So Bell Orchestre might just be the best live show ever. Richard Reed Parry plays string bass, Sarah Neufeld plays violin, Stefan Schneider plays kit with lots of toys, Kaveh Nabatian plays trumpet, melodica, and messes with electronics, Mike Feuerstack plays lap steel guitar, and Pietro Amato does electronics too, and plays french horn. Beautifully. I swear I didn’t hear him cack once.
So it’s basically a chamber orchestra, but a really bitchin’ awesome one, and the music they play is like…Mahler meets Stravinsky meets George Crumb meets Arcade Fire meets meets meets. I don’t even know.
Colin Stetson opened for them, playing sax. Playing alto sax and bass sax. He circular breathed for what must have been ten minutes straight.  Holy crap. I don’t usually like sax, but what he did was incredible–the alto sounded more like one of those perpetual motion synth pieces, but with sooooo much more colour and dynamic contrast; the bass sounded like slap bass. And growling and singing and yelling into his horn. Like. Guys. It was awesome.

Colin played with Bell Orchestre too, bass clarinet and bass sax and cornet and french horn, and it added a little something extra. One of the best parts of these live shows is getting to feel your chest cavity vibrate with really loud bass frequencies, but it is really something awesome when your chest is vibrating with really loud bass saxophone frequencies. And, of course, I love the french horn (and Pietro is the sexiest bearded man), and they are all really, really good at their instruments, and the music is so…chamber orchestra, but there is nothing calm or collected about this chamber music. Bell Orchestre to regular chamber orchestras is like…Picasso to Monet. Bright colours and vivid shapes and arrangements and combinations it takes a genius to turn into something beautiful, but it does work, and it is far more eye-opening and stunning and…well, bold, than Monet.

(Don’t get me wrong–I love chamber music, and I love Monet, I think he was genius. But do you know what I mean? Monet made beautiful, subtle paintings, washed-out colours, that sort of thing. Picasso and Monet are two kinds of beautiful, even though they work in the same medium.)
I love that a club full of indie kids can get into what is really a chamber orchestra with a drummer. I love that I took notes during the concert–ideas, you know, for my own compositions, that their music is complicated and innovative enough for that. I love the big sounds and the rich, raw colours and the fact that a bunch of seriously skilled musicians can turn their talents to a whole other side of chamber music.

So starting today it is Open Ears! I am going to be living it this week, volunteering, going to almost every show (I have a pass!) and writing about them on this here blog, and perhaps on the Cord website, as well. Like one of those festival-journal-blog-review kind of things, but more awesome because *I* am more awesome. You should ALL come out to this week, friends. I know some of the shows are pricey, but there are free ones too! And reduced rates for students! And MURRAY SCHAFER.

P.S. Bell Orchestre people, you should get an oboe player. It would make for the perfect ensemble, for serious.

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