BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:SoDel
X-WR-CALNAME:Amos Lee
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:71272021-07-23
DTSTART:20210723T230000Z
SEQUENCE:0
TRANSP:OPAQUE
DTEND:20210723T040000Z
LOCATION:31806 Lake View Drive\nSelbyville DE 19975
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=31806 Lake View Drive\nSelb
 yville DE 19975;X-APPLE-RADIUS=49;X-TITLE=31806 Lake View Drive:geo:38.465
 810,-75.112030
GEO:38.465810;-75.112030
SUMMARY:Amos Lee
CLASS:PUBLIC
DESCRIPTION:With MY NEW MOON\, his seventh album\, Amos Lee reaches into ex
 periences\nof hope\, hopelessness\, loss\, and renewal. The result is the 
 most\nwide-ranging musical effort of his career\, a set of songs that\nexa
 mines issues of mortality\, survival\, connection\, and celebration in\nwa
 ys that are both deeply personal and profoundly universal. In 2007\,\nthe 
 singer-songwriter began working with the Musicians on Call\nprogram\, play
 ing music bedside for hospital patients. He went on to\nplay at VA hospita
 ls\, for the Wounded Warriors organization\, and for\nthe Melodic Caring P
 roject\, singing via video for children who are\nquarantined\, too ill to 
 have friends or family visit in their rooms.\n“Everything about the conn
 ection of music hit me harder\,” he says\nof these efforts\, “and I th
 ought\, ‘How can I be helpful\, and reach\nout in a more real way?’ So
 ngs have become a bridge\, a way for me to\nreach outside myself and into 
 other people’s lives. My mission now\nis to connect with people\, to sti
 ll have fun\, but to have my intention\nbe more outwardly based\, and from
  a place of giving and service.”\nMore recently\, Lee suffered a difficu
 lt loss of his own. “My\ngrandmother\, who was the matriarch of our very
  large family\, and the\nlove centerpiece in all of our gathering\, got re
 ally sick\, and very\nsuddenly passed away\,” he says. “She showed lov
 e in the small\nways—in how she smiled at you when you walked in her fro
 nt door\, how\nshe made a piece of buttered toast a delicacy\, how she spo
 ke with such\nwarmth and familiarity to her mailman. In all deeds\, she wa
 s graceful\nand beautiful and kind. So her falling ill so quickly and viol
 ently\nhit us all hard. “At one point during her last night\,” he\ncon
 tinues\, “it was just her and me in the room. The rest of the\nfamily le
 ft\, because the doctor told my mother and me that they\nthought she was s
 table\, but then something went wrong\, and she started\nto fade very quic
 kly. It was around 4:30 in the morning\, she was\nfighting for breath\, sw
 eating\, and fighting for her life. I stood with\nher\, and held her hand\
 , hoping that she could hear me. I felt totally\nhelpless\, and while I wi
 ped away the sweat from her forehead\, and\nwords all felt worthless\, I s
 tarted to sing to her. I sang\n‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ ‘What a 
 Wonderful World\,’ and my\ngrandfather’s favorite song\, ‘Born to Lo
 se.’ She looked up at me\nand smiled a faint smile before she drifted in
 to her final sleep. A\ncouple of the overnight nurses were standing in the
  doorway\, and in a\nvery tragic moment\, we all shared a breath. It’s i
 n these moments\nthat I realize how sacred music is\, and how the world\, 
 which seems in\nsuch disarray\, can find simple solace and connection in t
 he light of\nsong.” This incident informs much of MY NEW MOON\; Lee poin
 ts\nparticularly to the tracks “All You Got is a Song” and “Hang On\
 ,\nHang On.” But\, he points out\, the album is as much about other\npeo
 ple’s stories as it is his own. “All this work in the last\ndecade com
 es to the fore\,” he says. “I know many people who have\nexperienced t
 ragedy\, and whether it be a friend\, or a friend’s\nchild\, or a fan I 
 meet at a coffee shop who shares their story with\nme\, I take them all to
  heart. I want to connect\, and to be open to\nthose who have hardship\, s
 o that that they know I hear their stories\nin the same way that they hear
  mine\, and that we’re in this\ntogether. I don’t want to overwhelm th
 e listener with sorrow\, but I\nam inspired by these friends and families\
 , and want to help their\nlight find shape.” Much of Lee’s recent work
  bore the stamp of\nstrong producers—Joey Burns of Calexico on 2011’s
  Mission\nBell (which debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200\, Amazo
 n\, and\niTunes charts\, and spun off a hit single with \"Windows are Roll
 ed\nDown\") and Jay Joyce (Little Big Town\, Eric Church\, Cage the Elepha
 nt)\non 2013’s Mountains of Sorrow\, Rivers of Song. But for his last\n
 album\, 2016’s Spirit\, Lee took over the helm. “Producing my last\na
 lbum was cool\, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity\,” he\nsays\
 , “but after I did it\, I realized that I had a lot to learn\, and\nthat
  I wanted to focus my energy on my performances\, and on the\nsongwriting.
  For this album\, I wanted to open up\, and push myself to\ncollaborate wi
 th someone who was passionate and creative and could\nreally partner with 
 me to elevate the album from a sonic and musical\nstandpoint.” For the n
 ew album\, Lee turned to producer Tony Berg\,\nwho has worked with everyon
 e from Public Image Ltd to Peter Gabriel\,\nand moved operations to Berg
 ’s Zeitgeist Studio in Los Angeles. Such\nnotable musicians as keyboardi
 st Benmont Tench\; drummers Matt\nChamberlain and Chris Dave\; and multi-i
 nstrumentalists Blake Mills\,\nEthan Gruska\, and Jaron Olevsky all partic
 ipated in the sessions.\n“I’m trying to grow as a musician\, and to pu
 t myself around people\nwho are better than me\,” says Lee. “I really 
 don’t speak the\ntechnical or theory-based language of music\, and there
  are times in\nthe rendering of an arrangement that those skills are extre
 mely vital.\nTony was great at that. He has a very unique and progressive 
 interest\nin harmony\, and a childlike wonder and energy coupled with a li
 fetime\nof experience. He’s a big-hearted man\, and he really helped me\
 nexplore realms that I didn’t quite know how to reach. His ideology\nis\
 , ‘Let’s go further left than we want and see what happens.’\n“ Le
 e came in with fifty songs to consider\, but knew that there were\na few t
 hat were key to the project. “A lot of this starts with the\nsong ‘Lit
 tle Light\,’ which is the story of a family I grew close\nwith whose dau
 ghter had very serious cancer\,” he says. “She’s a\nbeautiful kid wh
 o was suffering a lot\, and sometimes she and her dad\nwould FaceTime me f
 rom her hospital room\, while she was going through\nchemo\, and I would s
 ing to her. I wanted to write her something with\nhope\, and to remind her
  that she was awesome.” “Don’t Fade\nAway” was written for a frien
 d whose child passed (“I was trying\nto embody something he may have fel
 t\, or maybe how I might have felt\nin that situation”)\, while “Whisk
 ey on Ice” was inspired by the\nunexpected death of another friend. “I
 t’s a tribute to his\nmother\,” says Lee\, “trying to walk down the 
 hallway with her in\nthe middle of the night and feel what she feels.” M
 uch of the\nmaterial on MY NEW MOON was altered dramatically during the re
 cording\nprocess. “We broke these songs apart and put them back together
 \,”\nsays Lee. “The first track—‘No More Darkness\, No More\nLight
 ’—was originally titled differently\, and had none of these\nsame lyri
 cs. We put in one musical element\, then rebuilt the whole\nidea around th
 at\, then scrapped that and worked on the layers that we\nhad created. The
 n I rewrote the song with a lyric more appropriate for\nwhere the song was
  now musically. It was frustrating and\nteeth-gnashing\, but I’m up for 
 the challenge. I learned a lot and\ngrew a lot\, but it took a lot of slow
 -motion movement to ease into\nit.” (Lee notes that “Hang On\, Hang On
 ” is the album’s only\nsong that is acoustic guitar-based\; “for eve
 rything else\, there was\na better idea.”) This sense of digging deeper\
 , of fearlessly\nbringing out the real essence of a song’s meaning\, lie
 s at the very\nheart of MY NEW MOON. “In these days of political crisis\
 , I do think\nthere’s also this feeling that there could be renewal\,”
  says Amos\nLee. “That’s what the title of the record is about—a see
 mingly\nutter darkness that’s also a beginning. I know that the times I
 ’ve\ngrown the most have been in times of crisis\, when I wasn’t sure 
 who\nI was. “In listening\, and trying to connect to someone else’s pa
 in\nor someone else’s victories\, there’s a lot of fertile ground to b
 e\nfound. Just a beginning\, a simple place to start. A conversation\, a\n
 song\, to see and feel someone else’s humanity in your own. That’s\nal
 ways been my interest\; sometimes I get there and often I don’t\,\nbut I
  hope in these songs\, someone finds a place to start.” Venue:\nFreeman 
 Arts Pavilion. Presenter: Joshua M. Freeman Foundation.
X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:With MY NEW MOON\, his seventh album\, Amos Le
 e reaches into experiences of hope\, hopelessness\, loss\, and renewal. Th
 e result is the most wide-ranging musical effort of his career\, a set of 
 songs that examines issues of mortality\, survival\, connection\, and cele
 bration in ways that are both deeply personal and profoundly universal. In
  2007\, the singer-songwriter began working with the Musicians on Call pro
 gram\, playing music bedside for hospital patients. He went on to play at 
 VA hospitals\, for the Wounded Warriors organization\, and for the Melodic
  Caring Project\, singing via video for children who are quarantined\, too
  ill to have friends or family visit in their rooms. “Everything about t
 he connection of music hit me harder\,” he says of these efforts\, “an
 d I thought\, ‘How can I be helpful\, and reach out in a more real way?
 ’ Songs have become a bridge\, a way for me to reach outside myself and 
 into other people’s lives. My mission now is to connect with people\, to
  still have fun\, but to have my intention be more outwardly based\, and f
 rom a place of giving and service.” More recently\, Lee suffered a diffi
 cult loss of his own. “My grandmother\, who was the matriarch of our ver
 y large family\, and the love centerpiece in all of our gathering\, got re
 ally sick\, and very suddenly passed away\,” he says. “She showed love
  in the small ways—in how she smiled at you when you walked in her front
  door\, how she made a piece of buttered toast a delicacy\, how she spoke 
 with such warmth and familiarity to her mailman. In all deeds\, she was gr
 aceful and beautiful and kind. So her falling ill so quickly and violently
  hit us all hard. “At one point during her last night\,” he continues\
 , “it was just her and me in the room. The rest of the family left\, bec
 ause the doctor told my mother and me that they thought she was stable\, b
 ut then something went wrong\, and she started to fade very quickly. It wa
 s around 4:30 in the morning\, she was fighting for breath\, sweating\, an
 d fighting for her life. I stood with her\, and held her hand\, hoping tha
 t she could hear me. I felt totally helpless\, and while I wiped away the 
 sweat from her forehead\, and words all felt worthless\, I started to sing
  to her. I sang ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ ‘What a Wonderful World
 \,’ and my grandfather’s favorite song\, ‘Born to Lose.’ She looke
 d up at me and smiled a faint smile before she drifted into her final slee
 p. A couple of the overnight nurses were standing in the doorway\, and in 
 a very tragic moment\, we all shared a breath. It’s in these moments tha
 t I realize how sacred music is\, and how the world\, which seems in such 
 disarray\, can find simple solace and connection in the light of song.” 
 This incident informs much of MY NEW MOON\; Lee points particularly to the
  tracks “All You Got is a Song” and “Hang On\, Hang On.” But\, he 
 points out\, the album is as much about other people’s stories as it is 
 his own. “All this work in the last decade comes to the fore\,” he say
 s. “I know many people who have experienced tragedy\, and whether it be 
 a friend\, or a friend’s child\, or a fan I meet at a coffee shop who sh
 ares their story with me\, I take them all to heart. I want to connect\, a
 nd to be open to those who have hardship\, so that that they know I hear t
 heir stories in the same way that they hear mine\, and that we’re in thi
 s together. I don’t want to overwhelm the listener with sorrow\, but I a
 m inspired by these friends and families\, and want to help their light fi
 nd shape.” Much of Lee’s recent work bore the stamp of strong producer
 s—Joey Burns of Calexico on 2011’s Mission Bell (which debuted at Nu
 mber One on the Billboard 200\, Amazon\, and iTunes charts\, and spun off 
 a hit single with \"Windows are Rolled Down\") and Jay Joyce (Little Big T
 own\, Eric Church\, Cage the Elephant) on 2013’s Mountains of Sorrow\, 
 Rivers of Song. But for his last album\, 2016’s Spirit\, Lee took over 
 the helm. “Producing my last album was cool\, and I’m very grateful fo
 r the opportunity\,” he says\, “but after I did it\, I realized that I
  had a lot to learn\, and that I wanted to focus my energy on my performan
 ces\, and on the songwriting. For this album\, I wanted to open up\, and p
 ush myself to collaborate with someone who was passionate and creative and
  could really partner with me to elevate the album from a sonic and musica
 l standpoint.” For the new album\, Lee turned to producer Tony Berg\, wh
 o has worked with everyone from Public Image Ltd to Peter Gabriel\, and mo
 ved operations to Berg’s Zeitgeist Studio in Los Angeles. Such notable m
 usicians as keyboardist Benmont Tench\; drummers Matt Chamberlain and Chri
 s Dave\; and multi-instrumentalists Blake Mills\, Ethan Gruska\, and Jaron
  Olevsky all participated in the sessions. “I’m trying to grow as a mu
 sician\, and to put myself around people who are better than me\,” says 
 Lee. “I really don’t speak the technical or theory-based language of m
 usic\, and there are times in the rendering of an arrangement that those s
 kills are extremely vital. Tony was great at that. He has a very unique an
 d progressive interest in harmony\, and a childlike wonder and energy coup
 led with a lifetime of experience. He’s a big-hearted man\, and he reall
 y helped me explore realms that I didn’t quite know how to reach. His id
 eology is\, ‘Let’s go further left than we want and see what happens.
 ’ “ Lee came in with fifty songs to consider\, but knew that there wer
 e a few that were key to the project. “A lot of this starts with the son
 g ‘Little Light\,’ which is the story of a family I grew close with wh
 ose daughter had very serious cancer\,” he says. “She’s a beautiful 
 kid who was suffering a lot\, and sometimes she and her dad would FaceTime
  me from her hospital room\, while she was going through chemo\, and I wou
 ld sing to her. I wanted to write her something with hope\, and to remind 
 her that she was awesome.” “Don’t Fade Away” was written for a fri
 end whose child passed (“I was trying to embody something he may have fe
 lt\, or maybe how I might have felt in that situation”)\, while “Whisk
 ey on Ice” was inspired by the unexpected death of another friend. “It
 ’s a tribute to his mother\,” says Lee\, “trying to walk down the ha
 llway with her in the middle of the night and feel what she feels.” Much
  of the material on MY NEW MOON was altered dramatically during the record
 ing process. “We broke these songs apart and put them back together\,”
  says Lee. “The first track—‘No More Darkness\, No More Light’—w
 as originally titled differently\, and had none of these same lyrics. We p
 ut in one musical element\, then rebuilt the whole idea around that\, then
  scrapped that and worked on the layers that we had created. Then I rewrot
 e the song with a lyric more appropriate for where the song was now musica
 lly. It was frustrating and teeth-gnashing\, but I’m up for the challeng
 e. I learned a lot and grew a lot\, but it took a lot of slow-motion movem
 ent to ease into it.” (Lee notes that “Hang On\, Hang On” is the alb
 um’s only song that is acoustic guitar-based\; “for everything else\, 
 there was a better idea.”) This sense of digging deeper\, of fearlessly 
 bringing out the real essence of a song’s meaning\, lies at the very hea
 rt of MY NEW MOON. “In these days of political crisis\, I do think there
 ’s also this feeling that there could be renewal\,” says Amos Lee. “
 That’s what the title of the record is about—a seemingly utter darknes
 s that’s also a beginning. I know that the times I’ve grown the most h
 ave been in times of crisis\, when I wasn’t sure who I was. “In listen
 ing\, and trying to connect to someone else’s pain or someone else’s v
 ictories\, there’s a lot of fertile ground to be found. Just a beginning
 \, a simple place to start. A conversation\, a song\, to see and feel some
 one else’s humanity in your own. That’s always been my interest\; some
 times I get there and often I don’t\, but I hope in these songs\, someon
 e finds a place to start.” Venue: Freeman Arts Pavilion. Presenter: Josh
 ua M. Freeman Foundation.
DTSTAMP:20261028T213227Z
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR