on the horizon

Hello hello hello!

It's April, and what a wonderful 4 months it has been since I returned to Chicago after all my travels last summer/fall. I am happy to be a part of several groups that are getting better and better each time we perform. These are my latest updates….

The jazz quartet with Mike Allemana, Matt Ferguson, and Jeremy Cunningham just recorded at Minbal Studio in Chicago with engineer Benjamin Balcomb. The roughs sound really good, and we’re looking forward to the mixing process with Brian Schwab next week! We recorded our original music, as well as two songs written by the masters of jazz – Billy Strayhorn’s Blood Count, and Charlie Parker’s Cheryl. This record will be coming out in the summer for our performance at the ChicagoJazz Festival in September! We were glad to perform at the Chitown Jazz Festival to support Chicago hunger relief. You can see a couple moments from our performance, thanks to Harvey Tillis:

Also, Pedway (Matthew Golombisky and Quin Kirchner) just went into the studio! We make it our business to improvise. Our first record, Subventure (ears&eyes Records) came out in 2007, so it was time for us to do another. We just recorded last week with Brian Sulpizio at his space in Humboldt Park, and we’re going to be mixing in the next coming months. My voice was lost during this session, so it was super fun to take out all my would-be-vocalizations through my saxophone! 

Maitri (Rob Clearfield – keyboard, Matt Ulery – bass, Charles Rumback – drums) has been playing more and more shows! I’ve been working closely with Elliot Ross (moongriffin) on some covers, as well. This has been so good, and I’m pumped to keep going! You can hear a Sam Cooke cover that we did on my bandcamp page. We also just recorded Sam Cooke’s Chain Gang, currently working on mixing and touching it up, so look out for it soon! Here's a picture (thanks to Leslie Beukelman) of us performing at Martyrs' in March.

As far as teaching goes, I just finished the Music Psychology for Teaching and Learning Course at DePaul University. My students inspired me this year, and we were able to get nitty-gritty on some of the latest articles in the field. For the course, I used Psychology of Music: FromSound to Significance by Tan, Pfordresher, and Harre. I highly recommend this text for anyone who is interested in Music Psychology. I hope to continue my teaching at DePaul in the years to come.

I’ve also been teaching more elementary education classes, now at New Einstein’s Academy in Bucktown. Today I witnessed two of the little 2-year-olds mouthing the words to one of our songs – what a rewarding experience!

That’s it for now, but please visit my bandcamp page to check out all the music I’ve been working on in the past few years, and keep checking back for updates on my website. As always, thank you for your continued support, and I’m looking forward to the future!

Much love,

Caroline