The series kicks off today with a concert by QQQ, whose name was enigmatically scrawled in chalk around Collis and plastered on walls across campus over the past week. The resulting aura of mystery suits the group's music well. The ensemble blends Norwegian wedding marches with a spurring combo of bluegrass and folk. Topped off with a delicate sprinkling of classical music, the result is a layered, spontaneous sound that escapes predictability.
Even QQQ's process of learning new pieces reflects the group's eclectic approach to music: the group learns through improvisation and playing by ear.
For the quartet from New Jersey and New York whose lineup is rounded out by classical guitarist Monica Mugan, fiddler Dan Truman (Mugan's husband), violist Beth Meyers and percussionist Jason Treuting (Meyers' husband) the music is mainly about sharing a good time with the audience.
"This music with QQQ is just nothing but fun," Meyers said. "Of course it's serious in its own way it's very challenging technically but in the end you just can't help but have a smile on your face the entire time you're playing. In that way it's just super fun to play for audiences because you can't help but share that."
Die Roten Punkte (The Red Dots), the self-proclaimed "best band in the world," will come to campus next week. Australians Daniel Tobias and Clare Bartholomew channel Otto and Astrid Rot, a fictional sibling pair from Germany that was orphaned by a train accident. That tragedy led the brother and sister to take their concert-stand-up hybrid all over the world.
The duo embraces contradiction to an extreme, dressing in black and red Goth/punk attire while performing light, catchy pop and indie rock. Astrid aptly described their band as "indie rock with punk attitude." The clash between Astrid, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and Otto, a straight-edge vegan, also presents a strange dichotomy and yields funny, childish banter between the two.
Although the two-person setup and aesthetics of Die Roten Punkte (intentionally) invoke comparisons to The White Stripes, the band does not suffer from any sort of inferiority complex to the Whites.
"It's pretty obvious that they saw what we were doing a few years ago and they thought, Oh, that's a cool story, a brother and a sister in a band and just two people,'" Otto explained. "And they took our color scheme."
Although The White Stripes may be more highly regarded as musicians, Die Roten Punkte outperforms when it comes to enthusiasm, and their oversized personalities make up for their child-sized guitar and drum set.
"We don't worry so much about playing in tune or in time," Otto said. "We just get up and it's all about energy and passion."
"No one plays as passionately as we do," he added later.
"And we can dance better," Astrid added.
Famed cellist Erik Friedlander's "Block Ice & Propane" will mark the last performance in the series.
"Block Ice & Propane" was inspired by the two-month long road trips Friedlander's family embarked on during the summers of his childhood. In his show, Friedlander pairs solo cello with photographs taken by his mother and his father, photographer Lee Friedlander, to imbue his performance with a highly personal feel.
"That's kind of what the record is about that feeling of being on the road hour after hour, slipping through other people's towns and other people's landscapes," Friedlander explained.
While solo cello may seem like an unexpected soundtrack for photos of the American heartland, Friedlander is able to produce the sounds of a guitar with his cello and deliver a surprisingly soulful mix of bluegrass and Americana.
His performance at The Hop will be the premier of an expanded version of "Block Ice & Propane" that includes new music from Friedlander along with a collection of "road films" by filmmaker Bill Morrison.
QQQ will perform tonight, Die Roten Punkte is set to play on July 23 and Erik Friedlander's "Block Ice & Propane" is scheduled for August 1. All performances are at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. in the Moore Theater.
