Kathy Supove has put together a wonderful lineup of shows at The Stone this month.

Happily, she saw fit to ask me to put something together as well.  I’ll be performing with cellist Jessie Marino and flutist Jessica Schmitz on Tuesday, October 27th at 10pm.

It’s been an interesting experience preparing for this show, my first real performance gig since Ben was born.  That’s not really true.  I’ve had a few pieces here and there, and did manage to complete one major project back in February, but returning to The Stone (this will be my third appearance there) feels like reintroducing myself to the scene in many respects.  Thinking of it this way, it turns out, adds a certain amount of undue pressure.  There are a lot of different aspects to my musical personality.  Which one am I going to go with?  People haven’t heard much from me in a little while, so which me do I want to reconnect?  There’s this, but then there’s also this.  The upshot is that I’ve been writing for 10 weeks or so, I’ve taken many of my musical inclinations for a good walk around the block, and I have a number of new pieces I’m excited to present at some point in the future.  Just not at this show.

About a month ago, I went to Canada Gallery to check out a new piece by video artist (and my aunt) Cecilia Dougherty. Entitled The Third Space, the piece is in four sections, each a vignette on a different quotidian activity or experience, juxtaposed with unrelated borrowed text from authors writing on diverse subjects.  They’re spacious (no pun intended), reflective, and somehow very provocative, and I just fell in love with them.  Click on her name (above) to link to her site.  One of the four sections, shot in the Swiss Alps, is on her home page.  Another is here.

Reflecting on them on the train ride home, the thought occurred to me to try using the videos as the focal point of an extended improvisation.  Jessica, Jessie, and I finally got together to try it out, tease out some of the challenges and strong points, and we’ve now got an idea for how to use them that I’m really excited about.  The show will run about forty minutes and feature sections of video with structured improv accompaniment, with musical interludes between the sections.

Here’s all the info in short form:

Jessica Schmitz, Jessie Marino, and Aleksei Stevens
featuring video by Cecilia Dougherty
Tuesday, October 27, 10pm
The Stone (E 2nd St & Ave C)
$10 General Admission

Hope to see you there.  Bring your friends.

Love,

Alek