These Seeds become Trees

This Saturday is a moment all of A Far Cry has been waiting for ever since a thrilling, enchanting performance last fall in a semi-secret location with our favorite eco-anarchist punk rock band, HUMANWINE. That night, we joined the band on some of their songs and presented their audience with a little Mozart and Bartok, rocking out in our own way.

This Saturday, June 27, A Far Cry makes its debut at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, where HUMANWINE presents "These Seeds Become Trees." This promises to be an unforgettable evening. HUMANWINE has encouraged its fans (and believe me....there are many across the country) to come in costume as characters of "Vinland" and those who come in character ("Aktorz") collectively create the Quilt of Vinland. Click "Continue Reading" below to learn about the characters.

HUMANWINE has been touring this year and developing this program. It is going to be awesome. Criers Ashley and Courtenay will also be providing vocals on this program! Will they be in costume too? Will more Criers be in costume? You'll have to come to find out.

6/27/09 Paradise Rock Club 967 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 8pm doors/ 9PM Show. 18+ only. tickets solds at Paradise Box Office, Orpheum Box office, and livenation.com

www.humanwine.org The Aktorz play important parts in the 3-hour theatrical performance. Here's a description of some of the characters, including lyrics from HUMANWINE songs. These are taken from www.humanwine.org/aktorz.html

Not-Me Thief Appearance: A black skull cap and a black and white striped shirt, dark pants. A five O'Clock shadow helps secure the imagery for both make and female thieves, they are sexless. "They crawl from the mouth and then fall to the ground out of site, they burgle the heart of the child and fall them to sleep by feeding lies like a pill promising it's alright." - Wake Up! (HUMANWINE) They crawl in and out of the windows of the factories to slip the Not-Me Pill of Lies into the mouths of the cog populace whilst they sleep unknowingly receiving the "news of the day".

Hordes Appearance: A cloud of fists, knives, guns, tears, fearful and hateful memories and feelings. A tornado filled with TV's, riot police, magazines and fear-based propaganda. "As it feeds on your waste of flesh, haggard laughing all the way holding until the day. Hold yourself down the hill, you can barely see though the dead debris, it's a body. Bring in The Hordes who feed on your fear, your screams, so you start running. Will you ever stop feeding them?" - Fighting Naked (HUMANWINE) A swirling mass of fists and debris. It is still unknown exactly "how" they form but there is a simple tale that says...From the first feeling of FEAR or HATE came the first Horde. They started as a bunch of little swirls that have grown into a full fledged epidemic! After the first broadcast on NM (Not-Me) Radio This tornadoeaque being started making regular rounds through vinland sucking up that which it lives on, FEAR and HATE. There are two ways of dealing with Hordes when they come through, one can know they exist, yes, but also continue to do the daily and nightly tasks with no fear, to do this is to survive because they will continue by, the other method of dealing with Hordes is to FEAR that they might come (which calls them) and once they come to run and hide, which only leads to the consumption of the person and the growth of said Hordes.

Cog Appearance: Grey skin tone, their ears are wilting and falling off, gaunt, tired eyes with dark circles, a uni-suit (mechanic suits work great) also a number any old number above the front breast pocket and on the back. "Faces of the typical so sad are SAD ARE! Faceless are the typical SO SAD! " - Vin d'Humaine (HUMANWINE) "Trained under gun and programmed 'till empty A husk of human" - Vast the Olde World, Then Sails (HUMANWINE) Citizens of the major cities in Vinland. Armed with names like 01 and 578 these folks live to serve the Not-Me and have been convinced to serve since their birth by their parents who didn't know any better or were to scared to read the posters created by the YerYerOwns. Cogs are filler, fodder and something to be used until their inevitable doom in the factory fields. When finally promoted from the factory to the field Reapers are sent by the Not-Me to heard the promoted Cogs and bury them neck deep in the soil (this is a high honor to a Cog), the head remains above ground, the bottom portion of the body is only visible to the (mythical or are they) dwellers of the underground, the Enjoyeurs whose sky IS the ground of Vinland, when the Cog's particular "final task" is completed a Reaper is sent to decapitate them and they die. The body falls from The Enjoyeurs' "sky" and is then press into HUMANWINE. "

Summer Concert at the Music Box

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 home "warm" during the off season! Here's all the info about tomorrow's Summer Solstice String Sextet Spectacular...

Program (shorter than it looks)

Strauss: Sextet from "Capriccio" Bach: Ricercare a 6 from The Musical Offering Byrd: Fantazia Brahms: Sextet in G Major

Musicians:

Jae Young Cosmos Lee and Ben Rous, violins Sarah Darling and Stephanie Fong, violas Josh Packard and Clara Lee, cellos

Sundry details:

Sunday, June 21, 3 PM The Music Box 146A South Street Jamaica Plain, Boston

There will be a donation box to support the space - other than that, it's totally free!

Any questions, email Sarah or Jae (at afarcry.org)

Feel like some bluegrass?

Check out some great acoustic music on Joe Walsh's new album Saturday Night Waltz cdbaby.com/cd/walshjoe. Joe is an awesome musician, and the new mandolinist for the Gibson Brothers. A Far Cry's own bassist Karl Doty can be heard laying it down on the album, and also on an upcoming album with Heather Masse, whom you might have heard many times on A Prairie Home Companion.

Kathryn J Allwine Bacasmot

...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!

Summer Chamber Music in Maine & New Hampshire

  Thank you to Megumi for getting the ball rolling on listing some upcoming summer concerts that involve members of A Far Cry! I'd like to extend the invitation to New Englander's to visit IMAI (the International Musical Arts Institute) for chamber music concerts Wed-Sun for all of July, beginning July 8th, in the little town of Fryeburg, Maine. World-renowned violinist Eric Rosenblith founded the Institute in 1997 and, since then, has been inviting professional musicians young and old from all over the world to Fryeburg to study and perform great works of chamber music in an intimate setting. I will be playing viola in the following performances (all concerts begin at 7:30pm):

• Thursday, July 9th: Haydn's String Quartet in D Major, Op. 64, No. 5 “The Lark”
• Friday, July 10th: Beethoven's String Trio "Serenade" in D, Op.8, and Schubert's Sonata "Arpeggione" in d minor for Viola and Piano, D.821
• Thursday, July 16th: Schumann's String Quartet in a minor, Op. 41, No. 1, and Beethoven's String Quartet in C, Op. 59, No. 3

I'm thrilled to be playing works this summer by so many of the "greats" of chamber music, and hope to see some of you at the concerts. Be sure to please come find me and say hi! Tickets are available at the door, and more information can be found on IMAI's website at: http://home.earthlink.net/~imaifryeburg/

Summer Crier concerts

During the summer, A Far Cry is like an accordian. The Criers start in Boston, spread out all over the world, come back together at the end of June, spread out again, and then regather in August in Maine. Right now a bunch of us are playing concerts with various other groups, so if you miss seeing some Far-Cry style music making, you can get a little dose here and there. Tomorrow, many of us are performing with the Harvard Baroque Orchestra on a BEMF Fringe concert. Saturday, June 13, 12:30 pm, at First Church in Boston, on 66 Marlborough St. It's an exciting, free, one-hour show! Next week, On June 15, 18, and 19th at 8 PM, in Jordan and Williams Hall, I'll be performing with the Callithumpian Consort as part of NEC's SICPP. Each of these concerts will definitely titillate and satisfy your contemporary music senses. More info at www.newenglandconservatory.edu. (Each of these concerts is free.)

Stay tuned here for other Crier's summer concerts, and if you come to some, please make sure to say hello!

A Far Cry on iTunes

Did you know you can now download A Far Cry "Debut" directly from iTunes onto your iPod? Cool! Just click the button below and iTunes will take you directly to our album. Tell your friends :)

Listen: A Far Cry on WGBH

A Far Cry appeared live on Richard Knisely's show on May 20. Click below to hear the Criers playing Stravinsky, Yamada, and Mozart (with Markus Schirmer).

Annie Weatherwax Art

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 of emotions and expressions. Now we're returning the favor by setting up gallery hours on Saturdays where her art will be able to be viewed on its own - and purchased, should you get the urge!

Saturday, May 30, 1-5pm

Come by and chat with us and enjoy this beautiful work! http://www.annieweatherwax.com/

The picture is from First Thursday, a Jamaica Plain-based event featuring local art and hospitality all along Centre and South Street!

Legacy Program Notes

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

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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 the page over. This is it. Welcome to A Far Cry program notes. Let’s talk “Legacy.” If you type the word “Legacy” into the search box on dictionary.com, the fifth definition reads: “of or pertaining to old or outdated computer hardware, software, or data that, while still functional, does not work well with up-to-date systems.” Is it heresy for me, a musicologist, to say I think of “classical” music when I read that description? Musicians inherit a legacy and are handed down history. Now would cease to be now if then or when did not exist. Without composers and performers it is a merely a series of archaic symbols, a cacophony of dots and lines, data that, while still functional, might be dead on a parchment pyre. Musical history is a delicate fabric of encounters easily unraveled. Warp & Weft. Teacher & student. Composer & performer(s). Choreographer & music. The meetings of minds, and in those meetings the inheritance is remixed and renewed. Data, still functional, in a karmic cycle of rebirth.

Isn’t it fascinating that so much invisible beauty is manufactured through such physical labor? The hand of a composer grips a pen that hovers over paper in anticipation of what will come next, or clicks the mouse on composition software. The body of the performer aches through hours of rehearsal, holding, caressing, cajoling, thrilling in exultation or trembling in defeat. Instruments are built and repaired, morph and stay the same, according to the sounds of the times and the materials and technologies available. Music is hardly a dead language. It’s alive in the physicality. Each person you see or hear on stage today is a part of the inheritance. Their fingers are fluent and fluid espousing old and new dialects of the language of sound. You, the audience, play an equally vital role. Your ears and minds are the stereos. If a tree falls in a forest, if a sound wave shoots through an empty hall, does anyone care?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) had quite an ear attached to the side of his head. Legend (who occasionally goes by the name Dr. Charles Burney) tells us the young Mozart was responsible for writing down, and therefore preserving the legacy of, the famous Miserere by Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652), which was traditionally handed down only orally. Mozart was a bridge to the past and an agent for the future. His piano concertos are among the roots of the genre. Today we hear pianist Markus Schirmer put his interpretational brick down on the road that Mozart laid in Vienna, 1782.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). Talk about legacy. His aunt Sara Levy studied with W.F. Bach and was a patron of C.P.E. Bach (yes, sons of J.S. Bach). Additionally, one of Felix’s claims to fame was his 1829 “revival” of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. With that ascension to the podium he effectively launched the widespread fame of Bach and an appreciation for regular performances of pieces by long dead composers (more of an oddity on a program in prior days when the new was all the rage). Today’s performance of Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia No. 8 in D major composed in 1822 features the next generation of musicians with New England Conservatory Preparatory students Andrew Dezmelyk and Meredith Treaster.

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). Well, he started with a “neo-classical” phase and then jutted off to a springtime rebirth of the old into a new dialect, didn’t he? His Concerto for Strings in D major from 1946 leads something of a double life. Today you hear it in its usual concert setting, but it moonlights as accompaniment to a dance. Choreographer Jerome Robbins (1918-1998) heard it and thought about female insects preying on their male counterparts and called it “The Cage.” Rather Kafkian. King of the Castle? Try Queen.

The “Rite of Spring” was a passage of a different kind - the kind that dared to go places that induced public fist fights (maybe Plato was on to something with that concern about music stirring up hot headedness after all?). Dissemble the data and it still functions. If you break the mirror and put it back together it reflects and refracts in an entirely new way.

Today you will hear something you have never heard before in your whole life. That’s something you can’t claim every Thursday of the week (well, unless you want to go all John Cage on me, but let’s not digress). Reiko Yamada’s New Shadows in the Raw Light of Darkness was inspired by and written for A Far Cry upon repeatedly listening to the ensemble awaken a new soul in old pieces. Like Georgia O’Keefe before her, Yamada was inspired by the stark landscape of the South West – Taos, New Mexico in Yamada’s case – during her 5-week residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Out there the lines of the earth stretch and clash with the lines of the landscape, both natural and manmade. A collection of lines. A collection of individuals and friends. A collection of musicians weaving and sewing together the lines of music, the threads of sound. A fabric paying homage to the past, building upon the legacy, attaching new rungs on the ladder to the future and casting new shadows in the climb.

Data. Functional. Legacy is now and legacy is you.

Kathryn J Allwine Bacasmot a pianist/harpsichordist/musicologist and freelance writer. She received her Masters in Musicology at the New England Conservatory of Music with her thesis on Björk Guðmundsdóttir and aspects of the female experience in her fifth studio album, Medúlla. In addition she works for From the Top, a weekly radio and 8-time Daytime Emmy Award nominated television show featuring the nations most talented young classical musicians distributed on NPR and PBS.