Matt Small’s newest project, The Bedlam Royals, is an exciting amalgam of cabaret-style theatrics, pop music, and art song aesthetics. The group is a vehicle for Small’s vocal songwriting, which uses off-beat and comic storylines matched with vivid lyric imagery, resulting in a wild blend of catchy tunes with philosophical undercurrents. These evocative songs utilize both spoken-word narratives and challenging modern melodies, making it a tour-de-force for charismatic front man Walker Lewis. Lewis is a gifted singer and actor who breathes life into Small’s quirky storylines with an adept directorial hand and masterful voice. Small plays electric bass in this project and the band features Steve Adams (saxophones), Kymry Esainko (piano), and Micah McClain (drums). Gifted in many musical settings, these instrumentalists are hardly “sidemen” in this project. They develop, create, and improvise many of their own parts within the framework of each song, adding a sense of vitality and spontaneity to the group’s repertoire. This group’s debut CD is entitled “Popular Music Night at the Glee Club.”
Walker Lewis |
Vocals
Walker Lewis enjoys writing about himself in the third person. He has performed Off Broadway with Classic Stage Company, New York Classical Theatre, Cherry Lane Theatre, La Mama, and Richard Schechner, regionally with Meredith Monk at Spoleto USA, at the Guthrie Lab, and with the Princeton Rep Shakespeare Festival, and in Europe and Japan. As a singer he has performed with the Crushing Spiral Ensemble at the San Francisco Jazz Festival and regionally with the rock band Sportcoat. Walker attended the Lecoq School in Paris and tenderly holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University. |
Steve Adams |
Saxophones
Steve Adams composes and plays saxophone and flute. He is a member of the Rova Saxophone Quartet, which has be hailed as "one of the most daring ensembles of any instrumentation to emerge in recent years" by Downbeat. Steve can be heard on more than 50 recordings, including 22 with Rova and six as a leader or co-leader for the 9 Winds and Clean Feed labels. Steve received a California Arts Council Fellowship in 2000 and a Meet the Composer/Reader's Digest grant in 1993, and currently teaches at Mills College. He also plays with the Bill Horvitz Band and the Vinny Golia Large Ensemble.
http://www.ninewinds.com/Artists/adams.html
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Kymry Esainko |
Piano
Kymry Esainko has been principal pianist for the Santa Rosa Symphony since 2002, making his solo concerto debut in December 2008. As a vocal and choral accompanist, Kymry has performed in concert halls around the globe. An active jazz musician, Kymry plays piano, celeste and pump organ in Iron & the Albatross, a chamber jazz group that made its SF Jazz Festival debut in March 2008. Kymry graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music with degrees in piano performance and American history. He studied classical piano with Frank Wasko, Peter Takacs, and Sanford Margolis, and jazz piano with Neal Creque and Ed Kelly.
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Micah McClain |
Drums
A student of drumming for over 20 years and a teacher for over 15, Micah has performed with artists representing a rich cross-section of musical traditions - jazz luminaries Red Rodney, David Baker and James Moody, MTV favorites Oh My God, traditional Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Ugandan, Ghanaian, and Native American ensembles, the rockabilly circus music of The Kehoe Nation, and bass clarinet quartet Edmund Welles. His current projects include the Terrence Brewer Quintet, Stanley, Project Pimento, Water Babies, and all of Matt Small’s current ensemble projects. Micah attended Indiana University, where he studied with Kenny Aronoff and David Baker.
http://www.micahmcclain.com
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