music

Press release:

The sounds of "The Fab Four" will be invading Pavilion High School on Saturday Nov. 14th at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium! Please come hear the Pavilion Junior and Senior High Bands and Choruses perform music by The Beatles -- voted the No. 1 recording artists of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine.

Groups will be performing alongside Rochester's own, Mr. Mustard. To purchase pre-sale tickets for $6, please contact Meaghan McTammany, director of Bands at (585) 584-3115, ext. 1101. Tickets are also available at the door for $8. For more information, visit www.mrmustardmusic.com

Classic rock fans might recognize the smiling guy with the gray hair. It's Peter Frampton. Next to him is somebody a few people in Genesee County will know, Ben Sheridan, a 2008 graduate of Byron-Bergen High School. 

Sheridan, who plays keyboards, is on tour with Frampton and when the band stopped in Albany last night, a group of family members and friends traveled there to see him play.

He hooked up with Frampton after meeting Peter's son, Julian, while working at a Starbucks in Los Angeles. Julian is the man with the acoustic guitar in the photo.

Info and photos submitted by Anne Sapienza.

Mark your calendar: The Genesee Valley Wind Ensemble will present its Fall Concert in the auditorium of Elba Central School at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 15.

"This event is put on to expose and educate our community to different and familiar genres of musical works and help our organization’s members further develop their skills though preparation and performance of this music."

The school is located at 57 S. Main St., Elba.

Admission is:

• $25 -- Family Deal
• $10 -- Adult
• $8 -- Senior 55 and older & Veterans
• $5 -- Student with ID
• Free -- Children ages 5 and younger

Contact:

geneseevalleywindensemble@gmail.com

(Kenny Petterson)

Press release:

Kenny Petterson, pictured above, is one of several musicians to entertain at this year’s Musical Memories, the sixth annual event to benefit Crossroads House. It will begin at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3, at City Church, 210 E. Main St., Batavia. Rochester's The Hit Men Brass Band, shown below, just came off winning their DCA World Ensemble championship and are going to be there to show us just what it took to win their fifth world title.

When it comes to tooting his own horn, Kenny Petterson is still at it. He picked up the trumpet in fifth grade and, at 83, regularly practices and performs with musical groups. A resident of Penn Yan visiting family in Florida, he plans to travel north this week to join St. Joseph’s Reunion Brass Ensemble. The Ensemble is part of Saturday's lineup.

“I have been in the drum corps all my life. Music to me is everything. I don’t know what I’d do without it,” Petterson said in a recent interview by phone from Florida. “When you have something like this, it’s important to do. Crossroads is something the people all volunteer to do, and that’s just fantastic.”

Petterson is actually not about tooting his own horn, at least figuratively speaking, organizer Frank Panepento said. Yet he has always been an admired professional as a teacher, performer and mentor.

“This is the guy we were listening to,” Panepento said. “(Kenny) is very unselfish, never condescending, he was always very positive. He’s a teacher you always wanted to have.”

Other featured musicians will be Dave Martin of Rochester’s The Hit Men Brass Band, Steve Cooley of The Hit Men, Jeff Gibbens and Prime Time Brass, the Wendall Brothers with Parkside Avenue Brass. Brad Dewaal, Tommy Cecere, Harold McJury are playing with the Reunion Brass Ensemble. Performers are coming from Pennsylvania, Rochester and Florida for the show.

(Rochester's The Hit Men Brass Band)

St. Joseph’s Ensemble has been rehearsing and is excited to show off some new tunes. “Moon Dance” is a new one for the show. It was arranged by Donny Allen. Listeners will also get his rendition of the “God Bless America” and “Auld Lang Syne,” “Army Medley,” "Never Walk Alone," "Send in the Clowns" among others during the two-hour show.

“It’s very special to have all these guys come from all over to do this,” Panepento said. “This is to raise money to keep Crossroads House operational.”

It costs more than $200,000 a year to run Crossroads House, a home for terminally ill people. The Liberty Street site depends on donations and volunteers to keep the doors open. Musical Memories is an event where the all the proceeds go toward keeping the house open.

Tickets are $5 general admission, $10 preferred seating, and include merchant coupons and a free drink at Center Street Smoke House during the post-event party. They may be purchased at Crossroads House, Roxy’s Music Store on West Main Street, and Valle Jewelers on Jackson Avenue.

Press release:

Honoring jazz tradition with straight-ahead swing and spontaneous improvisation, the Kazzrie Jaxen Quartet strives to express the beauty of a melodic line, deriving collective inspiration from the musical philosophies of many jazz greats. On Friday, Oct. 2, hear the Quartet's unusual harmonic approach at Genesee Community College's Stuart Steiner Theatre. They will perform one show only beginning at 7:30 p.m.

The Kazzrie Jaxen Quartet brings together the elemental qualities of its four creative members; the lighter-than-air swing of drummer Bill Chattin, the earthy melodic pulsations of bassist Don Messina, the oceanic depth of tenor Charley Krachy and the fiery adventurousness of pianist Kazzrie Jaxen. The Quartet's music includes standard tunes, jazz lines, originals and occasional excursions into the abstract. Their approach stretches the music in unique and complex directions, serving to the feel and pure joy of improvisation.

The show will feature improvisations on tunes from the American songbook, compositions by Lennie Tristano, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday and Lester Young, original lines and songs and free group and solo improvisations. The Quartet encourages and enjoys "questions and answers" after their performances.

Tickets to the Kazzrie Jaxen Quartet show are $8 for adults, $5 for GCC faculty/staff and senior citizens, $3 for GCC students. Alumni with ID receive $2 off the full ticket price. Tickets are available through the GCC box office at (585) 345-6814 or via e-mail boxoffice@genesee.edu. Advanced reservations are strongly encouraged. For more information, contact Associate Director of Marketing and Communications Donna Rae Sutherland at (585) 343-0005, ext. 6616, or via e-mail dsutherland@genesee.edu.

The Genesee Symphony Orchestra will be conducted in the season-opening performance on Sunday by S. Shade Zajac.

Zajac is one of four conductor candidates auditioning for the position for next season.

The graduate of Nazareth College in Rochester is a cellist and composer who currently works as a freelance conductor. His awards include the John Phillip Sousa Award and he's twice won the Nazareth College Symphony Orchestra Concerto/Aria Competition.

Of Sunday's show, he promises a "showcase of sound," with pieces from Korsakoff, Copland, Grieg and Borodin.

The concert will also feature Raymond Feng, of Rochester, on piano. Feng was winner of the Young Artist Competition.

To purchase tickets, visit the GSO Web site.

Darryl Worley, a multi-hit country music artist who topped the charts in 2003 with a 9-11 song, "Have You Forgotten?", played Frostridge Saturday night and a few hundred hearty fans braved the rain and waved flags and cheered Worley's pro-USA, positive-living message.

The show closes out the 2015 season for The Ridge.

(Photos from last night's show.) Luke Bryan headlines a second, soldout show, at Darien Lake Performing Arts Center tonight.

Van Halen performed last night at Darien Lakes PAC and lead singer David Lee Roth was back in action on stage with some entertaining moves. Roth missed the first show from the band's second leg of their U.S. tour in Hershey, Pa., this past Sunday night due to illness.

The crowd of approximately 9,000 people were entertained by classics like "Dance the Night Away," "Ain't talkin bout Love," "Panama," and "Running with the Devil."

This is the band's first time back to WNY since the group played a North American tour in 2012 at the First Niagara Center, Buffalo. Van Halen did not disappoint the crowd and still packed a punch to their lineup with additional tunes like "Hot for Teacher," "Jump," "Unchained," and "You Really Got Me."

Two solos were performed through the show: Alex Van Halen on drums; and Eddie Van Halen with guitar near the end.  

The opening act was the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band pictured in the last two photos below. Next stop for Van Halen is tomorrow night at Susquehanna Bank Center, Camden, N.J.

Some photos below Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band.

Press release:

The Genesee Community College Center for the Arts is prepared for another exciting year of events offering a wide range of entertainment including jazz music, graffiti art and dinner theatre. The community is enthusiastically welcome to all events which are listed in chronological order.

The Roz Steiner Art Gallery will host and display "Impromptus," paintings by Jonathon Langfield from Aug. 27 – Sept. 25. Langfield carries on the tradition of American abstraction while infusing an element of graffiti. Utilizing the ideological framework of modernism, his art is executed in a spirit of improvisation. The result is a painterly impromptu. Opening receptions are planned for Thursday, Aug. 27, at 12:30 - 2 p.m. and 5 - 7 p.m.

The Genesee Symphony Orchestra presents a "Fall Festival" performance on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 4 p.m. in the Stuart Steiner Theatre with S. Shade Zajac conducting. Guest soloist Raymond Feng, winner of the GSO Young Artist Competition will perform Greig's Piano Concerto in A Minor, Movement 1. The GSO hosts world-class artists and composers as well as a multitude of well-known local soloists that give audiences a professional-level musical experience. Tickets can be purchased in Batavia at the Senior Center, Roxy's Music and GO ART!, and at the Bank of Castile in Le Roy.

The Kazzrie Jaxen Quartet will take the stage on Friday, Oct. 2, at 7:30 p.m. and bring together the elemental qualities of four creative jazz musicians: the buoyant swing of Bill Chattin's drums; the melodic pulsations of Don Messina's bass; the oceanic depth of Charley Krachy's tenor; and the fiery adventurousness of Kazzrie Jaxen's piano.

Honoring jazz tradition with straight-ahead swing and spontaneous improvisation, the band draws from the collective inspiration from jazz greats such as Lennie Tristano and Sal Mosca, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Bud Powell, Warne Marsh and many others. The quartet plays standard tunes, jazz lines, originals and occasional excursions into the abstract stretching the music in unique and complex directions.

Tickets to the event in the Stuart Steiner Theatre are $8 for adults, $5 for seniors (55+), students (16+) and GCC faculty/staff and $3 for GCC students with ID. GCC alum with ID will receive a $2 discount. Go to http://www.kazzriejaxenquartet.com/ for photos and further information.

Mixed media paintings by Nate Hodge will be displayed in the gallery from Oct. 8 – Nov. 25. The "Everything Flows" exhibit can be viewed during regular gallery hours, which are Monday-Friday 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. For more information on all upcoming events at the Roz Steiner Art Gallery visit www.genesee.edu/gallery or www.facebook.com/gccgallery.

In November, audiences are asked to take a trip back in time to a lively Victorian musical hall for a night of dinner theatre where a distinguished ensemble of actors, the Music Hall Royale, stages its flamboyant rendition of an unfinished Dickens' mystery, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." The show tells the story of the upstanding young Edwin Drood who mysteriously disappears and is presumably murdered. But who the Dickens did it? In the end, the audience gets to decide! The dinner theatre shows will run Nov. 12-15, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, at 7 p.m. and Sunday Matinee at 2 p.m. All tickets are $30 and will include a pasta buffet dinner. The production will benefit the Mental Health Association in Genesee County and advance reservations are required.

"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" is a musical by Rupert Holmes and the original Broadway production was produced by The New York Shakespeare Festival with Joseph Papp as producer and the arrangement by TAMS-WITTMARK MUSIC LIBRARY, Inc., 560 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10022.

For ticket reservations for "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," or for further information, contact the Genesee Center for the Arts box office at (585) 345-6814 or via e-mail: boxoffice@genesee.edu. Information can also be found online at www.genesee.edu/campuslife/arts or www.facebook.com/GCCTheatre.

It's never too soon to mark your calendars for not-to-miss events already scheduled for 2016.

•    Jan. 29, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. -- The Rochester Rat Pack invites you to join us in the cocktail lounges of the world as we laugh and dance the night away to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Keely Smith, Etta James, Jimmy Durante, Bobby Darin, Judy Garland, Jerry Lewis and the gang.

•    Feb. 12, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. -- Etta Mae -- an evening of laughter with the reigning "Queen of Southern Sass" and winner of American Comedy Awards: "Stand-Up Comic of the Year." (www.ettamae.com)

•    Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 at 4 p.m. -- Genesee Symphony Orchestra Mid-Winter Concert at GCC's Stuart Steiner Theatre.

It's a year today since local musician Frank Penepento started playing the National Anthem on his trumpet every morning at 7 a.m. at the VA Center in Batavia.

This morning, he was joined by several other players, including Mitch Cayea, now in the Navy and home on leave, who was in high school when he first filled in for Penepento on a morning Penepento couldn't play.

Penepento missed a period of playing while recovering from neck surgery, so other trumpeters filled in for him, and all but one of those stand-ins joined him this morning.

Besides Cayea, playing this morning were Harold McJury, Donny Allen, Ross Chua, Don Shirk and Tom Cecerce. Unable to play this morning was Richard Samsel.

Together, the group has performed the National Anthem at 7 a.m. at the VA Center through rain, sleet, snow, zero-degree mornings and golden ones like today.

Previously: Trumpeter plays National Anthem every morning at VA to honor veterans, and his father

Slipknot headlined Darien Lake PAC Wednesday night. Lamb of God opened. Also performing were Bullet for my Vallentine and Motionless in White.

Pictured below photos of Lamb of God:

Pictured below photos of Bullet for my Vallentine:

Motionless in White:

Scott DiMartino played in local bands as a teenager. He had all the sound equipment needed for his big idea. In December, he approached his brother, Danny DiMartino, with the idea to set up a portable night club in Batavia. They bought a light setup and are now staging events at T.F. Brown’s and Billy Goats with their business, Esdee Entertainment.

“Batavia has a lot of culture for bars,” Scott said. “There is Center Street, Bourbon & Burger and other places. As far as dancing goes, there isn’t really much to offer. It’s the same bars, the same bands, the same nights.”

The brothers never thought that Batavia was big enough to support a nightclub for more than six months. Scott is hoping that monthly events will get people out and give them exposure to a different scene they may not have necessarily seen before.

“We want to bring something different to this town,” he said. “People in Batavia may not have seen real mixing on turntables and that’s what we want to bring.”

The idea came to Scott after his friend, Macy Paradise, came back from Colorado for a visit. He asked Scott to play a show with him at T.F. Brown’s. At the event, Paradise spun records and DiMartino played the drums. The response was overwhelming.

“Tons of people showed up,” DiMartino said. “We received so much support from the people of Batavia that night.”

DiMartino praises Paradise and his brother for their help with bringing his idea to life, but he really does it out of his love for music. He works 55-hour weeks at his full-time job. Yet, he somehow finds the time to plan events to share his passion with the rest of Batavia.

“We are just two brothers who love music and bought a bunch of stuff with a ton of support from the community,” he said.

The duo is hosting their next event on July 24 at Billy Goats. The $5 throwback dance party is for the 21-and-over crowd. Music will be exclusively from the '80s, '90s and early 2000s. The brothers hope to turn the occasion into a giant karaoke party.

“I want to see the looks on people’s faces when they say, ‘Oh my god, I forgot this song existed!’ ” DiMartino teased. “People are going to have a really good time. I couldn’t be more excited to share this with my hometown.” 

Check out their Facebook page for updates on their future events. 

Photos by Steve Ognibene

Paul Draper is used to being a musician for the Ramble, a musical event hosted in Batavia, but this year, he’s experiencing the event from another angle. Bill McDonald and the rest of the Ramble Posse have decided to pass the organizational and promotional torch on to Draper. He couldn’t be more excited.

“When Bill asked if I would like to be involved with the Batavia Ramble, my answer was, ‘yes. 100 percent,’ ” Draper said. “I’m the lucky one to take the hand-off.”

This year, Draper worked on filling the band rosters, organizing information and he even created a Facebook group.

“Batavia Ramble Facebook group is a local hub for all things Ramble,” he said. “In the group, you can find the band lineups, schedules for each stage as well as pictures from previous years.”

 Next year, he’s taking the lead on the event.

“This year was a lot of fun learning how everything runs and getting hands on,” he said. “I am also very much looking forward to next year where I'll be putting my PD3 twist on things and bringing the event to the next level.”

The first Ramble was held 10 years ago by the original Ramble Posse members Bill Pitcher, Mike Murray and McDonald. The Ramble aims to unite and reunite musicians and artists who have called Batavia and the surrounding areas home. The day is full of music, friendship and art.

This free event takes place Downtown on Sunday in Jackson Square and on Center Street. For the first time, three stages will be set up featuring musicians who live locally as well as those who are coming back to play the Ramble. Music starts at 11 a.m. and concludes around 9:30 p.m.

Paul Draper, Jim Starkweather, Bill Pitcher, Tom Trescott, Mike Murray, Wally Kowalik, Kevin Mayler and Bill McDonald.

The 90th season of the Batavia Concert Band got off to a soggy start Wednesday evening, forcing musicians and audience members to seek the warmth and comfort of the Stuart Steiner Theatre at GCC.

Here's the schedule for the remainder of the season:

• July 4th at noon, Guest Conductor David Keller. Picnic in the Park sponsored by GoArt!
• July 8 at 7 p.m., Conducted by John Bailey
• July 15 at 7 p.m., Conducted by John Bailey
• July 22 at 7 p.m., Conducted by John Bailey
• July 29 at 7 p.m., Conducted by John Bailey, Annual Chicken Barbecue

All concerts are at Centennial Park, unless weather forces a relocation to GCC.