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Tag: Dan Bruce

New Composers Collective Lays Down the Law at Bop Stop

Third Law CollectiveWhat’s the second-most exciting day in a composer’s life? The day of the first performance of a new piece, of course. So, what’s the most exciting day? The day of the second performance. World premieres are exciting, but many compositions are heard once and then disappear. A second performance confers a bit of staying power.

This is especially true in the concert music world, but composers of creative music in the Black American tradition face many of the same challenges in bringing their work to the stage. Enter The Third Law Collective, a gathering of local composer/players whose project to present and support new composition in northeast Ohio gets underway Jan. 26 at Bop Stop.

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Alla Boara Presents a Bella Figura at Friday’s Album Release Celebration

Alla Boara

Drummer Anthony Taddeo finished his graduate degree from Youngstown State University in 2020, but he won’t hand in his final project until Friday night.

True, Le Tre Sorelle, the new CD by his band Alla Boara, wasn’t exactly a class assignment, and as capstone research projects go, this one is more joyous than the average academic paper. Yet the CD, which will be celebrated Friday at an album release party at Bop Stop, is the culmination of a long period of study, research, writing and interrogation into Taddeo’s Italian roots.

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Giant Step: Akron’s Rubber City Festival Returns to Live Performance

 

Right now, the northeast Ohio creative music scene is like the parent of a toddler walking barefoot in the dark trying to cross the room not knowing where the Legos might be. What will the size of audiences be like? What will they be willing to spend when inflation is eating away at buying power? How will ongoing health concerns play out?

For a multiday event at several venues, the peril increases. Still, if you’re looking for a music event that has bounce-back written all over it, Akron’s Rubber City Jazz and Blues Festival has to be the one.

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Smash! Stephen Philip Harvey and His Band of Superheroes Are Here

Stephen Philip Harvey

 

“I hate that a big band is so . . . big,” saxophonist, composer and arranger Stephen Philip Harvey said with a chuckle. “It’s financially a problem, but I just really like big band music.”

Harvey likes it so much that he’s putting aside the financial, organizational and logistical challenges of touring with a big band to bring the Stephen Philip Harvey Jazz Orchestra (SPHJO) to Cleveland’s Bop Stop Thursday night to support the release two weeks ago of the band’s debut recording, Smash! (Next Level, 2022).

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Dan Bruce’s :beta collective Minds The Mystics with a Free CD Release Concert

Dan Bruce :beta collective

In Eastern philosophical systems, time isn’t linear as we think of it in the West. It’s an endlessly looping circle. Musicians can appreciate this concept better than most of us, on and off the bandstand.

Consider guitarist Dan Bruce, who will celebrate the release of Time to Mind the Mystics, the new recording by his ensemble :beta collective with a free concert at Negative Space on Thursday.

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