This past week was a good week for live music.

On Sunday, Andy Osenga and I drove out to a concert just outside of Nashville, a fundraiser for Blood:Water Mission that featured Andy and a couple other guys playing “in the round.”
Tuesday evening, after Handbell Choir practice, I headed over to the 12 South Taproom – featuring 22 beers on tap – for another show from Eclectica, a band that’s a side project for my friend Roy Wooten (or Futureman, drummer for Béla Fleck and the Flecktones), electric violinist Tracy Silverman, and bassist Kyle Whalum (Steve Forrest filled in for him for this gig). This was the second time I’ve seen them play, so I picked up a copy of their album this time – officially due out April 1st – and have really been enjoying it. Here’s the EPK they created for Streaming Video Soul.

On Thursday evening, I headed over to Mercy Lounge for a concert put together by Vanderbilt Divinity School, The Enduring Chill: Remembering Flannery O’Connor. There were four artists, all inspired in some way by O’Connor, with readings from her writings in between sets. This was the third or fourth time I’ve seen Over the Rhine in concert, and probably the best show I’ve seen from them. At one point in the evening, the person responsible for putting together the concert mentioned a few movie directors and songwriters who owed a lot to her writing, artists like U2 and Nick Cave, and directors like Jim Jarmusch and the Cohn Brothers. I really need to get around to finishing up Wise Blood, O’Connor’s first novel.

A while back, I worked with Grammy-nominated arranger Don Hart, doing the music prep for a concert full of songs from Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life that Don had arranged for full orchestra. One of the featured soloists from that night, Abby Burke, performed four of those arrangements, along with three other charts Don had written, with the Paducah, KY Symphony Orchestra on Saturday evening. Since Peducah is only about a two and a half hour drive from Nashville, Don and I drove up for the concert. It was nice to hear those charts again, and Abby is an incredible vocalist, with a four-octave range. But I do have to say, nothing matches hearing those arrangements played by Orchestra Nashville at the $125 million dollar Schermerhorn Symphony Center, standing on the side of the stage during rehearsal only thirty minutes after printing out the last of the charts.