Sarah Darling's Winter Wonderland

I'm so proud to have produced four new Christmas songs for the incredible Sarah Darling. The holiday album "Winter Wonderland" is now available for pre-order on iTunes! We recorded "Winter Wonderland", "Santa Baby", "White Christmas", and "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" at The Bomb Shelter here in Nashville, TN. I'm so proud of the work we did. Get yourself some holiday cheer and pre-order this album!

Poly on World Cafe!

Earlier this summer my friend Ann Powers invited my silly little band to come perform on World Cafe, which she hosts here in Nashville. It was such an honor to get the invite, and such a blast playing our songs for her. She's incredibly smart, sensitive, and always does her research, so her questions are interesting and meaningful. To make it all even better, our dear friend and badass Alicia Enstrom sat in with us on violin, ukulele, and background vocals. To listen to our session click the silly picture below!

Women at Warp

If you know me (or have met me even once), you know that I'm a little obsessed with Star Trek. I wrote a blog post for one of my favorite Star Trek podcasts, Women at Warp, and it just went live today. If you're interested in the inner workings of my nerd brain and what I think about Star Trek's portrayals of mixed race people, click on the silly pic below.

Poly and Gordon Ramsay

When I want to try something new in the kitchen, I usually check YouTube to see if Gordon Ramsay has a video on it, and he usually does. Just the other day I made a fantastic Hollandaise sauce because I watched Gordon Ramsay's Eggs Benedict video, and I frequently go into YouTube wormholes watching clips of "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Hotel Hell". Now I can say I've been in something with this Michelin Star chef (or at least, my band's music has).

Check out the video below to hear Poly's "Parachute" in this trailer for Gordon Ramsay's MasterClass.

Stephen Drake performs Schumann with the Nashville Concerto Orchestra

I'm so proud of the Nashville Concerto Orchestra, a project I started last year with my dear friend Roger Wiesmeyer. The orchestra is part of Roger's non-profit, Mozart in Nashville, and is completely volunteer based. Some of our members are professionals from the Nashville Symphony, some are studio musicians, some are students, and some are amateurs. All are welcome!

Below is a video of my friend Stephen Drake performing the Schumann Cello Concerto with our orchestra of immensely talented volunteers. If you haven't yet made it to a concert, we perform quarterly in different locations around Nashville! Stay tuned for more info on our Fall Concert, coming up on October 7th!

TROXES ARE NOT BOXES

My lovely friends at Artiphon recommended me to record a teeny weeny cover of Malvina Reynolds' "Tiny Boxes" for the Troxes Kickstarter Launch video. Troxes are these amazingly designed pieces that are based on equilateral triangles, and can be put together any way you want. Perfect for me, since the product is origami inspired! Below is their Kickstarter video. I'll be getting some Troxes in the mail soon, and I'll probably be posting my models in the future!

DREAM COUNTRY

I'm so proud of this piece of art that has come from my friendship with Sarah Darling. She's one of the best singers I've ever met, and one of the kindest people. We were somehow able to make "Dream Country" sound just like her from beginning to end. I'm so lucky that she asked me to produce her first independent release, and I'm so looking forward to many more years of friendship and collaboration with her. Thanks also to all of my dear friends (old and new) who came to play on the recording. 

Find "Dream Country" online, or purchase hard copy vinyl or CDs here!

Arrival Short Film

Almost 3 years ago, my dear friends Ross Wariner and Cody Uhler of Upright T-Rex asked if I would contract a chamber orchestra for them and conduct the recording of a score for a short film that they had just finished writing. The film was finally released this past week, and I couldn't be more proud to have been a part of it.

Seriously, this thing is gorgeous. I cried. Alex Myung, dang. You did good.

Little Bandit 4Ever

I am so freaking proud of my dear dear friend Alex Caress, who has finally released his first full length record with his band, Little Bandit. 

I was lucky to sing all over the record, play cello, and write all the string arrangements with Alex. I also make a teeny appearance as a bgv singer in this badass video for the first single, "Bed of Bad Luck". YAY!!!

From "Breakfast Alone" - littlebanditmusic.com Directed by Ryan Kendrick loving shot at Nashville's own Edgefield Bar & Grill

NCO is Best New Classical Group

I guess Roger Wiesmeyer and I did something right, because everyone seems to love the Nashville Concerto Orchestra! We're super honored to be recognized by the Nashville Scene's "Best of" list this year. Our next concert is on October 19th at 12pm at West End United Methodist Church!

Click the image below to read our Best of Nashville Feature!

Sarah Darling - "You Take Me All The Way"

The first single from Sarah Darling's new record, "Dream Country", was just released in the UK! I'm proud to have produced this record for Sarah, and have been super excited to share it. The song was written by Sarah and Cheyenne Medders, who also played guitars on the record.

Check out this live performance of the song, also featuring Micah Hulscher, Aaron Early, and me, playing my bud Mike Shepherd's gorgeous little short scale bass guitar.

Josh Farrow - "Trouble Walks With Me"

Josh Farrow is a top notch human being and a great talent, and this song is just gorgeous. I'm proud to have made this string arrangement and performed it with my gorgeous lady friends, Kristin Weber and Eleonore Denig, for Josh's newest video. Not pictured: the million mosquito bites we all got shooting this at dusk in the summertime in the South.

Kyshona's "The Ride"

I'm over the moon to have produced a few tracks on the super amazingly talented Kyshona Armstrong's new record! It was a privilege to get to work with her, and I'm so proud to call her my friend. Right now she's touring in the UK with Sarah Darling and Jenn Bostic!

I'm psyched to have produced the following tracks on The Ride:

Lonely

Excorcist

Lost The Light

Love Has Got Me Here

Still The King

I'm very briefly on an episode of CMT's new show "Still The King" with my buds Derek Pell, Eli Bishop, and Zach Casebolt. This show is pretty funny, and the stuff we had to do was hilarious and ridiculous to say the least. Below is a shot from our episode in which we play music for 5 seconds, and then run out of the room past Billy Ray Cyrus and 2 dudes carrying steel drums. If you want to watch it, click the screen grab!

Rory Hoffman's "Tour de Fourth"

I'm so proud to have contributed vocals to a song on Rory Hoffman's new full length, "Tour de Fourth". The track I contributed to is completely a cappella, a sort of Singer's Unlimited version of the Arlen/Mercer classic "This Time the Dream's On Me". Here's a video of us performing it at Rory's release party at The Station Inn this past Thursday (along with 16 of the 18 vocal tracks that we recorded in Rory's home over a year ago).

It probably goes without saying that Rory's CD release party was a huge success last night. One of the hits of the evening consisted of only vocals, without any instrumentation. You'll know why, after watching this vid, presenting Rory Hoffman and Larissa Maestro.

Rory's album was given rave reviews in the Nashville Scene and The Tennessean, and for good reason - each song knocks it out of the park! Do yourself a favor and click the album cover below to get this record on iTunes immediately: