Second Inversion Showcase at Northwest Folklife 2016!

by Maggie Stapleton

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We are excited to announce the lineup for Second Inversion’s 2nd annual showcase at Northwest Folklife on Friday, May 27 from 8-10pm! RSVP to our Facebook event and invite your friends to this exciting FREE event!

Sound of Late
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Sound of Late is a new music ensemble that creates distinctive performances and unexpected collaborations that build and inspire the communities around us. They believe music is best when shared with other people, which is why Sound of Late is working to support the artistic and creative community across the Pacific Northwest. By dissolving the boundary between artist and audience, they hope to inspire new collaborations and to raise the visibility of our region.

For more on Sound of Late, visit our “Meet the Artist” feature!

Skyros Quartet
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The Skyros Quartet, praised by the Topeka Capital-Journal as “stellar,” brings a bright and inventive style to the concert hall and can be seen performing, teaching, and leading community events in their new hometown of Seattle, as well as concertizing around the US and Canada.The Skyros Quartet is passionate about the future of music and performing works by living composers. They have worked extensively with composers Tonia Ko, Andy Davis, Devin Maxwell, and Liza Sobel.

For more on Skyros Quartet, visit our “Meet the Artist” feature!

The Westerlies 
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The Westerlies (“prevailing winds from the West to the East”) are a New York based brass quartet comprised of four friends from Seattle, Washington: Riley Mulherkar and Zubin Hensler on trumpet, and Andy Clausen and Willem de Koch on trombone. They re-imagine the chamber music experience through boldly personal performance, recording, collaboration, education, and outreach. Since their inception in 2011, they have cultivated a new brass quartet repertoire featuring over 50 original compositions as well as adaptations of Ives, Ellington, Bartok, Ligeti, Stephen Foster and numerous traditionals. Their music exudes the warmth of their longstanding friendships, and reflects the broad interests of its members.

For more on The Westerlies, visit our “Meet the Artist” feature!

Second Inversion presents Seattle Rock Orchestra Quintet & Tamara Power-Drutis (Saturday, April 9, 8pm)

by Maggie Stapleton

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For nearly 70 years, KING FM has been Seattle’s classical radio station. In this day and age, radio stations are becoming much more than boxes that play music. 

Our latest venture is a concert series of intimate performances at Bellevue’s newest concert hall, RESONANCE at SOMA Towers. Throughout the 2015-16 season, each concert has spotlighted brilliant local musicians and includes a little something extra, whether it’s food, wine, dancing or exclusive talks. Early Music Underground kicked off the season with a music and wine pairing, KING FM hosts Lisa Bergman, Dave Beck, and Bryan Lowe came out of the broadcast booth and onto the stage with their instruments. A Viennese New Years Waltz kicked off 2016 with style and grace. Musical husband-wife duos took the stage for a Valentine’s Day celebration. The Sempre Sisters, Brandon Vance & Eliot Grasso, and Magical Strings infused classical music with Irish fervor for a happy hour concert during the week of St. Paddy’s day.

And now, on Saturday, April 9 at 8pm, to close the season, Second Inversion is taking over and bringing some cross-genre fusion to RESONANCE with the Seattle Rock Orchestra Quintet featuring the inimitable, versatile vocalist Tamara Power-Drutis. These fine musicians will transform popular song into art song, performing a program that reimagines the work of artists such as Radiohead, Beck, Bjork and others as intimate and emotional chamber works born for the recital hall. 

Join us there! 

FREE COMMUNITY EVENT: So Percussion presents Steve Reich’s Drumming

by Maggie Stapleton

If you’ve been following what’s going on in Seattle this week, I think you’d agree it’s been an incredible showcase of new music performances. There’s more to come, it involves So Percussion, and it’s FREE!

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Photo Credit: David Andrako

So Percussion kicked off a week long residency with UW World Series and UW School of Music at Meany Hall on Sunday evening. In a presentation on UW World Series’ International Chamber Music series, music of Steve Reich, Glenn Kotche, John Cage, and Bryce Dessner filled the hall with hypnotic precision, leaving a percussion-hungry audience satisfied.

Since then, they’ve been busy working with students, performing impromptu pop-ups around campus, talking shop, and to bookend their visit, So Percussion will offer a collaborative performance of Steve Reich’s “Drumming” with University of Washington School of Music Students on Thursday, February 4 at 6pm in the Meany Studio Theatre. This event is free & open to the public and presented by the UW World Series in partnership with The UW School of Music and Henry Art Gallery.

They also made a stop by our studios to shoot a couple of videos, which will be up and running in a couple of weeks. Look how much fun these guys are!

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We put tomorrow’s “Drumming” performance in the “you better not miss this!” category. We’ll see you there!

NEW VIDEO: Steve Reich’s Cello Counterpoint

by Maggie Stapleton

Continuing our series of “Steve Reich videos around Seattle,” we’re pleased to share Rose Bellini’s performance of Cello Counterpoint at On the Boards!

This is our second of three Steve Reich videos in collaboration with On the Boards Ambassador James Holt, who is presenting a concert dedicated to the music of Steve Reich on Tuesday, February 2 at 8pm:

Counterpoint | Phase – A hypnotic evening of music in a non-traditional setting from the American master of minimalism. 

LINEUP:
Nagoya Marimbas: Erin Jorgensen & Memmi Ochi
Cello Counterpoint: Rose Bellini
New York Counterpoint: Rachel Yoder
Violin Phase: Luke Fitzpatrick/Marcin Pączkowski

Pre-sales for this event are sold out. A limited number of tickets will be available at the door.

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Cellist Rose Bellini is an avid performer of a wide variety of music, especially contemporary and experimental music. She regularly performs with classical music ensembles, modern dance companies, bands, and chamber and orchestral groups from Seattle to New York City to San Francisco.

A founding member of mixed-chamber ensembles REDSHIFT and Hotel Elefant, Rose  also regularly appears with the Seattle Modern Orchestra and Seattle Rock Orchestra. Other notable appearances include with the Wordless Music Orchestra, Ensemble Signal, FLUX Quartet, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, East Village Opera Company, Phoenix Ensemble, folk and rock bands, and in venues from ranging from neighborhood bars to Carnegie Hall. 

Rose frequently collaborates with living composers from around the world and often premieres and records new works for cello and for chamber ensemble. A doctoral graduate of Indiana University-Bloomington, her primary teachers were Emilio Colón and Janos Starker.

As an arts entrepreneur, Rose has established herself as a resourceful fundraiser and leader in the music and arts community working in development for a variety of organizations. Rose serves on the board of the Switchboard Music Festival in San Francisco, CA.

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NEW VIDEO: Quiet Mind by Mother Falcon

by Maggie Stapleton

What would happen if you combined the instrumental forces of a string quartet, rock band, and jazz combo? You’d get the awesome Austin-based symphonic rock band, Mother Falcon. This is “Quiet Mind,” from their third full-length album Good Luck Have Fun, recorded at Barboza in Seattle on November 17, 2015.