Sub Family Residency – Sweet Clementines / Hudson Valley String Quartet / Kryptonian Halo
SubFamily at the Beverly, Volume 3
The Sweet Clementines
Hudson Valley String Quartet
(Selections from Beethoven’s Early and Late Quartets)
Kryptonian Halo
(feat. Brian Dewan, Scott Petito, David Garland, Ross Goldstein, Rodney Greenblat)
Friday, January 17
8:00 p.m.
$10
The Beverly, 224 Foxhall Avenue
Kingston, NY
Contact: Team@Subfamilyrecords.com
A slacker baroque rock band with neurological issues; a virtuoso string quartet paying tribute to the undisputed master of the string quartet; and an electronic improvisational collective of heavyweight music professionals.
The Hudson valley micro-label SubFamily Records tosses an odd salad for the third volume of its residency at the Beverly in Kingston. Said event curator John Burdick of the Sweet Clementines, “I know it sounds like we’re trying to make a point about all music being one, but that wasn’t the way I was thinking about it. I just really want to drag a string a quartet into a music club and see what happens. I wanted an interesting and escalating progression with a rock band at the end.
“The people in Kryptonian Halo are all master players and composers, but in this project, they focus on a lucid, low-ego, air-clearing variety of electronic improvisation. I think it is wrong to portray it as ‘mere’ ambient or environmental music, as it really rewards your attention, but it makes for a heightened, transformative beginning to an evening. Not to get too new agey, but you’ll know you’re stepping into a different space, and that is healthy and fun. The ‘enchanted VFW’ vibe of the Beverly’s large music room is perfect for it.”
Kryptonian Halo is followed by the Hudson Valley String Quartet performing selections from Beethoven’s early and late quartets. “I cringe,” Burdick says, “every time I hear someone calling classical music ‘relaxing, soothing, chill.’ Are we listening to the same thing? Classical music, to me is the ultimate in tension, dynamics, emotional extremes, and surprise. And Beethoven’s string quartets are pinnacle music. It takes formidable skill to even approach this material, and the Hudson Valley String Quartet crushes it. This is a high level ensemble led by our friend the virtuoso violinist Marka Young. Beethoven’s late quartets–12 through the 16, the ones he wrote while almost completely deaf–are a patch of my very favorite music ever, and I was thrilled to see that the HVSQ will be taking on a movement from no. 12. If you are alive, you will be riveted, arrested, stopped in your tracks by this stuff.”
SubFamily Records elders The Sweet Clementines then perform from their large pile of “injured middle-age prog pop” (Langweilige Brillanz XII, May, 2018). “Without making any qualitative claims here, I have always seen this band as belonging to a kind of ruffian classical music tradition,” says Burdick. “So many bands in the post-Radiohead age intuitively understand what Krytptonian Halo is doing—inherently visual music, sound as matter and color, developing in tactile layers. The Sweet Clementines play a music that strikes me, at least, as kind of “street classical,” in the old sense, with a real emphasis on line, counterpoint and depressive irony. We’re not a sonics or a visual arts band in the modern way at all.”
Kryptonian Halo 8:00 p.m.
Kryptonian Halo began as “Mellotron Monday,” a collective of local notables from multiple musical disciplines performing a euphonious, listener-friendly improvised electronic music at 8:00 a.m on Mondays at the HiLo in Catskill. While low-ego ensemble values are the whole point of Kryptonian Halo, its members have much to boast of, individually.
–The songwriter, music historian, instrument designer, and artist Brain Dewan has composed the music for the Blue Man Group, designed iconic album covers for They Might Be Giants and Neutral Milk Hotel, released several critically acclaimed collections of original songs, and co-designed the Dewanatron line of boutique analog synthesizers.
–As a producer and a bassist, NRS Studio owner Scott Petito has traversed the landscape of popular music—a member of the Fugs; an in-demand jazz and rock producer and engineer working with the likes of John Scofield, Chris Potter, Keith Richards, James Taylor, and more; and an ace player who currently heads up a series of high end local tribute shows featuring the very best of the local player pool. Petito’s 2018 collection of original compositions Rainbow Gravity featured Jack DeJohnette, Peter Erskine, David Sancious, Omar Hakim, etc.
http://www.scottpetitoproductions.com/
–Composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, critic and long running WNYC DJ (Spinning on Air), David Garland has collaborated with Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Sufjan Stevens, John Zorn, Meredith Monk, and many more. His most recent work includes the sprawling 4-CD 2018 masterwork Verdancy, reviewed here by John Burdick of the Sweet Clementines: https://hudsonvalleyone.com/2018/03/29/david-garlands-revelatory-new-release-verdancy/
https://davidgarland.bandcamp.com
–A prolific songwriter, composer and visual artist, Ross Goldstein is equally at home with lush, and complex psychedelic pop and ambient soundtracks. For the former check out 2017’s Inverted Jenny; for the latter, 2018’s The Eighth House.
https://rossgoldstein.bandcamp.com
— Rodney Greenblat is a visionary artist, designer, and writer who has been making whimsical colourful artwork for over thirty years. In addition to his contribution to the New York art scene, he has designed album covers and video game characters and worlds.
http://www.whimsyload.com
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Hudson Valley String Quartet 9:00 p.m.
https://hudsonvalleystringquartet.com/
The Hudson Valley String Quartet is dedicated to bringing great string quartet literature to the Hudson Valley’s local concert scene – performing in concert series, fundraising events, house concerts, and sometimes in venues where you’d least expect us.
Marka Young, Violin
Marka performs as the Assistant Concertmaster of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic and is Concertmaster of the Northern Dutchess Symphony Orchestra. She also performs with the Rebel Baroque Orchestra and American Classical Orchestra. Ms. Young holds a Doctorate and Master of music from SUNY Stony Brook and a BA from Sarah Lawrence College. She maintains a large class of violin students in the Mid-Hudson Region. MarkaYoungViolin.com
David Fiedler, Violin
David attended Juilliard Pre-College and College where he was a student of Ivan Galamian. After graduating he joined the South Dakota Symphony as concertmaster, and the Dakota String Quartet as first violinist. He has performed in the violin sections of the Dayton Philharmonic, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and Minnesota Orchestra. Concerto appearances include performances of the Mendelssohn and Beethoven concertos, Brahms Double Concerto with the South Dakota Symphony, and Mozart Concerto no. 5 with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. He is currently on the faculties of SUNY Dutchess and SUNY Ulster.
Lauren Buono, Viola
Lauren plays with the Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Hudson Opera Theater Orchestra, and previously was principal viola for the Northern Dutchess Symphony Orchestra. She teaches in the Monroe-Woodbury school district, and has a class of private violin and viola students. Ms. Buono received her Bachelor degree at Ithaca College and completed the Masters studies in chamber music performance at San Francisco Conservatory
Jeanne Fox, Cello
Jeanne is currently principal cello for the Hudson Opera Theater Orchestra and is a sub with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. She has performed as principal cellist with the Northern Dutchess Symphony and Woodstock Symphony Orchestras. An avid Chamber Music performer, she previously performed with the Hudson Valley Piano Trio and the Arioso Piano Trio. Ms. Fox teaches at SUNY Dutchess and has a large class of private cello students. She is a film music consultant by day with extensive film and television credits, and holds performance degrees from Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School. JeanneFoxMusic.com
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Sweet Clementines 10:00 p.m.
www.thesweetclementines.bandcamp.com
The eccentric (sm)art-pop quintet The Sweet Clementines is led by songwriter/guitarist and music critic John Burdick. Somewhere between Brahms and a shambolic pop classicism, unafraid of either “J” word (jazz or jam), The Sweet Clementines augment traditional rock instrumentation with vibraphones, violins, sophisticated vocal counterpoint and electronic accents, all in support of a huge body of evocative and elegant songs. Four years after though it were the kiss of death raised the band’s profile in upstate New York, earning critical raves, extensive airplay on independent radio, and prestige bookings throughout the region, the New Paltz-based band released the more rocking and mean-spirited Lake Victoria in 2016, prompting Chronogram to remark, “that the Sweet Clementines are still not signed to a national record label is just criminal.”