Decca
2008
Olde School
About This Album
On their third album (following the independently distributed La Donna and the self-titled major-label debut of 2005), Peter Kiesewalter and Tyley Ross' East Village Opera Company continue to pursue their hybrid agenda of marrying classical music, particularly opera, to progressive and classic rock styles. That agenda continues to present a threshold question to listeners: is it valid or just a parlor trick? And different listeners may answer that question differently. Classical and opera fans probably are less likely than progressive and classic rock fans to be accepting or, to put it another way, to find the joke amusing. Assuming that the threshold can be crossed, Old School pushes the process a little further than its predecessors. Kiesewalter and Ross have taken some creative liberties with their classical, out-of-copyright sources by including some music and lyrics of their own here and there. Each track is based on a classical antecedent, with the works of Wagner, Mozart, Handel, Verdi, Bononcini, Bellini, Gounod, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Puccini having been raided this time out. But less of them and more of the adapters can be heard than on previous albums. And so can many characteristic rock styles.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,4,6,8 and 10)

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