Free First Saturday Concert Series at PVCC

This fall, the First Saturday Concert Series returns to PVCC with free outdoor concerts every First Saturday of the month in August, September, October and November of 2015.

These free performances are presented on the CPA’s outdoor amphitheater stage from 6-8 p.m., and audience members are invited to bring a folding chair or blanket as the space is lawn seating only. Several of Phoenix's most popular food trucks will be on site to serve concessions.

August 8th, 2015: An Evening in Brazil with Grupo Liberdade| 6pm | Free Admission

Featuring exciting music and dance performances by GRUPO LIBERDADE and the SAMBAZ DANCERS. Grupo Liberdade is a performance group dedicated to freedom of expression through Culture, Movement & Sound. They promote COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY & EMPOWERMENT drawing upon the traditional & contemporary rhythms of Brazil and beyond while bringing an original sound & energy to our desert metropolis.

September 5th, 2015: The Cal Tjader Tribute Band| 6pm | Free Admission

With exciting performances of Mambo, Cha cha cha, and other grooves, The Tjader Tribute Band pays homage to one of the most important Latin-jazz artists of the last century.

October 3rd, 2015: Rebel Heart: Country Rock| 6pm | Free Admission

Rebel Heart is a 5 piece band from Arizona consisting of seasoned stage veterans covering percussion, lead guitar, bass, and lead vocals. The dual vocalists carry a powerful and soulful sound and presence. They offer a variety of country, rock, and blues ranging from old to new.

November 7th, 2015: A Night on Broadway| 6pm | Free Admission

Featuring vocalists Kristen Drathman and Tommy Strawser, enjoy a night on broadway with your favorite show tunes. 

For more information about events at the Center for the Performing Arts, view our Fall 2015 Events Calendar or call 602-787-7738. Box Office hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday thru Friday and one hour prior to show.

The Center for the Performing Arts is conveniently located at 34th Street and Union Hills at the east end of the campus of Paradise Valley Community College in North Phoenix. Parking is free.

Fired Up! - RAKU Nights - PVCC Ceramics Program Benefit

Join us for a very creative and unique date night or outing with friends!

Fired Up! - Raku Nights is a fundraising event AND a hands-on ceramics workshop rolled into one!

$25 per ticket includes:
*Your selected piece of hand-thrown pottery to design, glaze and take home.
• Dramatic Raku Kiln firing of each piece
• Pottery throwing demonstration
• Appetizers and dessert
• Live music performed by the PVCC Faculty Jazz Ensemble

Purchase tickets in advance as seating is limited.
Call 602-787-6684 for additional information or email:
development@paradisevalley.edu

Proceeds benefit the PVCC Ceramics Program Support Fund.

Acts Creative Week 3 : San Francisco

PC: Brock Sanders Photography

PC: Brock Sanders Photography

By Keith Kelly

Though I didn't intend to start the creative summer with three different types of creative arts - that's seems to be the case!  This week I'm in San Francisco in a workshop for a musical I've been involved with.  It is a week-long intense experience comprising singers, musicians, a rad director, and all manner of folks.  Though I've been working on or around this musical/theater piece for more than a year - each time I go into another workshop/performance I'm nervous.  And usually, I don't get nervous.  

I think it is that the lines of communication, the collaborative-yet-heriachical nature of the interactions between and betwixt participants is awkward to me - like watching a tv in a language you don't speak/understand.  Like, I kinda know what's going on, but I have to pay attention and respond to cues or signals that I may misinterpret.  Anyway, this week I'm making music! 

What's on my mind to start: 
approach the music with an open mind/ear - stay curious about what the possibilities for the music are and explore that space.  

-----

The first day of the workshop was fantastic!  The creative moment that sticks out is when the music director and I were vamping (marking time under dialogue in this case) and after more than a few repetitions of the harmonic pattern we slowly morphed into something else, rhythmically.  Most of the playing had been very downbeat driven - heavy chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk playing, all notes on the piano being hit at the same time.  But then I broke up the notes into something resembling a montuno (a common Latin music piano rhythm) - and it sounded cool!  The heavy downbeat rhythm transformed into an off-beat/bouncy light moment.  The music director and I looked at each other and smiled, played it till the end of the vamp, him now accenting some of the same offbeats I was playing.  The dialogue finished and we went on to the next section of the music.  We laughed about it later that day.  But that was it.  It was just a few seconds, maybe a minute, but it was a nice creative moment.
 
The next few days were focused primarily on getting the production "up and running" for presentation on Friday. In terms of focusing on creativity, it was little moments: a rhythm here, a change of chord inversion there.  These ideas, tried out and tested, went quickly from - "what about this?" to "okay, that's how that goes from now on" - due to the pressure of the immenent presentation.  This kind of work - quick building as I think of it - is one of those muscles I don't get to stretch too often.   Though the rehearsal days are long, the time to work individual moments (at least in the music) is not.  It's part relying on what one knows works and part attempting to make something unique/different/strange/not obvious (thought also not too weird) -- HA!!
 

SPAMALOT! (musical) Based on the classic comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail - June 19th-28th

Monty Python is coming to Paradise Valley Community College! SPAMALOT retells the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and features a bevy of beautiful show girls, not to mention cows, killer rabbits, and French people. Did we mention the bevy of beautiful show girls? The 2005 Broadway production won three Tony Awards, including "Best Musical," and received 14 Tony Award nominations.

June 19th, 20th, 26th, 27th @ 7:30pm. June 21st and 28th @ 2:00pm.
$15 adults; $12 seniors/staff; $10 students/military; $8 children
*4 additional ticket fee at the door 1hour prior to performance.

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE: http://bit.ly/1TofaL4

Acts Creative Week 2: Keith Kelly

This week, I was preoccupied with the camera on my phone.  With little "alone time" to create, I tried to capture interesting ideas/thoughts/visions as they passed.  Mostly these are domestic scenes, with focus on the most interesting creature I've ever encountered, my 2-year-old daughter.  The world is so new, life is still so new.  It just catches me by surprise: her reactions, her responses, her lack of focus - it's pure "in-the-moment" living.  And I love it.

Duck and baby/duckin' baby 

Coco, more bubbles!

Three faces

Half of the chapel

Acts Creative: A Tale of Two J/Iannis'

by Dr. Brett Reed, Music Faculty

This last week I’ve been knee deep in the production of a new concert by one of my ensembles, Crossing 32nd Street. And while I didn’t intend for it to be all about two Greek heritage composers, Jannis Kyriakides and Iannis Xenakis, that’s exactly what has happened.

In the case of Jannis, we have over the last 10 days, created a new studio recording to support his work Telegraphic. The process and need for this recording is what got me thinking about a previous studio cut of Iannis’ Persephassa, one of the masterworks for percussion ensemble. While there are many things about their music that is different, they do share an interest in spatial presentations, working in new media, and large scale forms. Each also share a drive to create music that is new. Not new in the sense of, well I made it today so it is newer than what I made yesterday, instead this has never been heard before new. That’s a much loftier concept - and hard to get to within our human experience of music. Both composers have also asked performers to make that happen.

And one other thing… in both cases they wrote music that can’t be played by us mere mortals.

This, then, is where the role of interpretation comes into play. How do I as a musician create a performance that is representative of their score, their intention, their concepts? Especially when their concepts are such that humans alone can’t do what the composer has asked of us, because they are trying to create that certain something brand new. How does this intersect with my artistic concepts and sensibilities? There may be shades of grey here, but as I see it, there are only three reasonable solutions. 

One, you could train yourself to do that very thing that humans can’t, or don’t, currently do, athletes seem to do this all the time (in Telegraphic, performers are asked to play wind instruments for very long periods without breathing - kind of a challenge, circular breathing is a possibility for some). Two, you can create a workable solution, a version of what the composer asked that meets most of the musical criteria, but isn’t technically what they wrote (in fact Xenakis expects this in his works - creative tension based on the problem solving). Or three, don’t do it humans alone, get help.

Using the recording studio to solve these problems is not new, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Les Paul, and the Beatles have all shown us what can happen in the studio. It takes a certain stance though, to warmly embrace a recording that is not entirely based on performers, though the music is intended to be performed. 

In Persephassa, Xenakis wrote a rising spiral of notes, that gradually accelerate to a furious conclusion - for seven instrument groups, any 2 or maybe 3 are playable by the usual human compliment of hands. What about the other four? In performance you have to slowly change the part by leaving out notes, density or both. In the studio? Three overdubs later (as opposed to growing more limbs) this is what you have:

And as we listened to the playback after the last take, we heard new - what Xenakis had envisioned and that no one had ever heard before. An amazing moment.

In Telegraphic, multiple takes of each part looped and blended in a certain way - and presto - humans that don’t need to breathe (that’s evolution!) - with a similar result.

This is pretty common way of working for me these days, no tools are left unused in the pursuit of an interesting sonic experience, and occasionally something new.

Hands-On Music Series - Free Events & Workshops at PVCC

The music department at Paradise Valley Community College is pleased to present a new series of hands-on and interactive musical opportunities for students, staff and members of the community. All events in this series are FREE and only require an interest to learn something new and have fun. No Experience Necessary!


Tuesday Evenings: Afro-Latin Drum and Dance Workshops

6:30p-8:30p, KSC 1000A • June 16, 23, 30 â€¢ July 7, 14, 21

Learn to play and dance to the exciting rhythms and music from Cuba and Brazil.

All Drums will be provided. Featuring Guest artists Joe Goglia and Jesse Joaquin Parker.


Thursday Afternoons: Concerts with Faculty and Guests

11:00a-12:00p, Studio Theater/M-East Bldg

June 18: The Rattler Hot Jazz Orchestra

June 25: Paradise Winds (Location TBD)

July 2: PVCC Faculty Jazz Ensemble

July 9: Dr. Ashley Oakley, piano

July 16: Tribute to West Coast Jazz

July 23: GCC Guitar Ensmbles, under the direction of Chuck Hulihan

Concerts are family-friendly. Bring your lunch and enjoy the music!

June Events at PVCC - Two Theater Productions, Drum Workshops and Free Concerts


UNDER THE BED (a play for children and families).  DIRECTED BY CRAIG KOSNIK
June 11th and 12th at 11:00am, June 12th and 13th at 7:00pm, June 14th at 2:00pm.
Performances held in the Studio Theater/M-East Building, Seating is limited. $5 adults/seniors/staff/students/military; $2 children
Click HERE to purchase tickets 

Mo and Jo are staying with their Aunt Flo as their mom is on her honeymoon with the new man she has married.  Mo and Jo cannot fall asleep because they think that there is something (or someone) under the bed.  They hear strange sounds from under the bed.  They smell strange odors from under the bed.  That means that there must be something under the bed, right?  Suddenly, a Hot Water Bottle comes to life and tries to help the siblings go to sleep.  He suggests that they travel somewhere else so that they can escape whatever is under the bed.  In their travels, the trio visit Antarctica and meet a Spanish Penguin that recites poetry, and a Monkey in the South Seas.  Will they ever be able to fall asleep?  For all ages!

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY: AFRO-CUBAN DRUM AND DANCE WORKSHOP
June 16th, 6:30pm-8:30pm, KSC 1000A, Free Admission
Learn to play and dance to the exciting rhythms and music from Cuba and Brazil. 
All Drums will be provided. Featuring Guest artists Joe Goglia and Jesse Joaquin Parker

LUNCHTIME CONCERT SERIES: THE RATTLER HOT JAZZ ORCHESTRA
June 18th, 11:00am-12:00pm, Studio Theater/M-East Bldg, Free Admission
Local Phoenix Musicians Jordan Tompkins, Greg Lloyd, Kevin Bock, Eric Wells, and Josh Bennett invite you to enjoy the sounds of Traditional New Orleans Jazz with The Rattler Hot Jazz Orchestra! From classic Hot Jazz standards, to the music of Louis Armstrong, and even new popular songs RHJO brings the spirit of New Orleans to the Phoenix valley. So bring your friends and family and join us at Paradise Valley Community College on June 18th in the Black Box Theater as we celebrate the music that launched a new musical movement in America!

SPAMALOT (musical).  DIRECTED BY ANDREA ROBERTSON
June 19th, 20th, 26th, 27th @ 7:30pm. June 21st and 28th @ 2:00pm.
$15 adults; $12 seniors/staff; $10 students/military; $8 children

Click HERE to purchase tickets *4 additional ticket fee at the door 1hour prior to performance.
Lovingly ripped off from the classic film comedy MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, SPAMALOT retells the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and features a bevy of beautiful show girls, not to mention cows, killer rabbits, and French people. Did we mention the bevy of beautiful show girls?  The 2005 Broadway production won three Tony Awards, including "Best Musical," and received 14 Tony Award nominations.

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY: AFRO-CUBAN DRUM AND DANCE WORKSHOP
June 23rd, 6:30pm-8:30pm, KSC 1000A, Free Admission
Learn to play and dance to the exciting rhythms and music from Cuba and Brazil. 
All Drums will be provided. Featuring Guest artists Joe Goglia and Jesse Joaquin Parker

LUNCHTIME CONCERT SERIES: PARADISE WINDS
June 25th, 11:00am-12:00pm, Location is TBD, Free Admission
The Paradise Winds are a collection of artists presenting chamber music concerts, educational programs, benefits, fundraisers and community events in Greater Phoenix, AZ. The variety of artistry provides a diverse background of other specialties, but each artist appearing with the ensemble has accomplished great feats in music performance, research and education. The Paradise Winds represent the past, present and future of wind chamber music.

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY: AFRO-CUBAN DRUM AND DANCE WORKSHOP
June 30th, 6:30pm-8:30pm, KSC 1000A, Free Admission
Learn to play and dance to the exciting rhythms and music from Cuba and Brazil. 
All Drums will be provided. Featuring Guest artists Joe Goglia and Jesse Joaquin Parker 

For additional information about any of the listed events, please contact the Center for the Performing Arts Box Office at 602-787-7738 or email boxoffice@paradisevalley.edu.

Acts Creative Week 1 : Keith Kelly

Dr. Keith Kelly, Music Faculty, performing at the Center for Performing Arts

Dr. Keith Kelly, Music Faculty, performing at the Center for Performing Arts

My first week of consciously committing a creative act each day was spent mostly prone, recovering in my bed from hernia surgery.  What a way to start the summer!  Ha!!! So here are some thoughts, followed by some creative work.

C U R I O S I T Y  /  P E R S P E C T I V E
These two things guide my creative practice. "Why is that?  What is that?  How is that?" are questions that bounce around my mind all day.  When I find myself centering, focusing on the act of creation, the first step for me is to (re)discover something about which I'm curious.  As I start to develop why/what/how a thing/idea is, as I get sense for the "thingness" of a thing, the most obvious or most common version is the ledge I am trying to jump from.  If this is why/what/how of this thing, what elements change by shifting my perspective? 

In these moments of approach is where taste - vision - my attempt make the strange more visible - come to bear.  It is only the through turning the prism of thought/ideas/action that something is created; only in doing is the (new?) thing made real.  

W E E K  O N E 
Though I don't fancy myself to be a poet, especially given all of the great word-people I know, my first modality of expression was on paper.  These are three selections from what I did this week while laying in bed, looking out onto an unseasonably/unreasonably pleasant Phoenix May.

From time to time
Red western edges, 
Burnt corners of a tree,
Punched through with gray/blue circles.

Sounds gather closer as
The ice cream truck passes 
One last time.

Five kisses, night dada.

Birds call back and forth, 
A crescendo of clack-click-clack.
A tiny reminder of the seasons close.

Now green/black leaves, 
shadowed.  A slow lull of
Light, a sigh, a slow smile


Crust
Learning to love slowly -
to understand the way she is, how she cares,
what catches her eye, and how she breaks - is the only path available.

Her house was ruled by fire and
bits of that childhood smolder 
still - in the wild, remote corners.

When the burn takes over 
and a layer of char appears, 
what first sticks eventually lets go.  


Only after a rain
Nothing grows on the road.
It must be on the edges of certainty,
Someplace wild and dangerous.