Jul

17

LPR Presents at Manhattan Inn: Piano As… LPR Presents at Manhattan Inn: Piano As…

with Ian Axness, Elizabeth and the Catapult, Akie Bermiss, Taka Kigawa, piano, Ex-Reyes & Lacrymosa

Sun July 17th, 2016

8:00PM

Manhattan Inn

Minimum Age: 21+

Doors Open: 7:30PM

Show Time: 8:00PM

event description event description

A concert honoring the piano and the many ways we listen to and look at it, featuring performances from a diverse group of NYC musicians ranging in genres from classical, to R&B, to pop and beyond. Each artist has imagined a metaphor to illustrate their performance on the keys: piano as night sky, piano as playground, piano as choir . . . Selections will include original compositions, covers, and classics.
 
Featured artists:
Jerome Ellis, Akie Bermiss, David Jahn, Ian Axness, Julia Easterlin, Ex Reyes, Kris Bowers, Lacrymosa, Taka Kigawa, Special Guest Elizabeth and the Catapult, and more!
 
This is a free event at Manhattan Inn

the artists the artists

7

Julia Easterlin

Julia Easterlin official site | Julia Easterlin on Facebook | Julia Easterlin on Twitter

I’m from Georgia. My family is made up of educators, community organizers, artists and travelers from many different places – Japan, Sri Lanka, France, peanut fields in the south. My grandmother is AH-mazingly awesome. My two sisters are smart and funny. My mother and father are generous and hard working people who love their home, eat good food, drink cheap wine and read great books.

My mother sings, and so when I was young I sang with her. My grandfathers gave me an orchard and a piano; I started harvesting nuts from trees and playing music. My older sister took ballet classes, so I started, too. My father made bows and arrows in our back yard, so I learned to hunt. My cousins tied me to trees and put frogs on my head, so I learned to be tolerant of slimy green things.

When I was about 6, we moved to the BIG CITY (!) of Augusta, GA (I’m sure you’ve heard all about it). All the wonders of the world were contained in this one place – a huge library! multiple stoplights! playgrounds galore! AND a truly excellent school of fine arts, where I learned about West African dance, American Jazz, Spanish literature, and traditional Afro-Cuban music, among billions of other things I don’t have space to list.

From the doors of that school, I was thrust out into the world and landed in several new places performing, giving clinics, and recording music. In L.A., I performed at a TED conference and recorded at Capitol Records. In Chicago, I took the stage with my band at Lollapalooza 2011. In New York, I worked the circuit at CMJ and again in Austin at SXSW. In Miami, I was recognized by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. In Boston, someone convinced me to go to college and study music technology. In Cannes, I rented a flat and sang at the MIDEM conference. In Havana, I collaborated with Cuban performers to premier a piece at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. In Tibet, I climbed mountains in the Himalayas, until I got so sick and stranded that the American Embassy in Kathmandu had to send an emergency rescue helicopter to save me. I would like a redo!

I made it out alive, and now I’m living in New York, playing with sound loops and gadgets, singing loudly, excited to present new music when it’s ready. I’ve also been watching a lot of Björk interviews from the 90s and burying my head in historical fiction.

Anyone who tells you I’m some kind of magically gifted, irresponsibly talented, shockingly beautiful, unearthly creature bound for the stars probably just owes me a favor. BUT I hope they say it loudly.

Ian Axness

I am a collaborative piano player, based in Brooklyn,

containing multitudes,
including (but not limited to)
the Dramatic,
the Improvised,
the Semi-Improvised,
the Feel-Good,
the Classical,
the Sight-read,
the Great American Songbook,
the Deconstructed and Reimagined,
the Hastily Rehearsed,
and the Tasteful Underscore.

Elizabeth and the Catapult

Elizabeth & the Catapult official site | Elizabeth & the Catapult on Twitter | Elizabeth & the Catapult on Instagram | Elizabeth & the Catapult on Faceebook

Elizabeth Ziman, who performs as Elizabeth and the Catapult, is a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter from New York, living and working in Brooklyn. She’s toured​ with the likes of Sara Bareilles​ and Kishi Bashi; collaborated with Esperanza Spalding, Gillian Welch, Blake Mills​ and ​Ben Folds; scored, with Paul Brill, a variety of international award-winning documentaries including Trapped, a Peabody winner; and won the 2015 Independent Music Award for Songwriting, Folk category. Her songs have been featured in national television campaigns for Google, Amazon, Sky TV, and “​So You Think You Can Dance”​. 

Always writing, Elizabeth has narrowed her vast collection of previously unrecorded material down to her fourth full-length studio album KEEPSAKE, produced by Dan Molad (Lucius) and featuring collaborations with Richard Swift (The Shins). KEEPSAKE is her most personal and cohesive recordyet, comprised of both upbeat and sentimental songs, many of which came to her in dreams. The album was produced by Dan Molad and Peter Lalish (Lucius), featuring performances from Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Antony and the Johnsons, Joan as Policewoman) and Richard Swift (The Shins)

Akie Bermiss

Akie Bermiss official site | Akie Bermiss on Twitter | Akie Bermiss on Facebook

Akie Bermiss is a Brooklyn native raised by former-activists in a musical household full of jazz and politics. He began singing in church, moved it to school for a while, and then took it up as a career.

Since graduating from Bard College in 2005, he has moved back to New York City and made a name for himself with his signature sound – a voice that blends R&B, Jazz, Hip Hop, and Funk effortlessly. Akie has unique skills in composing and songwriting, and, not least, great ability to work with and enhance the sounds of other musicians and singers.

He is currently playing with the Brooklyn based FutureSoul band Aabaraki, the Screaming Headless Torsos, Miri Ben-Ari (the Hip Hop Violinist), Rap sensation Soul Khan, and also working with his own band, the Akie Bermiss Trio.

We can honestly say that this full blood musician brings soul and musicianship of the highest caliber to each one of his projects, plus he is actually quite the comedian…

Taka Kigawa, piano

Taka Kigawa official site
 
Taka Kigawa’s solo recitals at (Le) Poisson Rouge over the last few years have all been resounding successes, receiving enormous critical acclaim from critics and audiences alike. His recital there in August 2010 was chosen as one of the best concerts of the year by The New York Times, and his August 2011 recital was chosen by Musical America as one of the most notable concerts in the first half of the 2011-2012 season.
 
Mr. Kigawa has been praised by The New York Times as “Phenomenon, there’s no denying that he is something special. A pianist with a thoroughly contemporary sensibility,” and his program for this recital showcases his specialty: significant modern and contemporary compositions that succeed in challenging and expanding the piano’s boundaries. Hailed by The New Yorker as “a pianist admired for his command of the most formidable contemporary scores,” Kigawa will perform Images, Books I and II by Claude Debussy, who opened the door to modern/contemporary music in the early twentieth century; Marco Stroppa’s Traiettoria… deviate for piano and live electronics, one of the most demanding late 20th century compositions for pianist and computer engineer (the live electronics will be performed by Rafael Valle); and Tristan Murail’s Territoires de l’oubli, created with the composer’s spectral music concept, and a masterpiece in the contemporary solo piano repertoire.
 
Taka Kigawa has steadily built his reputation as one of today’s most compelling young artists, renowned as much for his superb musicianship as for his courageous programming. Since winning First Prize in the 1990 Japan Music Foundation Competition in Tokyo, and the 1998 Diploma Prize at Concurs Internacional Maria Canals De Barcelona in Spain, he has performed extensively both as a recitalist and soloist with orchestra in many prestigious venues all over the world, including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Kosciuszko Foundation, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Cité de la Musique and Salle Gaveau in Paris, and Plau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona. He has collaborated closely with such renowned musicians as Pierre Boulez, Myung-Whun Chung and Jonathan Nott, to name a few. Also he premiered the last solo piano piece of the late Yusef Lateef in New York City in 2013. His performances and recordings have been broadcast over many television and radio networks, including WQXR-FM in New York. Mr. Kigawa received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Shinsyu University in Japan, and continued his studies in New York at The Juilliard School, where he holds a Master of Music degree.

Ex-Reyes

Ex Reyes is the psych-soul sound of in demand session musician, songwriter, & producer Mikey Freedom Hart.
It is a project based around musical community and the spark of collaboration–the inevitable result of many hours spent with talented friends in unlikely places.

Ex Reyes’ smooth falsetto and stacks of harmony float over tracks that evoke the subtle sophistication of the Beach Boys, the weirdness of psychedelic-era Temptations or Delia Derbyshire, the free freneticism of dancehall, and the superb oddity of synth-soaked dollar records, distilling all of that into songs about real shit–sometimes bittersweet, some good news, some bad news.

DO SOMETHING EP, Ex Reyes self-released his debut EP online in Fall 2016 to a warm reception from friends and even some people Mikey didn’t already know. It is songs from Hart’s stockpile of music he makes in hotel rooms, sheds, and proper studios all over the world–from Africa to New Orleans, Japan to Scandinavia–while touring the world as a top-tier session musician, sideman, and collaborator to a wide variety of artists such as Bleachers / Jack Antonoff, Santigold, The Cranberries, A$AP Rocky, Mike D, Albert Hammond Jr., Adam Green, Portugal. The Man, Sinkane, Dam Funk, and more.

The EP spent a month or so in the top 30 of college radio, garnering rotation on KCRW, BBC 6 and BBC 1, among others. The song Keeping U in Line has been played over a million times on Spotify and it along with a number of other songs from the EP made the Billboard viral charts. He went on a full U.S. tour opening for How to Dress Well and also music-directing and playing in the How to Dress Well band. This made him a bit tired.

He’s been voted as the Deli Magazine’s Best Of in some category but he doesn’t know who is doing the voting, or what it means. He suspects his brother, David.

Ex Reyes released 3 self-made, self-produced videos that play with the ideas of inner and urban space. These videos are real good. He’s proud of them, he told me so.

In January 2017, he released an original song + video called Blame Me with Amazon.

Ex Reyes is the place where Hart can put together a world of sound the way it appears to him, building from the classic Wrecking Crew style of 60s records, applying an entirely modern production style, and talk about the world as it washes up on his shores.

His lyrics seek to find the one small point on the map that can open up an entire world; it’s crying while you’re laughing, being on an overnight flight and forgetting the name of the destination, the bittersweet numbness of watching the sun come up after a night out and still resisting sleep.

 
Ex-Reyes on Facebook
Ex-Reyes on Soundcloud
Ex-Reyes on Twitter
Ex-Reyes on Instagram

Lacrymosa

Lacrymosa on facebook | Lacrymosa on soundcloud
 
Lacrymosa is Caitlin Pasko — weaver of dreamy elegiac music for voice and piano. Musically her songs drift and float like the work of Satie or Debussy. Lyrically they’re clear, simple meditations on tenderness and heartbreak. Pasko’s style is built on this tension: between the looseness of the Impressionists and the simplicity of modern songwriters. There is something of Bjork’s ‘Vulnicura’ here, of Sufjan Stevens’ ‘Carrie and Lowell’, and of Angel Olsen’s intimate minimalism.

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