On May 27, 2023, Martin Graff was the featured artist on Quintessential Listening Poetry Online Radio. Host Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram interviewed Marty about his multimedia spoken-word and music projects The Face Zone and Trips for Piano, as well as his thoughts on poetry, music, and the creative process. Marty performed material from his book series and shared music from his album. LISTEN HERE.

YouTube livestream TUESDAY, MAY 2 at 8:00PM (EST)! Check out my featured-guest appearance on Krystal Glenn’s INTRODUCING podcast! I’ll be answering (surprise) interview questions, as well as sharing original spoken word and piano. Tune in to trip your imagination… LISTEN TO THE RECORDED EPISODE HERE.

Join composer-pianist Martin Graff (Trips for Piano) and singer-songwriter Taisha Estrada (Nostalgia Ajena) for a luminescent evening of original music made to move your soul and light your imagination…

$10

Advance tickets: https://www.nvfaa.org/events/solo-lights

Facebook event link: https://fb.me/e/BmB4ZUpX

HEADLINER: MARTIN GRAFF – TRIPS FOR PIANO

Martin Graff is an Arlington, Virginia composer-pianist and finalist for Best Classical Artist in the 2022 DC Wammie Awards. At four, his family inherited an old, anonymous piano, and Marty surged with an uncontainable energy to climb onto the bench and dig his hands into those eight-eight bits of clay, instinctually molding them into little, aural landscapes. Crude and square at first; at last, faceted gems after a lifetime of practice, polish, and love.

Trips for Piano is the resulting collection of evocative pieces made to move the soul and light the imagination with soaring melodies, affecting harmonies, and impassioned playing that conjures rainbows from keys of black and white. In Graff’s words, “Making this music is the opposite of death, like the centrifugal force around the sharpest bend of the greatest roller coaster. A reharmonizing of my most tumultuous internal cacophonies and maybe yours. So, listen up as I bang on this gong from the Gods! As the resonance of these radiant compositions fill your ear and make their way to your heart.”

OPENER: TAISHA ESTRADA – NOSTALGIA AJENA

Rooted in the traditions of Latin and American jazz, with an innovative, contemporary, multi-genre sound, Puerto Rican born Taisha Estrada is a compelling songwriter and storyteller. Taisha engages audiences through her lyrics and dynamic stage performance. Her musical projects have been featured in the Washington Post and NPR’s Tiny Desk show, and she has performed at such venues as Blues Alley, Strathmore, Songbyrd and Union Stage.

Taisha is releasing her debut album of original songs, Nostalgia Ajena (Foreign Nostalgia) in April 2023, reflecting her roots in Latin and Caribbean jazz. The songs are influenced by her upbringing with grandparents who felt a strong devotion to la patria, their homeland and the sounds of bomba and plena which coursed through Estrada’s veins from a young age. Inspired by her own experiences and the stories of the women she grew up around, Estrada’s tone, though tinged with melancholy, evokes hope and strength. Having developed a deep appreciation for nature and the sensory experience of the Caribbean, Estrada’s music and lyrics are colored with imagery of the islands. Her work strives to explore life, love and the beautiful yet mystifying relationship between humanity and the earth.

For more: https://www.taishaestrada.com/

Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/2Djl9hbBM

Venue (directions, parking, and more): FHV Community Center

If you missed us in 2022, here’s a second chance to experience what the hype is all about!

PROGRAM FIRST HALF

The Face Zone: Surreal Daydreams to Trip Your Imagination…

Martin Graff performs his solo, multimedia spoken-word act of poetic-prose vignettes with matching artwork about every topic from the stigma of liking scrapple to the meaning of life. What connects the pieces is that they each start with a projected image of a face—human, animal, alien, abstract—to prompt reaction and thought, and to act as a catalyst for the material that follows. The show is punctuated by original piano compositions from his album Trips for Piano to further deepen the experience. Graff’s imaginative humor, insightful commentary, unconventional artwork, and compelling music offer a uniquely engaging respite that cuts through the noise of our information-age lives with concise, essential truths certain to entertain and inspire lasting reflection.

For more: https://thefacezone.com/

PROGRAM SECOND HALF

Get Me Home: A Travel Opera in Three Acts  

Music and libretto by Neal Learner

Maxine T. Heart lives overseas but needs to get back to America immediately. Her beloved father is hovering between life and death after being hit on the head by a falling tree branch while riding his bike. Maxine has bought her ticket and is ready to jump on the plane. There’s only one problem: in her shock at the family news, she gave the foreign travel agent her nickname, rather than full name, and failed to clearly enunciate her “ts” and “ds.” On her passport, she’s “Maxine T. Heart.” But on her ticket, she’s “Max D. Heard.” Problems ensue.

Director: Ruben Vellekoop

Cast: Neal Learner, Cathy McCoskey, Marissa Papatola, and Eric Yeh

Accompanist: Paige Rammelkamp

For more: www.learnermusic.com