FALL TWO FOR ONE SPECIAL
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Crisp and beautifully energetic music.
We know you love to share our music, so to celebrate Peter's upcoming performance in Ireland, his best-selling recording of Music from the British Isles is on-sale for $8.99 as a download, or, if you buy a CD at the regular price, we will send you a second one for a friend at no additional charge. www.archguitar.com.
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| INFORMATION |
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Bookings and information:
-Madeline Weaver Blanchette bookarchguitar@gmail.com
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| RECENT PRESS |
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Sept. 26, 2009, (1:00 - 3:00 p.m. EST) John Schneider interviews Peter Blanchette on Air Pacifica's The Global Village. Heard world-wide online at www.KPFK.org.
You can read James Heflin's article on Peter Blanchette in the October, 2009 edition of Preview Massachusetts.
www.previewmass.com
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ALSO NOTED
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Peter can be heard every Thursday at Carmelina's at the Commons in Hadley, MA. www.carmelinas.com
Peter is accepting a limited number of adult and adolescent fall guitar & composition students.
bookarchguitar@gmail.com
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| BIOGRAPHY |
Peter
Blanchette is the inventor of the 11-string archguitar. His repertoire
of unusual and internationally acclaimed arrangements and compositions
spans from medieval to contemporary to ethnic, played in solo recital
or with selected other instrumentalists to form the Virtual Consort. A
recipient of the MCC Artist Grant in Music Composition, Blanchette is a
veteran performer on such high profile venues as NPR's: "A Prairie Home
Companion" and The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His CDs
receive heavy airplay on "Sunday Baroque," "The Thistle and Shamrock"
and regionally on WAMC, WNYC, and WFCR. In 2009, he was a WFCR
Foundation nominee as one of the region's most valuable artists. As a
composer, he has contributed to such television programs as HBO's "Sex
and the City" and PBS' "Inside the Tuscan Hills." In the late 1990's,
the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts (MIFA)
commissioned Peter Blanchette to compose scores to the Buster Keaton
silent comedies "The General" and "The Navigator" which resulted in
sell-out performances in RealArtWays in Hartford CT, and at Memorial
Hall in Shelburne Falls, MA. Among other film work, Blanchette worked extensively with
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Bolcom and director John
Turturro on Turturro's film Illuminata. He is also the founder and
Artistic Director of the Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra and holds a
Master's Degree in Music Composition from Smith College in Northampton,
Massachusetts and a Bachelor's of Arts Degree from Marlboro College in
Marlboro, Vermont.
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| UPCOMING PERFORMANCES |
09/10/09, Steamboat Bill, Jr. Dingle Film Festival Ireland
09/23/09, Solo Recital All Soul's Church Greenfield, MA 10/04/09, Steamboat Bill, Jr. Amherst Cinema Amherst, MA 10/06-07/09, Film Scoring Master Classes Amherst Cinema10/14/09, Steamboat Bill, Jr. Pleasant Street Theater, N'ton, MA 11/06/09, Solo Recital Westfield State College, Westfield, MA 11/21/09, HVGO Northampton Center for the Arts
N'ton, MA 12/05/09, Solo Recital The Stone Church Bellows Falls, VT
12/31/09, HVGO Northampton's First Night Sweeney Hall
12/31/09, Solo Recital Northampton's First Night Sweeney Hall |
Dear Friends,
From a summer spent mostly in the music studio, so many exciting things are coming to life this fall at Archguitar Music!
Next week Peter packs as many instruments as the airline will allow him to carry-on to travel to Dingle, Ireland where he will debut his truly fantastic new, original score to Buster Keaton's classic "Steamboat Bill, Jr." In October, the Amherst Cinema Arts Center welcomes Peter back stateside for a week-long residency culminating in two live performances of Steamboat Bill, Jr. Next, in November, the Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra performs its much-anticipated inaugural concert at the Northampton Center for the Arts.
Come and enjoy the music with us!
Maddy
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 Dingle Film Festival
What happens when internationally acclaimed filmmakers converge on a picturesque town at the end of a peninsula off Ireland's southwest coast? Fáilte romhat an Daingean don tríú Féile Scannáin an Daingin!
(Welcome to Dingle for the third edition of the Dingle Film Festival!) This year's Festival takes place from September 10-13, 2009, and its highlights
include a broad music in film program, comedy,
educational and shorts, and film workshops. This year the
Gregory Peck Award for Excellence in the Art of Film will be presented
by Anthony Peck to Jim Sheridan whose first critically acclaimed
feature was My Left Foot in 1989.
Within the music program are such
gems as the 10-hour Beatles Anthology and an eye-opening documentary The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector, and, combining comedy and
music, the classic Buster Keaton movie Steamboat Bill, Jr. will open the
Festival performed live to screen by acclaimed musician and composer Peter
Blanchette who has been specially commissioned to compose the piece.
Sláinte!
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 Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Oct. 4 Steamboat Bill, Jr. Amherst Cinema
Oct. 6 & 7 Film Scoring Master Classes Amherst Cinema
Oct. 14 Steamboat Bill, Jr. Pleasant Street Theater
These delightful performances are a joy for all ages and musical tastes. Buy tickets now to ensure you'll be a part of this truly memorable night at the movies.
Advance tickets at www.amherstcinema.org
Steamboat Bill, Jr.
What if Shostakovich played electric guitar? Peter Blanchette, composer, producer, and guitar innovator has dynamically scored Buster Keaton's irreverent silent film, "Steamboat Bill, Jr." Keaton's transcendent pratfalls and stoic caricature become a black and white ballet for Peter's ironic and romantic music. Just as Keaton's beloved comedy weaves Vaudeville schtick with Jazz age surrealism, Blanchette's music weds avant-garde classical to honkey-tonk to Americana. Music lovers, film buffs, and children alike, will be delighted by Peter's virtual pit-band, played live to screen. The Pleasant Street Theater performance is supported, in part, by a grant from the Northampton Arts Council.
Master Classes
Here, as part of an inspiring week-long residency
supported by a New England Foundation for the Arts "Meet the Composer"
grant, Peter will provide beginner and intermediate filmmakers and
musicians the singular opportunity to experience the craft of composing
and editing music to enhance the emotional life of a film scene. Participants' work will be visible via audio projection, allowing class
Auditors to serve as an interactive audience. Discussion will include scoring techniques as learned from Peter's experience working with
Pulitzer-prize winning composer William Bolcom and director John
Turturro, with examples from various films, and demonstrations of cue
choices from Blanchette's scoring of Steamboat Bill,
Jr. Reserve placement now as Participant or Auditor at www.amherstcinema.org.
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Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra
Nov. 21 Inaugural Concert
Northampton Center for the Arts
www.hvgo.org, www.ncfa.org
What if one group brought together musicians of disparate musical styles, skills, age, and social
background to make beautiful music together, defying the boring elitist homogeneity rampant in classical
musical ensembles?That is HVGO!
Please join us for a fabulous evening of Peter's newest project, The Happy Valley Guitar Orchestra
("HVGO"). HVGO brings together enthusiastic acoustic and electric guitarists from
widely varied traditions to create new music that could only come from such an
eclectic mélange. Like the
traditional symphony orchestra, HVGO is an instrument unto itself for which a
composer and arranger can create new repertoire. To this end, Blanchette has specifically
developed arrangements of both significant contemporary and legacy composers
arrangements to exploit the unique tonal characteristics of HVGO and the
musical strengths of its members. Supported, in part, with a grant from the Northampton Arts Council.
This is an event not to be missed. Be there or be square!
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| UPCOMING PERFORMANCES |
09/10/09, Steamboat Bill, Jr. Dingle Film Festival Ireland
09/23/09, Solo Recital All Soul's Church Greenfield, MA 10/04/09, Steamboat Bill, Jr. Amherst Cinema Amherst, MA 10/06-07/09, Film Scoring Master Classes Amherst Cinema10/14/09, Steamboat Bill, Jr. Pleasant Street Theater, N'ton, MA 11/06/09, Solo Recital Westfield State College, Westfield, MA 11/21/09, HVGO Northampton Center for the Arts
N'ton, MA 12/05/09, Solo Recital The Stone Church Bellows Falls, VT
12/31/09, HVGO Northampton's First Night Sweeney Hall
12/31/09, Solo Recital Northampton's First Night Sweeney Hall | |
