Yes, you read that right — not that super cool indie band TV on the Radio, but TW on the Radio!.
In case you missed it, the ladies of Third Wheel were guests on KUSC‘s Arts Alive program with Brian Lauritzen on September 17, 2011. You can listen to our lovely voices here: http://www.kusc.org/artsalive/
Or, if you want, check out this transcribed version below and learn a little bit more about what it really means to be Third Wheel.
Arts Alive broadcast: September 17, 2011 8 a.m.
Host Brian Lauritzen
BL: Long gone are the days of posting an ad for a musician in the local free newspaper or on campus bulletin boards. Bassoonist Rebecca Rivera made a connection with local woodwind ensemble Third Wheel and its flutist Karin Kantenwein through her Facebook page. The two musicians had crossed paths while students at USC.
RR: At the beginning of the year, I joined Facebook, and I made a bassoon page, and put some recordings up, and wanted to be able to connect with other players I had met in the freelance world, and so I became friends with Karin again, and then she contacted me about possibly playing some chamber music, seeing if it would be a good fit, and we had a really nice time.
BL: Rivera replaces bassoonist Rich Ramberg who formed the group with flutist Kantenwein and clarinetist Adrienne Geffen in 2007. Their aim is to perform new music that doesn’t get a lot of airplay, and to present pieces that borrow from the musical language of jazz, folk and rock. Rivera says the digital language comes in handy when communicating with contemporary composers.
RR: There are composers that are friends, people that we know, and also people all around the country. So you can email them, send them clips. For the last concert that we did we were able to do some videos of coachings with the composers and ask them questions about articulations. And it’s a really neat experience, especially when my background is primarily doing orchestral repertoire and not a lot of contemporary music, so it’s a neat experience to learn new techniques on the instrument too.
BL: The group also curates a concert series known as Wine & Wheels – a casual concert experience that mixes wine and food with music. It starts up again October 2nd with the Vientos Trio on the bill. Flutist Karin Kantenwein says the series allows them to bridge the gap between new music and standard repertoire.
KK: So we can take our audiences through an experience, and that experience is maybe a lot of our repertoire that’s standard for a trio – a lot of people don’t know. You know, composers like Muczynski and Peeters and Schickele and some of those. So we bring those pieces to our concert, and then plus we bring in new music by friends of ours and local LA people as well.
BL: Composers outside of LA are starting to seek out the group as well. Clarinetist Adrienne Geffen:
AG: The Wine & Wheels performance that we had last June, we premiered a piece by Kyle Hovatter, a composer from up in Northern California. And he found us on YouTube. He watched some of our videos and liked our sound, liked what we were doing, contacted us, and wrote a piece for us.
BL: The all-female group will perform a program of music by women composers today at 3 p.m. at the Good Shepherd Chapel at Concordia University in Irvine, thanks in part to a grant from the organization New York Women Composers. Clarinetist Adrienne Geffen says it’s opportunities like these that get the group really excited.
AG: I think one of the biggest things why we started Third Wheel was to create our own opportunities. You know, as young musicians just having finished school, we didn’t want to wait around for the phone call to come for the big gig. So we realized that if we got together, we could really make something ourselves and have our own voice.
BL: Third Wheel performs at the Good Shepherd Chapel at Concordia University in Irvine today at 3 p.m. Their Wine & Wheels series starts October 2nd at Fancifull Gift Baskets and Fine Foods, in Hollywood. For more information, visit thirdwheeltrio.com.
