Purchase tickets for Sonic Smithy and get in to Ben Gerstein’s Jerome Foundation Commission concert free!
$15 General Admission
$10 Members/Students/Seniors
FREE Kids under 16
SONIC SMITHY
with guest artist MARCO CAPPELLI, guitar and compositions
the use of SOUND in CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
For this concert, Sonic Smithy has focused on the idea of sound as parameter in itself.
The ensemble has explored the idea of sound as the starting point for composition constructions, and has worked to expand its pallette of sound colors and the orchestrational/improvisational possibilities which evolve from this approach. Sonic Smithy will perform:
Two orchestral “graphic scores” composed by Marco Cappelli and Earle Brown.
An experimental, original, student designed arrangement of a popular song by Adele.
A multimedia performance of “Driving Decoy” by Ennio Morricone, from the the Danger:Diabolik (1968) sound track. (Diabolik was a fictional anti-hero featured in Italian comics.)
Sonic Smithy members:
Olivia Reis, violin and voice
Tesia Singh-Ragen, viola
Alessandra, guitar
Giovanni Rascigno, guitar
Caleb Rosenberg, ‘cello
Fynn Marsella, ‘cello
Willie Upbin, alto saxophone
Minna Blankenship, coronet
Indigo Pavlov, trumpet
Max Meissner, drums and percussion
Nicole Federici, violin, viola and director
Sonic Smithy is both a student musical ensemble and a creative sound workshop devoted exclusively to the living music and great musicians of our time and place. Through weekly coached rehearsals, young musicians experiment within the native parameters of a given work and genre, while developing their ensemble playing skills, improvisation vocabularies, and their understanding of stylistic musical language and structure. At the end of each eight-week session, they participate in master classes with a special guest artist, and perform and record a final concert together with that artist(s). This kind of mentoring in rehearsal and performance inspires these students to learn by experimenting and performing together with the master musicians of our time, in exactly the same way these professional musicians learn from one another. The ensemble encourages students to explore many styles of music composition, performance and improvisation, and aims to encourage students to take advantage of their creative skills as arrangers and improvisers at any point in their journey toward technical mastery of their instruments, with the understanding that an awareness of their expressive needs will drive their practice and inspire the acquisition of new skills and artistic dreams. The ensemble aims to emphasize this creative process in order to foster an open attitude about the many ways music can be conceived, explored, composed and performed, at any level, and in any genre. Sonic Smithy’s guest artists are all distinguished, world-class innovators, performers, composers, and bandleaders who are living and creating music in NYC today. Since the spring of 2009, the ensemble has performed with popular singer songwriter Tracy Bonham, John Carlson’s Free Range Rat, the innovative conductor Butch Morris, the saxophonist Andrew D’Angelo, and the drummer Kenny Wollesen. Sonic Smithy has performed at: The Douglass Street Music Collective, BAM cafe, Joe’s Pub, the opening of Roulette, the Douglass Green Skate Park, and the NYC Vision Festival at Abrons Art Center.
