Live Music Sunday At The Half King
The Luminescent Orchestrii
Sunday, June 12 @ 7:30
Music to make you dance, kiss and scream!
Romanian gypsy melodies, punk frenzy, salty tangos, hard rocking klezmer, haunting Balkan harmony, hip-hop beats and Appalachian fiddle, all eaten and spit out by three violins, resophonic guitar, bullhorn harmonica and guitarron.
The Luminescent Orchestrii is Rima Fand (violin), Julie Carney (violin) Sarah Alden (violin), Aaron Goldsmith (Guitarron) and Sxip Shirey (resophonic guitar, bullhorn harmonicas melodica). The members of the Orchestrii come from different backgrounds and scenes in New York City and share a love of the music that people all over the world listen to while drinking, dancing and weeping. Sxip Shirey is an international Circus composer, Sarah Alden is an old time fiddle player, Rima Fand an experimental theater composer, Kaia Wong an electronic musician, Julie Carney former violin virtuoso turned noise artist and Aaron Goldsmith has played in goth, funk and old world music ensembles. In New York we are soaked in constant sound: Hip-hop beats boom out of cars at 6am in the morning, the Pakistani cheap-eats café blasts Bhangra Beats, you can find old time fiddlers and classical violinists playing in the subways, punk brass bands, Balkan jazz, and of course there is the constant hum of the city itself.
The Luminescent Orchestrii includes current and former members of The Daredevil Opera Company, The Bindlestiff Family Circus, The Strung Out String Band, Alternatrad, Church of Betty, AwRY and Mixel Pixel. The ensemble has performed at the Szászcsávás gypsy music festival in Romania, The Knitting Factory in New York City, Cafe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY, The DUMBO Arts Festival in Brooklyn, The Echo Lounge's Burlesque Festival in Atlanta, GA, The Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio, the Brooklyn Museum of Art's Festival of Fools and many underground parties in New York City.
“A punky 5-piece string band, the Luminescent Orchestrii plays renditions of Appalachian and Gypsy tunes that run from lively and infectious to deeply melancholy. Its original compositions and varied interpretations of traditional melodies are like tiny, richly arranged musical adventures.”
--Time Out New York
“There’s a fine line between gypsy music and punk rock and the Luminescent Orchestrii falls off it at every show. With three fiddlers, a bassist and a guitarist who sweats enough for the five of them, the band stomps the stage, thumps their strings and saws into their instruments. These are believers.”
--Nonsense NYC
“There’s only a scant degree of separation between Romanian gypsy music and punk rock, according to Luminescent Orchestrii, a New York-based group featuring no less than three violinists. Sure antique novelty music is all the rage—wasn’t the old country a gas?—but this quintet can actually boast among its ranks two bonafide circus escapees and a former member of a Balkan women’s choir. Rounding out their street smarts with stage cred in Goth bands, free jazz collectives, and opera companies, these bright lights will play two local dates….”
--Black Mountain Xpress (Ashville, NC)
ALL MUSIC, READING AND GALLERY EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
THE HALF KING IS LOCATED AT 505 WEST 23RD STREET,
LOCATED JUST WEST OF 10TH AVENUE, 212/462-4300.