Music With Friends at NCPL

Music With Friends at NCPL: The Friends of the North Castle Public Library (NCPL) recently announced their new Music With Friends series which offers both an entertainment and educational track. The entertainment track will feature ten live music performances focusing on The Great American Songbook including the works of Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Richard Rogers, Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk.

A series of seven music appreciation and development workshops comprise the education track. Each will have its own focus from early childhood to master classes in jazz. The Friends of NCPL is partnering with jazz pianist and President of Whole Music, LLC, Isaac Raz who will curate the performance series and produce the workshops.

A graduate of the Berklee School of Music in Boston, where he won the Duke Ellington Award, Isaac is a fixture on the New York City jazz scene and played keyboards on jazz record producer Teo Macero’s 2000 album, Impressions of Miles Davis. The album additionally featured Vernon Reid, David Leibman, Lincoln Goinnes and Lew Soloff formerly of Blood Sweat and Tears.

Music With Friends Series Begins December 14

The Music Series will kick off on Saturday, December 14 at 8pm at Armonk’s Whippoorwill Hall at the North Castle Public Library. Whole Music LLC will present The Isaac Raz Quartet including elite jazz players Cynthia Soriano (vocals), Paul Beaudry (bass) and Richard Morales on drums on a night titled “Swing, while the night is young”.  Get tickets here.

Paul Beaudry has performed with Wycliffe Gordon, a veteran member of the Wynton Marsalis Septet, Be Bop trumpeter Clark Terry and Jimmy Cobb – drummer for Miles Davis. Richie Morales’ performance credits range from the Jazz Fusion of The Brecker Brothers to Al DiMeola, Gato Barbieri, Dave Brubeck and smooth jazz artists Spyro Gyra. Cynthia Soriano, whose style has been compared to Abbey Lincoln, Shirley Horn and Billie Holiday is a mainstay of New York’s jazz clubs including The Blue Note, Dizzy’s Coca Cola Club, Zinc Bar and more.

Nine more shows are scheduled for 2020 beginning on Saturday, January 25. Upcoming guests who will perform with the Whole Music Ensemble include Eubie Blake Jazz Award Winner and tenor saxophonist Houston Person (pictured below). And guitarist Pasquale Grasso, who jazz guitar icon Pat Metheny called “the best guitar player I’ve heard in maybe my entire life”.

Music With Friends Workshops Begin in January

The Music With Friends Workshops will also begin on January 25 with two Early Childhood classes beginning at 12 and 2 pm. This will be followed up with a Music as a Whole Language Workshop designed to provide non-musicians with a framework to incorporate music creation into their life on Saturday, March 14 at 2pm. The remaining workshop schedule includes: Music Theater Group Scene Study on Saturday, May 16 at 11am and 3pm. A Working Band Workshop on Saturday, June 27 at 3pm. There will be two workshops on Saturday, November 14: Theory and Piano for Vocalists at 1pm and Repertoire Symposium for Vocalists at 3pm. The workshop series concludes on Saturday, December 19, 2020 at 1pm with a Jazz Improvisation class.

For more information on the Music With Friends Workshops email: music@armonkplayers.org