Posted: 11/10/2014 11:28:50 AM EST
MANCHESTER >> Talk about a union of opposites.
On the surface, it's a long way from the heavy, blues-drenched power rock of Led Zeppelin, one of the few popular musical ensembles ever that truly can lay a claim to being transformative and influential, and the mellower, sweeter rhythms of chamber music.
But perception is not always reality, as Ari Rudiakov, the artistic director of the Manchester Music Festival, might have noted.
Rudiakov, who plays viola in the music festival's chamber music string ensemble, hopes to take one more chisel to chip away at what walls remain between the worlds of popular and classical music. On Friday, Nov. 14, a string quartet from the music festival, which will include Rudiakov and his wife, Joana Genova, on violin, will perform at a fundraising concert in Manchester with Out on the Tiles, a Led Zeppelin tribute band based in Hudson Falls, N.Y.
At first glance, an unusual combination. But not to Rudiakov, whose recent fundraising events for the music festival have included inviting tribute bands - groups that perform the music of other bands that previously graduated to legendary status - ranging from Jimmy Buffet to The Beatles.
Anyway, there's far more to the music of Led Zeppelin, the ultimate 1970s supergroup, than might meet the eye, he said.
'What I like about Led Zeppelin, apart from the fact that I think all their songs are incredibly inventive ... is that they bring a gestalt to what they do that is thinly separated from what we do,' he said, referring to the Manchester Music Festival. 'The music goes around and the degrees of separation, for me, increasingly are perceptions and barricades put up by others.'
Led Zeppelin, for those who slept through the 1970s or weren't around to soak it in at the time, were a quartet consisting of guitarist Jimmy Page, lead singer Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham. The group recorded nine studio albums, and six of them reached the top spot on Billboard's rankings of best selling albums. They sold more than 100 million records in the U.S alone, and about 300 million worldwide, dating from their founding as a band in 1968. Several of their songs - 'Whole Lotta Love,' 'Good Times, Bad Times,' 'Stairway to Heaven,' and 'Kashmir,' to take only a few examples - transcended popular music to become classics at another level entirely.
The group was also versatile. They could play heavy, crunching rock, and then play acoustic pieces influenced by Celtic mythology. They drew inspiration and ideas from the classical music world as well. Both Jimmy Page, the group's organizer and leader, and John Paul Jones, the bassist, were classically trained musicians as youngsters, Rudiakov said.
Rudiakov crossed paths with Jonathan Newell, the bandleader of Out on the Tiles - the name derives from the title of a song from Led Zeppelin's third album - last year when the music festival's quartet traveled to Hudson Falls to perform at a fundraising event Newell was organizing there. After the show, he told Rudiakov that in addition to being a classically trained composer and pianist who had taught music at the college level for more than 20 years (currently, he is a teacher of music at the College of St. Joseph's in Rutland, Vt.), he also fronted a Led Zeppelin tribute band.
That piqued Rudiakov's interest, as someone who had enjoyed Led Zeppelin alongside Mozart and Beethoven, and led to a second collaboration between the pair where a string quartet from music festival performed a couple of songs with Out on The Tiles. That went well, and the seed for bringing their act to Manchester was planted, Rudiakov said.
'This is a great crossover, a cross pollination of a whole variety of things,' he said. 'We're trying to gather people together to enjoy what amounts to a rock concert and observe the fact that you can have seamlessly integrated strings in with the show, and draw attention to the fact that we teach people how to play those stringed instruments.'
Newell, who is spearheading the renovation of a former movie theater in Hudson Falls into a music hall that will be opening in the next few months, launched the Out on the Tiles project two years ago when he was unable to find a Led Zeppelin tribute band that he could afford for an event he was hosting. While he began his musical journey as a classically trained pianist, he also moonlighted as a rock guitarist, and quickly discovered Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin.
'When you think about what sort of musical literature you want to play as a guitarist, Led Zeppelin is at the top of that list,' he said. 'It became music that spoke to me - it's just a huge sound.'
He admired how they all seemed to want to make great, important music, and were all skilled instrumentalists, their reputation for hard-core partying on the road notwithstanding.
It didn't take long to track down three other musicians to form Out on The Tiles, he said.
'I just approached three different people and we put it together and we felt an instant chemistry and we've been playing together ever since,' he added.
They don't try for a note-to-note replication of the original recordings, but fans of those original recordings won't have trouble recognizing the tunes, he said, noting that even Led Zeppelin played them differently from one night to the next. The start with the harmonic structure of the tunes, but there's room in their jazz-like approach for individual improvisation, Newell added.
The set list will include some of their best known pieces plus a few of the more obscure ones. The music festival's string quartet will perform on about a third of them. It will be part concert, where chairs will be set up for those who just want to sit and listen, as well as space available for those interested in being more 'mobile,' Rudiakov said.
The event aims to raise money to support the music festival's educational programs and operations, and will be held at the Maple Street School, starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are $28. For more information, call the music festival at 802-362-1956, or visit their website at mmfvt.org.
Entities 0 Name: Zeppelin Count: 12 1 Name: Rudiakov Count: 9 2 Name: Newell Count: 3 3 Name: Hudson Falls Count: 3 4 Name: Jimmy Page Count: 3 5 Name: John Paul Jones Count: 2 6 Name: Manchester Count: 2 7 Name: AM EST MANCHESTER & GT Count: 1 8 Name: Manchester Music Festival Count: 1 9 Name: John Bonham Count: 1 10 Name: Robert Plant Count: 1 11 Name: Ari Rudiakov Count: 1 12 Name: College of St. Joseph Count: 1 13 Name: Celtic Count: 1 14 Name: Mozart Count: 1 15 Name: Kashmir Count: 1 16 Name: The Beatles Count: 1 17 Name: Vt. Count: 1 18 Name: U.S Count: 1 19 Name: N.Y. Count: 1 20 Name: Rutland Count: 1 21 Name: Jimmy Buffet Count: 1 22 Name: Jonathan Newell Count: 1 23 Name: Beethoven Count: 1 24 Name: Joana Genova Count: 1 25 Name: Maple Street School Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1u0qD84 Title: Robert Plant Turned Down $800 Million For Led Zeppelin Reunion - Hollywood Reporter Description: In a story that will only add to the legend of Led Zeppelin, the band's lead singer Robert Plant reportedly turned down the chance for the surviving members to bank a staggering $800 million for a reunion tour.
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