reviews of interest

Simply put…it’s the opportunity for youth to perform, outside the classroom, in a real venue, before an audience.  Too many hours are spent in the classroom, or behind the closed bedroom door…practicing away…pages and pages of charts, yet no audience.  But not tonight…the kids were on stage, and the kids were smokin’!  Read more...

Absolutely remarkable.  There…that’s concise and contained... everything the show was not.  I should just search the thesaurus, seeking alternatives to “perfect” for the remainder of this review.  Just the names of musicians alone are enough to fill the room with high expectations, long before the first note was even played.  Read more...

The room’s dim lighting is accented by small lamps and candles with musicians and listeners coming through the door on a cool, foggy East Bay night to the tune of, “Hey!…what’s up?!?!?   You bring your horn…?”.  An evening at The Dayna Stephens House Jam is like an evening of good friends getting together in someone’s living room to kick it.   And kick it they did.  Read more...

Carla Kildstedt & Good for Cows

I was sitting in the back, and I kept thinking of Grizzly Adams.  You remember the wilderness show from the 70’s, with the hairy man and the bear...well, when listening to Carla Kihlstead and Fei Wu collaborate, a nature scene kept running through my mind.  With the delicate touches of Carla’s violin and Fei’s koto, first I heard the haunting screech of a lone hawk coasting ever-so-lightly over a mountain peak.  Read more...