Ben Harrison – The Andy Warhol Museum

Cassandra Jenkins

Matthew Newton — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 10:55:13 +0000

Many thanks to Cassandra Jenkins for recording this intimate solo Silver Home Studio Session, featuring two songs from her recent and critically praised album Overview on Phenomenal Nature. We’re fortunate that we’ll get to hear the album live, since she will be joining us, along with her band, for our inaugural Sound Series: Block Party on September 18, as we return to live, in-person performance on an outdoor stage on the North Shore.

Vieux Farka Touré

Matthew Newton — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 20:00:34 +0000

We feel very fortunate that guitarist and songwriter Vieux Farka Touré recorded this Silver Home Studio Session for us from his home city of Bamako, Mali. And we’re thrilled that he’ll be joining us for our inaugural Sound Series: Block Party on September 18, as we return to live, in-person performance on an outdoor stage on the North Shore. Vieux, accompanied by his dynamic band, will be part of a roster six artists, as we celebrate the return to communal performance experiences and the universal nature of live music.

Wilsen

Matthew Newton — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 17:28:11 +0000

We’re so appreciative for this intimate session from home by Tamsin Wilson of Wilsen, featuring two songs, “Wearing” and “Wedding” from the band’s most recent album Ruiner on Secret City Records. This third album continues to demonstrate the band’s range from the more intricate and delicate acoustic tracks laden with striking imagery (such as the two songs in this session), to the wonderfully melodic dream-pop track, “Feeling Fancy”.

Ben Opie

Matthew Newton — Fri, 07 May 2021 04:01:35 +0000

The Pittsburgh-based composer and multi-instrumentalist, Ben Opie, was kind enough to take a moment at home to record this session for us, featuring two pieces of distinctly different tone and mood. The first, Yellow Phase, is from his suite Meditations on Quarantine, composed mostly during the earlier months of the COVID-19 lockdown. The second, Postupano Oro, is a traditional Balkan dance piece that is part of the repertoire of a trio he has been performing with that has been practicing Balkan dances in the park during the pandemic.

Marc Ribot

Matthew Newton — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 22:32:17 +0000

We’re fortunate that guitarist and composer, Marc Ribot, took some time to record two instrumental songs that demonstrate his genre-crossing sensibility: Winin’ Boy Blues by Jelly Roll Morton and Congo by Frantz Casseus. The latter is featured on a recent expanded reissue of Ribot’s out-of-print 1993 album of songs by Casseus, an early teacher and mentor. Since the late 1970s, Ribot has collaborated with a wide array of musicians including Tom Waits, Alison Krauss, and Elvis Costello.

KeiyaA

Matthew Newton — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 18:44:11 +0000

We’re grateful for this intimate and powerful Silver Home Studio Session graciously recorded by KeiyaA, a singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in New York and raised in Chicago’s South Side. On her recently released debut album, Forever, Ya Girl, she uniquely blends her jazz training and background with R&B, funk, and hip-hop elements, as well as primary inspiration from African American poets such as Jayne Cortez and Ntozake Shange. Her album was on several “Best of 2020″ lists including the New York Times, Brooklyn Vegan, and The Guardian and has garnered fellow-artist fans such as Solange, Moses Sumney, and Jay-Z.

Leyla McCalla

Matthew Newton — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 17:24:57 +0000

As a reflection on Black History Month, we’re thrilled that songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Leyla McCalla, took a moment at home to record wonderfully intimate versions of two songs from her album, Vari-Colored Songs. Re-released recently by Smithsonian Folkways, the record is a tribute to the legacy of poet and thinker Langston Hughes.

Damien Jurado

Matthew Newton — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 22:45:19 +0000

This memorable session from January 2014 is one of our earliest and most lo-fi in terms of production. Given the strength of Damien Jurado’s songwriting, we just tried not to get in the way while capturing this earnest and moving performance.

Courtney Marie Andrews

Matthew Newton — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 16:03:23 +0000

At just sixteen years old, Courtney Marie Andrews left home in Arizona for her first tour. She traveled up and down the West Coast, busking and playing any bars or cafés that would have her. Soon after, she took a Greyhound bus four nights straight from Phoenix to New York to do the same on the East Coast. For a decade or so since, Courtney’s been a session and backup singer and guitarist for nearly forty artists, from Jimmy Eat World to Damien Jurado. She never stopped writing her own material, though. Picking up admirers like Jurado and Ryan Adams along the way, she has quietly earned a reputation as a songwriter’s songwriter.

Valgeir Sigurðsson and Nadia Sirota

Matthew Newton — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 19:46:37 +0000

This session with Icelandic composer and producer Valgeir Sigurðsson and American violist, Nadia Sirota, from March 2013, was recorded just after their intimate and collaborative performance in our intimate theater. Sigurðsson is the co-founder, with Nico Muhly and Ben Frost, of the renowned Reykjavík-based record label and artist collective, Bedroom Community, and related Greenhouse Studios. Sirota is a soloist focused on exposing new classical music to a broad audience through collaborations with artists such as The National, David Bowie, and Björk.