When Czech conductor Rafael Schächter was imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp during World War II, one of the musical scores he brought with him was Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem.
There’s a gruesome and paradoxical brilliance at work here, instrumental and heavily automated music blasting with humanity and spontaneity, cerebral but soulful.
Tyler Grant has a National Flatpicking Championship under his belt, solo releases and a resume stacked with names of artists he’s worked with. Yet, even through his successes during his time in mythical Nashville, Tenn., the guitarist was always waiting for a chance to start something new.
“This evening in the deep twilight we went to the palace where Queen Mary lived and loved,” he wrote in a letter home that also included a musical sketch. “The adjacent chapel has lost its roof; grass and ivy grow thickly within; and on the broken altar Mary was crowned Queen of Scotland.
A couple of years removed from her successful duo tour with Celeste Krenz, singer/songwriter Rebecca Folsom returns to a Boulder stage this weekend with a new CD, her first in four years and her ninth overall. Why not?
To put it mildly, Nonpoint went through a major transition heading into its seventh album when it replaced two band members — guitarist Zach Broadrick and bassist Ken “KB” MacMillan — with three new recruits, lead guitarist Dave Lizzio, rhythm guitarist Rasheed Thomas and bassist Adam Wolosyzn.
Calexico’s John Convertino was fielding questions from the media recently; we were his last interview that day, but also at least his second interview prepping the Boulder market for the Tucson-based outfit’s upcoming Fox Theatre gig. The first one caught him a little off-guard.
In 2010, three U.S.-based jazz musicians, trumpeter Christian Scott, vibraphonist Stefon Harris, and tenor saxaphonist David Sánchez, traveled to Cuba to meet with local musicians and make an album. What they found was something both familiar and foreign.
Most iconic rock bands from the 1970s, at least those that lasted long enough to still cast a visible shadow 30 or 40 years downstream, can usually be defined by neatly circumscribed periods, whether as a result of personnel changes, commercial ascendency or artistic evolution.