Shani Schechter, Michelle Horvath; Photo: Catechism

Join the Dead Superheroes Orchestra at Reggie’s Rock Club on Wednesday, February 29, 2012. We will be performing works from our new song cycle, “Beyond the farthest star.”  Sioum, Bridges of Königsberg, and The Paver perform as well.

For now, enjoy some live footage:

“What would it take (to re-create a human being)?”
- Live at Martyrs’ in Chicago.  October 12, 2011

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPoLUTTCEoA

Celebrate Halloween with the Dead Superheroes Orchestra
and punk rock legend Hugh Cornwell (of the Stranglers)
and Clem Burke (of Blondie)

Get $6 off the ticket price for tonight’s show!

If you need some motivation to finish your Halloween Costume for tonight, here it is….$6 off the regular price ticket of $18. Print your coupon HERE. Limit one coupon per customer.

About the show

The Dead Superheroes Orchestra will be opening for Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers and Clem Burke of Blondie this Halloween at Reggie’s Rock Club in Chicago. We’ll be dressing up like the dead to celebrate the holiday, premiering new music and performing with our full instrumental ensemble, including string quintet and harp! There will be a costume contest with a $200 cash prize, Glitter Guts photobooth and performances by The Handcuffs and Happy Hunting.

Details

The Dead Superheroes Orchestra
Opening for Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers w/ Clem Burke of Blondie
Monday, October 31, 2011
Doors at 8pm; Show at 8:30pm
Reggie’s Rock Club
2109 South State St
Chicago, IL
$18, 17+

Tickets available at http://www.ticketfly.com/event/55479/

Today! Radio Interview on WLUW

Tune in to WLUW 88.7 in Chicago at noon today for an interview with our singer, Mark, and harpist, Michelle. Don’t miss this broadcast, which will feature a preview of our studio recording of “Vexed” and more. The broadcast starts at noon Central time. 88.7 FM Chicago or http://wluw.org.

Friday, October 28 – Club Anything in Milwaukee

The Dead Superheroes Orchestra
DJs Scary Lady Sarah and William Faith
Milwaukee Ballet

Join us for this fundraiser for the Milwaukee Ballet ~ 21+

Journey into the strange and mysterious world of Theatre of the Vampires at Club Anything…

Mingle with performers from The Milwaukee Ballet’s production of “Dracula” and experience a vision of the Vampire world including absinthe, live music featuring the Dead Superhero’s Orchestra, roll players and fire dancing! The Elixir Lounge and Absintherie will be open especially for this event. Your entry includes one free absinthe courtesy of Milwaukee’s own Amerique 1912 Absinthe. A portion of your ticket price benefits Milwaukee Ballet.

Sponsored by Milwaukee Ballet and the Great Lakes Distillery

Tickets available at http://www.elektrotrash.com/

Opening for Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers and Clem Burke of Blondie

Celebrate Halloween with a punk rock legend and the former lead singer of The Stranglers…HUGH CORNWELL, Clem Burke (Blondie) on drums
The Handcuffs – The Dead Superheroes Orchestra – happy hunting
Dead Rockstar Costume Contest and a photobooth by Glitter Guts!

Doors @ 8PM – Show @ 8:30
Tickets $15 in adv. – $18 at the door
17+
Get your tickets here: http://ticketf.ly/nFL2zS

Purchase tickets online at Ticketweb.com and get a free copy of our EP “The Last Superhero”.

Sunny Shadows and Counterfeit i open.  DJ Scary Lady Sarah spins goth and shoegaze starting at 8pm and in between bands.

RSVP on Facebook

Piccolo Theater's Comedy of Errors

I wrote music for Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors”, which is being produced by Piccolo Theater and was directed by Christopher Marino.  The show opens on September 9 and runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Music will be performed live by members of the Dead Superheroes Orchestra, including myself on piano.  More information is available on Piccolo Theater’s website.

The music for the show is performed by 4 musicians, using accordion, flute, synthesizers, violin, percussion and theremin.  While writing, I sought to emulate the styles of cabaret, circus and gypsy music, while adding in quite a bit of Baroque and Classical style.  The play is filled with quirky waltzes, Baroque recitative-like accompaniment, and a show-stopping cabaret parody of Caccini’s “Amarilli, mia bella”. Below is a video of an exceptional traditional performance of that song.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG0Hqi8BQYM

Writing music for a straight play is quite a different thing than what I’ve become accustomed to with the Dead Superheroes Orchestra.  I have taken on such projects in the past, writing for productions of Shakespeare’s “Winter’s Tale” and Brecht’s “Gallileo”, as well as an adaptation of Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”.  The main difference, and what I found quite troubling this time around, is writing short pieces to be played either under speeches or during scene changes.  Generally, these are vamps or riffs that last 4 to 12 bars and are repeated as necessary. I’ve grown accustomed to composing longer pieces, as those for DSO, which last 4 to 6 minutes and have an extensive ensemble to orchestrate for.  It was a challenge to cut back for this show.  I ended up writing probably about 20 different pieces, each lasting about 2 minutes.  In the end, we scaled that back to maybe 10 ideas that are used throughout the show, with three larger pieces lasting maybe 3 minutes each.  Additionally, it took me some time to come to terms with the styles that Christopher Marino was hoping to incorporate into the show.  Looking back on what I wrote and what I’ve written for previous shows and for DSO, I realize that I mostly struggled with this maybe because I was in denial that someone was actually hiring me to write music in the styles that I generally turn to for inspiration.

The play is in previews now and is shaping up to be hilarious, very unique and enchanting.  Since we have live musicians, we’ve been able to underscore things on the fly during rehearsals, using either the material that I wrote or even simpler things, like a sustained violin note.  The rehearsals and performance feel very vaudevillian at points, with the actors sometimes actually cueing the band to play something under their speeches, or the musicians reacting to an impulse to add underscoring to a scene that didn’t have set music before.

I included some homages to some of my favorite classical pieces and styles.  There’s a parody of Beethoven’s piano sonata “Pathetique”, the aforementioned “Amarilli, mia bella”, some twelve tone passages and some short quotes of Berg and imitations of Mozart. I also made an effort to take some cues from Emilie Autumn’s song “Opheliac” for the arrangement of “Amarilli”, using the harpsichord and making the arrangement somewhat through-composed, aside from the chord progression and melody.  The result is a hilariously lewd song that, through gratuitous instrumentation, reaches a climax point with a little Mozartian style bombast.

The show runs through October 22 at the Main Street Arts Depot in Evanston, IL.

Shani Shechter; Photo by Rodger Ruzanka

Join us on September 14 at Beat Kitchen in Chicago for a 17+ show.  Sunny Shadows and Counterfeit i open.  DJ Scary Lady Sarah spins between sets.  This will be our first performance with electric harp.

Tickets are available on ticketweb.com.

THE DEAD SUPERHEROES ORCHESTRA
SUNNY SHADOWS
COUNTERFEIT I
DJ SCARY LADY SARAH
Doors: 7:30 pm | Show: 8:00 pm
Tickets: $10.00 | 17 & Over

Shani Schechter Photo: Julia Groves

Our performance at the Abbey on July 29, 2011 is a featured event in the Chicago Reader!  You can read the copy on the Reader’s website here:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/dead-superheroes-orchestra-my-cold-dead-hand-we-are-hex-djs-scary-lady-sarah-and-william-faith/Event?oid=4297399

One thing that they didn’t mention is that we’re giving away copies of our EP, “The Last Superhero”, to the first 15 people who purchase tickets online.  Buy a ticket from Ticketfly.com and you’ll get a CD when you arrive at the Abbey tomorrow night.

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.