I’ve had the privilege of seeing three completely different and breath-taking musical performances in the last week which would be a shame not to share with you. So, without further ado:
1. Last Friday, we caught the School of Seven Bells at Bowery, a trio that features the Guatemalan-born identical twin sisters, Alejandra and Claudia Deheza alongside Benjamin Curtis, formerly of Secret Machines. Their album Alpinisms has been a favorite all year since it came out, but the live performance is stunning — tight compositions with the pixie-sized Dehezas adding layers of undulating dynamic voice. See them in person if you have the chance.
2. On Sunday I had the pleasure of hearing an accoustic performance of Adron Parnassum in our friends’ Ben and James’ living room. She is, “a girl slash company who makes healthy melodic tropical music and pictures.” That healthy melodic tropical music is a set of tunes whose delicacy will unravel you; she uses her guitar and voice as instruments of percussion and sound effect in addition to the tunes she plays on the fingerboard. From time-to-time she plays in the city, but check her myspace page for live performances elsewhere.
3. And then last night, I had the privilege of seeing the amazing Max Zbiral-Teller, national hammer dulcimer champion, perform one of his five dulcimers in friend Zach’s apartment. Aside from the only other hammer dulcimer I heard having been played by a man in the 42nd St. subway station, Max is outright phenomenal on this instrument, which sounds partway between a harp, a piano, a cello, and a drum. He explained that he’s been playing since he was 7, and played us a series of pieces inspired by Senegalese music and sound — where he’d gone to study their left-right separate hand-drumming a few years back. He’ll be performing Friday night at 8 p.m. at the Chelsea Art Museum alongside a cellist and is well worth a trip out thre to see. See him performing here on youtube.
