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David Byrne doing a show with Color Guards


barigirl78

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I'm on David Byrne's mailing list and he announced a show where color guards get to perform with live music from contemporary musicians. Here's what he wrote in his email:

"Some years ago, a Colorguard team wanted to use some music I’d written (from a theater piece I did with Robert Wilson, called The Forest) for one of their routines. I said, “Fine, no charge… you are a high school team after all.” But I asked that they send me documentation out of curiosity and for my archives. I eventually got a DVD of the whole World Championship competition. I watched, and was amazed and delighted to find myself in a new world that I didn’t know existed.

What I was viewing is more properly referred to in that world as winterguard—as it takes place in the winter and spring—after fall football season, when the colorguard teams are more closely associated with drum lines and marching bands. Off season they do their own thing—still employing flags, rifles and sabers—but their routines are less about formation than about themes, emotion, concepts and visual spectacle. Over recent decades, the teams have evolved into something strange and wonderful; they’ve created a vibrant, innovative and original vernacular artform that is wildly popular across the whole North American continent, but is all but unknown in many of the big urban centers—like New York, where I live. Contemporary Color aims to remedy that situation.

I was stunned at what I was seeing, and being a musician I naturally wondered to myself, “What if these performances had live music? Really great live music! Wouldn’t that be amazing? And wouldn’t that lift it to another level?” (Besides being fun for the musicians too!). The competitions these teams engage in already fill arenas with their fans and supporters, so I thought to myself, “Let’s take it from there!


I approached BAM and Luminato Festival in Toronto about presenting this idea: 10 colorguard teams paired with 10 musical artists. Somewhat surprisingly, they said yes! So this summer, on two successive weekends in June, we’re going to bring all of this together in live shows at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and Air Canada Centre in Toronto.


The musicians will be backed by an all-star band that will include a brass and string section. Here they are (in no particular order):
Nelly Furtado
Kelis
St Vincent
How To Dress Well
Devonté Hynes
Nico Mulhy and Ira Glass
David Byrne
tUnE-yArDs
+ MORE!

This is sort of a crazy idea. We’re all slightly out of our comfort zone, but very excited—it’s an idea that seems natural and obvious too, so why not!? Please join us!

JUNE 22 & 23 at the Air Canada Centre
Pre-sale tickets available on Friday, Jan. 23—code: ARTISTSCOLOR

June 27 & 28 at the Barclays Center
Presale tickets available today!! Click here for June 27 & here for June 28) —code: DBCOLOR

For more information and links to tickets, check out our website!

And, check out this video we made!

DB
"
NYC

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I'm on David Byrne's mailing list and he announced a show where color guards get to perform with live music from contemporary musicians. Here's what he wrote in his email:

"Some years ago, a Colorguard team wanted to use some music I’d written (from a theater piece I did with Robert Wilson, called The Forest) for one of their routines. I said, “Fine, no charge… you are a high school team after all.” But I asked that they send me documentation out of curiosity and for my archives. I eventually got a DVD of the whole World Championship competition. I watched, and was amazed and delighted to find myself in a new world that I didn’t know existed.

What I was viewing is more properly referred to in that world as winterguard—as it takes place in the winter and spring—after fall football season, when the colorguard teams are more closely associated with drum lines and marching bands. Off season they do their own thing—still employing flags, rifles and sabers—but their routines are less about formation than about themes, emotion, concepts and visual spectacle. Over recent decades, the teams have evolved into something strange and wonderful; they’ve created a vibrant, innovative and original vernacular artform that is wildly popular across the whole North American continent, but is all but unknown in many of the big urban centers—like New York, where I live. Contemporary Color aims to remedy that situation.

I was stunned at what I was seeing, and being a musician I naturally wondered to myself, “What if these performances had live music? Really great live music! Wouldn’t that be amazing? And wouldn’t that lift it to another level?” (Besides being fun for the musicians too!). The competitions these teams engage in already fill arenas with their fans and supporters, so I thought to myself, “Let’s take it from there!

I approached BAM and Luminato Festival in Toronto about presenting this idea: 10 colorguard teams paired with 10 musical artists. Somewhat surprisingly, they said yes! So this summer, on two successive weekends in June, we’re going to bring all of this together in live shows at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and Air Canada Centre in Toronto.

The musicians will be backed by an all-star band that will include a brass and string section. Here they are (in no particular order):

Nelly Furtado

Kelis

St Vincent

How To Dress Well

Devonté Hynes

Nico Mulhy and Ira Glass

David Byrne

tUnE-yArDs

+ MORE!

This is sort of a crazy idea. We’re all slightly out of our comfort zone, but very excited—it’s an idea that seems natural and obvious too, so why not!? Please join us!

JUNE 22 & 23 at the Air Canada Centre

Pre-sale tickets available on Friday, Jan. 23—code: ARTISTSCOLOR

June 27 & 28 at the Barclays Center

Presale tickets available today!! Click here for June 27 & here for June 28) —code: DBCOLOR

For more information and links to tickets, check out our website!

And, check out this video we made!

DB"

NYC

:ninja:

Sounds like a cool gig! Looks like my "cousin Dave" has been hit by the bug..Now if we could get someone to arrange his music for a drum corps -

If I could afford to go to Brooklyn this summer - it might be one of those "activity changing" events. :tongue:

Pat

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  • 4 weeks later...

There's a New York Times article about this as well.

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I was sitting in the same row as him and some of the other artists in the show at the Eastern Regional this weekend...he was really into it and watched everyone intently. So nice to see someone like him be so "normal".

That is cool. Thank you. He's promoting the event as we speak http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-tuesday-may-12-2015-1.3070596/why-david-byrne-is-hijacking-a-high-school-tradition-1.3070607

Edit: Found one more http://globalnews.ca/news/1995736/david-byrne-debuting-amazing-musical-and-visual-spectacle-in-toronto/

David said “I thought to myself, what if instead of the pre-recorded music that [the colour guard teams] usually use… what if they had live music? And what if it was some of my favourite music?”

Edited by lindap
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