We were delighted to discover this recent review in Dance Magazine... it was such a blast working with Mathew Janczewski, ARENA Dances, and composer Michael Croswell!!

Click here to watch video footage of our collaboration with ARENA Dances.

Here are some pictures from the trip:

ALL the dancers:

JUST the girls:

Their ETHEL tattoos:

The whole gang:

 

ETHEL just returned from a week in The Netherlands, where we performed opening night at the Tromp Festival. What a thrill it was to reunite with our old friend Todd Rundgren!!!  We had so much fun revisiting old favorites like Soul Brother, Pretending to Care, and Black Maria... it was also exhilarating to play songs from Todd's latest album, Arena, for the first time. Many, many thanks to the brilliant Paul Brantley for his arrangements of Flamingo, Zen Archer, and Courage. It was wonderful to feel the enthusiasm and love coming from Todd's fans... great vibes all around!

We also made some fabulous new friends: percussionist Colin Currie and composer Steve Martland. Colin joined us on marimba for the world premiere of Steve Martland's piece, Starry Night. On the day of the show, Colin spontaneously offered to play drums on the Rundgren set!! Not only did he learn all the music in a matter of hours, but he performed it with power and flare. Colin is an amazingly dynamic and flexible musician - it was a joy working with him.

We also had a great time performing on VPRO (Dutch TV), and reconnecting with many of the wonderful friends and musicians that we met last June during TruckStop™ Mundial. Holland is certainly a great place for music and musicians!!! We look forward to our next visit...

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!!

Well... it has been a blast. What an amazing experience: all the sharing, learning, and laughing... the thrill of opening night... the warmth of the audience night after night. It has been a long, challenging, but deeply rewarding journey. Vivien Schweitzer writes a beautiful description of the show in the New York Times.

Our minds are spinning with memories of our work with each of our collaborators... our trips to Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico, and Hawaii... getting the whole group together with director Annie Dorsen for our residencies in New Hampshire, Maine, and New Jersey... the world premiere at StateTheatre, New Brunswick, NJ ...and, of course, our amazing run at BAM.

 Many, many thanks to Joe Melillo and everyone at BAM for their generous, supportive spirit. We will never forget this experience!!

There are so many people to thank... Dean Osborne, Robert Mirabal, Eva Ybarra, and Jeff Peterson, Annie Dorsen, Rachel Hauck, Kevin Hardy, Kate Howard, Dave Cook, Greg Tobler,  Daniel Eaton, Dominique Phelps, Mona Smith, Stephen Brackett, Jeff Markowitz, Kate Hefel, luckydave, Nicole Borelli Hearn, Jack Dunn, Steelgrass --Tony, Will and Emily Lydgate, Michele, ReBop and Todd Rundgren, Kauai Performing Arts Center, Church of the Pacific, Ron Pen and the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky, Ed Commons, Brad Becker and Red Barn Radio, Nick Lawrence and WUKY, Steve Shindle and Pam Wood, Nikos Pappas, Appalachian Association of Sacred Harp Singers, James Clark and LexArts, Jack and Patti Dunn and Mountain Top Music, Fryeburg Academy, Joseph Franklin and Chamber Music Albuquerque, Andrew Flack and Barbara Duff, Frances Rowell, Margaret Rowell, Andrew Fishman, Katie Pyott, Matt Matsuda, Norman Dorsen, Belinda Menchaca and Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, Tracey Schavone, KKCR, Scharff Weisberg Inc., the wonderful board of ETHEL's Foundation for the Arts, and all of our good friends in our TruckStop communities, whose loving support has made his project a reality.

We would also like to thank our funders:
American Music Center's Aaron Copland Fund for Music: Performing Ensembles Program and Recording Program, The Amphion Foundation, Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund, Arts International Fund for U.S. Artists, BMI Foundation, Inc., beyerdynamic, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Chamber Music America, James and Cornelia Deaderick, Molly Davies (Robinson Foundation), The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Double-R Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, The Murray Hidary Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, LEF Foundation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Meet the Composer's Creative Connections Program, Meet the Composer's JPMorganChase Regrant Program for Small Ensembles, The Multi-Arts Production Fund, A Program of Creative Capital Supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, and The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

ETHEL's TruckStop™:The Beginning was also made possible through the support of the StateTheatre, New Brunswick, NJ where it premiered on Sept 19, 2008.

And this is just "The Beginning..."
 

...by this recent craigslist posting. Many thanks to "anon" for including us on your list of cool things!!

Wanna go see Ethel at BAM?

I just bought these tickets to go see Ethel at BAM on Friday at 7:30. I was going to ask my usual suspects but I realized that I'm pretty sick of making their plans and paying for their tickets just because I'm the only who cares about doing fun stuff. Therefore, I want to buy tickets and make plans for someone new. That's you. I already bought the tickets, you don't have to pay me back.
If you're into Ethel, you might be awesome enough to hang out with me. I'm a grad student at NYU and I work doing some odd things like selling contemporary paintings at an art gallery in Chelsea and giving art tours to single people.
Here are some other things on my list:
Religulous at BAM (because oh my god it looks awesome)
The Duchess (I cannot resist period costumes)
Salome (but I missed it because I have class!!! Damn education!!!)
Morandi
Billy Elliot
The entire Ring Cycle (though Wagnerian opera overdoses are known to occur)
Anyway, I'm a really fun girl who gets really excited when things are awesome. I am going to describe myself as very feminine and flirty because I like alliteration and also because it's true. You are under no obligation to like me, though. You will just have to sit next to me and endure my excitation.
This is also not an obligation, but if you wanted to get a drink afterward I might be amenable to that. Provided you are not scary. Or socially retarded.

By Neil

WHAT TO EXPECT -

Not just a concert...

We want you, the audience, to experience the whole TruckStop™ process.  We want to share with you the joy and excitement of musical collaboration - what our director, Annie Dorsen, describes as, "that beautiful thing that happens with musicians - the sharing, the concentration on a common project, the 'giving into the center'..."

How will we attempt to bring this to you? We have created a theatrical production - the idea is basically that you have joined us in the studio for a recording session. We're bringing you behind the scenes to experience not just the finished product, but all of the steps in the creative journey. We won't be acting - we will actually be recording.

Our set is a recording studio, and we will have a sound engineer (Greg Tobler) on stage with us. When the red "recording" light goes on, we will play full takes of music that we composed back in June.  We wrote this music as a group (most of it is based on improvisation exercises that Annie led us through). We purposefully built some freedom and spontaneity  into the scores in order to preserve the feeling of "group creativity" that is so central to the TruckStop™ process. The structure and main material of each piece will stay the same from night to night, but aspects of timing and certain musical gestures will be different every night.

During the "recording" moments of the show Kate Howard will be projecting video images onto certain parts of the set. Kate has been recording footage of our working process since March. In Annie's words: "The video acts throughout the piece as a kind of roving eye, noticing moments of fleeting beauty in the workroom. The camera shows us compositions -- interactions between musicians, objects and spaces -- elements and perspectives that would otherwise go unnoticed. By lingering on these images, it encourages us, perhaps, to become aware of the beauty in common work, beauty which can be found in any room anywhere in which people come
together to share something they love."

When the "recording" light goes off, we will be talking, offering constructive criticism to each other, sharing knowledge, jamming, and playing for each other. These moments will offer a real glimpse into what I think of as the "building blocks" of any collaboration - the human relationships.

In the end that's what the show is about - human relationship. Joining in creativity is one of humanity's greatest gifts. Our show is a testament to the power of coming together. You are a crucial part of this - we look forward to seeing you at BAM!

Click here for more info about the show.

We just performed two shows here at the Grand Canyon Music Festival. Last night James Bilagody joined us for some new collaborative pieces. These were structured improvisations based on certain aspects of Navajo culture, such as inter-tribal pow wows and Navajo peyote ceremonies. Although we cannot understand the Navajo language, we respond to the emotion in James's voice. He also teaches us about the drumming patterns of the ceremonies, and we try to incorporate aspects of these into our music. James was our first TruckStop™ collaboration, and it is wonderful to continue working with him on a deeper level.

Hey everyone,

ETHEL's TruckStop™: Mundial @ Club Paradox.  Photo © Gert Gering.

We had a GREAT time in Holland.
Check out the latest pics in our Mundial photo album. 

It was such a pleasure to perform and create SO MUCH music...

by Carlo Mombelli: Bass Spirits, Wisdom Door, Trance by Chance, Theory,
     Mr. Batiss, Zambesi
by Simone Soul: Mulher que come terra
by Oleg Fateev: Tuesday Morning, Polegnala a Toedora
by Rutger Hoedemaekers: Joralemon Street, Let Bygones Be You, Tough Cookie
by John King: What Blues, Slow Smoke, Shuffle
by Evan Ziporyn: Be-In
by Mary & Neil: The Girl From Tilburg
by Ralph: Broken Buddha

We also performed some Light favorites (Lighthouse & Requiem)

AND the Dutch anthem ;)  on Brabant Journal News (click on "Journaal zaterdag")

One of the nights at Paradox, we were joined by local flamenco guitarist Maurice
Leenaarts, with whom we performed Pati, El Calor, and Rumba Alzapua.

It has been an incredible few weeks.  Special thanks to all of who helped
make ETHEL's TruckStop™: Mundial possible!

xo,
ETHEL

[Reposted from Neil's Blog:  Urban Modes]

Did we explain who Muzieklab is?  This wonderful group, who have brought us to
Holland and set us up in such style to do our favorite thing in the whole, wide world -
make music with brilliant, inspiring colleagues - is an old hand at doing pretty much
the same thing we have designed TruckStop™ to do.  They scout out and contact
musicians, at home and abroad, out of the blue, and invite them to participate in
collaborations with other musicians from different genres and communities, either
very spontaneously, for an afternoon or so, or in a true residency, like ours, lasting
a couple of weeks or more.  Their goal is to inspire, refresh, inform us (and thereby
our audiences) through such stimulus, and also potentially occasion some really
great art.

Our experience here, in their hands, will yield all of the above, I am quite confident. 
The rehearsals are transporting.  We are all stunned and energized.  ETHEL is as
happy as I have ever seen it and is seeing with clearer eyes.  This is such a gift
to us.  Such a privilege to be called on this way.  And it is clear that our collaborators
have found in us a medium they admire and delight in exploring.

We learned today that the presenters can put us all in the recording studio next week
several days before they had said initially.  We will be able to work in the studio most
of the week, so we hope to have a more representative selection of tracks from these
sessions to bring home and make available - maybe here, maybe through our new
licensing library.  It is beautiful stuff, never to be forgotten, but it is also "Time Based
Art".  Catching it, holding it and sharing it are an essential trick, another relationship,
and an art of its own.

xo,

Dorothy

We met Simone Soul today. Strong, gorgeous woman, about my height. Dreads and tattoo. Smart, resourceful, vibrant artist building her own career in Brazil - massively excited about this collaboration. She just completed a huge concert she produced herself in Sao Paolo involving 25 artists, and flew here via the UK, where she performed with her trio in London, Brighton, Leister and Birmingham. She did not bring a satchel full of compositions for us to share, but rather a stunning array of beautiful instruments and the most generous attitude about working with all the music we devise together. When she plays, she/s awe-inspiring. The music is growing so fast!! And there are 2 more collaborators coming on Sunday! Thank goodness a recording session has also been built into the schedule by the festival - the sound will be a-b-s-o-l- u-t-e-l-y indescribable. The combination of lengthy rehearsal time with multiple performances is perfect. The sound and the relationships will be well developed. Our ambition of creating a central, virtual ETHEL's TruckStop™ home is a timely one - a place to keep up the conversations, to share experiences and contacts, to bring artists and presenters together, to spread the news and facilitate the reach of music, ideas and resources. Many of our activities have parallels in these other worlds. Immersing ourselves in each others' communities allows us to identify common issues and goals much more clearly. We can be so helpful to each other!! This and our desire to create a recording/licensing library of these works may be among our most important and wonderful contributions. xo, Dorothy P.S. CLICK HERE to check out a slideshow of photos from June 6 taken by our host Gert Gering.

The travel day was surreal. I got up at 4 am to finish all the arrangements I need to make when
I travel (home life continuity, and all), got the family to our 6 yr.-old's birthday party by 11, took
presents home and rushed off to Lincoln Center for a 3 pm concert with the American Symphony
(which ran an hour longer than predicted), raced home again to pick up bags and meet ride to the
airport at 6:30. Picked up Ralph, was whisked through checkin at JFK by some sympathetic souls
at Delta, and made it to the gate an hour before flight time, just in time for the announcement that
the flight would be delayed by 4 hours. Finally boarded at 1 am. Arrived in Schipol at 2 pm the
next afternoon (around the same time as Neil's flight from Dublin), was met by our host Theo
Andriessen of Muzieklab, informed that Neil was not aboard scheduled flight. Waited for next
arrival from Dublin and drank coffee for 2 hours. Drove 1 1/2 hours through rush hour traffic to
Tilburg. Mary already seated, smiling, in sidewalk café in front of hotel. Shower, dinner, pass out....

Then, ETHEL's TruckStop™: Mundial, the first day....

We're off to a FABULOUS start!!!!! Gert Gering (also of Muzieklab) met us in front of our hotel,
the Mercure, at 10 am with our collaborator, South African bass player Carlo Mombelli and walked
us to our rehearsal space. We got right to work reading a handful of the 75 (!) charts Carlo brought
to choose from: "Zambesi", "Bass Spirit", "Theory" and one about an eccentric local man in
Johannesburg who used to drive around in a car which he'd half-filled with sand so he could
grow a palm tree which projected through the back window - each more delicious than the last.
We offered him parts to "Be-In" by Evan Ziporyn and "What Blues" by John King. When Theo
showed up and took us to morning coffee, we already felt we were floating in amazing material
and might really have trouble finding the chance to use enough of it.

Listening and learning and looking for his own space to contribute was our Dutch collaborator,
electronica artist/songwriter Rutger Hoedemakers, aka About. He began sampling the live sounds
of the rehearsal and discussing where it might be effective to add layers, loops, intros, transitions...
After lunch, which Gert brought in for us (such a great idea!), we charted out 2 of Rutger's songs,
"Joralemon Street" and "Let Bygones be You". He invited us to fully ETHELize them, and we
began by trying out different string colors. We also felt that "Let Bygones be You" particularly
invited treatment by our accordion artist from Moldavia, Oleg Fateev, who will join us on the
weekend. These resources, these creative individuals - the bass player, the electronica artist,
the accordion player and the Brazilian percussionist, Simone Soul, who will join us tomorrow evening,
blended with the string quartet make a vivid, breathtaking palette. This 2 week immersion will be
explosively, beautifully productive!!!

It really is going great....

All my love,
Dorothy