Summer 2012
Dear Friends,
Much has developed since my Spring newsletter. Many exciting musical events are planned for this Fall and detailed here. …Project Hansori comes roaring back, teaming up with a Taiko drum group (that’s right!) for a mind-bending, conceptual performance at a brand new NYC Asian Arts festival. …I’ve launched a completely new band (pictured) of a small brass and drums format, with two upcoming appearances including the All Nite Soul fest. …I begin a Fall composer residency in September, for which I was recently selected.
Finally, I cannot omit the traumatic but also inspiring episode that has occupied my life between these letters. At the end of this letter I mention my young son’s freak accident in May and his amazing recovery since then. Though I usually keep these letters focused on musical happenings, any recent news involving me would be incomplete without mentioning this.
PROJECT HANSORI FEATURED AT LOCATING THE SACRED FESTIVAL
Sunday September 16, 2012 at 2pm
New York Buddhist Church
331-332 Riverside Drive
New York, NY 10025
After more than year(!), an opportunity finally worth taking has presented itself for Project Hansori to perform. The Asian American Arts Alliance will present the group in a concert called Temple of Memories, as part of its Locating the Sacred festival which runs 12 days city-wide in Sept. The chosen venue is pretty unique, the New York Buddhist Church in the Upper West Side. We will collaborate with the esteemed Taiko group Soh Daiko, on a program billed as an “all-immersive sonic environment” – or, as stated in my brother’s blog post, “intentional bleeding”. By the latter I mean the 25-or-so of us will split into multiple rooms and floors of the Buddhist church, playing different music simultaneously. Guests will freely wander through the building as in an art exhibit during this portion of the event. The concert will culminate in our combined forces performing as one for the finale. …So you could say it’s your typical, avante garde big-band-with-taiko kind of a show.
NEW BAND LAUNCHED: STREET BEAT
Until now all readers probably know me solely through my big band, Project Hansori. That’s not going away by any means, as our Locating the Sacred show demonstrates. But I’d like to introduce you to my newest musical brainchild. I conceived Street Beat as a vehicle for the infectious brass-based music of various ethnic traditions: namely Gospel, Banda (Mexican brass genre), and Klezmer; as well as hints of New Orleans (“Dixieland”) and Caribbean. It’s a five-piece group consisting of trumpet, alto sax, trombone, sousaphone, and drums. The instrumentation is intentionally mobile so that we can stroll or process while we play. (“Street Beat” describes a generic beat drummers play between songs in a parade; it also fits well with our loose, fun vibe). This together with the festive music creates quite a fun atmosphere for musicians and fans alike. Pictured above (L to R) are Mike Webster, Jason Wiseman, myself, Vin Scialla, and James Rodgers.
We played our first performance in May, at New York Presbyterian Church. See videos from that concert on my YouTube channel. Also you can hear tracks from our demo recording here (including Banda and Klezmer). Here are two more upcoming shows:
STREET BEAT AT KITE FLYING FESTIVAL
Saturday, August 18 @ 11am-2pm
Riverside Park South on Pier I (park entrance at 68th street and Riverside Drive/ Pier at 70th street)
Street Beat will perform paired down as a brass trio for this waterfront festival on Manhattan’s West side. Though the music is not the focus of the event, it’s noteworthy as only our second gig, and any locals reading this would enjoy the Hudson views on the pier as well as the music.
STREET BEAT FEATURED AT ALL NITE SOUL FESTIVAL
Sunday, October 7, 2012, time TBD (late night)
619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street New York, NY 10022
This famed all-night Jazz festival at St Peter’s Church (“The Jazz Church”) in midtown Manhattan has been running annually since it was started back in the 1960’s. This year it’s headlined by the top-tier Vanguard Orchestra, with whom we’re thrilled to share the stage. Street Beat will perform a Gospel set as our full quintet. Our starting time is TBD, so I’ll pass it on when it’s announced.
CON-ED COMPOSER RESIDENCY
I’ve been selected for a three-month residency administered by Exploring the Metropolis and sponsored by Con-Edison. During September through November I will work on-site at Flushing Town Hall, to compose a new work. Of course I couldn’t just make it that simple, though. Rather than allow myself to work on the piano as normal, I restricted myself to only using the taepyeongso, a Korean double-reed instrument. Why would I do this? “Necessity is the mother of invention”. I believe composers like myself get so used to our composing tools (piano, computer, etc.), that our music starts to sound like something that just works well on those tools, rather than something reaches new musical territory. So I’m going to shed my piano-isms for some taepyeongso-isms, and see what happens. I think some interesting – or at least different! – music will come out of it. Oh, and one extra detail: I don’t actually play this instrument yet. I’ve been trying to understand more about East Asian music as a composer, and I think learning an instrument will really open up my ears to it.
CREATIVE CAPITAL GRANT APPLICATION ADVANCES
A side note about a developing opportunity, I’ve advanced to the second round of applicants to Creative Capital‘s Performing Arts program. CC offers massive, ongoing support to the few projects they deem the most adventurous each grant cycle, and is predictably uber-competitive. I’m proud to have made the ‘short’ list of a few hundred, down from a few thousand. My proposal is something new and quite adventurous, so I’m keeping it under wraps until it’s either funded or ready to go public. We’ll see how the September deliberation goes…
A STORY OF HEALING
As I wrote in previous letters, my injury last Summer (lost tooth, cut lip) prevented me from playing for two months. I was planning to highlight my return to playing by having two “loud” months this Fall, marking one year after my two “silent” months.
…That’s all dwarfed now by my son’s story of injury and recovery this Summer. Briefly, Kyle suffered traumatic brain injury in May after falling off our 2nd floor balcony. He’s lucky to be alive. But after miraculous surgery and recovery, involving two months of hospitalization, he’s now home and basically back to himself again. My whole family is overjoyed and thankful to God for such an amazing outcome, which we consider answered prayer. The whole story is too vast to bring up here, so for more info my brother Andy detailed the story well in his blog series, Adventures in Daddy Duty. It’s also covered well by my wife Choi in the online network CaringBridge.
Needless to say, this episode has consumed my family since its start in mid-May. Together with my own injury earlier, this past year has had its share of health trials. But it’s been also been a year of incredible healing and bouncing back. I’m thrilled that this Fall is an opportunity to bounce back musically as well.
Thanks,
Jeff Fairbanks