ITALIAN SONGBOOK

FRIDAY, JUNE 25th
8 pm

Pompanuck Farm is presents “Italian Songbook” in concert with Khabu Doug Young and Bruce Williamson, featuring vocalist, Elena Camerin.

The evening will feature Italian songs primarily from the 50’s & 60’s, as interpreted by consummate jazz improvisers. Venetian vocalist, Elena Camerin (voice, electronics), chose and arranged popular music that is near and dear to her heart, including songs sung to her by her grandmother in the kitchen while also passing along traditional cuisine such as Gnocchi al Pomodoro. Audience members will delight and savour the distinctive sound flavours of Italy simultaneously transposed and reframed by the unabashedly American roots of long-time collaborators Bruce Williamson (woodwinds, piano, percussion) and Khabu Doug Young (guitars, ukulele, cavaquinho).

The “Italian Songbook” project was conceived after two musicians from two different continents met in 2009 and discovered that, even though they had very different backgrounds, both had a great love for approaching vocal repertoire and improvised music in new and exciting ways. Jazz meets Italian love songs … with a bit of electronica thrown in for fun.


ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Elena Camerin born in Venice, living in NYC since 2008, began her musical studies on piano and later began studying voice at the "Thelonious Monk" jazz school. Shortly thereafter, she began to study opera under soprano Francesca Scaini. In 1994, she joined the gospel choir "Venice Gospel Ensemble" as soloist; she often works in performances with Walter Sabato, actor and director in shows. She worked as "living installation" at the Biennale 2003, in Venice, for the artist Tino Sehgal. In July 2004, she won Best Student award at the Michele Hendricks' vocal workshop at Spoleto, with the Spoleto Arts Symposia. In 2005, she recorded under her name the CD "GRAZIE DEI FIORI?" under the label "Caligola Records", dedicated to the Italian song of the 50s.


Khabu Doug Young using ukuleles, guitars, cavaquinho, harmonica, and voice, Khabu creates music in a spirit of collaboration and interaction, exploring the continuum between improvisation and composition, sculpting sounds into musical journeys of the unknown. Born Doug Young in Lubbock, TX, he grew up in Houston. He moved to New York City to work with artists from all disciplines: theatre, dance, spoken word, film, as well as musicians of many styles (often with unique instrumentation).

Reed player & pianist Bruce Williamson was active in the San Francisco music scene until moving to NYC in the mid-80s, playing with jazz artists such as Art Lande, Mark Isham, Benny Green & Bobby McFerron. Over the years, Bruce has performed with artists such as Fred Hersch, Kurt Elling, Gary Peacock, Jack Mcduff, Dave Douglas, Paul McCandless and many others. He can be heard on over 50 recordings and has a new quartet CD (with Lande) called Standard Transmission coming out August 2010.

In the NYC theatre world, Bruce has worked with director Julie Taymor for the last 15 years (Juan Darien-1996, The Lion King-1998, The Green Bird-2000, Grendel-2006), and is currently rehearsing with Taymor and rock-star Bono on the new Broadway production of Spiderman, due to open in Fall 2010. Bruce can also be heard on many filmscores by Elliot Goldenthal, including Frida (Academy-award winning score, 2003), Across The Universe and most recently Public Enemies (accompanying singer Diana Krall on a ballad version of “Bye Bye Blackbird”).

Bruce has appeared in clubs and festivals worldwide (performing in Turkey for the first two weeks of June 2010), has received multiple grants for Jazz Composition and is currently on the music faculty at Bennington College, Vermont.