My Brightest Diamond at the Allen Room – January 27th

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you big windows by Lincoln Center.  It has long been a dream of mine to play a concert in this room for The American Songbook Series, and the day is quickly approaching.  I scramble to write lots of new songs and new arrangements for the fantastic ensemble yMusic – a group that includes my long time collaborator and MBD violinist Rob Moose. I stare at this picture on my desktop every day to keep me motivated.

What’s all the fuss about?  Well, I guess this show is very personal for me because of what it represents.  I started out on a path (18 years ago, heh hum) to be an opera singer and granted I was not the picture of perfect opera singer as I skated in late to opera class on rollerblades with my baggy skater pants.  But hey, I had ambitions and a deep love for Ravel and Debussy.  Nothing has really changed I guess, except that I realized I like to write songs more than I like to do just about anything else.  It’s the instant gratification that suckers me.  15 minutes – 15 hours of hard work and then you got something tangible, something that exists where something didn’t exist before.  I still feel like a punk and a lover of storytelling and big costumes.  So this show feels like coming to Lincoln Center, but coming in my own way, a wandering and sometimes dizzying path, but this feels good.

So what’s on the program?  Well, I have a new 30 minutes of music which focuses on yMusic – that’s violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet and trumpet!  The other half of the program will be the old jams of My Brightest Diamond with Ted Poor on drums and Nathan Lithgow on bass and of course yMusic will toodle-doo along!  Hopefully we will rock your seated butts off.

I know these tickets are a lot, but I can promise a really beautiful punk show for you that I have worked for three months to prepare.  I hope you can come.

-Shara