You're Invited: First Friday Artwalk, October 7, 2016

Lovely Autumn is in full swing and we can promise you beautiful artwork and lots of swing at the Gallery this coming Artwalk!

Here's what's happening (which you must NOT miss):

Bologna Blues n27. Watercolor and collage

Bologna Blues Series

Virginia Paquette

October 7-31, 2016

Watercolor & Collage

Reception with the Artist

First Friday, October 7th, 6-8 pm

Featuring

Anne Pell Jazz Trio

with guest performance by

Bill Smith

For a residency at the Conservatorio di Musica in Bologna this year,
Virginia Paquette painted these mixed-media works as part of a collaboration
with Bill Smith.  They are her visual responses to his works of music,
influenced by their years together in Italy.  Paquette responds to Smith’s music
with color, line, rhythm, gesture, and collage of found images,
salvaged from the streets of Italy.

About the Artist:  An MFA graduate in painting from the University of Washington, Virginia Paquette has worked and exhibited internationally.  Her art responds to motion and memory, and is inspired by natural forms and phenomena.  Winner of numerous public art commissions, Paquette has collaborated with her husband, Bill Smith, on site performance installations here in the Pacific Northwest and Seattle area, as well as around the world, including “Deluge,” created for Queen Victoria Museum, Launceston, Australia, “Saffeides” at Teatro Greco in Rome, and with ARTKOAMIA performance consortium.

About the Musicians: 

Bill Smith is a U.S. clarinetist and composer, working extensively in modern classical music, Third Stream and jazz, and perhaps best known for having played with pianist Dave Brubeck intermittently from the 1940s until Mr. Brubeck’s death.  As Brubeck himself said, Smith is "one of the all-time greats."

Smith was born in Sacramento, California on September 22, 1926, and grew up in Oakland, California.  Through most of his youth Smith’s hero was Benny Goodman, and at the age of  thirteen Smith put together a jazz group; at fifteen he joined the Oakland Symphony. After high school he toured briefly with a dance band, then attended the Juilliard School of Music while playing at night in New York jazz clubs, but soon returned to California.  At Mills College in Oakland he met pianist Dave Brubeck.

Smith was an original member of the Brubeck Octet and later occasionally subbed for saxophonist Paul Desmond in the Dave Brubeck Quartet.  Smith performed on and contributed compositions to the group's first recordings in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  In the 1960s he again recorded with Brubeck – whose 1960 album with the Quartet, Brubeck à la Mode, featured ten of Smith's own compositions - recording an album a year until he moved to Seattle in 1966.

Smith studied composition at the University of California, (bachelor's and master's degrees), going on to teach there, at the San Francisco Conservatory, and at the University of Southern California.  In 1966, Smith began a career which spanned thirty years at the University of Washington School of Music in Seattle.

Smith won the Prix de Paris, studying for two years at the Paris Conservatory.  In 1957 he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome.  He has since received many other awards, including two Guggenheim grants.  His compositions and recordings, as a solo artist and with others, are numerous.
Over the years Smith has investigated and cataloged a wide range of extended techniques on the clarinet.  He was among the early composers interested in electronic music, and as a performer continues to experiment.  He remains active nationally, internationally, and on the local Seattle music scene, where in 2008 he composed, recorded, and premiered a "jazzopera" titled Space in the Heart. 

Anne Pell Jazz Trio:  A Bainbridge Island resident since 1994, Ms. Pell received her BFA in jazz piano from Cornish College of the Arts in 2005, graduating summa cum laude.   She previously studied piano, voice and music theory at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 2010 Ms. Pell became the music director and conductor of Schola Nova.  Schola Nova is a group of about 20 women who sing Evensong at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church.  In 2012 Ms. Pell became the director of the Compline Choir, an a capella choir of about 15 men who also sing at Saint Barnabas.  In the summer of 2013 she founded Amabile, a larger mixed choir group dedicated to expressing love through choral music.

Ms. Pell has worked as a full-time private piano instructor on Bainbridge Island for almost 20 years, specializing in jazz, blues, and classical music, composition/arranging classes, theory, and jazz ensembles.  She performs in myriad gig settings including jazz clubs, private parties, local fundraisers, concerts, and private recitals, playing solo piano or with a jazz trio or quartet.  Ms. Pell has worked as a professional accompanist for over 30 years.  She was the accompanist for The Bainbridge Chorale for 14 years.

Ms. Pell has been composing, arranging and interpreting music for many years: her original works include choral compositions, liturgical chants and hymns, piano duets, Christmas songs, a flute and piano suite, and various jazz tunes.  Her new arrangement of Bach’s Cello Suite in G, for jazz quartet with viola, debuted in 2009.

In November 2009 Ms. Pell instituted the annual “For Our Children” benefit concerts.   All proceeds go to Bainbridge Island's Helpline House for their Children’s Enrichment Fund, a fund created by Ms. Pell specifically for arts and music education for children and teens in our community.

Event Location: 

The Island Gallery, 400 Winslow Way E, #120, Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Underground parking is available at The Winslow off Ericksen Avenue.