Akropolis is on the move! Two weeks, nine states, nine events, and counting. Our travels continue to take us to some of the most fascinating places and enthusiastic audiences around the country.
View additional photos of Akropolis on tour, from elated fans to Motek the cat.
Our adventures began with a return trip to infamous San Jose, California. For avid Akropolis followers, it was in San Jose this past April where Matt tripped on a cable car rail in the street and broke his jaw (yikes!). You’ll be happy to know there were no casualties on our second visit, only exuberant attendees for a concert program filled with audience participation, electronics, and bird calls courtesy of works by John Steinmetz and Jacob TV.
After surviving San Jose, we headed north to Sonoma State University and Santa Rosa High School for two concurrent days of workshops with some young, up-and-coming musicians. Little did we know, Santa Rosa High School was the home of one of our favorite reed quintet composers and UM alumnus Paul Dooley. It only seemed fitting that we bring his composition Warp & Weft back to his home town. Not only was this pretty cool for us, but the students could hardly believe that a noted composer like Paul came from their very school! During these two days, we also found some time to read through some of our new commissions including Rob Deemer’s Gallimaufry and David Biedenbender’s Refraction (specifically mvt. 3 entitled "Death Metal Chicken"). Here's a short excerpt!
After two days of working with young college and high school musicians, we traveled even further east to Stockton, California to perform on the Friends of Chamber Music Stockton series where series manager Michael Spencer remarked, “The concert was a resounding success. The artist comments preceding each selection were informative and fun. I received many positive comments from audience members of all ages about how they had enjoyed it, including the audience participation. There were three curtain calls and a standing ovation leading to a wonderful encore.”
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One of the absolute highlights of the tour was performing as a juried showcase participant at the Performing Arts Exchange South Arts conference in Baltimore, Maryland. Not only did we get to showcase alongside some of the country's most amazing artists, like American Idol finalist Melinda Doolittle, but we also got to spend some well-deserved time with our management company Ariel Artists while we met presenters from around the country.
What happens when you get to the Enterprise Rental station at BWI? Our second favorite highlight from the tour. It was 11:30 pm and we were ready to pick up our 4-door "Camry or similar" (renting a minivan was too expensive with the drop fee back in Michigan). Luckily, we were offered a chance for a free upgrade: "Throw this football into that convertible Camaro over there (50 feet away) and we'll give you whatever you want." After four failed attempts, Matt stepped up, and bullseye. True to their word, we spent the rest of our time on the east coast in style, rocking it in a Chrysler Town and Country.
After Baltimore, we headed up to Adelphi University in Garden City, New York on Long Island for an evening concert and composer workshop the following morning. Even Amidst torrential rain from hurricane Joaquin, we had an amazing time bringing our Pulse program to the students and surrounding community. Working with the tremendously talented student composers the following morning was a real treat. Student composers Maurizio Fiore, Daniyil Tchibirev, and Michael Gayle each wrote fantastic short works for reed quintet we were able to workshop and perform throughout the morning.
We couldn’t think of a better way to conclude our two-week tour than performing on New Haven, CT's Second Movement Concert Series. Co-Directors of The Second Movement Concert Series, David Perry and Isa Mensz, have been longtime friends and supporters of Akropolis ever since they met Tim while studying at Yale. The performance has been over three years in the making, and we were thrilled to finally make our New Haven debut. Check out this review of our performance at Artspace New Haven, written by Lucy Gellman of the New Haven Independent.