Come What May. May Come What? What May Come.
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Hello folks, May is consistently our busiest month, followed by June and October, and this May is just crazy. It’s wedding season #1 of the year, afterall, and we’ve got a bunch coming up. It’s also street festival season, which Philadelphia loves. And it's just time to emerge and connect. So here’s the run-down of our public performances, including Princeton’s Hellenic Studies Conference, the Klezmatics guest-starring WPO’s Gregg Mervine and Philadelphia’s amazing Susan Hoffman Watts, Girard St Fest, our Black Squirrel Residency, and finally, West Philly PorchFest. May 2nd: Princeton’s Hellenic Studies Conference Scholars of all things Greek are descending upon Princeton University this weekend, and we’re bringing the dance party with a Greek-heavy set. Our evening performance is open to the public and free! Deets here: We played this last year and it was so fun. Giant horas, food trucks... The klezmer revival of the 90s was led by the Klezmatics of NYC, who combined the downtown edge and avant garde (think clubs like Tonic and The Knitting Factory) with Yiddish folk music, and suddenly klezmer was cool again. Led by Frank London’s trumpet pyrotechnics and drummer David Licht’s spastic bursts, the Klezmatics are still reinventing klezmer music and building bridges across time and space. We’re kicking off this excellent fest with a set at 11am! May 11th - Daniel Stern EP release party @ Studio 34 Our trumpet/violinist Daniel Stern has just released a gorgeous EP of the singer-songwriter variety (Daniel Stern, Two). Have a listen online, or encounter the songs live at the release party. The record features multiple Daniels(voice, guitar, bass, piano, trumpet, violin), but he has welcomed Koof and Ello of WPO to help perform it live. May 15th: WPO Monthly Dance Party at Black Squirrel Club We’re back in the nook, under the craziest chandelier ever made out of a car. This is our residency event, where we play at our most experimental, daring and unhinged. Come see what happens. Come influence what happens! We return to the Girard Ave Street Fest! It was so much fun last year, despite the rain. Details are still coming in, but we’ll be there in the afternoon, likely 4:30. Celebrate local businesses and enjoy the afternoon. May 31st: West Philly Porchfest What does it feel like when an entire neighborhood buzzes with creativity? West Philly Porchfest, of course. We’ll be outside at Clarkville, the pizzeria at 43rd and Baltimore, at noon. Then, later on, there’s the AfterPorchy Party at Pentridge Station Pop-Up, which we’ll also be playing at. Best way to experience Porchfest is to just show up and wander, follow your ear, flow with the crowd, drift with the breeze… WPO www.westphiladelphiaorchestra.net westphillyorchestra@bandcamp.com WPO is (currently) Gregg Mervine, Chad Brown, Elliot Beck, Hayley Varhol, Larry Toft, Koofreh Umoren, Ello Shertzer, Frank Rein, Adam Hershberger, Dawn Webster, Daniel Stern, Elliott Levin, David Fishkin and Larry Goldfinger. |
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Hello, Of all of the 1,000 or gazillion bands playing at the 10th annual West Philly Porchfest tomorrow, 5/30, West Philadelphia Orchestra will be one of them! In fact, we will be performing 3 times throughout the day. Come here a quintet of WPOers play New Orleans brass and more outside Clarksville Pizzeria from 12:30 - 2:30 (43rd and Baltimore). Catch the full band rock the block party at 331 S 43rd St (between Pine and Spruce) at 6pm. And then there's the after party at Pentridge Station,...
Dearest creatures of the night, loyal dance scholars, and certified groove romantics, Time does its thing, and here we are at the end of another year. These are strange and terrifying times. But we've made it through with technologies both elemental and eternal: driving drums, wailing horns, bass rattling your ribs, sweaty humans united in purpose, locked into a groove. So of course, we’re doing it again New Year’s Eve Wednesday, December 31 – Black Squirrel Club (Fishtown) 1049 Sarah St •...
Hey folks, June is here. The air is thick, the rhythms are thicker, and your friendly neighborhood brass band is up to no good in the best way. Here’s where we’ll be blowing the roof off (or under the trees) this month: Friday, June 6 – Julia’s Birthday Bash at Attic Brewing You: sipping a cold beer in a Germantown beer garden.Us: blasting Balkan bangers directly at your frontal lobe.Bring your body. Leave your expectations. (It’s free.)...