Mar
02
2023

Vitamin Em Spring concert!

Event Date: 3/5/2023

The Band
Vitamin Em is a collective of some of the top musicians in the Bay Area - creators and performers with well-established careers, drawn to collaborate with each other in new and exciting ways. The goal - to create joyful, uplifting, and moving performances of original and diverse music.

The Band, founded in 2016 by violist Emily Onderdonk, includes Grammy®-nominees and award-winners who bring a wealth of experience, creativity and fearless improvisation to each performance. Members are steeped in an abundance of musical traditions – jazz, funk, blues, Klezmer, indie, rock, Balkan, fiddle, classical - and it shows. This band of strings, bassoon and accordion delivers its wonderfully eclectic body of first-class music with a fun-loving spontaneity and infectious enthusiasm.

Vitamin Em has appeared around the Bay Area as featured artists with Mason Bates and Mercury Soul, Berkeley Symphony & Friends, Crowden Music Center’s Sundays @ 4, Epworth Community Concerts, NPR's Says YOU! and at the Piedmont Piano Company, Throckmorton Theater, Pt. Richmond Jazz, The Back Room, Piedmont Center for the Arts.Vitamin Em musicians can also be found performing, recording or touring with artists like Jon Batiste, The Who, Beyoncé, Santana, Bob Weir, Hot Club of San Francisco, Brothers Comatose, Wayne Shorter, the Klezmatics…or with the San Francisco Opera and Ballet orchestras, at SF Jazz, and recording movie soundtracks at Skywalker Sound. Composers in their own right, Vitamin Emmers have contributed works to the SF Symphony, the SF Chamber Orchestra, Turtle Island Quartet, Cirque du Soleil, and many others.

Here's information about our program.  I have included a couple of music clips here in case you are able to use them.

Some of the pieces we will perform include:

Hasse A’s: Emily Onderdonk's arrangement of a Swedish fiddle Polska, (waltz),  performed by Väsen and composed by Mikael Marin, the VIOLIST in the group.  In 3/4 time, very lively and rousing with elements that mimic guitars...a really festive tune.  
https://youtu.be/JmU2J2RyRi0

Fancy Lady:  A hip, soul tune arranged by Emily Onderdonk and based on the Billy Preston song with the same name.  Billy Preston, the great gospel and soul keyboardist not only wrote several hits of his own but performed with many musical notables such as Sam Cooke, Little Richard, the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Ray Charles, just to name a few.  

Tongue in Cheek:  A piece by Emily Onderdon, written in a mixture of styles, including fiddle, rock, R&B and classical elements.  Dan Cantrell, Vitamin Em's wonderful accordionist is featured with an amazing solo at the heart of the piece.

Seven Corners Country:   A piece by Paul Hanson. This is an arrangement of the first song he wrote for his first album.  This upbeat piece, generally in a jazz fusion style, includes Balkan and Bulgarian influences.

Its a Numbers game:  A jazz piece by Evan Price in mixed meter but mainly in a lively 7/8.  The piece is driving and rhythmic with a beautiful lyrical section in the middle.

Beautiful Child:  by Emily Onderdonk.  Simple and heartfelt, dedicated to the memory of her brother Matt, a wonderful musician who was a big influence on her love of the blues, rock, R&B and soul music.

Shake it Up:  arranged by Emily Onderdonk.  A fun, toe-tapping dance tune, in a 60's pop style.
https://youtu.be/zZ19cmYuKo0

vitaminemband.com