September 2021
Hello friends of Music and Art and the good life!
Has it been such a long year that I haven't sent you my updates? Well, I guess all the challenges of the World Events and the Pandemic have been so involved that I haven't updated this page since last December! Yikes! So here we go!
I hope you and your dear ones have been safe and healthy in spite of everything around us... and that you have found ways to be Creative! Here is a re-cap of what has happened in My World and I am sure our paths have crossed in one way or another ---
January saw me playing some LiveStream concerts and how lucky am I that my partner for the Panama Jazz Festival was with the always amazing Joe Lovano - we fashioned a flowing concert of Music and added me painting in Real Time - in between musical pieces, sometimes I would paint on a blank canvas while Joe played a solo piece! It was magic!
I was soooo fortunate to have been invited by Cheryl Pyle to be part of her ""Beyond Flute" group, and that continued every month on the 3rd Sunday of each month! What fun to totally improvise solos in conjunction with musicians such as Cherly Pyle, Haruna Fukazawa and Gene Coleman on flutes, Michael Eaton and Sam Newsome on saxophones, Claire de Brunner on bassoon and myself on vocals. I started adding some percussion to my solos and had a great time listening to everyone!
I also did quite a few Livestreams on "MOTI - Music on the Inside" to celebrate the organization that has been teaching Music to incarcerated people as a mode of Healing and Emotional Health! Thanks especially to Alina Bloomgarten who founded the jgroup and to Antoinette Motague and Richard Miller who facilitated! There are so many wonderfully talented folks out here and it was lovely to SHARE and HEAR. When we weren't playing, we tuned in to support and enjoy the other musicians who were...
As a painter... I began my passion for fusing Music and Painting... having a blank Canvas set up behind the musical gear and created some Improvised Artwork during some of the ensuing Livestreams. Some of them were quite strong and clear! The month of February is usually the most difficult to endure in a winter, and I painted 5 different canvases in Black and White to document that feeling.
In March, film-maker Michael Kelly asked me to paint something for the packaging cover for his film about drummer Paul Motian that was nearing completion and release. What a thrill and a challenge! Having heard and seen Paul play for many years while my partner Joe Lovano was a part of his now-famous Trio (with Bill Frisell) and for countless other performances, I felt overwhelmed, and yet managed to compile several elements into one painting. I hope you will like not only my painting, but also Michael Kelly's film about this Giant of Jazz!
My painting "Spirit Walk" was accepted into a Juried Show at Wallkill River School of Art and Gallery for the month of April and I was thrilled! It is an Experimental Watercolor and measures 33 wide x 23 high.
We had our family party planned for Memorial Day at our house and our Grand-nieces Eleanor (7) and Zelda (3) were sooooo excited... but alas it RAINED all weekend so instead of doing outside fun activities all we could do was jump in puddles!!! So of course, we did inside art projects and music sessions, and it was a hoot to introduce the kids to different musical sounds and instruments!!!
JUNE was my first month of doing LIVE CONCERTS which was fabulous! Vibraphonist Stefan Bauer invited me to be part of his ensemble at the Settler's Inn (along with Tony Marino on Bass and Adam Nussbaum on drums) he had such a great sound and wonderful compositions that it was a delight! Also in June, our niece Gina married John and we were able to be there to share their LOVE! I also did a wonderful LiveStream concert with my Sonic-Twist partner, guitarist Bruce Arnold to ring out the month.
JULY was a busy month, as I had a gig again at the Settler's Inn with my "Family Band" of Teri Roiger on keys, John Menegon on bass and Joe Lovano on Drums for a rollicking evening of "Jazz on the Deck". When we got home I went and picked up my 18 paintings that had been hanging in the "Berkshire Bank" exhibit since January... and then rang out the month with another "Family Band" gig, this time adding Bruce Arnold on guitar at a great outdoor stage at "the Brewery at Orange County Hops" in Walden, NY! Proprietor Michael Antonelli sat in with us for some tunes and we had a ball!
In AUGUST my family and those adorable little girls came back for another visit and we had gorgeous weather! Lots of Fun out in Nature and more painting and Music! I finished my very first Pet Portrait commissioned by some folks whose daughter has an adorable doggie, just in time for a big wind storm which resulted in a TREE falling on our house... WOW, that was a shocker and I spent the next 4 days lining up our Insurance and Adjustors and Tree Service people to fix the damage. Luckily the tree didn't fall very far and didn't penetrate into the house very deep, so it was taken care of fairly easily. Still, it was a lot of dealing with all different ways the house had to be fixed! All done now!
Here we are in September already, and we had flooding in our entire back yard after Hurricane Ida dumped lots of rain up the East Coast. We had "lakefront property" for a few days but the water went down, gratefully, before it got to our house!!! Now we are here to celebrate another niece, Marrissa's marriage to Justin. I had a big challenge these past few weeks with feeling Vertigo but after my ENT Doctor did the "Epley Maneuver" on me, it has subsided and I hope it never comes back! yikes! So far so good....
So... this month, I have 2 paintings hanging in the “Still Life Exhibit” at the Wallkill River School of Art and Gallery, at 232 Ward Street (Route 17K), Montgomery NY 12549 which is open Fri-Sun from Noon - 5pm! Stop by to see all the wonderful exhibits in this historic building “The Patchett House”, which houses 4 different Gallery spaces! And, another 2 paintings in the Cornwall Artists Collective Exhibit. I hope you will come to see the wonderfully diverse artwork of these painters at Blooming Grove Antiques, 436 Blooming Grove Turnpike (Route 94), New Windsor, NY 12553. More details on my Paintings page.
Also, Sunday, OCTOBER 17, 2021 I'll be doing another Third Sunday Jazz Livestream with Cheryl Pyle’s BEYOND GROUP. This is ONLINE at 4pm-5pm. Musicians will be: Cheryl Pyle, Haruna Fukazawa, Gene Coleman: Flutes, Michael Eaton, Sam Newsome: Saxophones, Judi Silvano: Voice and Claire de Brunner: Bassoon. For the ZOOM LINK, contact me or one of the other musicians. I'm also thrilled to sing in Michael Eaton's Recording Session of his new compositions in NYC.
That's it for now - I hope you and yours are staying careful and healthy and happy! I am practicing Gratitude for all the beautiful spirits in the world we live in! Thank you for listening and watching and sharing the love! Judi Silvano
