Artist In Residence and Cantus Idol!

This past weekend we had our second annual Artist In Residence concert at St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Bloomington. It was a blast in so many ways! Earlier this season we had a Festival Day where, for a morning and an afternoon, the students in the program worked with Cantus and their teachers on several "mass choir" pieces that were programmed for the concert. The idea was to bring the students together and give them a chance to meet each other before the actual performance. It made the concert that much more exciting, almost like a reunion of sorts! This year our three schools were Robbinsdale Armstrong High School, Cambridge-Isanti High School, and South High School. Each of them had a set to sing, and they all did wonderfully. This is a special shout out to those schools... Thank you, and we loved working with you!

Now we are preparing for the remainder of the season, working with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra on Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins and our awesome collaborators for our 3rd annual Cantus Covers Concert. But before we get there, we have some time to unleash our inner pop or rock personalities.



It's CANTUS IDOL 2010, coming up on May 10th (two Mondays from now!), and it shaping up to be a really fun event, with emcee Erin Schwab, a new pack of judges, a live auction to benefit Cantus' educational outreach efforts, and a new location at The Dakota in downtown Minneapolis. Each of us has been trying to figure out, under the radar of course, what the others are performing, but it looks like most of these songs will be heavily guarded secrets until that evening. That being said, the show itself isn't much of a secret anymore, with over three quarters of our tickets already gone! If you want to get in on the action, follow this LINK to secure your seats.

Just in case you're curious, the descriptions for the items in the live auction can be found below. If I were bidding on something, I'd definitely put my money on "Own It All". Remember, along with the collection of music found on our regular CDs, there are tracks that have NEVER been released on that DVD!

Hope all of you can make it, and thanks for reading!


STEP IT UP!
Say “happy birthday” with true style or arrange a serenade under your true love’s balcony. A quartet of Cantus singers will punctuate a special occasion or event with a song. Like a singing telegram… but way cooler.

SING IT OUT!
If you have ever found yourself sitting in the audience at a Cantus concert and had to stop yourself from standing up and joining in, tonight’s the night! Join Cantus on stage later this evening for "It’s Alright" by Curtis Mayfield. While you sing your heart out, Cantus will make you sound like a pro. Don’t worry, we’ll all clap…no matter what.

DRINK IT UP!
Have you ever stood in front of shelves of wine and picked your bottle based on the label? Let Cantus do the picking for you! The singers and Board of Cantus have selected twenty bottles of red and white wine to enhance any occasion. Each bottle comes with an explanation of why we chose it for you. Cheers!

OWN IT ALL!
Be the envy of the Cantus fan world! The guys raided the archives and created a one-of-kind audio DVD with every piece Cantus has released… and several they have not. It’s a collection sure to put your sound system through its paces. They have also included a framed and signed photo of their smiling mugs to beautify your home.

SHOW IT OFF!
Treat your friends and family to a Cantus concert in your home or backyard! You provide the home and up to ten guests and we provide the rest. The singers will entertain with a 45-minute set. Board members Amanda Davisson and Tom Northenscold will serve as your personal chef and sommelier.

Drumming at Red Lake

On March 1st, Cantus visited the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Northern Minnesota. It was an amazing experience...one that none of us will ever forget! We sang for over 600 elementary school students in the afternoon, and in the evening we held a concert for the general community.

In between these two events we were blessed to see several performance by the elementary school's dance troupe, accompanied by an authentic drumming circle. We decided it would be great to post one of the videos we recorded that day. You could feel the gymnasium's bleachers shaking with each beat of the drum, and the dancers' intricate clothing chimed away with other fascinating sounds.

We hope you enjoy!

Flight!

Cantus would like to thank all who donated on GiveMN.org's "Give to the Max" day by making this video available:



This is "Flight", a piece by Tim Takach for boomwhacker ensemble. If you'd like to find out about boomwhackers, go to http://www.boomwhackers.com/.

Enjoy!

Give to the Max!

Orchestra Hero?

I was reading the New York Times this morning and came across a pretty cool opinion by a composer, Michael Gordon. Why not have Orchestra Hero? There are two video games out there that are captivating people and working their musical minds in various ways: Guitar Hero and Rock Band. So why not have a game that connects with one of the most influential ensembles of the past 4 centuries? Well, it sounds like something I would love to get my hands on, but I'm not sure if it's got the amount of influence needed to involve game developers. Here's the article I was reading: Orchestra Hero.

And here's the thing. I felt that, after reading the article in its entirety, it was advertised somewhat falsely, since about 3/4 of it was about the history of the orchestra and Michael Gordon's compositions. But then I listened to the sound bite of Gordon's "Rewriting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony" and was captivated with it. First off, that's the actual title of the piece. Second, I COULD hear the connection between Beethoven and "Rewriting"...and I don't even know Beethoven's Seventh that well. I've heard it a couple times, but for some reason I understood where Gordon had wanted to go with it, and it made sense to me.

That doesn't excuse the fact that the article was SUPPOSED to focus on the concept of Orchestra Hero...I sort of wished he had been able to make a great case for it, because you'd probably be right with your money if you bet on the fact that certain members of Cantus, if not the whole ensemble, would pick it up. But even if he didn't make a great case, the concept was mentioned. And it will probably continue to be for a long time.

Tim Takach's and Matt Tintes' reasons to support Cantus on the Give to the Max day, November 17.

Irony

So most folks know by now that a Tornado hit the south side of Downtown Minneapolis on Tuesday. Cantus was rehearsing at Westminster only a few blocks away from "the action." We rehearse in a children's choir room with no windows and a very dry acoustic. This helps us hear all of the mistakes and doesn't allow for much distraction. Unfortunately it also didn't allow us to hear the Tornado sirens. Lucky for us, one of the Westminster folks came to get us. We went down to the basement, sat on the floor in the hallway and continued rehearsing. Not until one of the Westminster staff joked that this event was "our fault" did we even acknowledge that we were rehearsing They Call the Wind Maria from Lerner and Loewe's Paint Your Wagon. Pretty hilarious. Thankfully Westminster and the surrounding buildings were not harmed by the extreme weather.

Nonetheless, it's great to be back in rehearsal making music again. We'll be on stage before we know it--and I, for one, can't wait!

A Rain Song

So I'm not one for much surfing the internet anymore. For some reason I've just gotten out of the habit and tend to get stuff done and head out, but today was certainly an exception. I've been working on painting my future apartment with my future roommates all weekend, and needed to just relax and not do much of anything this afternoon (not to mention the long programming meeting with Cantus)!

Not to steer people in other directions or anything, but there are plenty of music blogs that one could get lost in if one has an afternoon to waste. Blogs like Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise or Jeremy Denk's think denk are great places to start, but there are plenty more, ranging from marketing within the performing arts to just plain funny or interesting music.

What's funny about this particular post is that its title, "A Rain Song", stems from a video that I want to share which I found NOT on some other music blog. A friend of mine just happened to keep me on a listserve for an old men's group in which I used to sing (The Sons of Orpheus, in case you're wondering), and passed along this really interesting video while I was reading about the new Hamburg Philharmonic Hall, which will be finished in 2012 and is located in the middle of Sandtor harbour!

The video sort of cuts the song short, and the effects sound ALMOST perfect, but my favorite is the heavy downpour section...and the imitation of cracking thunder. Very cool, very interesting, and above all, I'm a little sad that Cantus is just 9 men. How cool would it be to prepare some sort of soundscape design like this in our regular "Surprise" slot for a touring program?

Anyways, enjoy this video. Will be writing again soon!

Rain

Cantus Season Wrapup

Hello gang,

Cantus finished its home concert season with two exciting weekends at The Ritz Theater performing "Covers II". Got two great reviews of the show. Star Tribune and Twin Cities.com. The boys are all on hiatus now, but we'll be back in the Fall to bring you more music. Here's a video clip from one of the shows:




We also have two bits of very exciting news for Cantus, with a prestigious award and a new musician-led structure! Cantus this month received Chorus America's Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, and is the first collaborative ensemble to do so! It includes a $5000 cash prize.

Cantus' Board of Directors recently voted unanimously to move the group to an artist-led artistic structure, more in line with our chamber music process. This very important decision shows a great commitment to the method that Cantus uses to make its music, and the performers who have always been making the musical decisions. Now, the performers will be leading the company's artistic vision in a much more collaborative way. The recent pop shows were executed under the new structure, and every future show will be programmed by the singers you see on stage.

We hope everyone has a great summer. Its been a very eventful season, and we will be preparing for the next one all summer. We'll have a preview of next season coming up very soon. Until then, we have just two more cities, Chautauqua, NY and New London, NH. See you on the road!

John Luther Adams

Adam Reinwald and I were working in the Cantus office yesterday, sorting through and filing music while geeking out to some music from his infamous iPhone. We came across some interesting scores, including a small art song entitled "up into the silence" by John Luther Adams (the poem is by e.e. cummings...a GREAT poem that you should google!). I brought this art song home to sift through. At first I couldn't figure out if I liked it or not... It was repetitive, with the same sorts of figures in the accompaniment, and the right hand of the piano almost always played what the solo line was singing (which wasn't much other than arpeggios already used in the piano part). But by the end of the bleak-sounding piece, I was completely entranced. It wasn't boring like I'd thought: It was very, very slow progress, with a lot of measured silences.

So I looked up this John Luther Adams, and it turns out he's pretty famous. He's got a discography of around 10 CDs, a quote from Lou Harrison mentioning that he's "one of the few important young American composers", and it seems like he's a semi-continuation of Morton Feldman's ideas about slow moving processes. But these slow moving processes and possible minimalist gestures are a direct result of his love for Alaska, where he's lived since the late 1970s, which he mentions in almost every interview I could find.

I then searched for him elsewhere, and came upon this article in the New Yorker about a sound and light installation that Adams placed in the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. It's called "The Place Where You Go to Listen", and it's based on natural events that occur in real time. By that I mean it's completely controlled by input data collected from its surroundings: seismic waves, overcast/clear skies, etc. I know...I freaked out a little too.

So check the New Yorker article out...it's quite interesting. And who knows. Maybe John Luther Adams might sit in on one of our concerts in October, when we're scheduled to have our very first Alaska tour!

Cantus Covers!

Hello All,

We've been busy at work getting ready for our Covers Concerts, June 5-6, and June 12-14 (tickets), and it's just been a blast. We always enjoy being rockers for a day (or two weekends in this case). And Gary doesn't even have to turn on his PlayStation 2 (a failed attempt at humor suggesting that he plays way too much Guitar Hero). 

Nay, the guitars are real, and so are the awesome collaborators we are working with. Here's a little impromptu sampling that I created entirely with my computer! Do forgive the poor sound, video quality, and/or nauseating cinematography, I hope it's just a fun peek into what we do in rehearsal. Don't forgive my hair's cameo. Go Mac!

Summer Songs

I couldn't help thinking about summer as I enjoyed a perfectly sunny, breezy day. Here are links/lyrics to performances of two of my favorite summer songs for ensembles.

Sumer is icumen in (performed by the Hilliard Ensemble)

Sumer is i-cumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed,
And bloweth med,
And springeth the wde nu:
Sing cuccu! cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lamb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth,
Bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu!
Wel singes thu cuccu,
Ne swik thou nauer nu!
Sing cuccu nu!
Sing cuccu!

Wild Mountain Thyme (performed by The Corries)

O the summer time has come
And the trees are sweetly bloomin'
And the wild mountain thyme
Grows around the bloomin' heather
Will ye go lassie go?

Chorus:
And we'll all go together
To pull wild mountain thyme
All around the bloomin' heather
Will ye go lassie go?

I will build my love a bower (summerhouse)
By yon cool crystal fountain
And round it I will pile
All the wild flowers o' the mountain
Will ye go lassie go?

(chorus)

I will range through the wilds
And the deep glen sae dreamy
And return wi' their spoils
Tae the bower o' my dearie
Will ye go lassie go?

(chorus)

If my true love she'll not come
Then I'll surely find another
To pull wild mountain thyme
All around the bloomin' heather
Will ye go lassie go?

(chorus)

Snow in May

Well, actually, I do remember a May with an amazing snowfall back in college. The event served as the basis of a friend's stance against living in the Upper Midwest..."No way I'm staying here! We literally had nine months of winter this year. It snowed at the end of September, throughout the fall, winter and spring, and here it is again in May!"

One of our collective favorites on the upcoming series Covers II: A Pop Concert takes advantage of the nostalgia surrounding snowy images and ties them beautifully to summer. If you haven't yet heard White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes, you ought to do so. Then come hear our performance, including collaborators Dave Hagedorn, Lee Blaske, Mark Ilaug and Rikki Davenport.

Cantus Idol!!!

Hey Everybody,

Well it's been a while since The Big Event, but Cantus Idol was a huge success! For those who don't know what Cantus Idol is, Cantus has hosted a fundraising event, a "competitive karaoke" competition, entitled Cantus Idol for the past two years. This year the event was held at Hell's Kitchen, a fantastic restaurant in the middle of downtown Minneapolis. It's a competition a la "American Idol", so it wouldn't be complete without a panel of three judges with fantastic, and unique, personalities. This year our judges included John DeHaan, professor on the faculty of the Vocal Department at the University of Minnesota, Brian Newhouse, broadcast host for Minnesota Public Radio, and Laura Anderson, who is working as the Assistant Director of the University of Minnesota's opera program. Without this panel, the evening would have only been half as entertaining!

In Cantus Idol, each member of Cantus gets up and performs a song they chose. Before, during, or after each of the songs, people can "vote" for their favorite (or favorites) by placing donations in the jar with that singer's picture on it. That's why you see a man's head in the picture with Elvis...I mean...Adam, below. He must have liked that performance, and put some money in! After the first round, five singers are eliminated. After the second round, it's just the top two. Last year Tim won (and I keep hearing about his legendary choice of "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid), but this year Gary took home the trophy. You can see him above, singing out to the audience in his last number.

Speaking of pictures, I was able to capture some great ones with my new camera! I've been toying around with my new digital SLR for a couple months now, and thought Cantus Idol would be perfect practice. The best part was, I had no idea what I was getting into. From Dashon's white jacket, which became famous by the end of the night it was referred to so much, to Tim singing "A Whole New World" with Jocelyn, his wife...In German..., to Adam singing an Elvis tune while looking the part. The night was just way too much fun, and we all knew it. Below is a picture of Eric Hopkins with his husband Andrew and a bunch of friends. They had fun right up to the very end!


With over 150 people in attendance, we were able to raise TWICE the amount generated from last year's efforts. So thanks so much to everyone who attended. For those who didn't attend, there's always next year. And if you are seriously into popular music, come see our pops concerts coming up in the beginning of June.

Posting again soon,

Paul

"geeking out" in concert

Hi, Gang!  Returned but a few short hours ago from the Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds symphonic concert, which kicked off a world tour in Minneapolis last night at the Orpheum.  For those of you who have read my fuller bio on the Cantus website, you may not be surprised that I am a bit of a gamer, and a huge fan of Final Fantasy soundtrack composer Nobuo Uematsu.

While the majority of the music on these epic games has been synth-oriented, the more recent Final Fantasy soundtracks have included full orchestral and choral arrangements that rival Orff, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and other classical greats.  As a genre, the game soundtrack has certainly gained more respect over the past few years, graduating from the chintzy 8-bit days of Atari and Nintendo.  Game soundtracks are now being recorded by groups like the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and London Symphony.  The gaming public demands sound design comparable to a Hollywood picture, and Uematsu has been known for composing masterful songs and themes for twenty five years.

At home, we know a lot of this music by heart because my collection of game soundtracks actually far exceeds my collection of games--there are often multiple albums released with arrangements varying from fully orchestral to celtic-inspired, pop, and solo piano versions, and I have acquired quite a few of them.  

The show

I was happy to run into some Cantus fans in the audience, beginning not more than three minutes after I walked into the theater lobby!  Met four students over the course of the evening that we had taught: one from Iowa State glee club, and three from Sartell and Como Park, where Cantus has worked as clinicians and artists-in-residence.  (I think the kids were very surprised to see me as excited about the show as they were).  

The orchestra featured a lot of players I recognized from gigs around town, including a bunch of SPCO members.  Macalester College provided the chorus, and at one point some colleagues of mine got up on stage to perform a tongue-in-cheek rendition of "Maria and Draco" an opera that takes place in one of the games.  Of course I am completely jealous--not begrudging anyone,  I just wish I could have found out who was contracting the darn show!  A local classical guitarist made a technically sound and very musical appearance on two pieces.  

Here's some footage from the show provided by another fan from last night's show:

 

It really was a festive atmosphere, with fans young and old (like me) cheering throughout the show.  New arrangements of some old favorites were fantastic, and the stage-mounted video screen displayed cut-scenes and gameplay throughout, often with comedic or heartfelt effect.

One down-side to the show, however, was the decision to blast the band through speakers on each side of the stage.  It made it seem as though the music was piped in, rather than being performed right there on stage.  It was disappointing to have the acoustic sound of players obliterated from only ten feet away.  Also, it highlighted a few loose seams in under-rehearsed parts (you can't get anything past the gamers--they know every note).  The concert would have been a better fit at Orchestra Hall, though a similar concert was cancelled there a couple of years ago because of lack of ticket sales.  The Orpheum's size and advertising push did help in that regard, even if the acoustics there are poorer.  the tour will soon be visiting the Baltimore and Dallas Symphonies, so I imagine the aural experience will be nicer at those venues. 

After the show

Uematsu made a few appearances on stage during the show (he's a very funny guy), and sat in the audience watching throughout.  After the show (because I had splurged on the good tickets!), we got to visit with both composer Uematsu and conductor Arnie Roth backstage.  The receiving line was long, but eventually we talked with them for a few minutes.

We got autographs and a picture, and passed on some Cantus CDs to them as gifts, expressing a wish that if Nobuo-San ever wants to write music for men's voices, that he please consider Cantus!   Both men were gracious, and patient sitting for photographs with all the fans coming through the line--a few hundred people for sure.  Audience members ask for Cantus autographs after shows pretty often, but it was neat to be seeking one myself.  

Hopefully the continuing tour of Distant Worlds will pick up steam (they actually encouraged recording and non-flash photography during the show--maybe we should take a clue here...), and bring some kids over who wouldn't normally attend an orchestral concert, and vice versa--bring a few classical concert-goers over to the genre of video game music.  

Bad Babbitt

OK. This youtube video is sick. It has great dancing, great modern classical music, and a great jazz combo. What more can one ask for within the span of about a minute and a half?

Bad Plus' arrangement of Semi -Simple Variations by Milton Babbitt

Changing Spaces

We have ended our long New England tour successfully, and as usual, we have been met with unfailing kindness at every turn. We are so grateful to our fans and supporters, and will continue to bring you the highest level of music that we can, as our way of saying thanks for believing in us.
This has been a very interesting tour in terms of singing in different spaces. As many of you may know, the physical setting in which a group sings brings all sorts of benefits and challenges. The greatest challenge of all is adapting to each new room! A marble cathedral obviously sounds different than a conference room with padded walls and carpet, but it even goes beyond that. The size and shape of the room, instrumentation, ambient noise, size of the stage, and number of people in attendance, among other things all affect the sound that the audience and performers hear. For example, we just performed at the Northeastern Music Educators’ National Conference at the Providence Convention Center. They had to pack about 1,000 (rather enthusiastic) fans into the Grand Ballroom, which was the widest space that we’ve performed in recent memory. There were three sections, one directly in front of the stage that was flanked by two sections that had to watch us on live telecast in the same room! And on the very same tour, we sang in an intimate recital hall built especially for chamber music and smaller recitals, which was great for hearing, but since we don’t get to sing in spaces like that often, we had to adjust for the new sounds of different musical lines, or even different voices that we don’t hear every concert.
So, how do we deal with the ever changing scenery? One of the most important things for us is having a flexible and adaptable plan for performance that we’re able to implement during the rehearsal before the show. On an average concert day, we will have a two hour rehearsal before each show to figure out all sorts of technical elements of the night’s show. The other purpose of the rehearsal is to listen to the sound of the hall as our voices (individually and collectively) figure out how to fit into the space. We’ll make sure that we listen from stage as well as a few guys individually in the hall (when they’re not singing an important part on stage, of course) just to get a sense of what an audience member would hear.
Some important things that we try to remember as we are figuring out the acoustic: we try to sing with how our body tells us, not necessarily what we hear. The spaces can give weird feedback, so it’s not always to our benefit to “give ourselves voice lessons” as we sing. If something is not going well, we also try to stop often so we are not tiring ourselves out with things that aren’t working. On the flip side, we also try not to stop too often for every little strange thing that we hear, it’s important for us to try to simulate the experience trying to sing through clicks in the hall, or funny noises from our own voices during the show, when we can’t stop!
Once we’ve gotten through all of that stuff for the rehearsal, we just try to be as flexible during the performance as possible. Until you start the concert, it’s not possible to know how the sound is affected by the number of people in the audience, what you might feel like under stage lights after an hour, or even how your voice responds to a triple thick strawberry milkshake right before you go on stage (well, I suppose there are some things you can guess at).
The trust that we cultivate, and the amount of time that we spend together gives us the ability to know a lot about the voices of the other eight guys in the arc. We’re very lucky to be able to spend this much time together, but the amount of listening and connecting can start immediately in any group of musicians, if you work at it.
If you have any questions about the way we work, please don’t hesitate to ask us. You’ll find our contact information at the “Connect” heading of our website.

Cantus at Trinity Wall Street

Hey everyone,

This should have been put up a while back, but here is a link to the Trinity Wall Street concert in NYC a couple of weeks ago. It's only an hour long show, but it still has the eclectic mix of our touring program, and all (or most) of your favorites on it! We had a great time in both the educational outreach prior as well as the actual concert. Enjoy!

Trinity Wall Street Concert

Why Music?

This speech, written for the incoming freshmen of the Boston Conservatory, explains clearly and vividly why music is so important to culture and to humanity. It is not just entertainment: It's a necessity. Thanks to my friend Katherine Griswold for posting this link on facebook. It reminded me of the reasons I continue to pursue what many people believe to be a "dying art".

Please read...you won't regret it.

Karl Paulnack's Speech to incoming freshmen

Brand New Alice Tully Hall

Hello All,

My name is Dashon Burton, and I am the Junior Senator of the Baritone Commonwealth of Cantus, and wish to have the floor to speak...

Cantus just arrived in NYC yesterday afternoon after some shady navigating (which way do we go, Dashon?). This is sort of a hometown for me, as I spent much of my childhood here, so it's always wonderful to see the sights, have some lovely food, take in the wonderful civil engineering that can fit 400 million people into 17 square feet (numbers are approximate).

After visiting with some friends, I met up with Cantus tenor Paul Rudoi at the brand new Alice Tully Hall (photo by Iwan Baan) at Lincoln Center. First, I have to echo Paul's sentiments: "50% of why I am here is for the orchestra, and the other 50% is for the architecture." It's an absolutely stunning building to see, and just to walk in is amazing too.

The celebrated orchestra was playing for the Opening Nights Festival which is ongoing until March 8. Last night, Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen renewed my sense of some very familiar works to me. Beethoven's First and Seventh symphonies were served with great vigor, and it's obvious that their continued dedication to this monumental cycle will produce more wonderful concerts and recordings. The camaraderie of the musicians was evident, and their structure is very similar to the way that Cantus started, which is always amazing to see. From their program bio: "Founded in 1980, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen initially consisted of a group of outstanding music students who drew up a grassroots constitution in order to optimally motivate the individual members both personally and musically ... The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is organized as a company in which the musicians are sole partners. Thus they assume full responsibility not only for artistic but financial matters as well." As a chamber musician it is always wonderful to share in the successes of other chamber ensembles as well as be inspired by them.

This virtuosic set of players truly dug into the music. Every bar was infused with life, and rarely have I heard such supreme musical nuance. The musicians played with a sense of clarity that made each line that they wanted you to focus on at the forefront. Mr. Järvi was clearly pleased with the results of his and the rest of the musicians' hard work, and I would say had the best "seat" in the house! Combine the musicians and the wonderful acoustics of the new hall, and you get quite a show. It was a technically, emotionally, and visually wonderful journey through two of my personal favorite Beethoven symphonies, and I couldn't really ask for an artistically better way to start a visit to NYC.

Also, for all of our connected audience across the country who can't make it to the concert at Trinity Wall Street on March 5 at 1PM (EST), just a reminder, they'll be broadcasting it LIVE on the internet, so do tune in!