Pulse

Summer Line-up at the Brooklyn Lyceum Wednesday Jazz Series

Well it has been almost a year since I have been curating a Wednesday evening Jazz Series at the Brooklyn Lyceum (227 4th Avenue-take the R Train to Union Street) in the hip Gowanus area of Brooklyn (Park Slope's neighbor). It has been great to have so many incredible musicians on the Wednesday series. My focus continues to be to choose musicians who are defining jazz in diverse and interesting ways. So on the Wednesday nights we've had free improvisations, contemporary swing, third stream, jazz-rock hybrids, and things which you really can't classify easily. If that's not your bag, then the Sunday jazz series curated by Chris Komer, which also features great musicians in a (mostly) more straight-ahead jazz approach, might be to your liking.

Either night you are sure to find something interesting at the Lyceum. The great Wednesday evening line up for the July and August are below. There are two sets 8:00pm and 9:30pm with a cover of only $10. A former bathhouse, the Brooklyn Lyceum is a unique space and a great place to grab some refreshments, including libations, and sit and enjoy some quality music.

For more information on the Wednesday series go to: www.brooklynlyceum.com.

I hope you come by and say hi.

Joe

July 2-Jacob Wick's A Mown Lawn
July 9-David Bixler
July 16-Christopher Hoffman's Sad Companion
July 23-Accordion Angels
July 30-Yuko Yamamura-Florencia Gonzalez Sextet

August 6-Jeff Fairbanks Jazz Orchestra
August 13-Daniel Blake
August 20-Jason Colby's New Breuckelen Quartet
August 27-Cortelyou Composers Collective

Numinous strikes again!

Now that I'm back from the NPAC convention (see my previous post), it's time to get down to business. I want to let you know about an upcoming performance with a special "String Tentet" version of my group Numinous in the fashionable Gowanus area of Brooklyn (for those that don't know, Park Slope's neighbor). For the past year I've been curating a weekly Wednesday jazz series at the Brooklyn Lyceum, a former bath house turned into 3 great performance spaces. Now it is my turn to perform there! I hope you can come out, have a beer, glass of wine, or cup of coffee and celebrate the beginning of summer by listening to some good music performed by some great people.

What do Madonna, Morton Feldman, Grace Kelly, the Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train) and Quantum Physics all have to do with each other? Find out at:

Numinous
The Music of Joseph C. Phillips Jr.

presents

The Summer Concert

featuring

Amanda Monaco (guitar); Tom Beckham (vibraphone); Ana Milosavljevic, Skye Steele (violins); Judith Insell, Corrina Albright (violas); William Martina, Lauren Riley-Rigby (violoncellos); Kevin Thomas (bass); Jon Uman (percussion)

Wednesday June 25, 2008
8:00 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.
Brooklyn Lyceum
227 4th Avenue (between Union and President Streets)
(Take R Train to Union Street; the Lyceum is above station, on east side of the street)

$10
www.numinousmusic.com

I hope to see you there!

Joe

Five Days of Caucuses, Performances, and Schmoozing...

The title says it all! I returned this morning from the National Performing Arts Convention (NPAC) held from June 10-14 in Denver and had a wonderful and inspiring time. This was the second NPAC Convention and it brought together thousands of arts administrators, musicians, dancers, actors, executive directors of theater, opera and orchestra, to meet and "lay the foundation for future multi-disciplinary collaborations, cooperative efforts, and effective advocacy." The first convention was held four years ago in Pittsburgh and apparently it was mostly attended by administrators and executive directors of organizations, not the most diverse crowd to tackle the above issues. This time the American Music Center, the American Composers Forum, and Meet the Composer spearheaded a successful effort to achieve more participation by individual artists, so our particular voices and issues could be heard.

I enjoyed sitting in small cross-disciplinary caucus sessions and as often is the case, talking with people after the "official" duties brought some of the most interesting discussions on what is new music, the philosophy of the LA Philharmonic, micro-brews, and Madonna (ok, I made that last one up). One night after all of the meetings, with a few other composers, I headed uptown? to hear a wonderful new music group called The Playground (in residence at the University of Denver) perform Paul Hindemith, George Crumb, and Tom Waits in an art gallery/design studio/former garage with free beer and cookies! The closing session featured a great two song performance by jazz singer Dianne Reeves (although it was a little disappointing to see so many people leave as she was beginning; I hope they just had to catch their flights rather than leaving because it was (gasp!) "jazz").

Overall it was inspiring to meet other composers from all over the country (as well as from NYC) as well as other non-musicians. I want to thank Molly Sheridan, Joanne Hubbard Cossa, and all of the good folks at the American Music Center who asked me to be apart of the composer coterie.

For an overview of NPAC as it was happening, straight from the bloggers fingers, go to the Arts Journal weblog or NewMusicBox (good reading, I promise).

Joe