Summer 2014
Direct from Capstone Production's HQ's in beautiful downtown Balmville, NY, we bring you the long awaited first post of 2014.
Thankfully, Summer has arrived and we are enjoying all the pleasures of the Hudson Valley, which seems impossibly green this year, owing I assume, to all the moisture from the snowy Winter and the wet and cool Spring we had in these parts.
Part of the enjoyment has been in attending concerts by John Pizzarelli, Eddie Izzard, Adam Nussbaum and assorted other events here in our area. John P and his Quartet were magnificent at the Town Crier in Beacon. If you've never seen John live and in person, go! In addition to his amazing musical talent, his patter and affable demeanor are as good as it gets...funny and never corny.
I'll be conducting the Rochester Philharmonic July 3/4. I'm very pleased to have been asked and the program includes a lot of fun music...1812 Overture, of course and a pice by my old friend Jim Beckel, "Liberty For All"...in addition to works by Mancini, Hamlisch, John Williams, Alan Silvestri,
Sousa, Percy Faith and to top it off...Tommy Newsom's arrangement of "Strike Up The Band", written for Buddy Rich. (On that one, I'll be playing drums.)
Concert in Hackettstown, NJ on July 12th at Centenary College...Tribute to Gene Krupa. Great band and featuring vocalist Amy London. We'll be doing some Krupa tunes that we haven't performed before, such as "Melody in F" as well as music from the movie "The Gene Krupa Story" and Quincy Jone's charts from the classic album GK did in 1956, "Drummer Man". Cincy native Amy London will be singing some Anita O'Day tunes as well as some Nelson Riddle/Rosemary Clooney charts, in honor of her hometown favorite.
End of July finds me at the Green Music Center with the Santa Rosa Pops, performing a concert with Mariachi Sol de Mexico. Should be an exciting evening of the best in Mariachi Music and some Orchestral faves like "Andalusia" and Overture from "Man of La Mancha".
Looking forward to upcoming concerts with Byron Stripling, Haven Burton, Cady Huffman, Karen Mason, Carmen Bradford, Lisanne Lyons, Tony Babino, Five By Design, The Music of John Williams as well as Holiday concerts and ABBA Tribute.
Krupa date in Seattle area in October...booking more gigs around that one so I'll have that info next time for all. Looking forward to working with my good friends from the Seattle music scene. They're great and they know how to swing and have a good time.
OK, that's it for now. Enjoy all the Summer has to offer and keep in touch.
Best,
Mike B
