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Nicholas Urie Celebrates "Excerpts from an Online Dating Service" on Wed., Nov. 4 at the Brooklyn Lyceum

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Nicholas Urie
Join composer Nicholas Urie in concert as he celebrates his highly acclaimed debut CD Excerpts from an Online Dating Service, in concert at 8:00 and 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 4 at the Brooklyn Lyceum, 227 4th Avenue, Brooklyn.

Joining Urie are on winds: Jeremy Udden, Aaron Kriziki, Kenny Pexton, Noah Preminger, and Brian Landrus; on Trumpets: Kevin Bryan, Tba., Dave Smith, John Carlson Bones: Lolly Bienenfeld, Randy Pingrey, Matt Plummer Tuba: Mike Christianson; Christine Correa on voice and rhythm section of Frank Carlberg, Mike Calabrese, and Aryeh Kobrinsky. Cover is $10 at the door; seats are based on a first-come, first-serve basis. For more information, call 718-857-4816 or visit brooklynlyceum.com.

The CD has earned wide acclaim:

“Urie does not simply blow off the dust of the large jazz ensemble, he sandblasts it off with Uranium." - C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz

“Remember his name - judging by the music and scope of Excerpts From An Online Dating Service, Nicholas Urie has a great future." - Richard Kamins, The Hartford Courant

“Excerpts From An Online Dating Service has the potential of becoming the next Rent - type show on Broadway." - Susan Frances, Jazz Times

The visionary American poet and performer, Allen Ginsberg, posited that “poetry is everywhere", not just in the sacred groves of the academy or the psychic geographies of private angst and public irony...not any more. Composer Nicholas Urie is no stranger to the new openness. He has discovered, in the internet personal ad, a new poetic medium about which he writes, “those people who take their time writing the ad really manage to say something special about who they are and how they see life."

Urie's debut CD Excerpts From An Online Dating Service, a large ensemble recording on the Red Piano label, surveys the current cultural landscape of internet 'casual encounters' postings.

“What initially piqued my interest was the amazing level of vulnerability people are willing to show on the internet...virtually any topic is freed from taboo...without self censorship or traditional social filtering," says Urie. “It is unfettered human experience put in front of an anonymous and captive audience."

This attitude, when extended to Urie's music, provides an apt and accurate description of the tender, playful, lusty and altogether sympathetic settings he has created for what is, at first glance, his highly unlikely material. There is no trace of the mocking, tongue-in- cheek or flippant in this brilliantly conceived appreciation of the emotions, desires and needs that inform Urie's sources.

>From the opening notes and the urgent orchestral colorings of “Overture", to the wistful, yearning albeit never melancholy strains of “Afternoon," the listener understands that he/she is not being “set up" for a glib pastiche or facile satire.

Instead Urie, perceptive and enlightened beyond his 23 years, and the amazing band he's assembled for his debut outing attempts to mirror, non-judgmentally, without cloying sentiment or mawkish clich, the essence of the human faces behind these anonymous speakers words; words rife with loneliness and longing, the wonder and fun that move and, ultimately, define us all: the all too familiar faces peering out at each of us from inside the looking glass.

The band is anchored by a stellar rhythm section featuring Frank Carlberg (a Red Piano artist himself, and one of Urie's mentors); the great Joe Martin on bass and the highly regarded and endlessly inventive Mike Calabrese on drums.

Among the featured soloists used with pinpoint precision by Mr. Urie, are saxophonists Bill McHenry and Jeremy Udden, trumpet maestro John Carlson and guest artist, on clarinet, the scintillating Chris Speed.

But it is Urie's utilization of vocalist Christine Correa that truly elevates and singularizes these interpretations, these sonic re-enactments, so to speak, of his “correspondents" honesties and openness.

Plumbing the emotional crevices and interstices of these “excerpts" Urie has discovered the latent poetries of the hungering soul, and has created, without demeaning either credibility or intent, a work of intense beauty and sensitivity.

Excerpts From An Online Dating Service is an oratorio of hope and human perseverance that transcends the seemingly pedestrian nature of its sources. A stunning debut.

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