Tilted Axes: Tilt Quintet performs for Open Streets L.E.S. on Avenue B, NYC on July 23, 2022. This was probably their “hottest” show ever with a city-wide heat index of 105 F. It didn’t matter. It was a great show. Electric Guitars: Angela Babin, Howie Kenty, John Halo — Electric Bass: Jeremy Nesse — Percussion: Patrick Grant. Photos: Bob Krasner @bobkrasner @bobkrasnertoo
#TiltedAxes performs Elisa Corona Aguilar‘s piece “Invasive Species” outside Veselka :: Beceлкa and the Ukrainian National Center in NYC on May 1st. A choir of electric guitar EBows filled up 2nd Ave. with tones of healing and reflection. The city stopped for a moment. Incredible.
This performance was part of “Beltane on B” presented by Hekate Café & Elixir Lounge and Lucky on B.
Culture Lab LIC Season Opening — April 30, 2022
Beltane on B — May 1, 2022
STRiNGS & THiNGS Show: “On our series called “First Axe” we ask members of #TiltedAxes to tell us their electric guitar origin stories. This time we’re talking to Howie Kenty, who’s a faculty member at Kaufman Music Center, where he teaches music tech, composition, and theory. But his early guitar days were marked by the sounds of grunge, cassette recordings and questionable taste in stage-wear.”
NEW SHOW — STRiNGS & THiNGS: “This time, on our series called “First Axe” – stories about first guitars – we’ll hear from the founder of Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars. That’s composer, performer and producer Patrick Grant. He’ll take us back to his teen years in Detroit for the brief but noisy life of his first department store axe.” https://www.stringsandthingsshow.com/
Listen HERE: https://www.stringsandthingsshow.com/?p=7323 or where anywhere you find quality podcasts.
We’re back to bring you some new stories from the Tilted Axes circle of musicians. If you don’t know, Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars is an orchestra of guitarists and percussionists led by composer/performer Patrick Grant. They perform original music with mini-amps strapped over their shoulders, moving through public spaces in museums, parks and city streets. Its roster of musicians can change from performance to performance, city to city. And you’re going to meet one of them right now in this series of episodes called “First Axe” – stories about first guitars.
Elisa Corona Aguilar is a writer, translator, composer and guitarist from Mexico City. As a kid, she felt left out when her brother got a guitar and she didn’t. In this episode, she tell us how she finally got her own instrument, and how it still influences the music she makes today.
Elisa has won several literary prizes and her most recent book is Doctor Vertigo and the Temptations of Imbalance and she’s translated Mingus & Mingus, the autobiography of Sue Graham Mingus and her life with Charles Mingus in Mexico. She’s been a member of Robert Fripp and the Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists, Music for Contemplation, the Contemporary Guitar Ensemble, Música y Letras at El Taller Latinoamericano de Nueva York, Tilted Axes: Music For Mobile Electric Guitars and the guitar duet Doble vida. She has a solo project called Sierpe and Other Stories, a series of compositions with electric guitar, loop, iPhone, music box, poetry and spoken word in different languages. She’s pursuing her PhD in music (NYU) and is a member of the prestigious National Endowment for Art Creators of Mexico (SNCA).
NEW PODCAST — Creative Confidential w/ Jude Kampfner — Episode 7: Patrick Grant – Exploring Music as Ritual and Spectacle.
Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars is an orchestra of guitarists and percussionists led by post-rock composer/performer Patrick Grant. They perform original music untethered via mini-amps strapped over their shoulders.
Tilted Axes can perform anywhere there are people, excelling in untraditional venues. Its roster of musicians can change from performance to performance, city to city. The musicians learn a common repertoire created by diverse composers and rehearse it in workshops.
The project takes on aspects of spectacle informed by municipal band tradition, avant-garde theater, and world music. It takes music out into the world and seeks transformative situations meant to change community conversation.
More iNFO TBA — Culture Lab LIC
2022 DMA Nominee
Outstanding Classical Composer —
Patrick Grant
My first publicly performed piece was “Cantata for the Easter Mass” when I was 15 years old at the Our Lady of Victory Church in Northville, MI. It was written for soloists, choir, strings and organ. While I’m not a traditionally religious person at all, I have retained this sense of ceremony in all my work ever since. It seeks to find a place in the world. And there is always a feeling of a larger narrative. My work with the Tilted Axes mobile electric guitars project is another branch of this same aesthetic. Some times it asks: What is classical music? Is it an instrumentation or an intention? Is it as the venue it’s performed in or can it be found anywhere? Is it solely a technique or is it what we find beyond it if we know where to look? And yet other times the music aims to say as little as possible. It only asks you to listen with prejudice. One thing I have found to be common to all things “classical”, whether it’s traditional or it’s pushing the envelopes of genres: It seeks to elevate us all by pulling us into the present. Together. And if the composer is from Detroit, it’s also not unusual if it has a mean groove. — Patrick Grant
Final Phase DMA Voting closes on March 6th at 11:59pm.
Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars is one of the many spectacular bands that will be performing in the HONK NYC! 2021 Festival.
“For the Honk NYC procession, Tilted Axes is performing “Unlikely Characters,” a piece especially created for HONK NYC!. The title comes from the Robert Fripp quote: “Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls upon unlikely characters to give it voice and to give it ears.”
We hope you join us from October 18 to 24 to see all of the “Unlikely Characters” that will be performing all across New York City.
HONK NYC! is a donation based volunteer-run organization, and each dollar pledged helps to fund and organize incredible community events for all music lovers. Please go to our kickstarter link (in our bio and comments) to contribute now to our 2021 campaign to support incredible performances like these.”
#tiltedaxes
