New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Nonesuch Records) - Following a wildly enthusiastic reception to shows around the world last spring, 17-time Grammy Award-winner
Pat Metheny brings his Orchestrion Tour to another 19 North American performance halls beginning October 1. (Please see below for confirmed dates.) The Orchestrion album, which came out in January on Nonesuch Records, has received critical praise from the New York Times, Associated Press, Village Voice, and Billboard, among many other publications.
Metheny, whom the New York Times calls "easily one of the most enterprising jazz musicians of his generation," has performed shows to sold-out audiences in some of the world's best-known halls, including the Barbican in London, l'Olympia in Paris, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, and two sold-out nights at New York City's Town Hall. London's Telegraph calls the show "a triumph," while the Kansas City Star says, "Metheny's Orchestrion is nothing short of spectacular... Endlessly fascinating and visually dazzling."
Orchestrion brings a musical idea from the late 19th and early 20th centuries-a large mechanical multi-instrument device that utilizes actual orchestral instruments of various types, called an "orchestrion"-to the technologies of today. Metheny's concept includes a large ensemble of acoustic instruments-including several pianos, drum kit, marimbas, "guitar-bots," dozens of percussion instruments, and even cabinets of carefully tuned bottles. Through Metheny's guitar and compositional mind, five new original pieces showcasethe instruments as they are struck, plucked, and otherwise played via the technology of solenoid switches and pneumatics. Metheny worked for months with a brilliant team of inventors to develop and assemble the "New Orchestrion" for this project.
"As the instruments started to trickle in from the various inventors," Metheny says, "the experience of writing for them and figuring out what might be possible with them provided a self-imposed challenge that proved to be difficult and time-consuming, but absolutely exhilarating. I am excited to share this project. If nothing else, this has turned out to be something unique. And in the process of developing all this music and these instruments and discovering what they can do and what they are good at, I learned so much. It feels like progress and has gotten some notes out of me that I didn't know were there. But the surprise was just how far I was able to go with it all. Within this new environment, I found something in there that took me to some new places."
Over the course of more than three decades, guitarist Pat Metheny has set himself apart from the jazz mainstream, expanding and blurring boundaries and musical styles. His record-setting body of work includes seventeen Grammy Awards in twelve separate categories; a series of influential trio recordings; award winning solo albums; scores for hit Hollywood motion pictures; and collaborations and duets with major artists such as Ornette Coleman, Steve Reich, Charlie Haden, Brad Mehldau, and many others. His band, the Pat Metheny Group, founded in 1977, is the only ensemble in history to win Grammys for seven consecutive releases.
