the royal room

by Maggie Stapleton

This week’s Seattle new music events offer cross-genre flavors at the Crocodile, a world premiere by Timo Andres, and a homecoming for the Westerlies!

Town Music: Town Hall Seattle and Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras present John Adams’ ‘Shaker Loops’ and original work, commissioned by Town Hall from Timo Andres

Town Music Artistic Director (and Second Inversion’s Artistic Advisor!) Joshua Roman will conduct the Seattle Youth Symphony (current members and alums!) in the Town Music season finale. This talented group of musicians will present the world premiere of a new work by Timo Andres, who “achieves an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene” (The New Yorker). His new work was commissioned by Town Hall and will be a great fit amidst John Adams’ Shaker Loops and Bartok’s Divertimento for Strings.

Second Inversion will present this concert as a LIVE BROADCAST. You can tune in at bit.ly/SI-stream and RSVP to our Facebook Event!

The performance is this Saturday, June 27 at 7:30pm (doors at 6:30pm) at Town Hall Seattle on First Hill.

STG Presents Son Lux and Olga Bell

Son Lux’s leader is Ryan Lott, who was named “Best New Artist” by NPR’s All Song’s Considered in 2008. Lott “works at the nexus of several rarely-overlapping Venn Diagrams (Pitchfork)” which couldn’t be a better description of what we seek to showcase on Second Inversion. His composition “Beautiful Mechanical,” for yMusic instantly caught our attention and is in frequent rotation on our 24/7 stream. He has also collaborated with a multitude of other prestigious artists including Richard Reed Parry, Chris Thile, Lorde, Beyoncé producer Boots, Sufjan Stevens, Matthew Dear, Busdriver, Vijay Iyer, Nico Muhly and Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Shaw.

Son Lux will perform selections from their latest album Bones (released June 23), the premiere release from the newly formed trio, including Guitarist-composer Rafiq Bhatia and drummer Ian Chang.

Olga Bell joins Son Lux for this event. Olga’s elite training as a classical pianist paved way for the pursuit of electronic composition and songwriting. Second Inversion regulars are likely familiar with Bell’s 2014 New Amsterdam release Krai, which is a tribute to edge towns in her birth country of Russia. Olga Bell is also noted for her work with Nothankyou, Charlift, and Dirty Projectors.

The performance is this Saturday, June 27 at 9pm (doors at 8pm) at the Crocodile in Belltown.

The Westerlies: Summer Show at The Royal Room
The Westerlies (“prevailing winds from the West to the East) are home from another year of Conservatory training in NYC and return to The Royal Room for a special performance of brand new music soon to be recorded on their second album!

This brass quartet composed of Riley Mulherkar, Zubin Hensler, Andy Clausen, and Willem de Koch navigate between American folk music, jazz, classical, and indie rock and have expanded the repertoire by premiering over 40 original brass quartets. Second Inversion hosted them for an in-studio video session back in January and we’re always thrilled to have them back in town.

The Westerlies will be joined by Brooklyn based indie-alt vocalist Julia Easterlin. Vocals. Loops. Drums. Drones. Beatz. The Westerlies and Easterlin – a great combination!

The performance is this Sunday, June 28 at 5pm (doors at 4:30pm) at the Royal Room in Columbia City.

by Maggie Stapleton

We’ve written about the Seattle-born/NYC-based brass quartet The Westerlies before in our first ever video premiere feature. Now we have a spotlight on their May release of Wayne Horvitz’ music – Wish the Children Would Come On Home, for which their Official CD Release Party is Friday, August 8 at the Royal Room.

So, why Wayne Horvitz? (Why NOT Wayne Horvitz is really a better question, but…) Andy, Willem, Zubin, and Riley are long acquainted with Wayne as a teacher, mentor, and friend from their growing up in Seattle, but Horvitz actually approached THEM about doing the album in early 2013. He recognizes all of the musicians as “technically excellent, theoretically sophisticated, mature beyond their years, astute, perceptive, and self-aware.”

Jazzy sonorities and harmonies combined with a composed structure give this album that quality of “it has a little something for everyone” – the Westerlies chose a broad range of Horvitz’ music to arrange and record, including jazz tunes, film music, and classical chamber pieces. Now, none of these pieces were originally composed for brass, so the Westerlies had the extra task of doing the arrangements. Horvitz praises the fact that “they sound like a band, not a brass ensemble” despite “the way they have manufactured a kind of limitation, simply by creating a quartet with 2 trumpets and 2 trombones. Within all the bounty of their collective backgrounds, they have created a band that is a real hassle! No rhythm sections, no chordal instruments, and music that is sometimes fiendishly difficult.” I couldn’t agree more. The textures and sounds created sound like much more than the sum of its parts (which are all great!).

The music on this album ranges from sultry (Please Keep That Train Away From My Door), lulling (Waltz from Woman of Tokyo), bombastic (The Band With Muddy), nostalgic (Triads totally has a Renaissance quality to my ears), goofy/playful (The Barbershop), free and experimental (Interludes), and smoky (The Store, The Campfire).

Keep an ear out for Andy, Willem, Zubin, and Riley’s voices on the Second Inversion stream! As we incorporate this disc into our programming, you’re likely to hear one of them introduce the tracks on this album. In the meantime, mark your calendar for the show nearest you on their WA, OR, and CA tour.

You can purchase Wish The Children Would Come On Home at The Westerlies’ Store.