Voice and sitar. straight up. I'd been singing Charlie Burnham's sideswipingly beautiful setting of the suppressed verses of this magnificent song and somehow it came to pass that stringsmaster John Kruth and I opened the benefit concert at Poisson Rouge vs NYU bldg scheme with it. Truth is, I sing it at the drop of a hat. Soon I might be singing it on street corners. That could be a good thing! You will be moved. It's valuable to be thinking about what Woody Guthrie would be thinking about right now. It's one take except for one note (give a girl a break), and so beautifully recorded by John Kilgore at his studio in the on 9th Ave. My third eye had a microphone all its own.

JANINE NICHOLS JOHNKRUTH This Land Is Your Land  Sitar Mix

Words and music by Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider.

Trapped in a shell, my intention is strong
With a mouthful of water, I can break through a stone
Carried on a dove, I have dropped from the sky
Now the ground is above and my goal is set high

Reach out with a kiss from my mother
Reach out just to smile at my father

Straight like a wand, my magic is simple
Sensing your laughter, the breeze makes me nimble
My colors displayed, I am ready to travel
On the back of a bee, all my children unravel

Reach Out

Sailor's Grave on the Prairie

Produced by Kimara Sajn

Recorded mostly live in realtime between 2009-2024 at Precognitive Studios, WA

All sound qualities intentional

Kim Sajn: percussion, bass, keyboards, tapes, vocals, misc

Special thanks: B.Sue Johnson, Brian Burman, Matt Baber, Mike Johnson, Dave Willey, Mike Keneally, Amy Denio, Janet Feder, John Hanavan, Amy and Alan Benjamin, Dick Heath, Deb Sears, Marina Organ, Ed Dickie and Tim Falconer

all music by Kimara Sajn 

©2024 Precognitive Music (ASCAP)

Cry Pray Dance

For The Morning Light

It's a tribute to the Dregs!

Violin: Jeremy Cubert
Everything else: Dan Cubert

Goin' Dutch

Produced by Kimara Sajn

K. Sajn: drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, guitars, tapes, vocals, misc
B.Sue Johnson: guitars, percussion, vocals, misc
Michael Ward: guitars on "California" and "Dialing Doesn't Help"

Special thanks: B.Sue, Ed Dickie, Michael Ward, John Bush, Tim Falconer, Jon Hanavan, Chris Diurni and Kirsten Denner

all music by Kimara Sajn ©1982 Precognitive Music (ASCAP)

Why Not? No.

Dialing Doesn't Help

A song from an imagined Broadway musical of the year 2048. A family looks back at a very momentous day.

Music, lyrics, arrangement, and production by Jonathan Feinberg

Todd Honeycutt - Stan
Jennifer Malenke - Dolores
Juniper Seagle - Beatrice

Special thanks to Amy Engelhardt and Daniel Koulomzin.

The Day That Donald Trump Went To Jail

Ivory 3 American Concert D - 1951 New York Steinway® D Concert Grand
Rob Schwimmer: Waltz For Clara
Dedicated to the memory of the great thereminist, Clara Rockmore
Rob Schwimmer: Composer, Pianist

Rob Schwimmer: Waltz For Clara - Ivory 3 American Concert D

Composed for the Locrian Chamber Players.

Performed by members of the Locrian Chamber Players: Erin Lesser, flute, Gregory Hesselink, cello, Blair McMillen, piano, and Anna Reinersman, harp.

Live premiere performance from August of 2008, Riverside Church, NYC

Published by APNM (Association for the Promotion of New Music).

Sultry Air, Balmy Breezes was composed in 2008 for The Locrian Chamber Players at the request of its director, my Manhattan School of Music colleague David Macdonald. The excellent players were Erin Lesser, flute, Gregory Hesselink, cello, Blair McMillen, piano, and Anna Reinersman, harp. It bears a dedication to Nils Vigeland, former Chair of the Composition Department at MSM.

In its atmospheric quality and emphasis on color, both harmonic and timbral, Sultry Air, Balmy Breezes strikes me as having been influenced by many characteristics I admire in twentieth century French music by composers such as Debussy, Ravel, and Messiaen. While I could not find an appropriate French title that wouldn’t come across as pretentious, I nonetheless allowed a bit of affectation to creep in by way of using French tempo indications and expressive markings as my homage to the tradition that inspired me. The work begins with an ascending, sweeping, and rather metallic sounding gesture that combines the piano with a harp glissando that features clashing strings. Over an accompaniment of isolated harp harmonics and other discrete sounds, the flute begins a solo that eventually will climb from its sultry lowest register to the first climax of the piece, where it is supported by lush chords in the harp, piano and pizzicato cello. (The unison doubling of chords in piano and harp is one of my favorite sonorities, one that I first came to appreciate in Britten’s Cantata misericordium.) After another upward flourish in the piano and harp and a brief reminiscence of the opening material, a faster, breezier section begins, gradually acquiring its own groove, mostly in 5/8 meter. After a couple more passionate climactic passages, this section gradually begins to dissipate, and slower music (marked Modéré) takes over, initiated by a flute trill before that instrument disappears, ceding the spotlight to the solo cello, accompanied once more by the chordal cushioning of the unison piano and harp. Just before the end, the flute — marked nonchalant — returns for its final say.

—Hayes Biggs, 2019

Sultry Air, Balmy Breezes (2008)

Funiculì Funiculà

Translated from the Neapolitan into Portuguese by Tars Cunha, with Jonathan Feinberg and Kitia Gonzaga.

Requested by Elma Mayer, in the style of Gilberto Gil circa 1968, or other Tropicalia / Psychedelia. (Not in the style of Richard Strauss or Arnold Schönberg, both of whom already did it.)

Funiculì Funiculà

Bollywood version of Led Zeppelin song  by Brian Woodbury's Downtown Music Ensemble, featuring Elizabeth Shaler dos Santos - vocs, Gregor Kitzis & Sam Bardfeld - violins, Jonathan Feinberg - percussion, Chris Rael - sitar, Matt Darriau - flute, BW -bass

Whole Lotta Love - BW's Downtown Music Ensemble feat. Elizabeth Shaler dos Santos

A songwriters' songwriters' songwriter, and aspiring songwriters' songwriter.

Whole Lotta Love - BW's Downtown Music Ensemble feat. Elizabeth Shaler dos Santos

Brian Woodbury Music

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