Jodie DeSalvo

Award-winning pianist and conductor Jodie DeSalvo will pair up with mezzo-soprano Cynthia Stiehl for an evening of spectacular music May 18 at the UU Fellowship, Ephraim.

DeSalvo of Naples, Florida is a perennial favorite during the summer Birch Creek Performance Series. She has toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe as a piano soloist. She has produced 10 CDs of solo piano literature, chamber and choral music. She serves as a director of choirs and artistic director of concerts for two schools, as well as director of the Seacrest Performing Arts Academy, all in Naples, Florida. She will perform works of Mussorgsky, Liszt, Chopin and skits of Victor Borge. Read the rest of this entry »

Once Now Ensemble

Emerson Event October 28, 2011 at 7PM. Tickets are $10.

Free improvisation. In other words, musical spontaneity – it could be comic, serious, questioning, assertive, whatever we’re feeling at the moment. That’s the Now.

But it also means listening closely to our fellow musicians and letting them influence and inspire us. That’s the Ensemble.

Our rehearsals are much like our performances, in fact they are performances – for ourselves. And our performances are like rehearsals – we find out what the music is going to be as it happens. We don’t choose to replicate a particular musical piece so that we can play it the same way every time. That’s the Once.

You’ll hear all the basic elements of good music in our work – exciting rhythms, evocative melodies, imaginative harmonies, unique timbres. But you’ll find us at the edge where the raw creative impulse comes alive! You can hear and feel the searching, the glimmering, and the jelling as it happens – a rare and satisfying musical experience!

Craig Berg: percussion
Linda Binder: electric violin
Frank Marquardt: alto and tenor saxophones, alto clarinet
Rick Ollman: guitar, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet
Carl Raven: drums
Mark Truesdell: percussion, melodica, accordion

www.oncenowensemble.com

Paul McComas

An evening of monologues and music with Paul McComas

Paul McComas brings the human condition to light and to life through fiction writing and live performance, using dramatic and comedic enactments of scenes from his own work to demonstrate “the lies that tell the truth.”  You will be entertained and inspired by this candid and lively “inside look” at narrative, characters, and the creative process.

A Milwaukee native, he received a BA in English from Lawrence University and an MA in Film from Northwestern University. His film work has been screened at festivals worldwide and honored by the American Film Institute. A bass player and singer/songwriter, McComas founded and ran Rock Against Depression, a teen-suicide prevention program that won him a Distinguished Service Award.

As a performance artist, McComas brought his book, Unplugged, to life at Third Avenue Playhouse in Sturgeon Bay in 2004.  A year later he returned to TAP with The Lying Game and in 2008 he used home movies to punctuate his reading from Planets of the Dates.  Poetry in (E)motion: The Many Moods of Verse brought him back in 2010 when he shared the TAP stage with local poets who had written about local historic schoolhouses.

McComas has earned international and national awards for his short-form dramatic and comedic movies.  He has taught at Northwestern University, National-Louis University, and Lawrence University’s Bjorklunden Center.

McComas is the author of four and editor of two books of fiction. His 2008 coming-of-age novel Planet of the Dates is in development as a feature film. He is currently co-authoring Logan’s Journey (slated for 2013 publication) with William F. Nolan, author of the science fiction classic Logan’s Run.

Tickets are available at the door for $10. A reception and opportunity to meet McComas will follow the performance.