Third Wheel

It’s hard to believe, but this great event that we have been planning for months now is almost here!! Wine & Wheels is this Saturday night, June 12, and we couldn’t be more excited. As we continue our publicity blitz of all the Los Angeles media, we are hard at work with rehearsals and wardrobe consultations. (Image is key!)

Karin and I did some shopping yesterday, so we are all set to glam it up. I checked in with Wally over at Fancifull Gift Baskets last week, and he is just as excited as we are about this event. The stage is set, the wine glasses are polished, the cheese and chocolates are being plated — all that’s missing is you!

Doors open at 7 p.m., and our first set will kick-off around 7:30 p.m. There are a grand total of FOUR world premieres on the program, and every last one of those pieces was written specifically for Third Wheel. Since they are written by four different composers, they are all very different in style and form, so I know that it won’t be hard for you to find a favorite. There will be some other fun music on the program, too. We’ll be throwing in some of our personal favorites that hopefully some of you will recognize from our other performances.

Ooh, speaking of other performances, I just finished uploading some clips from our most recent performance at Live at the Lounge. Check them out!   Fat Chance, This Side and Bolling’s Irlandaise have just joined the ranks over at our YouTube channel.

Make sure that you check out Fancifull’s web site to make a reservation and buy your tickets in advance — you’ll save $5 and guarantee your spot for an evening of wine tasting and chamber music. We absolutely can’t wait to see you there! For now, it’s back to practicing for me. Here’s a sneak preview of some of the music …

My music stand, full of world premieres to rehearse for Wine & Wheels!

Third Wheel had an awesome opportunity this past weekend to play on the Classical Music LA series at Live at the Lounge. The venue is a small intimate 90-seat theater where dinner is served during the show, but the focus is on the musicians rather than the meal.  Located adjacent to the Comedy and Magic Club where Jay Leno regularly performs, the venue is right in the middle of all the hustle and bustle that comes along with Saturday night party-goers in Hermosa Beach. What an exciting setting! Our show consisted of a wide spectrum of music from classical, to bluegrass and jazz. The audience was very enthusiastic. Many of them spoke with us as at the end of the evening about our music and our upcoming performances. By the way, our next big event is Wine and Wheels in Hollywood on June 12, 2010. But back to Saturday night – I had such a great time playing in this venue because it felt like playing a show at a club. Granted, instead of rocking out to an alternative band, everyone was drinking wine and having an intellectual musical experience with a woodwind trio. I think what artistic director, Yana Reznick, is doing with this series is a groundbreaking new way to experience classical music and see the creative process that takes place among really talented musicians.

I hope we will be invited back sometime soon!

Third Wheel is proud to be a member of Chamber Music America, and we really enjoy taking advantage of all the great services they provide. So imagine my reaction when I received the latest issue of Chamber Music (CMA’s publication) and saw this featured as their cover story: “Trending Upward: Why ensembles are deciding to get out of their chairs and perform on their feet.”  Accompanying this title is an artfully constructed list of all the ensembles who are suddenly deciding to perform standing up. (No disrespect meant to any of the fantastic ensembles mentioned, especially one of our favorites, eighth blackbird.) Wouldn’t you know it, Third Wheel is not on the list.

I’m quite certain that as an ensemble, we have performed standing up since we first starting rehearsing together. Now, this was probably because there were not enough chairs available in the living room of the house in LA where Rich was living at the time, but still. Nearly everything we have ever done as Third Wheel, we have done on our feet. And it hasn’t ever really been a remarkable aspect of our group. As an entrepreneur, it kind of makes me think that maybe this is a huge marketable angle that we should be exploiting — maybe CMA is on to something with this article. But honestly? I never thought it was really that big of a deal. Sure, many of our concert venues are surprised when we tell them that we only need three music stands for our performance and no chairs. And let me tell you, it would be the strangest thing ever if we had to make Rich sit down to perform. Check out some of our performance videos over on our YouTube page — if you fast forward through them, you will see that Rich is always moving and walking and dancing when he plays. Sometimes, he even takes on the flamingo pose, a la Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson.

As an ensemble, we absolutely want to deliver to our audiences the highest level of concert experience possible. And yes, that quality probably would be diminished if we were sitting down. Chairs do seem to have a silly way of inhibiting one’s ability to be wholly expressive and communicative. But don’t you think that standing up is quite an odd practice to write about? Maybe we should be looking at groups who perform sitting down, and ask them why they do it. Especially wind players — how do you deal with that diminished lung capacity? I have known many singers who always complain when an acting role requires them to sing while sitting. It makes the entire breath support system compromised just a bit.

So, readers, let me know what you think. Was it a slow news week over at the Chamber Music offices? Why did they exclude Third Wheel? What do you think of groups who perform sitting down?

We recently had our Third Wheel business meeting, and this time chose Urth Caffe downtown as the location. No matter how much time I spend downtown, I am constantly amazed at the number of different undiscovered neighborhoods over there. This charming cafe was no different. On the way there, Karin was sort of giving me the “where are you taking me” look, but once we arrived and saw these amazingly beautiful lattes being served, all concern disappeared.

Karin and her beautiful swan latte

Our business meetings give us a great opportunity to explore downtown, so feel free to add your suggestions here for future dining venues.

One of the biggest topics we covered at the meeting was the upcoming event, Wine & Wheels. We are so excited! Things are really starting to come together with the music, and we know our friend Wally over at Fancifull is going to select some amazing wines for you to sample. All of our publicity is getting its final touches, and we are preparing to plaster our faces all over town. Help us get the word out! Buy your tickets now!

Rich went for the strawberry boba smoothie.

In other fun event preparation, Karin and I went to the Huntington Library in Pasadena the other day to meet with the delightful staff there. We are performing for a private event, so we wanted to get the lay of the land and understand the venue where we would be playing. After our meeting, we had to get some food, of course! We ended up over at Burger Continental and oh my goodness, it was amazing. I think the lingering garlic scared everyone away for the rest of the day, but it was definitely worth it. Delicious.

There’s just something about musicians and food, I don’t know what it is. Many gigs that I play have food involved — we go out after the gig to eat, we have a break between gigs and we go out to eat, etc. Just ask Karin and Rich — my definition of a good Third Wheel gig is one where we get fed. It’s a little sad, I know, but one cannot live on Bach alone.

No one has touched on the “nitty-gritty” details of how Third Wheel functions as an ensemble. I want to let you in on a little secret – we’re a little family. Adrienne and Rich are the brother and sister that I never had. Adrienne keeps me and Rich thinking about upcoming projects that we tend to put off until the last possible moment when Adrienne miraculously throws something together. She works well under pressure, which must stem from those days she worked on staff at The Daily Northwestern. Adrienne’s been known to forget her music, but she’s solved that problem now. Rich is definitely the younger brother that Adrienne and I have to keep in line. During rehearsals his mind tends to wander. A few little known facts about Rich: he hardly ever writes anything in his music, he likes to move around a lot while playing and he has an uncanny knack for improvising his part. He’s the one that will truly send me and Adrienne into giggle fits during rehearsal. As for my role, I would say that since I’m the youngest in the group I sometimes need a little bit more attention. You’ll have to ask Adrienne and Rich about my little quirks…

Well, as any sibling would know, where you go to college also affects your relationship. I got to show them around USC’s campus a couple of weeks ago. They teased me of course, since they both went to Northwestern and are Wildcat fans. But Trojan athletics are really where it is at. As you can see, I got them to show their Trojan pride, if only for one moment captured in time.

One of the benefits of being in an ensemble as awesome as Third Wheel is the opportunity to work with real live composers. We got to do so today, and it is just so exciting to be in the same room with the person who wrote the dots on the page in front of you. Mark Popeney is a talented composer who also happens to be a friend of ours, and a little while ago we approached him (or was it the other way around? I don’t remember) about writing a piece for us. Actually, we had this great little meeting at Wurstkuche – one of my favorite places in Los Angeles. But I digress … this is not a food blog, I promise.

Mark finished the piece recently, and we have been learning it, and so today we got together to work with him on it and get his perspective. Usually, as performers, we spend a good amount of our rehearsal and practice time trying to decipher the precise meaning and intention of every little black mark on the page of music. It is quite a different experience to have the composer in the same room as you’re trying to decipher these things! It’s also interesting how easily printed music can be misinterpreted. Or over-analyzed. We spend so much time trying to convey every dynamic, every accent, every slur and every tempo change — but sometimes that wasn’t the composer’s goal at all! It’s good to take a step back every once in awhile and make sure that the big picture of the musical statement is being conveyed. What good are a few perfectly manicured trees if there’s no forest?

Being in the presence of a creative mind is a wonderful thing, and I am so excited for the world to hear this cool piece that Mark composed for us. It will be even more fun to listen to after he tells you about how he composed it, and where he got the idea for the piece. But all of that will have to wait until the world premiere. Stay tuned for a big event announcement, coming soon!

Ilan Hall's restaurant The Gorbals in downtown Los Angeles

Third Wheel holds regular business meetings, and since we all enjoy eating, we hold business meetings over meals. It’s more fun that way. We use it as an opportunity to get out and sample some new restaurants that we might not otherwise try. Today was no exception! Since all three of us are avid “Top Chef” fans, we decided to check out the restaurant of Season 2’s Ilan Hall: The Gorbals.

The name refers to an area of Scotland known for its Jewish population — also where Hall’s father grew up– and the influences of both of those cultures are apparent in the food. The place is charming and I got a big kick out of watching Chef Hall work his magic in the kitchen. I’m not going to pretend that I’m a food critic, and The Gorbals has already seen plenty of critiques, but I will tell you that the brunch I had there today was quite delicious. Challah french toast with orange marmalade? Yum. But the cheese blintzes with brown butter? Ohmygoodness. Completely to die for. As in, if I were to request something as a last meal, those could quite possibly be it. (I’m unwilling to commit to such a thing as of yet. But I would want to be prepared with a list of options in case the occasion arose.)

So, before this turns into a full-on food blog, I want you to know that we discussed all sorts of interesting things that were musically and business-ally related to Third Wheel. But some of them are TOP SECRET! So I can’t disclose all the juicy details. Just know that there are great things ahead this year. Really, really great exciting things. You will want to be a part of them.

As we were leaving the meeting, we noticed a few other places in the neighborhood that could be fun for our next rendezvous.  What do you think?

Weeneez? Really?

Rich is excited about this one. Can't you tell??

Tough financial times call for extreme creativity … apparently that extends to store names as well. As far as marketing campaigns go, I can just imagine that the possibilities for a restaurant called “Weeneez” would be endless. But good job, Big Man Bakes — it’s definitely about time that luxury cupcake industry started catering to their male audience!

Today we performed two really fun assemblies for some students at Manhattan Beach Middle School. We had such a great time! The school’s facilities are just gorgeous, and the students were an absolutely excellent audience. They even laughed at our bad jokes. We showed them all of the crazy sounds our instruments can make — Rich quacked on his reed, I made a siren on my mouthpiece, and Karin sang and flutter-tongued her way through a tune. I think that we managed to teach the students a few things, but I know that they also loved our versions of “I Want You Back” and “Don’t Stop Believing.” It’s still funny to me that the quintessential 80s rock song is now beloved by an entirely new generation, thanks to “Glee.” Have these students even heard of Journey, or do they just know the song? Either way, it’s a great tune, and it was great to play it for an appreciative audience.

It is so much fun to connect with the next generation of musicians, we had such a great time meeting everyone! This is actually the first educational outreach program that Third Wheel has done, and now that we know how much fun it is, I’m sure it will not be our last. So many thanks go to Jim Eninger for stopping by, and Karla Devine at Trinity Lutheran Church for sponsoring our program today! And of course thanks to Denise Haslop and everyone at Manhattan Beach Middle School for hosting us and leading such a strong music program. The three of us at Third Wheel are all products of public school music education, and it means so much to us to be able to support and continue that tradition!

For the past few months, there has been quite a lot of reconstruction going on over here at the Third Wheel website. The end result of many meetings, emails and long hours is about to be revealed to the world, and we are all really excited.
The re-launch of the site is probably going to coincide with Third Wheel’s third anniversary, which is so exciting! And, after three years of playing together as a group, we have finally gotten ourselves a real, honest-to-goodness logo too. Didn’t you see it on the homepage? Isn’t it great?
But of course the biggest change out here on Third Wheel’s webspace is what you’re currently viewing: our new blog! This is quite possibly the most exciting change we’re adding for 2010. It has been pretty difficult the past three years to restrain ourselves from posting incessantly about all of the adventures we have had as a group, so now we are opening the floodgates.
Here we go! Hope you enjoy the ride.