Kevin Olusola MC '11, beatboxer and cellist, just won NBC's "The Sing-Off" with his group Pentatonix on the show's season finale Nov. 28.
The a cappella group requested Kevin join them in the competition after hearing his beatboxing. Sadly, Kevin could not also assist the Whiffenpoofs, who could not generate the necessary appeal to advance on the show.
Check out the Pentatonix performing a cover of Florence And the Machine's "Dog Days Are Over" on the show's semi-finals.
But even more impressive than this televised victory is Kevin's cello, vocal and beatbox single "Void of a Legend" with Antoinette Costa.
So I am slightly annoyed (this may or may not be understatement)
I am annoyed (slightly) because.
1)I have to write a piece for carillon (the big bells in Harkness) for my composition class. While originally I thought Cool, I get to write for bells! That’s awesome! I must be frank. This assignment is kiiiiind of driving me insane. The bells just keep ringing and ringing; you never get to write in rests; and the dissonance just keeps piling up. To add insult to injury, the assignment itself requires a ton of weird harmonies and a disturbing amount of repetition. (I never want to read the sentence “You must demonstrate a high degree of motivic coherence!” again.) I am a failure of a composer because I can’t get this to sound even halfway good, and I am days behind.
2)The carilloneur in my class for whom we’re all writing is having her orchestra piece played tonight 8 p.m. by YSO alongside Beethoven. The concert’s title “Beethoven and Cooley” satirically juxtaposes the two composers. Of course, you’d go to a concert and hear both of them! Unfair.
3)I just listened to the piece, and pairing Ludwig Van Beethoven with Emily Cooley PC ’12 might not actually be so outrageous.
SO I’M MAD!
Anyway, of course you should go to this. YSO is amazing this year for any of you who were not at the Halloween show. The Beethoven pieces include Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, which features Mia Nishikawa JE’ 14 on piano and Michael Li PC ’12 as conductor and Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major.
Emily’s piece “Render and Reach” varies a theme making ample use of the different orchestral instruments and smooth yet colourful modulation.
The piece opens with music one might expect to hear at a wonderous ballet or fairy tale dance production as the music creatively varies off a theme, but the piece then goes minor and adds post-Wagner and film score elements, building slowly. Emily then adds small spurts of melodic material in different instruments in a quasi-minimalist fashion that starts to lose me a little, especially when it comes back later in the piece. The piece modulates back to major, blending chords and pleasantly overlapping melodies.
The next section of the six-minute piece is characterized by upbeat rhythmic sections that open with a tapping, percussive sound and quickly incorporate drum kit. The upbeat melodic sections that go with the drum rhythms are underlined with legato re-representations of the theme, which spiral up into a big crash of power only experienced and fully appreciated in orchestras.
Throughout the piece, Emily makes effective use of horns to blare the melody and add emotional impetus. During the minimalistic sections with more sporadic melody lines, the flutes are instrumental in adding continuity with steadily rising harmonies. High, repeated notes in the strings bring back a modified theme and the horns come in to finish for a finale, a grand instrumental flourish.
Fantastic. (damnit)
So yeah. Tickets are $2-$5 for students and $10-15 for non-Yalies. Go. I would, but I have to finish this (and another) piece.
The Rain Brigade, the newly named version of "The Black Marias," is opening for the YSO Halloween show tonight at 10:45 in Woolsey. So be sure to get there on time.
The Rain Brigade at Fall Fest
After them Jamestown, The First Town in America, or their "economically unstable alter-ego" Ghost Town, The Deadest Town in America will play. Which will it be??
What is spookier than having your parents here during Halloween weekend?
Spooky music with your parents, perhaps?
This weekend, bands are giving two musical frightshows back-to-back and costumes are encouraged.
internet photo
First tonight at 10pm it’s The Keep Calm(preparing you for a scarry weekend with your family by reminding you of their name….) and A Streetcar Named Funk at Sigma Chi, 33 Lynwood Place. Sig Chi just became my favourite frat. Thanks, bros for supporting our music scene, bra.
From "Boys in Briefs"
The Keep Calm goes on at 10pm. The band features Alexander Bae BR ’14 (vocals, guitar, piano), John Cocco JE ’14 (drums), Kenneth Crouch ’14 (bass), and Ishan Sinha BR ’14 (guitar).
Their chill sound, fun riffs and collegiate lyrics are bound to leave calming melodies ringing in your heads for the duration of the weekend. Fweewwh.
A Streetcar Named Funk will bust out four fresh, original songs within a 12-song set as it takes the stage at 10:45. The band features some talented solo musicians; we’ll see how they all come together.
Michael Blume ’12 (vocals), Nathan Prillaman JE ’13 (bass), Andi Zhou JE ’13 (keys), Zach Simao JE ’13 (drums), Will Moritz TC ’12, tenor saxophonist extraordinaire Alyssa Hasbrouck MC ’14 (alto sax...lol), Tim Gladding SY ’13 (euphonium), Grant Phelps JE ’14 (tenor sax), Nathaniel Meyer SY ’13 (trumpet) will take the stage.
Streetcar plays a halftime show (photo from Streetcar not mine)
Then tomorrow at 378 Crown, 9:30 pm, things are going to get really spooky.
Think a Halloween party + parents hosted by Ghost Town the Deadest Town in America.
Your Underbrook hosts are taking the stage tonight.
If you’re reading this, then you clearly value music on campus (or maybe you just think I’m cute and funny…or maybe I forced you to), so going to this show should be a matter of principle — of respect for the three individuals who have given you something to do with your Saturday night that enriches your musical side.
Principles aside you are clearly going to this show for its content as well.
Expect to hear your old favorite and plenty of new songs from the new album Nolan says is about halfway finished.
You already know that Plume Giantis amazing. So I don’t need to tell you how their well-crafted three-part vocal harmonies sustain and release tension so that you can almost taste the dissonances, how the high energy fiddle solos and well-grounded guitar parts move the songs effortlessly along, or how this campus loves Eliza, Nolan and Oliver as musicians, as patrons of the arts, and as people.
So I’m going to talk about Carline Smith and the Good Night Sleeps now.
This group is a lot of fun to listen to and a tasteful example of genre mixing. I’m not certain how their electronic and new wave aspects will translate to Underbrook’s setting, but the show should bring out their folkier elements. It’s clean, fun music that will keep you interested.
Bands go on at 8 in Saybrook entryway H. Don’t miss a second.
Great, because tonight you're going to be hearing a lot of them.
Underbrook Coffehouse is hosting two tree bands!
First, The Willow and the Builder, a folk band made up of Richard Miron BR '13 and Wesleyan's Adrian Simon, plus other Wesleyan instrumentalists and Yale singers. The band is releasing it's first album at the stroke of midnight on Oct. 10, but if you go to the show the band will give you a supersecret code to download the album free NOW.
After these budding trees show their stuff, NYC band Tall Trees will play. I went briefly to their website. I don't think I've ever heard anything folkier. Washboards and whistling. Oh man.
Underbrook Coffeehouse should be a fun time tonight. Just let yourself be a kid again and sing along about bubblegum and underwater teaparties. If you've been fasting, be sure to bring some change for coffee, tea and cookies—especially fitting for the youthful lyrics.
In case you can't handle all the tree-hugging, come to the tree free afterparty with Jamestown, The First Town in America at 342 Elm after the Coffeehouse (probably around 10).
If you're still up in the air about tonight's coffeehouse, here's a sneak peak.
The Willow & The Builder's album has some good tracks, but is overall hit or miss.
Richard Miron and Adrian Simon have without a doubt the most adorable band dynamic I have seen on this campus, so the coffeehouse is probably worth going to just for that.
I really like the song "Cut it Down," because it effectively weaves several different musical lines to create a musical scene of a tree reflecting off of water (see album cover). The rich, emotional viola part provides the substance of the song which the vocals later add to. The keys and drums pounding out chords and steady beats keep the piece moving forward and the listener engaged, while the flute adds interesting highlights.
Tracks such as "What's Next" and "A Vast Emptiness" (the title is fitting) use basic chord progressions, sparse textures, and soft vocals that make for a generally boring listening experience. "A Vast Emptiness" captures a different kind of listener with its storytelling style and voice. It feels like an interlude during a scene change of a musical puppet show. "What's Next" picks up a bit when the backup vocals enter.
Backup vocals are an essential component of one of the band's hits "Rosaline." It starts out a bit slow, but the full, soulful vocal lines and bluesy keys really iron out the harmonies. This song is going to sound fantastic tonight with such a big chorus.
Maeve: awesome, tree-loving vocalist
Yale singers tonight include (sorry I'm not up to putting in their class years today) Marina Keegan, Cuchulain Kelly, Tobias Kirchwey, Noah Kleinberg, Paul Leo, Anna Miller, Robert Ramaswamy, Maeve Ricaurte, Steph Rivkin, Chloe Sarbib, Grace Steig, Mary Stottele, Wan Joo Teo, Nine Tigers, and Sharif Youssef. The other instrumentalists are from Wesleyan, but Oliver Hill BR '12, one of Underbrook's co-hosts, will play viola for the band tonight. (I'd like to see even more strings in "Mansion Man" because the strings are easily the best part of the song and could be built up even more.)
Some of the tracks, such as Teahouse Treehouse, are really fun and creative. The joyful, childlike lyrics describing the treehouse "though it's really not that high, it's somewhere to go," with upbeat rhythms will put a smile on your face.
But this childlike cheer sometimes feels as if it goes too far. In "Oh Willow! (Why Wallow!)" the lyrics tell a story of a dream, an interesting principle. But during the dream, the cheery piano riff and exciting lyrics become cliché and tounge-in-cheek almost to the point where the listener feels like s/he is at the circus (not that there's anything wrong with circuses...). When the dream ends, the sadness that insues is also cliché (but at the other end of the spectrum.) Overall, it's a fun song with some creative and humorous images but a bit over the top. I'd like some unconventional chords thrown into the mix.
The most memorable song on the album for me is one I remember liking at lot in concert last year—"Heartache."
The sixtenth notes in the keyboard, dramatic chords, and emotional vocals bring power to the music that surpasses that of other tracks. Lyrics such as "heartache, don't come near me...longing, your days are numbered," present a vivid and very real emotional process: coping. The song also has a nice, punchy ending after some longer, sustained lines.
