Well, I guess it's overdue for an update about what's been happening with the group the past few months!

We had a great time in New York in January. We played with a couple of other great artists, Invert and Mike Block. The show went splendidly in a packed club on the upper west side. Invert is a string quartet with two cellos and one violin and one viola - an inverted string quartet, hence the name. Their vibe was pretty cool - different, yet a really good compliment to ours, I'd say. Then there's Mike Block, who is just hilarious. He's a cellist who writes songs and sings while he's playing. He's kind of a Violent Femmes with solo cello! The songs are really funny, and he's also a great cellist. He can really show off his technique in the midst of screwing around!

Another cool highlight from January was a show we did at Brookhaven College in Dallas. We were a part of their afternoon recital series, and we had a good turnout. After the show, the students extended the customary 15 minute Q and A to 45 minutes! For me personally, it was also touching to see an old student of mine who came - someone I taught a long time ago when she was about 10. She has been blind most of her life, and suffers from an incurable disease which affects not only her sight, but also many aspects of her ability to function both physically and psychologically. She's now 18 and most people with her condition don't live out of their teens. Never the less, she's got a great bright personality and is just taking everything one day at a time. Even though she doesn't play the violin now - although she tried her best, her physical ailments really prevented her from doing much - music remains a very important part of her life. Also, I guess I never realized how important a role model I was back at that time for her. It's really special to realize you've touched someone's life in a profound way after many years of not seeing them. It also shows the power of music, and why many times just the act of studying an instrument is fundamental to a child's development, even if they choose not to pursue it either professionally or at a very high level!

Thanks to all who made the Allen Harvest Festival Show a success last week. It was really cool for me to see some of our new MySpace friends out there. Also, a big thanks to Kathy Litinas and the Allen Symphony. They gave us a great welcome, and we'd love to come back! We got some video from the show, and we'll post it soon.

We played last night at the Paramount Theatre, and there were 1600 good people that came out to see us! The Oakland Symphony also performed with 2 Choruses as well on the program. We closed the show, and brought down the house!

We played my piece Vokante Heroa, which is on our album "Travels". On the evening, they were honoring Dag Hammerskold, the Swedish diplomat that was a Secretary General of the UN who died in a tragic plane crash in 1961. They thought Vokante Heroa perfectly encapsulated the life of this great man, and that's why we were asked to play it. The actress Caroline Lagerfeld read some things by Hammerskold in between the 3 movements of Vokante during the show.

After the first movement of Vokante Heroa, the audience simply erupted in a standing ovation, which is the first time I've ever experienced a standing ovation after the first movement of a work! It was really cool. After the third movement, Fury of the Living, it was just amazing with people whooping and yelling! So I guess you could say it was pretty well received!

After the show, the conductor of the Oakland Symphony came up and hugged me and suggested that I be commissioned for a new piece for Neo Camerata and orchestra to be premiered with the Oakland Symphony. I, of course, said that would be fantastic! So hopefully look for that next year!

Hey all, just a quick update: The new album is coming out Oct 11! Check it out on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/classical-artist-search/Neo%20Camerata/104-8322580-3923162

Also, I've just put up a new page of non-Neo Camerata things you might be interested in. Here it is:
http://mySpace.com/MarkLandson

There's an orchestra piece up there, as well as some pop music stuff.

We had a great time at the Kennedy Center in DC a couple weeks ago. Got a great reception there. There were quite a few people that came up to me as I was walking through the festival later to say how they enjoyed it, which is pretty cool. You can catch some of the video in the media section on the site here. I'm guessing there were about 400 or 500 people there for our bit, but it might have been more.

Jane's been on tour with a group called the Irish Sopranos the last couple of weeks - friends from the UK on a little jaunt through Canada and the US. Looks like a few have dropped by our website, so welcome to you all! One thing she was playing on the tour was an arrangement I did for her of Kreisler's Preludium and Allegro tricked up in Vanessa Mae style. We're going to record that and I'll post it for our special newsletter subscribers!

We're looking forward to our album coming out in a couple weeks - October 11! Please request it at your local classical station!

You know, the other day, my dad called me to say he heard "Dream on a Cirrus Sky" on WRR 101 in Dallas. I did a little check, and it seems they're playing Dream and "Prayer" from Travels quite a bit! In fact, I guess I am up there as one of the top composers of today that they play, which is pretty cool! Anyway, you can help out a lot by requesting the new album Travels at your local classical station. We would really appreciate that! (It will also help to bring us out to your town if you want that!)

We played last night on the rooftop of Gachet, a very cool coffee/wine bar on lower Greenville in Dallas, with the city skyline behind us. Unfortunately, the spot lights at Gachet were on the fritz, which left us sort of in the the dark for the performance, but the people that came out didn't mind, apparently!

During Vokante Heroa, there was a swarm of birds or bats that began flocking all about us overhead. It was wild! On that piece it was very foreboding of something evil in the air, which is pretty good for that!

Thanks to all those who came out on short notice - it's great that we can send out an email a couple days before a show and have that kind of response. Awesome! There were a lot of people that have been on the mailing list a while and haven't ever seen us play, so it was great to meet them. And some people who came out from the Dada show last week, bringing friends along, which is great to see.

We had about 20 new signups for the mailing list, too. Thanks to all and to Gachet for doing it on short notice. If you came out to see us, please sign our guest list and let us know you stopped by!

In a few hours, we're off to DC for the Kennedy Center show. Guess I'll sleep on the plane!

We played Sunday night at Club Dada's open mic in Dallas to warm up our act for the Washington DC show at the Kennedy Center. We didn't publicize it to the email list, so we had only a few of our friends there. The response was amazing, though. People were coming in off the street when we started playing, and the club was near full by the end of our short 25 minute set! It was the first show Jane was playing from memory, and she did an amazing job. Totally kicked butt! 25 new people signed up for the mailing list, and I accidentally gave away many tshirts by saying everyone who signed the mailing list would get a tshirt. Ooops! I MEANT to say everyone would have a CHANCE for a tshirt in the tshirt drawing. Our sassy merch girl Les was freaking out! Oh well :)

We decided we're going to do another warmup show in Dallas this week on Thursday. It's going to be at GACHET, a hot new coffee house on lower Greenville with a very cool rooftop patio with a view of downtown. So please everyone get up on the roof with us on Thursday at 8PM! We're going to play an hour - all the stuff we're going to do in DC, including the new version of Vokante Heroa that we recorded for the coming album.

We just got the master of the new album to listen to, and it sounds great! I'm very excited about it. The album will be called Travels, and it will be new recordings of Travels, Dream on a Cirrus Sky, and Vokante Heroa.

Also, since originally, Vokante Heroa was only for string trio and piano, I rewrote it to include 2nd violin as well. This makes it really much better than the original, and the new version is on the new album.

I also want to say that we are getting some touring together, and as you can see on our shows page, we've got some higher profile things coming up this year! We're excited to be playing in The Kennedy Center in DC and the Paramount Theater in the Bay Area as special guests to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the United Nations. We're also playing our first concert as a guest artist with orchestra! That concert will feature a new version of Travels with orchestra!

A very exciting thing that we've been looking forward to to be able to mount a national tour. We've now set up a non-profit organization to support our efforts to get Neo Camerata's vision of new classical music out to all the people who want to experience it. We as artists have worked hard at envisioning and creating Neo Camerata, but it would not exist today were it not for the support of people behind the scenes who have believed in the value of our mission. They are our valuable partners, providing monetary and other support so that we can bring the music to the people.

Check out the new site. We are right now putting together the board of directors and the advisory board for NewClasical.org. You can join the team by donating online, or contact me directly if you'd like to have more direct involvement and you feel either you'd be a good board member or know someone who you'd like to nominate.

You can find the website at http://newclassical.org

More later!

Mark

We just did a photo shoot with James Bland for the new album artwork. We'll get some shots up soon so you all can see! Went great, James did the shoot on our D Mag article and we like him alot! Check him out at http://www.jamesbland.com

Street date for the new album is looking to be October 11 on Well-Tempered Productions/Allegro Distribution.

We're putting together a tour in the Fall, which will be substantial. Right now we've got dates for about 6 weeks and we'll do more after that!

Join the mailing list to be kept up to date on everything!

We just spent 4 grueling days in San Francisco last week recording a CD which will be released internationally in October. We recorded it at Skywalker Ranch, which is an amazing facility. The sound quality of the recording is absolutely first rate, and we feel it's going to be a very special recording! Engineering on the session was Mark Willsher, who has worked on all the Peter Jackon films and is the music editor for the up coming King Kong.

I'm very happy to announce that Neo Camerata has two awesome new members! I mentioned them in my last post and I want to talk a little more about them. Our new pianist's name is Schumann, which of course is a great name for a pianist! Her full name is Elizabeth Jeanne Schumann, and we've decided to call her E.J., because it's easier to spell. She is an absolutely amazing pianist who was the youngest pianist accepted into the Van Cliburn Competition in 2001, and she's had many solo piano concerts in the US and elsewhere, including being asked to perform in the Rock Hotel Piano concert series in New York. She's got it all - power and soul all in one. And she's been a blast to hang with here in Europe.

Also, replacing the recently departed Jamie on 2nd violin is a great find from Manchester, England, Jane Hunt. She played with us in Cannes for the first time, and we were so impressed we asked her to join us the next day! She's just graduating from the Royal Northern Conservatory, where she has been in a top string quartet that's played in some important European festivals. She's got the chops and the musicality to mesh with us perfectly. And she was a championship tennis player also, so you can bet she's a dynamic stage presence too!

Wow, we flew into Paris on Wednesday morning, and went right on to Nice, and then Cannes for our performance at the Cannes Film Festival. We played the show with Rejane Magloire, whose latest album, The Forbidden Opera, is a hip-hopera that we did together last year, and is now being released on Virgin Classics.

The performance was at Nikki Beach, one of the hot spots in Europe. There was a big tent set up on the beach, and the weather was great for it! There was lots of TV there, and a lot of very beautiful people in beautiful clothes everywhere. We played some of the Forbidden Opera album with Rejane, and then went into Travels and Fury of the Living from our album.

We got a great reaction from what could have been a tough crowd, and you could tell that they were definitely not expecting what your Neo Camerata crew had in store for them!

We also were joined for the first time in concert by our newest members: Jeanne Schumann on piano and Jane Hunt on violin. Both were the result of searching the globe for just the right fit for the Neo C sound and style! We'll get their bios up soon and pics too...

Wow, the Neo Camerata April tour is in the books! 10 shows in 10 days, and every one a cool story. We'll post some pics soon as we can.

We finished last night in grand style at the Point in Bryn Mawr, PA outside Philly. A wonderful venue, it was one of the best shows on the tour. Some of the highlights of the tour:

4/11 - World Cafe Live - a broken violin bridge meant we had to go on without Nikola, but we still rocked and the club bookers gave us a tour of the big room!

4/13 - Iota Club in Arlington, VA - Great sound and fun people, and we got to see some old friends

4/14 - Lots of Radio support from Harrisburg! They played us on the radio and previewed the show. People were calling the club and coming out from that! About 200 at the show, then got stopped by the cops for an illegal U-turn! Ouch!

4/15 - Late Night Series in Princeton, NJ - About 100 college kids there - one of the best audiences on the tour, sold lots of CD's and about 50 new mailing list signups! Host was a riot!

4/16 - The Cutting Room, NY - Amazing venue was packed to standing room with about 250 people!

4/18 - The Baltimore Sun ran a big article on our tour in the Sunday paper! The Funk Box sound system was also one of the best.

4/19 - The Point in Bryn Mawr, PA - amazing venue and great crowd of about 100 college students who went wild for our show and bought lots of CD's!

Congrats to all those who won the T-shirt drawings at the shows, and thanks to everyone who bought CD's and T-shirts, and signed up for the Neo C info list! The band had a hugely wonderful time, and we're looking to get out again soon!

Did an interview today for the Baltimore Sun, who is running a story in Sunday's edition on our tour and appearance at the Funk Box in town there. We'll post it when it runs! - More Later. - M

A big thanks to everyone who was at the Philadelphia show at World Cafe Live. Wow, what a great place! And what an incredible story in playing there!

We finally got to the gig at after 10, and ended up playing around 10:30. We sent Sara Hamman up to begin a couple of songs without us first. As we were getting ready, our second violinist for this tour Nikola "Koko" Takov puts his mic on his instrument, attaches it to his belt clip, and promptly forgets he's now attached to his instrument and walks away, which brought the beautiful instrument crashing down to the floor! The bridge snapped in half, and we realized that he would not be able to go on!

Luckily, your Neo C 3 have some experience in playing as a trio, and the show went on! I simply explained to the people there: "well, just imagine that it's 33% better than it sounds!" :)

Incredibly, the show was extremely well received there, and the people that were there just errupted with hoots and hollers. The manager and talent booker gave us a tour of the place from head to toe afterwards. The main room is awesome there, and we're hoping to play there sometime as an opener for an established act soon. Glenn Tillbrook of Squeeze was playing there that night, and we shared some pastries with him before they insisted we take a whole plate of the goodies for the road. Thanks guys!

Big thanks to all our friends who came out to Club Dada in Dallas to kick off our tour, and also a big thanks to Tom Prejean and of course Steven there! Right now, we're sitting in Atlanta airport trying to get to Philly. The joys of missed connections! Looks like the show tonight will be delayed a bit, but we'll go on around 10PM!

We've gone live with the new website. Yeah! I hope you like it. A huge gigantic big thanks to Leslie Lee to help bring a new visual direction to the band. Check her site at http://www.laughingcatarts.com

Sound off on it if you want in the connect area of the site! We'll be adding things to it bit by bit so stay tuned!

Ok, it's been a while since I've written anything here! But that doesn't mean there's no news to report! Some very cool things have happened recently. First, 2005 marks the explosion of Neo Camerata onto the pop culture scene with quite a few projects collaborating with some very cool artists. Here are some:

Today, Jan 20 marks the release of "The Forbidden Opera" on Virgin records. Neo Camerata had the pleasure of collaborating with Rejane Magloire, who was the lead singer for a super group some years back called Technotronic. You may remember Pump Up The Jam, and Move That Body, right? Of course you do! We're hoping to do some dual promotional appearances with Rejane to promote her album and of course Neo Camerata. Cool stuff! Check out the album: http://www.virginclassics.com/vclass-docs/rh_news.html

Also, today was the premier of the new season of The Apprentice on NBC. What does that have to do with us? Well, Danny Kastner, one of the contestants, made a little trip to Dallas to have Neo Camerata record some strings on an upcoming little musical project he's working on. I did the string arrangements, and we had a great time doing it. Look for some more collaborations between us to come. Listen to a track we did on his website here: http://www.Kastner.com

More later - Mark

Here are some things going on behind the scenes...

We're in the process of working out the details for international distribution of our CD. When the ink is dry, we'll get out a press release. :)

A NEO tour is also in the works to support all of this, and will probably begin sometime later this summer. Join Club NEO, and we'll update you when we get something concrete!

Check out the feature on NEO Camerata today in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Thanks to Wayne Gay from the Star-Telegram for giving us the ink!

Hey all, it's been a busy month! Here's a rundown:

Jan 18: we played two shows for the Plano Symphony's children's concert series. Mixing up the program, we played historical classical favorites like Mozart's "A Little Night Music" and Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto #3" alongside NEO's own originals. Then, we went down to Club Dada and surprised an open mic crowd.

Feb 4: We opened for Matt Haimovitz at Club Dada on his "Anthem" tour. Cool guy! Also cool was getting our first review, in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Thanks Wayne!

Feb 7: We performed on stage with Contemporary Ballet Dallas in McFarlin Auditorium. CBD choreographed a ballet to Vokante Heroa, which is part of our CD. We got some good video of it, so we'll post that on the web soon!

If you aren't signed up for clubNEO, do so! You'll be updated when the latest cool video goes up!

Sunday, Jan 11, 2004 7 PM
Tune in to WRR101 in Dallas, TX for an interview with Neo Camerata
Hear it live on the web: http://WRR101.com

For all those who tuned in to FOX 4 in Dallas and saw Aja, but none of your favorite Neo-C boys, here's what happened.

We found out the night before that we were taping the segment and it will air on Christmas Day on the Good Day Special - once in the morning and once in the evening. It went SPLENDIDLY and the Aja girls were so excited about it. A couple of girls in the studio were crying as we performed our special rendition of the First Noel with Jerome Harmon, aka "Ludy van Blackthoven".

We'll post the video on the site here when we get the dubs made.

WQED FM in Pittsburgh played Travels on Saturday. If you are from the 'burgh, please send them an email to let them know you want to hear more! http://wqed.com/fm/prod/lc/index.shtml

We all had a great time at the in-store appearance we did at Borders Preston/Royal. Thanks to all who came out! We signed CD's for about an hour afterwards. Thanks to Farris Rookstool at Borders for the support!

Some very exciting things have been happening behind the scenes at NEO land! Here are some that we can glimpes right now:

* NEO Camerata will be performing with Contemporary Ballet Dallas in February! CBD will be performing to Travels from the CD, with NEO playing on stage during the performance. CBD is the most innovative dance company in Big D - combining ballet on toe with modern dance, just like NEO is doing with music!
First weekend of Feb in McFarlin Auditorium at SMU, Dallas TX

* WRR101 has been playing our CD, and there's some great response coming from it! Request it more at WRR101.com

* Saturday, Nov 8 at 4:30 - We'll be doing an in store performance. Sign up for the mail list for latest info where!

Well, it's been a busy week so far. Last Friday, John and I went over to WRR 101.1 FM to record an interview for their Main Event program. It aired Saturday night, with 6 out of the 8 tracks on our little CD. Thanks for those who called me to say they heard it! i'll post it on the site when I get a copy. I guess they also played a track some morning this week. Cool! Stay tuned, because it looks like we'll be doing some more stuff with them in the near future. Looks like a CD release party is in the works for Novemeber! - Mark

Hello, all, and welcome to NEO Camerata's new website!

The new CD's were just picked up from the plant, and they look and sound great! We're really excited about getting the CD's out to the critics and reviewers to see what they think about it!

We are still planning the release date in retail stores, and we'll let you know when that's going to happen. Until then, you can get one of the first copies right here. We have ordering capabilities through some of the best and most reliable companies out there who have handled many, many CD's. The products will be wherehoused at each of these vendors, and they will provide order fulfillment, so you will get it ASAP, and we can stay focused on the music.

Enjoy the music, and please drop us a line to let us know how you like it!