We’re releasing a new EP on July 29, 2011 at the Abbey Pub! The 3 song collection is titled “The Last Superhero”. It will include “The Year Before I turned 13″, “Welcome to our Forgotten Town”, and “The Last Superhero”. The songs are complimentary to those on our first EP, “I’ll spend my nights in the graveyard”, they tell the tale of an angel and a boy who comes back from the dead.
The EP will be available for purchase on iTunes next week. We’ll have a limited number of CD copies at the performance on July 29. For the time being, however, you can preview the EP right here.
The Dead Superheroes Orchestra
With singers from Golosá
My Cold Dead Hand
We are Hex
The Pirate Twins (DJ Scary Lady Sarah and William Faith)
Fri, July 29, 2011
Doors: 8:30 pm / Show: 9:30 pm
The Abbey
Chicago, IL
$8.00 in advance, $10 at the Door
Purchase tickets at http://www.ticketfly.com/
21+
We’re returning to Chicago’s Abbey Pub on Friday, July 29, 2011. Joining us for our set are 20 singers from Chicago’s Russian Folk Choir, Golosá. This will be our first Chicago show with our new cellist, Sarah Zilonis, and violist, Madeleine Walsh and pianist Renee Serritella. John Sturm from the Walking Shadows will be joining us on drums. We’ll be premiering new songs and we’ll have a new EP available for sale.
Also on the bill are Chicago’s goth/shoegazers My Cold Dead Hand, and Indy Indie rockers We are Hex. DJ Scary Lady Sarah and William Faith will spin between sets and after the show.
On May 7, 2011, I performed a cycle of songs by Alban Berg at the University of Chicago’s New Music Ensemble concert. The exceptionally talented Nathan Harris accompanied me on piano. We prepared the pieces with lessons and coaching sessions with Jo Rodenburg, Patrice Michaels, Dana Brown and the director of the New Music Ensemble, Barbara Schubert. The performance was recorded, and I’ve posted recordings below.
We had about 2 weeks to put the pieces together. I had previously performed the first piece in the cycle with another great pianist at the University of Chicago named Paul Wang. Nathan and I had about 5 rehearsals, a masterclass with Patrice and Dana, a lesson with Jo, a coaching session with Patrice and a coaching with Barbara all within about 18 days. During that same time, I was busy rehearsing music for a Medieval liturgical play, performing as soloist for a performance of Bach’s St. John Passion at Rockefeller Chapel and a performance of Alice Parker’s “Melodious Accord”, writing arrangements for The Dead Superheroes Orchestra, practicing with the Walking Shadows and teaching piano lessons, as well as singing with the Rockefeller Chapel Choir for regular rehearsals and services. It was one of those magical times where you have no idea what day it is and your ears are so fatigued from singing 13th century, 20th century, 17th century and 19th century music that everything might as well be atonal. It was also one of those times where each rehearsal, performance and lesson was revelatory, providing new knowledge about music making and singing. Read more
I met with a theater director last evening to discuss writing music for a production of Shakespeare’s “A comedy of errors”. He contacted me via Facebook, saying that he was taken with DSO’s music and that he would like to work with me.
After spending the last few months emailing venues and talent buyers, often receiving rejections and ridiculous offers (one talent buyer denied us a show at a theater but offered us one at a taqueria), it was a relief to talk to someone who wasn’t puffing up about ticket sales and “draw”. We talked about our artistic pursuits and sensibilities and our shared interest in gothic horror, carnivals and cabaret. “Dracula”, “Frankenstein” and Sopor Aeternus came up several times during the conversation.
One of the more intriguing things we discussed was Butoh, a form of physical performance that originated in Japan. According to the wikipedia entry on the subject:
Butoh (舞踏, Butō?) is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the Ankoku-Butoh (暗黒舞踏, ankoku butō?) movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion, with or without an audience. There is no set style, and it may be purely conceptual with no movement at all. Its origins have been attributed to Japanese dance legends Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno.
I hope that we’ll be able to work on the production of “A comedy of errors,” or if not, I hope we’ll be able to work on something that involves Butoh (or Sopor Aeternus!).
The Dead Superheroes Orchestra brings electrified violins, viola, cello, and virtuosic rock quartet to perform gothic chamber rock oratorio at South Barrington’s Penny Road Pub. Walking Shadows (Chicago) headlines; w/ Grace Kulp (Chicago).
We’re in the process of rebuilding our website now. This wordpress site will suffice until we find the time to code and design something proper.
We moved to a new rehearsal space in March. Our new headquarters overlooks the greenish brown southern branch of the Chicago River, midway between the former Czech (now Mexican, soon to be bourgeois) ghetto of Pilsen and Chinatown, in a weathered room of an old lumber warehouse. We’ve spent the last two months rebuilding our repertoire and planning to record an album this summer. We immersed ourselves in the tale of “Frankenstein”, Thursday Night Horror Movies, the music of Bach, Berg, Beethoven, Ayumi Hamasaki and German expressionism. In what seemed like the longest winter of all, we set out to tell a story about a girl who becomes a monster; a monster that breaks the world in twain.
I’ve started work on a story for a second rock opera, tentatively called “Violet”. I’ve wanted to write a show loosely based on “Pinocchio” for a couple of years now, with a darker, magical perspective. The idea of an artificial person is somehow deeply resonant with being alive in the digital age. Read more
