Results tagged “benaroyahall”

Are there memories in particular that stand out when you think about playing Seattle or just memories about Seattle in general? I remember seeing some very straight but totally homoerotic lumberjacks at four in the morning somewhere. And it was one of the most enthralling visions of my West Coast existence. I always remember Seattle as a very sexy, rough and tumble town.

Ah, how we love Lydia Davis.... We're so excited that she will be here in Seattle next week to speak on the subject of "A Beloved Duck Gets Cooked: The Influence of Innovative Forms." Yes, we know that this premise may sound strange, but if you've read her work, you understand--this woman is quite the odd duck herself, and we absolutely love her for it.

Fresh on the heels of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia live, today Seattle Theatre Group announced that Steve Martin will be coming to Benaroya Hall November 3. He'll be performing "an evening of bluegrass and banjo" with his backing band, the Steep Canyon Rangers. That sounds funny, right? Tickets go on sale this Saturday at 10 a.m. and will set you back $55-75, plus Ticketmaster fees. Not so funny, Steve.

GET STIMULATED: All this week, through Saturday July 18th, it's the second annual Seattle City Stimulus, which encourages residents to spend money at small local businesses. Fill out the form to get your membership card, which affords you discounts at all kinds of establishments. Eat, drink, and shop your way around town--IT'S FOR THE ECONOMY! All week long // Participating businesses // prices vary

For some reason we have only just now heard that The Cult will be playing at The Moore Theatre on August 26. They're performing their Love album, so round up Brother Wolf and Sister Moon, it'll be an evening like no other. And Seattle Gay Blog tells us that Rufus Wainwright will be swanning into Benaroya Hall on November 8. His site says tix will go on sale August 8.

Wall of Windows by B.K. Dewey, from the Seattlest Flickr Pool

WRITERS GROUP: It's a daylight meetup of the Seattle Writers Group. They're gathering at Greenlake's Revolutions Espresso (across the street from Gregg's Greenlake Cycle) for 45 minutes of writing followed by 15 of discussion. Here is the thing that will help set your writing career on the path: "onsite bakery." It's sort of an insider's thing but behind every great writer is a choice pastry. Joyce=scone with currants and orange peel. True story.

The multiplier effect can create some rather extraordinary sounds in a musical ensemble--the string section of an orchestra, for example, or a battery of snare drums in a marching band. On Tuesday night at Benaroya Hall, the extraordinary sound was that of four guitars. The acclaimed Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ) presented an eclectic program for a nearly packed hall, which included works with orchestra in the first half and three themed sets in the second half (Spanish Renaissance pieces, Brazilian music, and some quintessentially American tunes).

He won a Pulitzer for his first novel, The Brief Wondrous LIfe of Oscar Wao, but when Junot Diaz took to the lectern at Benaroya Hall last night, after what he called a "super-long introduction," he looked out into the crowd and said, "Guys, you should be up here. Super fucking scary." Diaz's spoken voice was straight from the page: super-fucking-compelling, laugh-your-ass-off funny, shit so true you don't even tell your homies.

TO MARKET: Robbin Block leads the Seattle SCORE "Marketing 101" half-day workshop this afternoon. If you're starting a business or looking for a better, legal way to pry open wallets, the workshop covers product planning, pricing, and promotions, in addition to pointers on how to do market research and create a business plan. One thing entrepreneurs need most is to learn marketing basics--too many are counting on Oprah really, really liking their product.

On Monday night, Benaroya Hall served as a guest house for the English orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and their current director, 25-year-old German violin virtuoso Julia Fischer. The program was beautifully balanced with two English works from the last century serving as bookends, Benjamin Britten’s Variations for String Orchestra on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 and William Walton’s Sonata for Strings, while the heart of the program, the first and second violin concertos of Bach, was quintessentially German. The German Baroque tradition cascaded into the more contemporary music of the Brits, with Bach’s mastery of the fugue influencing both the final variation of Britten's piece, a rapid and well-written work, and Walton’s Sonata, which flirts with fugal introductions that appear only for a moment and then vanish. Fischer & Co.'s remarkably harmonious performance put to shame most of their Continental counterparts, earning them a well-deserved standing ovation not once, but several times throughout the evening.

Seattlest woke up at the breaka breaka this morning and turned on the news to find out there was a shooting outside Benaroya Hall last night around 11 p.m. According to the Times, police found a man in his "40s [...] lying on the sidewalk near a bus stop between Union and University streets with facial wounds." The man was taken to Harborview and his condition is unknown.

This is a public service announcement, in case any of you are tempted to incorporate trash cans into a composition of your own. It's not as easy as it sounds.

Sorry to burst any bubbles, but if you don't have tickets to Michael Pollan's appearance at Benaroya tonight, as part of Seattle Arts & Lectures, you're out of luck: it sold out weeks ago. The author of apparently has no shortage of admirers.

Last Tuesday, Benaroya Hall was the scene of the incredible juxtaposition and commingling of two very different but equally impressive musicians. Guitarists Eliot Fisk and Angel Romero (of the famed Romero family) demonstrated that it is not an artistic requisite for an ensemble to blend so completely that the illusion of a single player is formed, as is the case, for example, with the Assad Brothers. The night prior to the concert, we had dinner with Fisk, who is a past professor and good friend. He explained that he and Romero have a very different approach to the guitar, but that they enjoy playing with one another and revel in their stylistic contrasts.

Monday night was a treat at Benaroya Hall, dedicated fully to the demonstration of the great Watjen Concert Organ, a true symphonic hall organ, which is not at all common.

Author John Updike was at Seattle Arts & Lectures this week. The upcoming SAL appearance of Annie Leibovitz (November 19) is sold out. Michael Pollan (January 12) is almost sold out.

JOHN FUCKING UPDIKE: His gallivanting rabbits may have lost a step, Updike reports: "When, against my better judgment, I glance back at my prose from 20 or 30 years ago, the quality I admire and fear to have lost is its carefree bounce, its snap, its exuberant air of slight excess." But as a critic he's an admirably close, inquisitive reader, and of course he's still John fucking Updike to all of us, so having him in town is a delight. In theory he'll be talking to the Seattle Arts & Lectures audience about small towns and the middle class.

Sigur Ros never fails to put on a good show. Unlike Jamie Lidell--whose gimmicky, disjointed full-band set at the Showbox on Friday left us longing for his solo days--Sunday night, the Icelandic quartet delivered a serious yet ethereal show, as always. Something that never fails to impress us is the graciousness of a Sigur Ros audience. There are always magically organic moments so quiet and weighty that no one breathes, lest they break the silence and ruin the moment. For those who saw the show at Benaroya, Jón þór Birgissin's effortless alien falsetto was well on display, as was the band's rock instrumentation, covering songs from their new album, as well as their previous releases.

John's band, in light of America's financial misfortunes, will be returning to the home-made recording studio to use our economic meltdown as inspiration for new songwriting material.

Even if you're going to tonight's John in the Morning at Night, Friday's best bet is DJ/blue-eyed soul man/gold lamé bathrobe-wearer/consummate performer Jamie Lidell, along with opener Janelle Monae at Showbox. Jamie also has an instore at Easy Street Queen Anne this evening at 6:30 p.m.

...if you're willing to pay way more than face value.

Tonight, the banjos will be taking over Benaroya Hall. We think there's a banjo joke in there somewhere, but it's too early on a Monday morning to come up with it. Instead, we'll just sell you on the legendary Earl Scruggs, who's responsible for that three-finger picking style Seattlest prefers when attacking the famously untunable instrument. We caught Scruggs at the IBMA awards last year, and we can vouch for the fact that he's still got it after all these years. Go see a living legend in action. Check him:

UNDER DA SEA: If, like Seattlest, you are fascinated with underwater life, tonight's your night to revel in the glories of the deep ocean. Seattle Symphony will be playing as a giant screen shows you images from the BBC series The Blue Planet.

G IS FOR GEORGETOWN: There are few parts of Seattle we love more and know less about than gritty and glorious Georgetown. We were smitten from the moment we walked into Jules Maes Saloon three years ago and have never looked back. Adding considerable wonderfulness to the neighborhood is the Georgetown Music Festival—Seattle's most under-appreciated music festival—happening this weekend. If you love local music like we do, you will be spending Friday and Saturday taking in rowdy performances from local bands such as Thee Emergency, Cancer Rising, the Lashes, and the Hands. We'd recommend wearing long pants to save your knees when you fall hard for Georgetown.

, Waters has been pushing the boundaries of the cinema for about 40 years, and has moved from the indie fringes to the mainstream with popular stage musicals of his classic films.

Once again, SIFF is upon us. Even though there are still three weeks until opening night, with today's press launch, things are gearing up for the 34th Seattle International Film Festival.

Last night at Benaroya Hall, author Richard Powers read from a new short story called "Modulation." It was classic Powers; a dense, far-reaching, and meticulously vivid tale of a computer virus that infects music player devices via filesharing sites. He weaves the story around four different individuals: a Japanese hacker recently released from prison and now employed by the RIAA to huntdown filesharers, a Brazilian journalist researching soldiers in Iraq who blast ear-crunching music from their vehicles when they go out on missions, a forlorn music scholar on the eve of his retirement from a mid-western University, and a young laptop battler who agonizes over keeping track of the ever-multiplying sub-genres of electronic music and enthralls with his live performances of entirely computerized music that rely heavily on audio samples from early-80s video games.