Andrew Logan ’18NPR’s All Songs Considered featured the former Wesleyan band Overcoats in its preview of the 2016 South by Southwest Music festival in Austin Texas. Overcoats, made up of Hana Elion ’15 and JJ Mitchell ’15, have made the leap from small on-campus concerts to performances in New York City's Mercury Lounge and the Longitude Festival in Ireland. Currently, Overcoats resides in New York City where they are performing and recording new music in studio. Overcoats describe their style as “combining electronic backdrops with soaring, harmonic intimacy — a sort of Chet Faker meets Simon & Garfunkel.” Their songs "draw strength from…
Cynthia RockwellNew York rapper and music producer Khalif Daoud ’11, known professionally as Le1f, was one of the musicians polled by WBUR-Boston and NPR’s Here & Now with the question “What is American music?” “Growing up, the idea of ‘Americana’ as a word was intimidating to me,” he told hosts Robin Young and Jeremy Hobson. “The patriotism behind it, and the American dream, I always related that to whiteness and I didn’t easily see how I fit into that category, that culture. But I came to understand that blues and jazz and rock and roll, and all these other genres, that’s…
Ethnomusicologist and musician Stan Scott Ph.D. ’97, was honored by the Indian Musicological Society and the Mumbai Music Forum with their "Award for Contribution to the Cause of Indian Music by an Overseas-Resident Personality." He was presented the award in absentia at the Jan. 21 Sangeet Research Academy conference held at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, and he will receive the presentation personally in March, when he’ll be performing in Delhi and Mumbai. Scott, a private lessons teacher in the Music Department, teaches banjo, mandolin and guitar. Also writer, Scott is the co-author of two ethnomusicology textbooks: …
David LowIn the Wall Street Journal, Steve Dollar recently wrote a profile of jazz guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson ’02 (www.maryhalvorson.com) as she recorded tracks for her next ensemble album for the independent Firehouse 12 label, founded by cornetist and composer Taylor Ho Bynum ’98 and engineer Nick Lloyd. Dollar praises Halvorson as “one of the most exciting and original guitarists in jazz” and describes her “often mercurial sound. On a given song, Ms. Halvorson may play a clean, precise line with a tone that hovers like a raised eyebrow, then slip into a beguiling phrase with vintage resonance, then veer…
Vibraphonist and composer Chris Dingman ’02 releases his debut album, Waking Dreams, on June 21, 2011 on Between Worlds Music. Dingman is joined by many of New York’s best young musicians including trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire, saxophonist Loren Stillman, pianist Fabian Almazan, bassist Joe Sanders, and drummer Justin Brown. Dingman recreates the experience of dreams in the form of a suite of new music that travels over its 14 tracks from darkness to light, from hazy melancholy to serene peace, while moving, often obliquely, through moments and memories from the composer’s life. The CD Release Party will be held on Saturday,…
Toby Twining MA ’06 has released a new album of his musical compositions, Eurydice (Cantaloupe Music), which represents the next wave of Western harmony and a capella music. Eurydice began as a score for Sarah Ruhl’s play of the same name, directed by Blanka Zizka and produced for the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia in 2008. The play reinterprets the classic myth of Orpheus, telling the story from Eurydice’s point of view and including a reunion with her father in the underworld. Composing for four singers and a cello, Twining found this underworld setting to be the perfect environment—quirky, funny and…
Will Galison ’81 has released a new music album, Line Open, featuring his unique gifts as harmonica virtuouso, guitarist, composer, lyricist, singer and arranger. He has co-produced a collection of songs that reflects a wide musical and emotional range and reveals his sly wit and compassionate outlook. The recording features some of New York’s finest musicians, including Steve Gaboury (co-producer and keyboards), Ben Wittman and Shawn Pelton (drums), Tony Garnier and Zev Katz (bass), Marc Shulman (guitar), and Catherine Russell, Elaine Caswell and Sonya Valet on vocals. Galison is known among musicians as a premiere jazz and studio harmonica player.…
Spiral, a CD by the Dave Wilson [’78] Quartet received a three-and-a-half star review in the November issue of Downbeat magazine. Released last June on Summit Records, Spiral features six original compositions by Wilson and arrangements of three contemporary classics, including the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil. ” “With a crack band in pianist Phil Markowitz, bassist Tony Marino and Adam Nussbaum on drums, saxophonist Dave Wilson knows how to pick them and the music,” writes critic John Ephland of Downbeat. Additionally, in a review in the December issue of JazzTimes Magazine, critic Bill Milkowski observed that “Pennsylvania-based saxophonist-educator…
Flo Anito '01 released a new video for her song, "Uh-Oh." It was shot at the Capitol City Diner in Washington D.C. [youtube width="640" height="420"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awUicWUKqeg[/youtube]
Dennis Waring Ph.D ’82 has created a new video titled From Trash to Tunes, designed to teach children, families and educators the craft of making simple musical instruments from items around the house. The video introduces children to the science of sound and the history of musical instruments. Detailed demonstrations show how to construct more than a dozen instruments from recycled materials. Families can organize their own band at home as they “go green.” Waring is an ethnomusicologist, educator, author, instrument maker, collector, performer, and arts consultant. He teaches world music, American music and music education courses on the university…
Dar Williams ’89 has released a new double retrospective CD, Many Great Companions (Razor and Tie). The first CD contains live acoustic performances that reimagine fan favorites, while the second showcases original recordings from past albums of her 20-year career. The collection features guests such as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Sara and Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek, Patty Larkin and the trio Motherlode. Songs Williams revisits include “As Cool as I Am,” “Spring Street,” “When I Was a Boy” and “The Babysitter’s Here.” In his recent review of the album in American Songwriter, Matt Popkin writes: “Throughout the new recordings, Williams’…
Singer and composer Peter Durwood ’86, who crafts music and sound design for Sesame Workshop digital products, recently created the sound for a Sesame video that has become popular on YouTube. In it, Grover, the furry blue monster, riffs on the Old Spice web-ads. “I was an art major at Wes, but an unofficial music minor, particularly enjoying Mark Slobin's Worlds of Music course, several semesters of African Drumming with Abraham Adzinyah, and Bill Lowe's remarkable History of African-American Music,” says Durwood. His album, Peter Durwood, will soon be available on iTunes.