A Far Cry

Want to head into our Lunatic concert knowing your stuff? Check out our program notes by the awesome young musicologist Kathryn Bacasmot!
- – – –
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 [...]

Our very own Jae was interviewed in yesterday’s Boston Globe. Apparently he and reporter Geoff Edgers sat down and put Jae’s iPod on shuffle mode, and Jae describes the first 10 tunes that come up. Hilarious, insightful, and bad-ass.
Link

…is my kind of musicologist. She has one of the best blogs on music I know, writes the best program notes, and even plugs the best music, right there on her blog. Right back at you, Kathryn!

Kathryn Bacasmot authored these highly entertaining and thought-provoking program notes. Enjoy!

This is your shovel. The music is your earth. Dig in.
I know, I know. You’re looking at this and thinking, “these are the program notes? Where is the anecdotal story followed by interesting historical factoids, dates, and a roadmap to the music itself?” Don’t flip [...]

At our concerts this past weekend, we asked audience members to fill out feedback surveys. We’re just beginning to sort through all of the great ideas and information, but I wanted to share one particularly cool use of technology. One of the questions was simply “What did you think of the concert?” – I took [...]

Maker Profile – Steampunk on MAKE: television from make magazine on Vimeo.
Humanwine is an awesome Boston band which A Far Cry has been honored to join in performance. Their sound defies easy description, but “eco-anarchist punk rock” comes sort of close. The video above features a performance (toward the end) of Humanwine with Crier Ashley [...]

We just came across an internet video of NEC’s new president, Tony Woodcock. It is from “Global Entrepreneurship Week,” which took place last November at Northeastern University. In the video, Tony speaks passionately about the need for musicians to abandon mindless specialization and enable themselves with a wide array of business skills, from marketing to [...]

I would like to share with you a thought I’ve been very busy with lately. A thought about the significance of the audience in a performance.
I have always believed in a phenomenon I call ‘The Concert Miracle’. Maybe not always, but I think I remember it from sometime around when I was in High school. [...]

One of the questions we are frequently asked is, “How do you choose which music you play?” The truth is that we program collaboratively, with everyone being welcome to give their input. We take into account musical compatibility, potential connections between pieces, availability of soloists, and yes even the extra costs associated with choosing certain music. [...]

I had a busy summer of traveling to play concerts, see a couple of old friends tie the knot, make the requisite visit with my family, and went back to Korea for the first time in almost 5 years, the place where I was born and spent 10 of my youthful years. This whole time [...]

Summer can be a strange time for musicians. The situations we find ourselves in are usually the most relaxed (summer pops) or the most intense (chamber music festival) without very much of the usual in-between. Festivals of all kinds dominate the summer, and most of them invite musicians year to year with no future guarantees. [...]

Did you hear us in Cambridge, Brookline, and/or Montpelier? We’d love to hear what you thought, good or bad! Just click on the Comments button below to tell us!