Newsletter updates

Dec 20, 2018

Happy Holidays everyone,

As we approach the year, I thought I'd share some recent photos and my last couple gigs before I head west to AZ for a break! It's been a really busy fall/winter for me; I was in Berlin for a week for...yet another conference (6 this year! ick!), and then I had a week with my wife in Poland for Thanksgiving where I cooked a traditional meal....you know...chicken marsala, chimichurri, the regular. The irony of all this was trying to find marsala wine in Krawkow...you'd think it would be hard...and well, it was. Until we found a wine shop right near the apartment...and ironically, they only had about 40 bottles of wine tops in the entire store...but they had (4) types of marsala wine! On top of that irony, they had a paper sign on the door saying, "we have marsala wine(!)" or something like that (I may have gotten my czcyzwc and wsycyzcyyz consonant clusters mixed up). All of this about 2 blocks from the apartment. What!?  It almost had that Facebook creep feel to it, where you think about wanting something, and the next thing you know, ads are popping up everywhere for the item! 

Anyhow, back to music! Tonight 12/20 @ Spice Thai kitchen in Ipswich, I'm happy to be back with Bert Seager for some chamber jazz with Rick DiMuzio (clnt, sop.) and special guest Joshua Davis (bs) from DC. Then, this weekend on Sunday afternoon 12/23, Ishna will be back for A Celtic Christmas at the Irish Cultural Center. We just wrapped up a weekend of holiday pops concerts with Symphony NH, which was tons of fun. Tara (violin) and her father (who was also in attendance) pulled off quite the feat of arranging several Ishna tunes for orchestra, as well as a couple large medleys, one of which was quite a workout for the orchestra ;-) Definitely my first time playing bodhran with orchestra, that's for sure (no double for you union nerds).  Later in the evening on the 23rd, Klezwoods is back for its annual Klezmer Xmas show (yea, that's possible!) at Atwoods, where the band was born over a decade ago. 

Some photos from my recent activities follow the gig information below. Will I see you there? If not, I hope to in 2019!

Final 2018 Concerts

	Thu, Dec. 20 @ 7:00 PM	Chamber Jazz w/ Bert Seager @ Spice Thai Restaurant	Ipswich, MA Map
	Sun, Dec. 23 @ 1:30 PM	Ishna presents a Celtic Christmas @ Irish Cultural Center (Tickets)	Canton, MA Map
	Sun, Dec. 23 @ 7:00 PM	Klezwoods Annual Xmas Show @ Atwoods Tavern	Cambridge, MA Map

Ishna had a photoshoot earlier this year. This was an unplanned shot around the piano which turned out great! Nice shot of my Ben March
bodhrán in the "Le Creuset flame" finish haha. Left to right after me, that's Dan Meyers on whistles and
uilleann pipes (not pictured), Bjorn Wennas (gtr), Mike Rivard (bs), Ciaran Nagle (vox), David McGregory (pno), Tara Novak (vln).  

A few weeks ago, I wrapped up the national tour of Anastasia at Providence Performing Arts Center in RI. It had quite a large percussion setup; I almost hit all the things at the right time every night!

Joe Higgins, a local bassist I play musicals and orchestra gigs with, gave me some sourdough starter and baking tips during our run of
Hairspray earlier this year.  I've been working on my no-knead bread for a couple years, and trying to get my second proof to rise more! This particular loaf was an all-white sourdough and it came out great, just a little short. If you note the Le Creuset dutch oven in the back, that was the color inspiration for the bodhran drum pictured with Ishna. (Hence the "Le Creuset" model bodhran as I call it!)

Until next time, see you out there!

Brian O'Neill

http://crashandboom.com/