TOMORROW is the night! On 5/24 @ 7:30pm Duo Noire is playing a full program of commissioned works by brilliant women composers for the NYC Classical Guitar Society. It’s at the Diller Quaile School of Music. Be there! (at The Diller-Quaile School of Music, Inc.)
Tonight’s the night! Duo Noire is premiering THREE incredible new pieces at UC Santa Cruz’s April in Santa Cruz Festival! Joining us on stage will be our friends “backing tracks,” “slide guitar,” and “spoons???!” :-p #gityrazaz #gabriellasmith #marykouyoumdjian #classicalmusic #newmusic #classicalguitar (at UC Santa Cruz)
I had an amazing time performing in Philadelphia with soprano Alicia Hall Moran after a panel discussion on the book “The Meaning of Michelle” (Obama). It was about Michelle Obama’s impact on multiple writers and the panel featured essayists Veronica Chambers, Benilde Little, Alicia Hall Moran, & Damon Young and was broadcast nationally on CSPAN’s Book TV. It was an honor to be among such great company.
As a performer, you are a curator of culture. You choose which composers get lifted up, and whether or not they should all be men. It is an awesome responsibility. Recently, a lot of brilliant people have trusted me to convey their most personal and sincere musical thoughts. And so, to kick things off, Duo Noire is headed to St. Louis to premiere new works written for us by the truly inspiring composer/performers Clarice Assad and Dr. Courtney Bryan. We’ve been working SO hard because they’ve written the music we’ve always wanted to play. I hope the wider guitar world will embrace it. Amen. HERE WE GO! #courtneybryan #clariceassad #stl #classicalguitar #duonoire
The Songs of War. Playing a wonderful concert with wonderful friends Emily Kalish and Sun Young Chang as part of a musical reflection on the OSilas Gallery’s exhibition of World War posters at Concordia College NY.
At Avaloch Farm Music Institute performing excerpts from Clarice Assad’s fantastic new piece written for Duo Noire. Can’t wait to premiere this in its entirety!
Giddy after having my first jazz guitar lesson with the amazing musician/human Rale Micic. Gotta “open up my ears” and “build a vocabulary.” Baby steps. #neverstoplearning #jazz #buyhisalbum
Duo Noire had a blast @ Juilliard for our dear friend Raymond Lustig’s composition class. We performed some of Ray’s “Figments” from our album of his music and talked about composing for the guitar with an absolutely wonderful group of adult students. Good times!
What a glorious day to walk Manhattan with the organ works of Bach as a soundtrack. #photography #nyc #snow #nature
“I have made this mistake many times. I have played things that are not playable. You know, trying to prove that I could play more notes than other guitarists could. And then, at one point, you realize that “really, is that so important for me to show?” As you get older, at least for me, it’s much more about the beauty.
At the very beginning, it was the sound of the guitar. Then at one point, you realize that it’s more than the sound, that there’s music that’s even more interesting… But then you realize at one point that there is another level, it can become art.
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