Tickets
• General Ticket: $20
• Member Ticket: $15
• Children under 12: $10
This program is supported in part by Susan Lacy, Michele & Steve Pesner, Clifford Ross & Nicolette Donnen, and the Friends of the Fund for Music.
Clack-clack-clackity-clack, ping! It’s time for different type of music in a whole new key at The Church as we welcome audiences to a live performance with the Boston Typewriter Orchestra. By way of rhythmic typewriter manipulation, this collective of keystroke musicians entertains audiences of all ages with performance, comedy, and satire. The rhythm-heavy performance will see typewriters mimicking a wide variety of sounds, from bongo drum grooves to heavy metal (no pun intended) jams. For more than 20 years, the Boston Typewriter Orchestra has been the only typewriter orchestra in existence, and the evening is guaranteed to be a one-of-a-kind experience.
THE BOSTON TYPEWRITER ORCHESTRA
From Left to Right: Giordanna Mecagni, Derrik Albertelli, Chris Keene, James O’Grady, Brendan Emmett Quigley (kneeling), James Brockman, and Alex Holman; members of the Boston Typewriter Orchestra. Photo by Carlin Steihl
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The Boston Typewriter Orchestra (BTO) is a collective percussive ensemble for typewriter and voice based in the Boston area. Creative. Eclectic. Nostalgic. The BTO entertains with collaborative rhythmic, comedic, and satiric performances. Beyond the show itself, the BTO seeks to educate and evangelize the archaic machines they use, allowing folks an opportunity to connect with history and industrial technology, sometimes for the first time.
What is an instrument? Can music be performed on objects of the business world? What is the intersection of industry and art? Where can we find beauty and purpose in the world’s relentless grind and repetition? For 15 years The Boston Typewriter Orchestra have posed these questions, challenging the very notion of music itself. Liberated from the rules of traditional music, the BTO continues to reinvent itself with every song. Yet through the din, listeners can hear elements of dub, metal, musique concrète, kraut, French house, and garage to name but a few genres they routinely explore.
Throughout, the BTO maintains office chic garb contemporaneous with the typewriters they play; a corporate land before time where The Boss is never-present but always just around the corner. The members themselves are portrayed as corporate drones, who, despite their own self-inflicted wounds, still represent and celebrate disrupting the corporate monoculture from within.
Founded in 2004, The Orchestra got its start appearing at house parties, art galleries, and street festivals. The group has since performed on local, national, and international radio and television and appeared in the documentary California Typewriter. BTO has released several singles and five albums, the most recent of which is a collection of remixes entitled Delegation.
BTO is:
Derrik Albertelli
James Brockman
Eric Donohue
Alex Holman
Chris Keene
Giordana Mecagni
Brendan Quigley
Website: http://www.bostontypewriterorchestra.com/
Bandcamp: https://bostontypewriterorchestra.bandcamp.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bostontypewriterorchestra
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bostontypewriterorchestra/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/BostonTypewriter
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BosTypeOrch