PLAY / SING / DANCE with the TTU Celtic Ensemble & Elegant Savages Orchestra
The TTU Celtic Ensemble is recruiting for Fall 2019!
MUEN 3110 (16167)/5110 (21252)
Seeking singers, players, and dancers; open to participants from across the TTU campus
The TTU Celtic Ensemble (http://ttucelticensemble.com; http://youtube.com/ttucelticensemble; Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/2ft5myw) is a “folk orchestra” of singers, players, and dancers dedicated to exploring the dance music & song of the Seven Celtic Nations (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, Galicia, and the Isle of Man) and related traditions. All band, orchestra, and folk instruments and voice-types welcome. Many opportunities for soloes, chamber pieces, and orchestral tuttis.
The Celtic Ensemble concertizes, tours, and participates in collaborative events throughout the academic year (dances, theatrical shows, film scores, etc). Members are encouraged to explore both primary and secondary skills (other instruments, song, dance, etc) and some traditional instruments are available for loan and learning. The CE also works closely with other Vernacular Music Center Ensembles and with partnered performance and arts organizations throughout the region.
Recent concert performance: https://bit.ly/2Ua5xsM
PBS television special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHIe7EoKi8M
The Elegant Savages Orchestra: Symphonic folk from a lost world
Major inspiration for the Elegant Savages Orchestra, the “big band” version of the TTU Celtic Ensemble, comes from the fictional country of “Bassanda,” a creation of Taos-based musicians and VMC partners Chipper Thompson (chipperthompson.com) and Roger Landes (rogerlandes.com), who for purposes of our January 2014 debut assumed their Bassanda personae (“The Rev” and “The General”) as guest performers. We imagined the fictional “Elegant Savages Orchestra,” in which, as part of an “alternate-history” frame, it’s alleged that a Soviet satellite’s official state folkloric ensemble (the “Bassanda National Radio Orchestra”) mutates, after the fall of Communism, into a free-lance ensemble engaged in a Never-Ending Tour.
The BNRO/ESO has thus been heard in many permutations and with widely variegated personnel, including “The Classic 1952 Band,” “The 1962 ‘Beatnik’ Band” (which nearly appeared on the cover of Life magazine under the headline “New Currents from Behind the Iron Curtain”), “The 1965 Newport Folk Festival Band,” who helped jump-start Bob Dylan’s notorious switch from acoustic folk to electric rock & roll, “The Mysterious 1885 Victorian “Steampunk” Band, “The Post-Apocalyptic ‘Desert Pirates’ Band,” and the 1912 New Orleans Creole “Voodoo” Band.
Coming in 2019-20: “The 1920s ‘Yonder’ Band”
Director: Dr Christopher J Smith (http://tinyurl.com/389zgkx)
A series of short films featuring the ESO: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKXR86U6wxeWw2K0tGjmaq425te7QUCsH
Also see “The Elegant Savages Orchestra” http://elegantsavagesorchestra.com;
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Elegant-Savages-Orchestra/359738340792720)
Rehearsals: at TTU School of Music; Sundays 5-7pm (tutti) & Thursdays 7:30-9pm (reserved as sectional rehearsal time)
First band meeting / Annual Retreat: Sunday August 25 2019 1-5pm M011 Band Hall SOM
Facebook “Event” at:
Admission by interview/audition.
Contact Dr Smith (christopher.smith@ttu.edu) for more information.
