Cornelia Street Cafe Announces 21st Century Schizoid Music & More

In May 1977 three artists--Robin Hirsch, a writer and director; Charles McKenna, an actor; and Raphaela Pivetta, a visual artist--stumbled across a tiny storefront on Cornelia Street in the heart of Greenwich Village and thought it the perfect place to open a café. For two months they scraped and sanded, plumbed and plastered, and did the intricate dance one does with the authorities who live beyond the Village, and on the weekend of July 4, 1977, mirabile dictu, they opened the Cornelia Street Café.

It was from the beginning an artists' café. Within a month there were poetry readings and music performances; and then a tiny play written for the café; and fiction writers; and Eskimo poetry; and puppeteers; and a living portrait of James Joyce; and the Four Quartets and the entire Iliad; and mime shows on the street outside the café; and comedians; and fairy tales and storytellers and Punch and Judy shows.

This Week At Cornelia Street Cafe

Mon Mar 22
8:30PM 21ST CENTURY SCHIZOID MUSIC PRESENTS: PHIL FRIED
(Phil Fried; Anna Brandsoy; Jill Dawe)
Phil Fried: composer, performer, improvisor, blogger, writer, humorist, educator - not necessarily in that order.
Phil comes from a noted musical family. His father, Louis Fried, was an original cast member in several Broadway shows including Brigadoon and Carousel. His cousin was the noted composer Isadore Freed. Second to music is Phil's passionate interest in literature. He has written several texts and librettos including the text for his opera, The Dungeon of Esmeralda, and an adaptation of Hemingway's short story, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." In 2006 he received a Centennial Commission from the Minnesota Orchestra. He was a 2008 McKnight Foundation Fellow grantee. Most recently Phil became the composer in residence and core member for Opera Bob, a new music collaborative in Minnesota.

As a Jazz musician, Phil was a founding member of the New York Artists Collective. Performing with Ray Nance was his first professional jazz experience in the 1970's. He has performed all over the United States. More info: http://philfried.com and http://Operabob.org

Anna Brandsoy's recent operatic roles include Mimi (La Bohème), the Governess (The Turn of the Screw), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Elle (La Voix Humaine), Giulietta (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Lady Billows (Albert Herring), and Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos). She spent two summers training and performing in Europe, the first at the world-famous Mozarteum and the second in the Tyrolean region of Austria, and holds a D.M.A. in voice performance from the University of Minnesota. This summer, she performed at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in "Opera Bob's" premiere show, Secret's Revealed! In addition to opera, Ms. Brandsoy is an avid recitalist, recently featured in Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs, a new arrangement of Maurice Ravel's Scheherezade, and as the soprano soloist in Poulenc's Gloria with Exultate Orchestra. Dedicated to the performance of new music, she has had the pleasure of premiering several of Phil Fried's pieces.

Jill Dawe is a native of Newfoundland and a graduate of Eastman School of Music. Active as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher, she lives and works in the Twin Cities and is an associate professor of music at Augsburg College in Minneapolis.

Tonight's performance represents the many sides of Phil as a free improvisor and as a composer. Along with improvisation I present three different styles of my notated vocal music; my Operas and complete song cycles are not included.
Serious and serial songs
Cabaret songs in popular style
Humorous Arias composed in the style of other composers.

"After working 10 years on my opera The Snow's of Kilimanjaro I was in the mood for funny.

I found my voice as a solo instrumentalist performing on an upright electric bass. The sound is amplified/unamplified, processed/unprocessed, and mixed via touch and foot pedals in real time. The "soundscapes" I create are explore many angles of experimental music. My approach is non tonal, as in my composed music, but its effect is more intimate and personal. It was critical for me that my first explorations into non-extended tonal materials were with jazz music. I have come full circle and have returned to improvisation after the careful study of composed music and classical string bass technique." -Phil Fried
Frank J. Oteri, host. Cover $10

Tue Mar 23
8:30PM THE FULL METAL BLUES BAND
(Vince di Mura, piano; Dré di Mura, guitar; Antar Goodwin, bass)
The Full Metal Blues Band, headed by father and son team, Vince and , bring their hard edge blues sounds to the Cornelia Street Cafe' on Tuesday night, March 23rd at 8:30 PM.
Vince di Mura is a veteran jazz pianist, arranger and musical director. As a prolific and in demand composer, he has collaborated with artists all over the world including poets Willie Perdomo and Yusef Kounyakaa. His 3 CDs, "Imperfect Balance," "A Darker Shade of Romance," and "For Lost Words," are available at CDBaby.com as well as many other internet outlets. He is currently the musical consultant for the Theatre and Dance Departments at Princeton University and the resident arranger for Summerwind Productions; for whom he co-created "My Way; A Tribute to the Music of Frank Sinatra." The theatre revue was the most produced show in the country during the last 10 years.

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