Colorado’s Yonder Mountain String Band has taken a new, bolder form in the last two years. “New Yonder” is now a five-piece jam-grass band after Jeff Austin departed the group in 2014 — the band has since added Allie Kral (fiddle) and Jacob Joliff (mandolin). The band has eased its hesitant, long-time fans into the […]
Music
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Classical review: Pegasus marks Monteverdi’s 450th
Pegasus Early Music kicked off its 2017-18 concert season in grand style on Sunday, with a program featuring the madrigals and sacred song settings of Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi — widely considered the father of opera — marking his 450th birth year. The concert also featured instrumental music by his contemporaries Dario Castello, Biagio Marini, […]
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CLASSICAL | Greece Symphony Orchestra
This Sunday, the Greece Symphony Orchestra will be joined by not one, but two soloists in a wide-ranging concert of music that boasts broad appeal. Violinist Anyango Yarbo-Davenport (pictured), an Eastman School of Music alum, will be the headliner, playing Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. While that performance alone would merit attention, the program will also […]
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Album review: ‘Wildfire’
Madeleine McQueen “Wildfire” Self-released madeleinemcqueen.com Singer-songwriter Madeleine McQueen packs quite a wonderful wallop on her newest EP release, “Wildfire.” You can hear her strength and resolve over the disc’s entirety. McQueen has a heartbreaking belt and sustain, and here she sings spot-on and flexibly gentle with a voice that first caught me completely off guard […]
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METAL | Tyranitar
Self-proclaimed “bardic metal” trio Tyranitar sources its songwriting material from the most “metal” subject there is: world history. Sure, it’s hard not to love metal’s undying affinity for stoned wizards and metaphysical Satanism, but those topics can also be relatively low-hanging fruit from a creative standpoint. With lo-fi black metal theatrics shot through with folk […]
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Album review: ‘Around Your Neck’
Pink Elephant “Around Your Neck” Self-released pinkelephant.bandcamp.com Do you remember when the word “indie” meant independent of limits and associations and not a shortcut for calling something “weird”? If you don’t, then please let Rochester’s Pink Elephant explain by way of its new album, “Around Your Neck.” With just the right amount of chaos and […]
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ROCK | Hedersleben
I hated this band the minute I first heard it. Yup, hated it. Hedersleben was all prog-rock, opaque confusion; thinking man’s rock. It was worse than Emerson, Lake and Palmer. But I kept listening and was pleasantly surprised as the band ramped up the energy into Edgar Winter territory. It was then that I went […]
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JAZZ | ‘A Century of Jazz’
Known for her interpretations of the Great American Songbook, Rachelle Fleming (pictured) has performed with Fred Hersch, Shelly Berg, and Cuban ensemble Tiempo Libre. On Sunday night, Fleming joins pianist Tony Caramia as special guest for “A Century of Jazz: Celebrating the 100th Birthdays of Jazz Icons.” Turns out 1917 was a banner year for […]
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WORLD MUSIC | Sandcatchers
World Music has produced some unlikely and wonderful instrumental marriages, but few are as strange and beautiful as Yoshie Fruchter’s oud and Myk Freedman’s lap steel guitar. Add bassist Michael Bates and drummer Tim Keiper and you’ve got Sandcatchers. The band couldn’t be any tighter, and bandleader Fruchter’s tunes are as adventurous as they are […]
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SPECIAL EVENT | ‘Heroes: A Video Game Symphony’
A good soundtrack is key to a good video game — and just like in film, when a score is great, it can easily stand alone and is immediately recognizable. The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, over the last few seasons, has shown how well great video game soundtracks translate to the stage, with concerts tackling the […]
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Forty years on, The Dead Boys still loud and snotty
The late-1970’s was huge for punk as it raged against corporate rock and its own conception, and was blasted into the mainstream. Bands like Iggy and the Stooges, the New York Dolls, and the Ramones were getting picked up by major record labels, and the media began to notice. Amid a year of seminal album […]
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FUNK | Big Mean Sound Machine
Big Mean Sound Machine is back for its yearly Halloween costume bash, this time themed as “Cirque Du Big Mean.” The larger-than-life, instrumental band is artfully designed with multi-genre facets to keep the moving body going. In one measure, you’re dancing to Afrobeat; at the next, you’re swinging to Funk or Latin groove. This year, […]
