thanks For The Memories.” The last one [...]

As we get ready for “The Poet” – a program that is inextricably linked to the Second World War, and which poses the very real question of what it means to create art in a time when everything is changing – I’ve been taking on a little side project and researching POETRY written during this [...]

Just read this excellent article by Alex Ross about the ever-thorny issue of WHEN to applaud in classical musical concerts, and the sad state of affairs that we currently find ourselves in, sitting in stony silence until the bitter end – even when particular moments in the music are begging for a little listener love [...]

Want to head into our Lunatic concert knowing your stuff? Check out our program notes by the awesome young musicologist Kathryn Bacasmot!
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The most terrifying things are those that appear familiar on the outside, but are alien within. For centuries societies blamed strange events or intermittent loss of sanity on the phases [...]

On Sunday, May 21 (yep, that’s tomorrow) Criers and friends will play an impromptu concert in The Music Box featuring the impossibly beautiful Brahms Sextet in G Major. We hope that this will turn into a summer tradition, so stay tuned for other Music Box events over the next couple months as we keep our [...]

Wow, what an intense but wonderful concert week!
But this blog post is about something else entirely…
This month, The Music Box (our JP rehearsal storefront) has been awash in a riot of color and character. Artist Annie Weatherwax has graced our walls with her work – larger-than-life portraits of faces that reflect a whole spectrum [...]

An interesting side effect of spending a LOT of time with the same people, working towards a common goal, is that sooner or later, this finds its way into your dreams! Recently, I had two funny dreams about A Far Cry, and I thought I might go ahead and post them – partly just ’cause, [...]

Years ago, I’m sitting in a car with a group of people, heading
somewhere – a music festival? A bassist is driving the car, I think.
We are having a great time listening to Bela Fleck when the driver
decides that it is time to turn things up a notch.
“Listen to this,” he says, puts in a Kronos [...]