NYC band to invade Stillwater with unique sound

Monday, September 15, 2014

OSU Allied Arts Series kicks off its 2014-15 season with New York City’s Asphalt Orchestra, a high-energy band that brings ambitious processional music to the mobile masses, on Friday, Sept. 12, at 8 p.m. in the OSU Seretean Center Concert Hall. The band features some of the most exciting rock, jazz and classical players that The New York Times called “12 top-notch brass and percussion players.” 

“Asphalt Orchestra is going to be an extremely fun performance,” said Brandon Mitts, Allied Arts and Special Events manager. “The music will appeal to all ages and the visual spectacle will be unlike anything most people have experienced at a concert.” 

Asphalt Orchestra is changing the way people everywhere think about street performers. The group has wowed audiences throughout the U.S. and Canada, at London’s Barbican Centre, at the TED Women conference in Washington D.C., New York’s Alice Tully Hall and Metropolitan Museum of Art and more. 

Asphalt Orchestra’s repertoire includes music written exclusively for the band by many renowned artists including David Byrne and Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Yoko Ono, Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins), Goran Bregovic, Tyondai Braxton (Battles), and Stew and Heidi Rodewald (Broadway and Spike Lee’s “Passing Strange”). Alongside, you’ll also hear music arranged by the band ranging from Björk to Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa, Tom Zé, Thomas Mapfumo, Meshuggah to name a few. The group has created a full cover version of the Pixies’ legendary album “Surfer Rosa,” which debuted in July 2013 at Lincoln Center Out of Doors. 

Featured on the cover of The Philadelphia Inquirer as “not your mother’s marching band,” Asphalt Orchestra has also been praised in Newsweek, The Economist, New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Onion and Time Out New York, as well as interviewed and showcased on WNYC’s “Soundcheck,” Philadelphia Weekly, PBS Sunday Arts and Time Out New York’s “The Volume.”

For more information or to purchase tickets, please call (405) 744-7509 or visit alliedarts.okstate.edu.  Ticket prices for adults are $18 or $22. OSU students and children 12 and under are $10.  Group discounts are also available. For Asphalt Orchestra press kit information, please visit http://baylinartists.com/artist/asphalt-orchestra/press-kit/.

For decades the OSU Allied Arts office has brought top-notch talent to the Oklahoma State University campus to enrich the lives of students through the arts by hosting six performances during the year. For more information about Allied Arts, visit http://alliedarts.okstate.edu.