This spring is absolutely action packed for me in both the private and the public sector.  I’m campaigning to be re-elected as a pretty cool girl and alright musician in the year 2012.    The primaries are heating up, and I think we can all agree that I’m not that bad.

With the UNSOUND Festival this month at ISSUE Project Room, I am a busy little bee.  The month will be spent preparing for some pretty big events at ISSUE and a string of my own performances in May.  April will be spent rehearsing with Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, Charlie Looker and the Brooklyn Phil String Quartet and Matthew Welch.

May will be a relentless gauntlet of concerts including my performance of Luigi Nono’s Quando Stanno Morendo with Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble.  I think this is BY FAR the hardest piece of music I have ever worked on.  After working one on one with Christie Finn today, I’m certain that it’s going to be a truly incredible performance.  I will also be singing the character of Eve in my fellow Seaven Teare’s bandmate Charlie Looker’s song cycle for string quartet.  Charlie got a well deserved fellowship with the Brooklyn Philharmonic and will be premiering his amazing new piece based on a twisted version of the creation myth. I  will also be playing the role of one of my favorite authors Jorge Luis Borges in Matthew Welch’s opera Borges and the Other for the Experiments in Opera festival at Roulette.  The month will be capped off with a performance of Tom Swafford’s new piece BECOMING HUMAN with the lovely Gelsey Bell.

It’s gonna be a whirlwind spring and then off to India!  I’m thoroughly jazzed about the next few months!  Hope I can see all your sticky gooey lollipop covered faces there!

If it sounds like I’m coming on to all of you out there on the world wide web, you’re right.  It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m jonesin’ for all of you to come out and spend some quality “me” time.  That’s time where you watch me perform and stuff.

February has already been jam packed with amazing music making!  Performances of Sextuor: L’origine des Especes ended last Saturday with a bang!  It was such an incredible experience to make such wonderful music with amazing people!  A million thank yous to Megan Schubert, Nicholas de Maison, Jeremy Bloom, Krissy Wright, Gelsey Bell, Christie Finn, Emilie Girard-Charest, and Silvie Jensen as well as everyone who donated space, time and money! I think we did old Georges Aperghis proud!

I am very very excited about my collaboration with the dashingly dapper Ian Munro.  Ian will be on squeezebox with me on the vox at Aliza Simon’s series, Don’t Say Shit in Front of the B-A-B-Y on February 16th.  This Saturday at Roulette, Gelsey Bell, Tom Swafford and I will be doing a children’s program about the voice and violin!  I’ve always wanted to do something like this, and I think it will be fun for all ages!  After that on February 19th we’ve got The Sweat Lodge Presents: Winter SWEATer, part of the Composers Now Festival.

The Groundhog says 6 more weeks of winter.  I’ll keep you warm until then.

I am ecstatic about this coming year (even if it is our last)!  So many wonderful projects with lovely human beings and human doings.  I will kick it off in January with a night of new operas at Le Poisson Rouge!  ”Experiments in Opera” will feature excerpts from operas by Georges Aperghis, Aaron Siegel, Matthew Welch and Jason Cady.  I will be participating in the preview of Aperghis’ Sextuor with Gelsey Bell, Megan Schubert, Christie Finn, Silvie Jensen and Emilie Girard-Charest.

At the end of the month, I’ll be switching gears with SWEATronics!  This event will be presented in the usual Sweat Lodge fashion of inviting, funny, awkward, adventurous musings on music.  We will be performing brand new original works by Ian Munro, Dave Ruder, Ellen O’Meara and Joe White!

I would also like to say that I am LOVING my new job at ISSUE Project Room!  It’s gonna be a good 2012 while it lasts.

Amirtha Kidambi, child actor

Details for all of these events are on the Upcoming Performances page. I hope you can make it out!

-Mirth Worm Jim