Return to story

Group turns arias into classical rock

September 29, 2005 1:06 am

By RYAN BROSMER

For THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Hailing from Ottawa, Canada, Tyley Ross and Peter Kiesewalter have come to the United States, and they've brought a bit of Italian culture with them.

After being commissioned to record the soundtrack for a film that was inevitably a flop, Ross and Kiesewalter took their series of Italian opera arias and continued, as Ross put it in a recent phone interview with the two musicians, "to do whatever we wanted to."

Ross and Kiesewalter are the core of the East Village Opera Company, an 11-member group consisting of a power rock band melded with a string quartet.

Ross provides lead vocals, and Kiesewalter is the arranger for the group that specializes in reinventing opera how they imagine it would have been done originally with today's musical innovations. The band will play Alexandria's Birchmere on Tuesday.

Ross and Kiesewalter both admit to having little to no background in opera before entering into this project--Ross has studied under opera singers and Kiesewalter's degree is in classical clarinet--which makes their ability to pay such homage to the classic arias they cover all the more astonishing.

Ross said opera was never an interest, but once he and Kiesewalter started up the East Village Opera Company, he contacted old teachers pleading for them to "turn me into an opera singer!" he recalled.

Kiesewalter had arranged an eclectic musical before, which he described as "experience in bridging the gap" between genres.

The East Village Opera Company just released its debut, self-titled album on Decca/Universal Records. Critics have been raving about the group since it first took the stage at Joe's Pub in New York just over a year ago.

Ross attributes their rising fame to "the right combination" of record industry people, press and fans that landed them a record deal soon after that initial performance.

The new album is perhaps best described by Ross as "a sonic landscape."

This effect was achieved with the help of legendary producer Neil Dorfsman (Sting, Dire Straits, Bjork and Paul McCartney), who was able to teach these seasoned veterans a thing or two.

Ross had "maximum respect" for Dorfsman before going into the studio, he said, and he was just amazed at how Dorfsman was "extraordinarily humble when he has a couple Grammys laying around."

Both agree that Dorfsman has a "real sense of craftsmanship," and Kiesewalter recalled how Dorfsman "refuses to compromise quality."

With the album hitting store shelves this past Tuesday, and now that Kiesewalter has a newborn baby girl, the band is nervous about how they will be received by the general masses and how that will determine their future.

"I'm not gonna get up a single expectation for this band," Ross said, later adding that expectations are "the platform of disappointments."

Kiesewalter feels "cautiously optimistic" toward the new album and the East Village Opera Company's growing recognition, but he finds himself asking "who's gonna hear it?" he said.

He admits, though, that he does expect "a little bit of a higher profile."

The two both recognize that they have made "some super-devoted fans who want to hear rocked-out versions of opera," Ross said, and that East Village Opera Company is practically "their only venue for that kind of music."

The band has grown increasingly comfortable in its unique style, and this confidence has allowed Ross and Kiesewalter to fully realize their ability to create "opera for all."

Kiesewalter, however, stresses the fact that the band is not out to introduce opera to a new generation, which is how he feels most critics have portrayed them.

"I don't want that responsibility," he said. " I'm happy that people just have a strong musical experience."