Double bill: Matt Brubeck/Caylie Staples & Luka Kuplowsky & The Ryōkan Band

Event Details

Event type: All Ages

This concert is a double-bill. The first set will bring together cellist Matt Brubeck with singer-songwriter Caylie Staples:

Matt Brubeck and Caylie Staples met in 2005 at York University in Toronto. Brubeck was Staples’ weekly lesson instructor for a Contemporary Improvisation class. The two rapidly developed an improvisational compatibility in creating completely freely improvised songs. In the years since, the two have met up periodically and, without rehearsal or hesitation, have created spontaneous songs in front of live audiences, including the Halifax Jazz Festival and Toronto’s Music Gallery. This is the first recorded release of their unique form of improvisation.

“The Lily” is an album of Spontaneous Song Composition. The words and music took as long to make as it takes to listen to. All six songs were created on the spot, with no preparation during a stellar improvisation session on a February afternoon. Created in under half an hour with no score nor talking about what we were going to do. The only exception is track 5, “If You Came Home” — beforehand Matt said, “Let’s try improvising something that sounds like a jazz standard.”

Celebrating spontaneity, serendipity, whimsy, and the creative potency of any given moment; Matt says “it’s like a musical trust exercise”; trusting each other to go with what the other is giving and committing to keeping the balloon up!

The second set will feature Luka Kuplowsky & The Ryōkan Band:

On their new double LP, How Can I Possibly Sleep When There Is Music, Luka Kuplowsky & The Ryōkan Band (Alex Lukashevsky, Anh Phung, Evan Cartwright, Felicity Williams, Josh Cole and Philippe Melanson) craft a singular sound of spaciousness, experimentation and unbridled expressiveness that traverses traditions of jazz, folk and blues. Conceived as a record of adaptations and responses “to a millennia of poetry”, the album draws together the poetry of Ryōkan Taigu, Bohdan Ihor Antonych, Maria Rainer Rilke, Yosana Akiko, Du Fu, Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, W.W.E Ross, Li Bai, and La Fontaine, placing them within a dynamic environment of ecstatic and imaginative expression. Produced by the luminary Toronto producer/songwriter Sandro Perri, the new LP enfolds international literary and music influences alongside hyper-local Toronto touchstones into a beautiful sprawling record of meditative and free-wheeling sonic adventurism.

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