A Far Cry has been invited by Yellow Barn Music Festival to work with their Young Artists Program this coming summer in a weekend residency to include both workshops and a concert. On Saturday, June 21st, 2008, we will present a full concert at Big Barn in Putney, Vermont, and for the better part of Sunday, A Far Cry will be working with the 30 talented, aspiring high-school instrumentalists and composers from across the country in workshops. Topics of exploration will likely include communication and collaboration, starting your own chamber ensemble, and how to rehearse a 16-piece, conductorless chamber orchestra without losing your mind! We hope also to have a chance to perform side-by-side with some of the musicians in the Program. Additionally, we will be exploring sketches of works by some of the young composers in residency. Around this same time (mid-to-late June) we are in the process of organizing a couple of other concerts in the Vermont area. Hopefully we will have the opportunity to return to our fabulously supportive Montpelier audience! Join our mailing list to stay informed!
Milton High School
Today A Far Cry visited Milton High School to give a performance and talk about communication. We played for about 100 students and had one of the most attentive audiences we've ever had. These were music students at the school, both band and orchestra, and we could really sense the seriousness and dedication of the audience - there's nothing like playing for musicians; especially music students - they really keep you on your toes! My favorite moment was when Sharon was leading unison claps from everyone, and showed by various types of cues and sniffs and eyebrow-raises, the variety of moods and affects that could be produced by a single clap, spontaneously together. It was a wonderful event, and we hope to return and work with such dedicated young people more extensively in the future.
Concert Feedback
Thanks to everyone - criers, guests, volunteers, venues, recording engineers, mentors, teachers, sox, and especially audience - for making our Cambridge and Brookline concerts of the last two days such wonderful events. We hope that our music uplifted the spirits and stirred the passions. If you were at the concerts, we would LOVE to hear from you - any thoughts at all about any aspect of the evenings! Simply click "leave a comment" below.
Go Sox! (too)
What can I say?? I'm glad it's over, and boy...these guys are true champions...Congratulations Red Sox Nation. And now, it's our turn. The inspiration runs sky high & we've prepared these concerts missing at least the first 3 innings of more than a handful of playoff games so we could rehearse for these two shows in Boston. Talk about the Sox rookies contributing, well A Far Cry is a rookie this year in the Boston's arts community & hope we can hit one out of the park. My complimentary ticket goes out to our captain, Jason Varitek (if you're back from Colorado for our Tuesday's concert that is). Tito (Francona), wanna come be president of our board before spring training starts?
Go Sox!
Our eternal gratitude and love goes out to the Boston Red Sox, 2007 World Series Champions, for sweeping the Rockies and therefore giving us a shot at having an audience tomorrow night! MVP Mike Lowell, we're holding a comp for you!
A Far Cry on YouTube!
A Far Cry is invading YouTube! There are five videos online (so far). The sound quality isn't great on any of them, but we still think they're fun to watch! A Far Cry on YouTube
Our Place in This Zeitgeist (part 3)
Wow... The Red Sox are going back to the World Series for the 2nd time in 4 years. My very first year here in Boston, the then "Idiots" beat the Yankees in the ALCS, coming from behind with a 0-3 deficit & starting from the 4th game of that series, they went on to win 8 in a row (sweeping the Cardinals in the WS afterwards) to give the city of Boston its first title since 1918. It was nuts... The entire city went crazy, as the Sox actually took the trophy in St. Louis, but I was among the thousands that poured onto the streets of Boston to chant and holler at Fenway Park that night right across from facing a couple of hundred riot police. My god it was exhilarating then, but I have to say, whenever it happens, it never gets old. 
My folks now live in Cleveland, and my father is a HUGE Indians fan (I'm sure he's having an ulcer today, as his beloved Tribe came so close, again). My mom used to hem Kenny Lofton's suits when he would bring them down to her store, which was located in the same building he was staying in, back in the olden days when Kenny used to play for the tribe. Those guys on the tribe though, played SO well right down to the last minute, and come on, seriously, when you're a young team like that and you get to the 7th game of the championship series, having led as much as 3 games to 1, then giving up the next 3 to lose the series, it's gotta be tough. However...this team will prevail again. I'm sure of it. Their core is made up of tough, young guys who play the game with a lot of class as we've all seen the last two weeks and they are the future of baseball.
As the Red Sox are headed back to the World Series, and will be hosting the Colorado Rockies (who have won a ridiculous 21 of their 22 games to get there) for the first game on Wednesday the 24th, I'll be watching the game out in Colorado. With a busy last week having played 4 consecutive concerts with the Boston Philharmonic, and as AFC's rehearsals have resumed, I got to watch only last night's game in its entirety. And as Boston and Colorado are playing for the final glory, I go back to my former neighborhood to see old friends and also to make some music. Just ironic though, that these 2 teams are in the autumnal classic, because all my friends in Boulder, watched me scream in agony in 2003, when the Red Sox were losers in the very same American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees, losing in the final decisive game 7. I probably will never forget what it felt like to see Aaron Boone's home run that last game, but in retrospect, it was all just the beginning of (perhaps...knock on wood) a dynasty not too dissimilar from when Boston celebrated its 3 titles in the 1915-1918 stretch.
One of the news anchors last night talked about how their kids won't know the pain in waiting for their team to get to the World Series, as it is now the 2nd time in the last 4 years, that they think, this happens all the time. A thwarted generation gap. My friend Jake's grandfather never got to see his Boston team participate in the final dance before he passed away, and that was the norm around here for a long while. Something is in the air in Boston these few years. Not that sports define the era of a city (though so many of the times, it would seem that way), but there is an energy here I've not quite felt in the other places I've had the fortune of making a home. And I am grateful for being Here in the Now, and it is so very exciting. We can officially now say that A Far Cry was founded on the year that the Boston Red Sox made its second trip to the World Series in 89 years.
Baseball is a team sport, and playing in an orchestra of 16, I always see the comparisons of the team work, as one can in both fields. Though my baseball career never quite took off like my violin chops, but never the less, it is all the more important to achieve something greater as a team than the individual glory, allowing that unified voice to become a visceral force. And we all work so hard at it...My team or Manny's. If I had to give a shout out to anyone though, in this year's trip to the World Series run for the Red Sox, it would have to be the manager, Terry Francona. Tito, as everyone around here calls him, never quit believing in his players, in the time when they were slumping, dropping balls, giving up runs, he stuck with those guys to quietly give them their confidence back, and to display the kind of loyalty that is rarely seen in such a high profile business like baseball. That trust is where the real love comes through to enliven our days, and these sweet victories get Jonathan Papelbon dancing without a care in the world at 2am in the morning.
Our Place in This Zeitgeist (part 2)
With part 1 of this installment just written yesterday, I wake up this morning and find out that Radiohead (the flagship artists of our generation) has just officially changed the recorded music industry forever. Not that other great artists big and small have not been doing this for a few years, but it is by the token of their sheer fan base that reaches into the millions easily, and by the pure artistic output that these musicians have proven their worth in a place in modern music history. I will be forever thrilled for today, that this band whom I've now seen twice give performances that have 
generated goose bumps from the beginning to end of their set, has done the equivalent of what the character, Tyler Durden in the 1999 movie "Fight Club" did in the last minutes looking over the demolition of the credit card industry. I've been saying it over and over again. It is not about the money. Money is a commodity that will always change hands, and with such examples of today, the door will now wide open for artists who have more to say ON STAGE being musicians, and to become the voice of reason for the audience of the now and the future.
Found a really insightful blog about the events of today, and without a doubt feeling that bigger things are just around the corner. A Far Cry salutes you, Thom York & Company. Who says an outfit like A Far Cry can't be the opening act for a band like Radiohead?
The JP Community
This evening Megumi, Frank, Jae, and I all went to the Neighbors for Neighbors Fall Community Organizing Expo. Somewhere around 45 JP-based nonprofits, social organizations, and causes were represented, and A Far Cry joined the ranks with a table displaying info about our upcoming concerts and our mission, making lots of friends in the process. For the uninitiated, JP stands for Jamaica Plain, which is a neighborhood of Boston southwest of downtown. JP is becoming THE place to live in Boston for artists, musicians, social workers, and interesting people of all ages! Nearly all of the Criers live in JP - I myself moved here just a few months ago. Wandering around checking out the other booths was incredibly inspiring. There is so much energy and so much enthusiasm out there - people really want to do good, and are in fact doing good. A Far Cry was proud to be part of an incredible evening made up of people who don't just talk - they do!
Our Place in This Zeitgeist (part 1)
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 I have been working on another blog piece to put on the website, but realized I just had too much to say about the subject. I started the piece initially, as a concert review of the Canadian indie rock bands, Memphis and Apostle of Hustle after seeing their show in Boston back in June (They are both amazing bands, with 
charismatic live shows). I got to meet the members of Memphis after the show and had a chance to talk to them about a few ideas that I'd been brainstorming over the last months since the start of A Far Cry. Not that I was surprised, but non the less impressed, when they did have a lot to say about the subject of a melding point between Art music and Pop music, with more knowledge than most of their own concert going audience about classical music, citing examples from Beethoven symphonies to Puccini operas.
Rewrite after rewrite, I could not stick to the subject and found myself drifting into multiple issues and tying them into my personal account as a performing musician, also as an observer of the present classical music business, and as a fan of indie rock and what it stands for. So after weeks of this personal tug-of-war, I'll see if I can put these thoughts in installments, not only because I think it would help me organize my ideas and hoping that it would be somewhat of an entertaining read, but to wrestle with issues dear to me and where I want to see us catapult in directions where I believe we (A Far Cry) can help bring music to people who feel uncomfortable and foreign to the idea of having to put on a dress shirt and a tie to go hear a classical show.
The internet has changed so many facets of our world as we've known it and even for music alone, it has completely changed the way we listen, explore, watch and buy. I meet kids during outreach residencies and witness instances of how fast they can text message each other and even the kind of "code" they use to communicate with each other. I mean, I'm not that far off from them if there was a generation gap, as I proudly put myself in that Generation X category, who saw the rise of independent artists such as Nirvana and Quentin Tarantino become household names, saw the birth of the internet, finished college in the years when the so called "MTV generation" was filtering into society to lay down the infrastructure for the I-pods and High-Def TV's to flourish in the average living room, and of course when things were a little more peaceful around the world. I may not be as fast using these products as the 12-year olds, but lets just say that I know a few people who helped actually invent these devices.
One of the things that sets A Far Cry apart from most other orchestras is not only the fact that we don't have a conductor, but that everyone in the group is in pretty much the same generation. One would see examples in a chamber music ensemble such as a string quartet or piano trio, of this being true, but from an ensemble the size of 15+ people, I think we are pretty unique in that way. Take any one of the big American orchestras for instance, where they will only hold an audition if there is a vacancy from 100 or so permanent positions, whether the person before either retired at the fruitful age of 75, or went into a different business wanting to become a conductor or write for the NY times food column. My point is that for an organization that is as venerable but traditional as a band like the New York Philharmonic, new blood trickles in and rarely comes in brigades. Plus the tenure process in these orchestras will mold the new members to fit into the one that has already been established, and for the last 126 years for instance, if it was the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
We are starting out new with 15 members who have grown up to see the becomings of Hip-Hop, but moreover ENJOY 
listening to Hip-Hop and can see the artistic merit in its art form. We are in the generation that doesn't get bashful to let loose when we hear bass and drums in common time, and not only have we seen rock shows but have played in them. And I think that's a really important point in furthering the cause of what we do. Because we want to play and perform for these people we meet at dance clubs, at poetry readings, at bars, at coffee houses, on the public transportation, those who are in our generation and love the same kind of music, movies, and live with similar good values. I was reading an article by Greg Sandow, a composer and former music critic of the Wall Street Journal, on his never mundane website. Sandow by the way, teaches a course at the Juilliard School called "Classical Music in the age of Pop" and is a progressive thinker who raises important questions about the state and trends of music, and gets us musicians thinking about where all this hooplah with the "biz" is going. Anyways, the article was about a big orchestra trying to reach out to a younger audience using flashy colors and coining hipper terms on their posters to attract them. Not that the programming was necessarily different, or exploring a venue to collaborate with artists (Why not Jay-Z or the National? They all live in nearby neighborhoods..) that could fill the house with a surge of young audiences, it was just the same old product wrapped in glitzier paper. A little superficial if you ask me.
People want contact. They want to meet the people they admire professionally and artistically, and when they do, want to feel comfortable around them and want to know what their favorite food is. Even in these recent weeks of the Baseball play-offs, one can go onto MLB.com and read blogs from the actual players like Kevin Youkilis of the Red Sox or Tony Clark of the Diamondbacks, (which by the way, I tip my hat off to MLB.com for opting to get the players to share their real thoughts), getting to find out a little more about their psyche, their games and their lives. And that's the kind of exposure people can relate to. Why can't an orchestra be more personable? I really believe that it needs to come from the musicians themselves WANTING to get to know their audience, from a person to person basis... Almost like a candidate running for congress for the first time, wanting to get to know his voters on a level beyond just face value. If I was working for a bigger company and my checks were coming in steadily without hassle, I wonder if I'd be all that motivated to go out and meet these people and get them excited about what I do. Well, I don't know...I think about that all the time.
It seems like with most things now a days, in order to find one's identity, the main conflict splits into that struggle between the individual and its government, mom & pops stores against the conglomerates, independents versus the established, the Republic against the Empire in the Star Wars sense, or David versus Goliath in the biblical sense. I'd say that A Far Cry would be an underdog...In the best sense of the word. And speaking of Baseball...the Red Hot Sox are back in the American League Championship Series to face the Cleveland Indians starting this Friday!!!
