watch Olga Bell play in MAST Brothers Chocolate Factory (and Friday as part of American Songbook in the Penthouse)
Watch Olga Bell, who released a great solo album in 2016, perform older song “Suerte Loca” on location at MAST Brothers Chocolate Factory in Brooklyn, in the video above. Catch the Chairlift/Dirty Projectors collaborator this Friday (3/25) live in NYC as part of American Songbook‘s mini series at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse.
Here are the details again on all six shows in this week’s series:
American Songbook in the Penthouse,
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, Rose Building, 165 West 65th Street, 10th Floor
Wednesday, March 22, 2017, 8:00 pm
Joan Shelley
With timeless vocal purity and an Appalachian poet’s soul, Kentucky native Joan Shelley has held audiences rapt everywhere from Nashville to New York by way of Newport. With roots in the American and British folk revival, her serenely evocative songs don’t tell stories as much as they paint pictures. Her most recent album, Over and Even, was called “one of the most beautiful releases of the year” by NPR Music and “as compelling a record as that genre has seen” (Pitchfork). During this intimate evening of song, Shelley invites us into a world of limitless beauty.
Tickets $40Thursday, March 23, 2017, 8:00 pm
Julian & Leon Fleisher: The Man I Love
Pianist, pedagogue, and Kennedy Center Honoree Leon Fleisher is one of the greatest classical musicians of our time. His son, Julian, is a singer, songwriter, and pillar of the downtown New York theater and music scenes, alongside friends like Bridget Everett [Justin Vivian Bond], Kiki & Herb, Ana Gasteyer, and Gabriel Kahane. The younger Fleisher’s shows, often performed with his Rather Big Band, are famous for cutting across a vast swath of popular song with brio. Tonight, father and son continue a moving musical dialogue that they began with their critically acclaimed first public performance together at The Public Theater in 2015.
Tickets $40Friday, March 24, 2017, 8:00 pm
Olga Bell
With “grand compositional ambitions and a dynamic voice,” Olga Bell is a beacon from the “adventurous edge of pop” (The New York Times). Born in Russia and raised in Alaska, Bell trained as a classical pianist while simultaneously immersing herself in the music of Radiohead, Björk, and the formative canon of ’90s hip-hop. A collaborator with Brooklyn bands Chairlift and Dirty Projectors, Bell has earned acclaim for her set of solo albums that include 2014’s Krai, an electro-acoustic evocation of Russian hinterlands, and last year’s Tempo, a deconstruction of New York club music that was named one of the best Pop/R&B albums of 2016 by Pitchfork. With each outing, she creates an entirely new sound world, delighting in bending, magnifying, and flipping familiar musical tropes. Given free reign over the Kaplan Penthouse for one evening, Bell offers us an intimate glimpse of her creative reach.
Tickets $40Monday, March 27, 2017, 8:00 pm
Matt Gould & Griffin Matthews
Songwriters/performers/activists Griffin Matthews are one of the New York musical theater scene’s most closely watched creative teams. Their award-winning documentary musical, Witness Uganda (aka Invisible Thread), started life as a 20-minute benefit show for the pair’s Uganda Project charity before being transformed into a full-length musical directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus. With high-energy, power pop melodies in the vein of Rent and Spring Awakening, infectious African rhythms, and an uplifting tale about the complexity of cultural connection, the show released “gale-force waves of faith, hope and love” (Time Out New York). For this concert, the pair come together for an evening of music and storytelling made with plenty of heart and soul.
Tickets $40Tuesday, March 28, 2017, 8:00 pm
The Cactus Blossoms
With their breakthrough album You’re Dreaming, the charismatic Minneapolis-born brothers behind The Cactus Blossoms—Page Burkum and Jack Torrey—burst onto the scene with a collection of timeless original songs featuring brilliant hand-in-glove, blood harmonies that recall the golden era of early country-and-western acts like the Everly Brothers. In residence for one evening at the Kaplan Penthouse, the Cactus Blossoms showcase their “honest, unvarnished, completely engaging” songs (American Songwriter), evoking a mood that transcends genre.
Tickets $40Wednesday, March 29, 2017, 8:00 pm
Ruby Amanfu
“Nashville’s next indie star” (Billboard) holds court for one night only at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse. With a remarkable vocal range that seamlessly goes from trembling vibrato to gospel fervor, the singer-songwriter is probably best known for her powerhouse vocals that appeared on Jack White’s single “Love Interruption,” as well as guesting on several tracks on his two solo albums, Blunderbuss and Lazaretto. She has also lent vocals to Beyoncé’s Lemonade, dueted with Alabama Shakes’s Brittany Howard, and collaborated with artists Sara Bareilles, Ben Folds, and Hozier, among others. Amanfu broke out in 2016 with a “star-making moment” (Rolling Stone) at the Newport Folk Festival and her “magnetic” 2016 debut album (NPR), Standing Still (Thirty Tigers/Rival & Co), an intrepid collection of covers that takes on Brandi Carlile, Woody Guthrie, and Kanye West, and more.
Tickets $40
