Une Soirée Folle: In Walked Piet Album Launch
About this Event
Calling Flappers, Dandies and Jazz Cats!
Come along for a spectacular night of music to celebrate the official launch of Emilie Conway's 3rd album, In Walked Piet! in the upstairs Speakeasy at the United Arts Club.
Joining Emilie are the exceptional Johnny Taylor on piano and Scott Kohlmann on guitar. Together, they will debut brand-new tracks from the album alongside the timeless "hits" of the 1920s—including The Charleston, Ain’t Misbehavin', Blue Skies, Stardust, and more!
About the Album: The Art, The Era, and The Inspiration
The 1920s. The Jazz Age. Les Années Folles. The Roaring Twenties, Swing Orchestras, Surrealism, DADAism, Jazz. A time of casting off the stays and corsets of old ways of life for the new, the modern, freedom, and release following the restriction and destruction of WWI and the Spanish Flu pandemic. The Arts bristled with iconoclastic and rebellious artists, like Joyce, Dali, Picasso -- and Piet Mondrian whose life and work is the inspiration for Emilie's 3rd album, In Walked Piet.
The Backstory: This album grew out of a performance commission from the National Gallery of Ireland in 2020 to coincide with their landmark Mondrian exhibition. Because of pandemic restrictions, the live performance was canceled.
Instead of stopping, Emilie used those isolated, quiet months to dig deeper into Mondrian’s life, work and influences. This research resulted in an podcast with the National Gallery (still available to stream! ) and a special lecture series for New York City's global cultural center, the 92NY.
Dutch artist Piet Mondrian is best known for his revolutionary, instantly recognizable abstract paintings made of bold black grids and vibrant blocks of primary red, yellow, and blue.
Jazz & Visual Art: When he encountered jazz in 1920s Paris, it sparked a lifelong love affair. In the rhythm of swing, boogie-woogie, and later, New York City bebop, Mondrian heard the sonic equivalent to his visual theories as well as the same fearless, uncompromising experimentation and drive for innovation that he strove for on his canvases.He even named one of his final, most famous masterpieces Broadway Boogie Woogie, painting the bustling, musical grid of Manhattan.
Coincidentally, Emilie’s own jazz journey began in a setting straight out of that very era. She first encountered the music at the infamous Green Mill in Chicago—a legendary 1920s prohibition speakeasy frequented by Al Capone. So inspired (and more than a little blissfully ignorant!) she jumped at the chance to sing "My Secret Love" with Blue Note Kurt Elling’s band during an after-hours jam session. And thus began her continuing fascination with jazz!
Album cover design by Emilie Conway, acrylic on canvas
Quotes
“Star of the show is Conway’s voice,” – Hot Press
“Splendid.” – The Sunday Independent
“Her own vocalese to Coltrane’s solo demonstrating her abilities to their fullest, flitting through the lyrics at a tempo most rappers would be envious of, while maintaining a bouncing melody and clarity of diction throughout.” – GoldenPlec
Bio
Emilie Conway is an award winning jazz singer, composer and lyricist. Her music is informed and complemented by her love of literature, poetry, sound and silence. She blends her own compositions with improvised or composed music and her interpretation of familiar and less familiar jazz standards.
Her work centres around three areas of focus: jazz and art/literature, jazz and disability and jazz and children.
Emilie was commissioned by the National Gallery to respond to the work of Piet Mondrian and this work is in its final stages of production.
She created Solid, Space Sound experience for the Ark in June which brought children from Child Vision to experience the Ark in an interactive musical, highly sensory, participatory, creative way.
In recent years she has been heavily involved in campaigning for disability rights and equal access especially in the Arts. Keeping music to the fore she so she has sang her message at meetings and presentations including to Oireachtas members. She is founder of DADA, Disabled Artists, Disabled Academics.
She also bring her musical, writing and artistic skills to her works with artists and galleries to create multi-sensory experiences which poetic audio description, sound/music, braille and tactile creations.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
EUR 22.42
