The ESL Rochester Fringe Fest is a massive twelve-day endeavor that is sprawling in both geography and content. It is no traditional festival, and it is most definitely not a music festival. Though amongst the program of the 15th edition, which ran from Tuesday September 15 through Saturday September 26, there was more music shows than ever before. Whether that was on purpose, by happenstance, or whether it is even true at all, is unclear. But what was clear, is piecing the various live music opportunities together made for a two-week roller coaster of unique experiences.
What is true of just about any Rochester Fringe show holds true for the music shows as well. These are not your normal avenues of entertainment. Things sit a little askew at this festival. It’s Situation Normal All Fringed Up. No genre, no venue, no instrument, no mash-up or addition is off limits. Performing at the Fringe is living on the edge, taking risks.
Impressively, the vast majority of the shows were produced locally using local talent. The festival rides on the immense talent and creativity of the Rochester community.
Whether it be a world-class concert hall, a church, a rock club or a wooded trail, the artists excelled at warping reality to fully immerse audiences in their world.
Inside a lounge at the Downtown United Presbytarian Church, Hungry Ghost, paired improvised looping guitars, piano and prayer bowls and chimes, with interpretive dance. Just on the other side of the doors, church business was being conducted at the front desk. Outside the windows pedestrians walked by, noses in their phones. Inside, portraits of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony stared at each other atop opposing fireplaces while vintage lamps and string lights dimly lit the “stage.” The world developed inside the performance set the audience far from those realities. An hour of non-stop on-the-spot creation, ears filled with layers of droning swirling sounds, eyes filled with acrobatic and entrancing movements.
On two different nights, two different shows told two different stories about marriage, from the stage at the Biltmore Bar and Lounge. A Modern Marriage: A Disco Rock Opera, performed by a blend of local rock musicians, pieced together a loose story of infidelity and reconciliation in eight parts, with three vocalists taking the parts of the man, wife and other woman. The all original compositions had the audience rapt from the first notes and chairs pushed aside for a full-on dance party by the end.
Later, in Love Songs in Winter, local folk duo Front Porch Project also told the story of a marriage in doubt. Two actors helped bring the story into full focus with short scenes between songs, supporting and enhancing the messages in the songs. Not your typical bar fare, or typical anywhere but the Fringe really, but regardless they had the audience fully engaged throughout the show. Good music, good acting, drinks in hand, what’s not to love?
In “Deep Fields,” Synambient developed a concert custom-built for the RMSC Strasenburgh Planetarium. The audience was transported by duo James Tabbi and Gerry Szymanski’s pulsating drones. Slowly shifting soundscapes drifted almost imperceptively while gorgeous fully immersive interstellar images from the James Webb Telescope drifted across the domed roof. The venue, the music and the visuals were one vast continuum.
Around the corner, a much different venue, a much different show, but the same Fringe-warped effect. The jazz duo Dream Float, enlisted friends vocalist Ava Sauer and bass & trombonist Eric Heveron Smith to become a Brazilian jazz quartet, transforming the sanctuary at the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church into a Brazilian jazz club. The vast interior was quickly whisked away when the band kicked into a fabulous set celebrating works by Pascoal, Jobim and more. They couldn’t resist working out the classic “Girl From Ipanema” but threw in a Fringe monkey wrench with their own answer with “Saw Her Smile,” which was an original song written from the “girl’s” perspective.
And there were more tributes to be had at this festival. Two Eastman student groups, Eastman Musica Nova and Eastman Percussion Ensemble combined for a celebration of contemporary composer Steve Reich on the occasion of his 90th birthday. In the closing performance of Reich’s “Double Sextet,” Brad Lubman’s conducting played like an immediately predictive dance, emphatically gesticulating to the twelve musicians individually and as one, as the music rhythmically built tension up to one final release. The young musicians, the aging master composer’s works, inside the intimate and hushed Kilbourn Hall, a thrilling music experience that had the mind whirring with thoughts.
Canadian duo Woody’s Choice led a tribute to the late great folky, Pete Seeger. They spun tales both personal and of Seeger’s life, coaxing memories out of the audience. Songs turned into singalongs of course, and one audience member ran out briefly only to return with a fiddle which he played from the pews.
Dave Chisholm, comic book author, educator, and trumpeter, put his own spin on a tribute to Miles Davis on the year of his 100th birthday. Not only was his band laying down quality grooves worthy of such an occasion, but in full Fringe fashion they didn’t stop there. Art from his fantastic Miles Davis comic book were projected behind them while two tap dancers joined in, adding rhythmic elements along with a dazzling stage show.
The Ricky Ford Quartet, playing two days removed from John Coltrane’s 100th birthday, jumped on the occasion to pay tribute to the jazz master. The audience was transported from a record store in a strip mall to a smoky jazz club in the 50s as the band blew fire through renditions of classics like “Syeeda’s Song Flute”, “Naima”, “Spiral” and more. Later from that very stage Stew Cutler and his trio mixed originals with some unusual instrumental covers like “Close To You,” that was a “Freddy King meets Karen Carpenter” moment, and a “Michael Jackson blues” take on “The Way You Make Me Feel.” That’s how you tribute at the Fringe.
Bop Shop Records, though, hosts dozens of concerts a year that are always on the fringe, so for them these two weeks turning Rochester sideways were just par for the course. Two of the most intriguing shows there were both locally sourced. In Sound Signal, four musicians composed different pieces inspired by an idea from Bob Brookmeyer. Those pieces were broken into shorter vignettes, nineteen in total. Numbers of each segment were handed out to the audience prior to the performance. The numbers were called out at random while the musicians reordered their music sheets to match. On top of that, the musicians had only ever seen or rehearsed the new original music an hour prior to the show. Truly living on the edge, living the Fringe. The ten-strong band powered through brilliantly, with plenty of space to create and improvise on the fly. Further amping the experience again with visuals, architectural detail images from around Rochester were displayed on a screen behind them.
The following day, local sax and electronics player Jake Wark and Buffalo’s Michael McNeil joined forces for their first ever show together. They conjured whole worlds, little musical universes loosely based on Wark’s compositions, which mostly were written for solo performance and never released. Through looping, electronic effects, and unconventional playing styles they brought the audience along with them on their journeys, pathways that had never been taken before, and maybe never again. What a trip!
Kicking things off at Bop Shop Records, Joe Fonda and Bass of Operations, held court on night one of the festival. Fonda is not local but he could easily be collecting mail here with how often he’s got a show at the store. He’s already on their upcoming schedule for four more shows going into next year. The quartet was not your usual jazz ensemble, of course. Joining Fonda’s bass, were Mike Rabinowitz on bassoon, Jeff Lederer on clarinets and flutes, and Harvey Sorgen holding it together on drums. Rabinowitz upped the odd-ness running his bassoon through effects pedals. “That’s some stuff on the fringe wouldn’t you say? We’re fringing!” Fonda exclaimed. Free form, avant-garde and funky, another fantastic set at the record shop.
Unusual instruments didn’t end with the bassoon. The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra held a special Fringe concert featuring Carolina Eyck on theremin. After a quick demo showcasing how the space age instrument worked and sounded, she joined the orchestra for a thrilling performance of Régis Campo’s “Dancefloor with Pulsing.” Eyck’s theremin was not some sideshow novelty but leading the way with precision and purpose, pulling out the full range of sounds the instrument could provide, from bright and playful down to deep rumbling drones. A unique downright fringy night with the symphony.
Steve Hahn commanded the Biltmore Bar & Lounge with his complex Chapman Stick arrangements, getting lost in his own world of proggy complex finger tapping while more traditional stringed instruments hanging on a nearby wall looked on in wonder.
Even more unusual instruments could be heard when Washington Grove, an old growth forest nestled right in the City of Rochester, hosted a literal musical journey. Audience members were greeted by a Swedish nyckelharpa at the entrance and then needed to explore the trails within to find other musical delights within, a Chinese pipa, Native American flute, and a cello. Crowds gathered to listen and enjoy the ambient noises of nature with beautiful accompaniment before heading off in search of more.
A week later another musical journey took place in the city. Roc’n in the Streets took a more urban approach, planting buskers at various points throughout downtown. Again the audience could explore, on a nice stroll, finding bits of bluegrass, folk, experimental and classical surprises stationed on street corners, outside coffee shops and in the shadow of office buildings.
As was the case throughout the Fringe Festival, the city of Rochester physically, forests, streets, theaters, bars, churches and museums, and the community of Rochester, artisans across all disciplines and genres, were on full display, even if lovingly set a little askew.
