Thank you, audience!!

Here are some wonderful emails we received this week. It is so encouraging to hear such positive feedback from audience members!! Thanks to all who were there...

"Dear, inspiring ETHEL: How do and your fellow musicians on stage manage to sound like Nature, and at the same time like the human heart? The music was --- so real -- so --- like what I imagine the origins of music to be: why we play, why we sing. The audience was treated as you treat one another musically: with such respect and warmth, the inspiration going all ways, the boundaries non-existent, or if existing, there to clarify. Congratulations, you brilliant, talented and very brave souls!"

"I was struck, as soon as I walked into the hall, by how different this was from the usual new music environment. The informality of the set created an instant rapport with the audience. It was interesting, as I got my bearings (I'd been rushing around all day doing this & that in normal NY fashion), to realize that it wasn't just a matter of set dressing, but extended to the fact that you had a live recording studio on stage; that you were - in a way - trying to share with the audience the intimacy and the comfort level that can be established in that kind of creative environment. I think a lot of times in our little world "different" sometimes translates into "difficult" - but TruckStop was different in a wholly unfamiliar way, and I liked it! While I'm often the first on line for the most "out there" of avant-garde expression, it was really cool to see a group of people who could play with the best of that world try something that pushed boundaries without pushing people away. Perhaps best of all is how you dropped in avant-garde gestures in a way that made even the many moms & dads & kids in attendance feel like they could participate in the show on equal footing w/ the many downtown veterans and composers in the room. Finally, I feel like you figured out a way to cause a very disparate group to participate in and share a very similar experience. In a world of niches, there's something special about that."



"I have been thinking about your show - what you are doing and expressing. It occurred to me that you are expressing the new paradigm in your work. The shift in consciousness is the release from identity with form. Isn't this what you are doing in your "new music" - leaving empty space in which something new can arise from the creative potential...not fixed but flowing out. In this way we become vessels by which something higher can express itself, instead of forcing the form. How amazing! This is like what Gertrude Stein did to words and Picasso to the canvas. You are bringing people in to a whole new way of perceiving and living life. Bravo!!!!!!"

"Congrats, guys, on a great show! A wonderful community up there on stage with you - and the vibes were just so clear to the audience. Well done - you really clarified what Ethel is and does through this show. Never having seen an official "truck stop" I got a really good sense of it from this. So, congrats on the great show... I hope for many more!"

"What an amazing show last night. It was so inspiring: of course, musically, but also as a way to present a concert, and a way that is authentically you. I LOVED the musicians you chose, too. I was just knocked out. Again, I loved the show, the music and the spirit of show! There were things in the show that I am so interested in, mainly casualness, sharing of spirit, formal vs. informal, environment. So glad I was there to see you exploring your gifts and the gifts of your collaborators...buzzing still!"

Again... many, many thanks to all of our audience for the beautiful energy you brought to us!!