UNCOVERED

A cast of characters

Though there are still a few weeks left before the formal launch of NCO Uncovered, we uploaded a bunch of content today, ranging from audio reports from the June NCO Gypsy Nights concert to interviews with artist-in-residence Darrell Scott. Details on that to follow. But we'd very much like you to see a few minutes with Paul Gambill, in which he explains why he steered the NCO toward its Music Without Boundaries worldview in the first place, plus a bit about what to expect from the coming season.

The content available at the launch of Uncovered should give a pretty good overview of NCO past, present and future. Concertmaster David Davidson and cellist Julia Emahiser offer fascinating and passionate views about how the NCO offered opportunities for collaboration and exploration they never had in traditional classical ensembles. NCO artist-in-residence Darrell Scott offers a preview of the upcoming season at the Acoustic Cafe and describes himself as a "bee collecting musical pollen." Sounds like a perfect match for the NCO. We also have guest artist interviews from the June Gypsy Nights concert, including composer David Balakrishnan and violinist Gilles Apap. And there's a video documentary about an amazing recording session conducted by the NCO with John Jorgenson at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

There's much more information about Uncovered on this site and at NCO.org.

Jorgenson online today

A friend sent this notice over the weekend. Guitar master and NCO Uncovered featured artist John Jorgenson is playing a show today from California that will be webcast. Videoranch is an online production of Mike Nesmith of the Monkees! Even if you can't catch this event in time, check out some of John's performances on YouTube and then see if you can resist our Uncovered special access to a year in John's life, while he composes and records new works for guitar and orchestra. Details follow:

MONDAY WEBCAST
The John Jorgenson Quintet will be playing at Videoranch on the central coast in California, this Monday, August 13... and you're invited! No matter where you are in the world, as long as you have a PC with a broadband connection, you can catch John's gig live. Really!

The show starts Monday, August 13, at 1pm Pacific (California) time. The setting is an online music community where users log in and watch the show in a virtual environment while interacting with other users.

To get started, download the Videoranch browser at: http://www.videoranch.com/vr3dfiles/vr3d968.exe

Beginning Monday morning, August 13 at 9am, Videoranch will be open to visitors. Just download the file from the link above, and log in as a Visitor, and a Visitor participates for FREE. Create a username and supply your email address. Ranch hands will be on duty to help you navigate.

Once you're inside the virtual environment, it will take a few minutes for things to become visible. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to move around. To see your Avatar, hit the End key on your keyboard. To chat, type text in the chat bar at the bottom of the screen.

Fly on the Wall?

by Paul Gambill

If you could be anywhere, listen to any conversation or follow alongside any musician in the NCO’s world, what would you pick? That’s where UNCOVERED will take you. And as we prepare to roll out NCO UNCOVERED – A Season Inside the NCO, we’d love to hear what aspect of the NCO you’d like to experience up close.

Think of it this way, you have a chance to get all of the “special features” on the DVD, but up front as the movie is being made. Okay, we’re not making a movie, but we are making two Best of the Season CDs – one for the Acoustic Café Series with Artist-in-Residence Darrell Scott and one of our Adventure Series concerts at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. And there is a lot of cool stuff that most people never get to see that goes into performing a season of concerts and recording two CDs.

Maybe it’s sitting alongside a composer while they work through creating a new piece. Or seeing Darrell Scott write one of his amazing songs that will reach right into your soul and change you forever. Or, you’ve always wondered how the orchestra pulls it together in just a few rehearsals, and what its like to follow the development of a new work from initial concept up to the first time the orchestra rehearses it and then the world premiere.

This is your chance to weigh in and help us shape the direction of this exciting project. No orchestra has ever done this before, so we’re making this up as we go. We’ve got all the marketing specialists and PR folks working on it, and the official surveys are floating around out there to help us shape the offerings. But we also want to hear your candid ideas about what will get you jazzed about this project.

A fly on the wall for creating the crazy mix of music that is the NCO? Could be fun.