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Kelley Hollis
CODED: Rehearsal Week Reflections

What happens when you tell a story?

CODED: Rehearsal Week Reflections

Tony Woodcock, AFC fan!

We just came across an internet video of NEC's new president, Tony Woodcock. It is from "Global Entrepreneurship Week," which took place last November at Northeastern University. In the video, Tony speaks passionately about the need for musicians to abandon mindless specialization and enable themselves with a wide array of business skills, from marketing to fundraising to producing events. He speaks with special energy about A Far Cry, and I think you will enjoy clicking this link! Music Entrepreneurship and A Far Cry

Vacation Off-season for the Criers

When we're not playing together in A Far Cry, the members are doing a lot of different things around the world. Especially right now during the holidays, we're mostly in different states spending time with family. Sharon is at home in Israel, and if you've been watching the news, you know some of the crazy things that are happening there right now. Sharon just sent an e-mail to let us know what's going on, and while it feels dangerous, she's glad she can be with her family. Pretty soon she'll be starting to rehearse for a winter tour with Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. This is a group (the "other" orchestra in her life she tells us) of young Arab and Israeli musicians who have formed a really strong bond playing and living together. Barenboim says about it, "The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it. I'm not trying to convert the Arab members of the Divan to the Israeli point of view, and [I'm] not trying to convince the Israelis to the Arab point of view. But I want to - and unfortunately I am alone in this now that Edward died a few years ago - and...I'm trying to create a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives."

So pretty soon Sharon will be off to join her colleagues in this group, and it's uncertain what the climate will be like there with the threat of danger so close and real right now to all the musicians in the orchestra. Please keep her in your thoughts!

Happy Hannukah! Merry Christmas!

Warm wishes to everyone wherever you are spending the holidays! I am in snowy Boston, not snowed in, but snowed out of Portland, OR, where I was trying to fly yesterday.  I'm hoping to make it home by Christmas Day. Two nights ago Karl and I spent the first night of Hannukah at our friends Michal and Jonas' house where they lit the candle and sang with Michal's family in Mexico via Skype. It was so fun to be part of something that spanned a distance that big but felt very warm and close.

I hope everyone in our extended Far Cry family can be somewhere special to each person, whether it's Boston, Florida, Seattle, Vermont, Israel, Japan or New York City.  Merry Christmas with love!

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Full time criers, and our Duluth tour

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Our trip to Duluth was probably one of our most successful trips to a new town we've ever had! We flew over for two nights only- played in a performance class at University of Minnesota Duluth Music Department, then got to listen to their awesome unconducted string orchestra, and ended the day with a concert in Weber Music Hall- a very delightful hall with warm, flattering acoustics. We stayed the nights with some generous friends, and about half of us stayed with the Dotys (Karl's parents) who hosted us with the best of bedding, dining, and....... their Sauna! ____

Ever since I got back from Europe on September 21st we've been working 'round the clock non-stop. There were a few moments there where I almost forgot A Far Cry was not a full time orchestra! To be exact, just so you understand what I'm talking about, we've been working 9 out of these past 10 weeks strait. Yeah, ok, with one week off in the middle (in which all of us tried to do EVERYTHING else we'd been procrastinating...)

Hard work (and complaining) aside, it took me talking to a friend who lives on the other side of the Atlantic to realize that during this time we have played two Boston cycles of concerts, went on two tours, and recorded two CDs! Wow, that is really a lot. I can't believe we made it, but we did. I must say I am very proud of us to have done all this, and in such little time...

It's been a pleasure sharing our work with all of you: our Boston friends, our Montpelier VT dedicated audiences, friends in Milton and in Quincy, our new friends in Duluth MN; our soloists Karen, Hyunah, Humanwine and David, and our wind players who've joined us for the recording with David; our recording honorary crier Jesse and our producers Don, Terry and Roger; organizations we've worked with such as Bikes not Bombs, the MSPCC, Axiom Gallery, NEC, ENC, Longy, the English High School... So many generous creative and warm people who've shared their time and talents with us! Thank you!

Now we finally have some time to wind down, do some other things, see some other people (like our families and our other friends), maybe play in other groups or focus on our own playing for a while, as well as get things ready behind the scenes for our next cycles in the spring, and our 3rd season of '09-10'. Please keep in touch with us over the winter, and stay warm, wherever you are. Best wishes!

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Finishing up "Fabric"

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We just played three concerts in three days - first, our Jamaica Plain debut at the English High School was a great event. Representatives from The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC) and Bikes Not Bombs spoke eloquently and passionately about their organizations, and A Far Cry donated 100% of ticket revenue to the two wonderful area non-profits. Next, we returned to Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge. A wonderful acoustic and an enthusiastic audience greeted A Far Cry, as we were joined by clarinetist David Singer in concert for the first time. We performed Copland's Clarinet Concerto again yesterday at St. Paul's Church in Brookline, and it is really cooking! Which is a good thing, since David and A Far Cry are bringing the Copland to the recording studio later today to finish up a CD of clarinet concertos. Robert Aldridge's Clarinet Concerto, a world premiere recording of a piece written specifically for David Singer, is already "in the can"!

Did you hear A Far Cry over the last couple of days? Please leave a comment to let us know what you thought!

Strings Magazine

Strings Magazine LogoStrings Magazine is one of the premiere magazines for stringed instrument players, makers, and enthusiasts in the United States, and we've caught their attention. Here's a short piece on A Far Cry's recently-established partnership with New England Conservatory. The Strings article slightly overstates the partnership (we're traveling, recording, and establishing a home in Jamaica Plain on our own) but the publicity is wonderful and greatly appreciated! The last sentence is the best: A Far Cry is the subject of an upcoming feature in Strings magazine.

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Criers at the Axiom Gallery Thursday

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A Far Cry has just confirmed with Heidi Kayser (Director at the Axiom Gallery, which is an art gallery that is adjacently attached to the Green Street T-station) for Sharon, Courtenay and I (Jae) to play there free for all commuters & bystanders from 5:15pm-6:00pm tomorrow. It is to mainly advertise for our benefit concert on the 7th of November to help Bike Not Bombs and Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC), two outstanding non-profits we're partnering with to further our case in creating social harmony, right here in JP! Axiom is also a collective that features emerging artists in new media that's been getting a lot of attention since its reopening in 2007. Check out their website here: www.axiomart.org

They just began a new exhibition starting last Friday by Andrew Neumann, so we hope to attract a few of those commuter heading in/out of the T around that time who'd stop into check out the new exhibit and to find out more about our benefit concert. If you find yourself riding the Orange Line through Jamaica Plain tomorrow, please stop in and say hello!

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