BAMbill FEB 2009 2009 Spring Season

Julie Heffernan, Self-Portrait as Big World, 2008

BAM 2009 Spring Season is sponsored by: 2009 Spring Season

Brooklyn Academy of Music

Alan H. Fishman, Chairman of the Board William I. Campbell, Vice Chairman of the Board Adam E. Max, Vice Chairman of the Board

Karen Brooks Hopkins, President Joseph V. Melillo, Executive Producer

Presents Sounds Like Brooklyn Music Festival

Approximate BAM Howard Gilman Opera House running time: two hours, including Beirut one intermission with Kaki King Feb 6 & 7, 2009 at 8pm

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah with Chairlift Feb 13, 2009 at 8pm

Lighting designer Alban Sardinski, See Factor Industries Stage manager Marissa Kaplan

BAM 2009 Spring Season is sponsored by Bloomberg.

Chase is the Title sponsor for Sounds Like Brooklyn Music Festival.

Additional support for Sounds Like Brooklyn Music Festival is provided by Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Program Notes Beirut Zach Condon vocals, trumpet, ukulele Perrin Cloutier accordian, farfisa Paul Collins bass, farfisa Nick Petree drums Kelly Pratt trumpet, french horn, wurlitzer, glockenspiel Orchestral Arrangements by Kelly Pratt

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Alec Ounsworth vocals, guitar Robbie Guertin keyboard, guitar Lee Sargent guitar Tyler Sargent bass Sean Greengalgh drums

Kaki King Kaki King guitars Matt Hankle drums

Chairlift Caroline Polachek synth, vocals Aaron Pfenning guitar, soundscaping, vocals Patrick Wimberly drums, bass, synth, vocals Who’s Who

Beirut brings an eclectic arsenal of accordions, mandolins, euphoniums, and glockenspiels to the stage. Zach Condon fronts the ensemble, performing ukulele-tinged brass band laments wrought from global experience and youthful optimism. Condon released his internationally celebrated debut, the bedroom-recorded Gulag Orkestar, under the name Beirut, in May of 2006, and went on to assemble a band to tour the world. The Flying Beirut. Photo: Jenn Perutka Club Cup, released a year later, is an homage to France’s culture, fashion, history, and music; each song intends to evoke a different French city. In April of 2008, Zach flew to Oaxaca to record with the Jimenez Band, a village group located in Teotitlan de Valle. Those recordings are a part of the upcoming March of the Zapotec, out in February 2009. Beirut draws inspiration from likes of Françoise Hardy, Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, Magnetic Fields, and The Smiths, and from such varied traditions as klezmer, chanteuse, Balkan brass, and Mexican funeral music.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has formed their own brand of off-center indie pop, drawing comparisons to Modern Lovers and Talking Heads. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s self-titled, self-released, and self- distributed 2005 debut sold a remarkable 40,000 copies through little more than word-of-mouth and online buzz. Before long, musical legends such as David Bowie and David Byrne were being spotted at concerts. 2007’s Some Loud Thunder is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s latest release, further exploring the stylistic influences of its formation. These “rock geniuses,” according to Rolling Stone, bring with them their riotous variety of indie rock, guitar-saturated Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Photo: Steve Double songs, and powerfully resonant vocals, and create music both inspired and droll. Who’s Who

Chairlift formed in Boulder, Colorado in early 2006 to make live music for haunted houses. Frequenting the Broker Inn on the edge of town for empty late-night jazz shows, Caroline Polachek, Aaron Pfenning, and Patrick Wimberly were mystified by the 1980s faux-gothic architecture, oak cabinet aquariums, vacant dance floors, fake trees, crystal chande- liers, and dark velveteen booths. Chairlift. Photo: Ross Fraser The inn provided them with the ideal setting for a new breed of pop: a place where subtle clashes blossomed into uncanny pleasures. Relocating to Brooklyn in the summer of 2006, the trio continued on to develop a hypnotic yet tongue-in-cheek style, playing shows around Brooklyn and the Lower East Side with a thriving society of experimental pop magicians including MGMT, Yeasayer, Suckers, and Mixel Pixel.

Kaki King Guitarist, singer, and composer Kaki King has become known to instrumental music fans for her finger- picking, fret-slapping, and percussive thumping style. Her passionate attention to crafting songs propelled her 2006 album Until We Felt Red into previously uncharted indie-rock territory. Produced by post-rock kingpin John McEntire (Tortoise, Sea and Cake), Until We Felt Red was filled with lush, ambient soundscapes that “sound like the abstract, dreamy, and hypnotic end of alternative rock,” as The New York Times noted in its review. In her fourth album, 2008’s Dreaming of Revenge, King layers virtuosic guitar work underneath beautiful, deceptively simple melodies.

Kaki King. Photo: Rob Walbers