ModernArte hosting “Love Songs For Everyone” at Lucille in Madison

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Welcome back to maxing radio everybody. My name is rocker. I am here with Jane in the control room

That's me, I think and right now we have in the studio with us Maya of modern art and Maya is an independent

Multimedia artist from Madison writing and arranging

genre bending music and curating event spaces that bring diverse groups of people together

It's the heart of her work as modern art Wednesday February 11th

Modern art is hosting a Valentine show at Lucille restaurant

That's right up off the square and it's called love songs for everyone here to tell us about getting gushy for Valentine's day is Maya of modern art

Maya, welcome to maxing radio. Thank you so much. It's wonderful me here

Maya, how did you get started in music and art? What's your backstory? Sure

Well, that would be a much longer answer than you have time for today

But I would credit my folks a lot. I came from a really musical family grew up on Motown folk

All the Americana classics and classical very important

So I think the combination of going through so many different genres a lot of jazz influence. I mean

It was a mix up from the jump and my family is very

Eclectic

Anyways, they can't even help it. Were they playing in bands? Did it was there a family band or what were they doing?

Everyone sings everyone's into music. My mom is a wonderful piano player. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I

Mean, I can't remember a time when I wasn't exposed to a lot

Wow, how old do you think you were when you started getting into kind of music a little more than?

As a individual, you know, apart from my folks

I would say the classic age right around the teens, you know

Decided I needed to figure out who I was and was going to figure that out on the keys of our Acrystonic

Now you sing but you also play some percussion. I love percussion. I'm not performing at this point in time

But if you catch me at a house party, I'll let it rip

And we were talking off air and you said you used to play with the band steas who we play here often

Yes, love those guys and

Tell us about modern art and what makes being an artist challenging and important for you

Yeah, the modern art project is

It's kind of new. I spent a lot of time supporting other artists and backing bands and I decided I was going to do something that was

different

something

Dacious and really authentic to me and where I found my heart and that was really looking for how to

Foster spaces for people to lean into their originality and so

Even though I consider myself an independent artist

Literally everything I do is about collaboration

I think you know, I mean I think that's that's where you get the good stuff is when you're doing it together

Yes, such as life. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah

Now love songs for everyone. It's a Valentine show hosted by modern art and it's happening at the Lucille of the capital square

Wednesday, February 11th. Why Lucille?

So Lucille is going on its third year of having

Wednesday night free jazz

a night curated by DJ Phil money

And it really has it's become kind of a third space staple in town that I love

I mean aside from the concerts on the square and all of the wonderful festivals that Madison has during the summer

It's pretty hard to find those places that you can consistently drop into

You're going to see people you recognize and you're going to have a good time and it's going to be

Around centered around art that you know, we don't have enough of those and and those are the kinds of places

That make you know cities across our country really special the ones we like to visit or you know

Affiliate with right and so anyways, I think what what's been happening there

with increasing momentum is really special and

I'm honored to be invited as the only the second singer to perform there

I'm not sure if I'll live up to that but we're we're certainly going to try

But I'm very pleased to be participating in this

Space that is intended to be for the community and free by design. Yeah, and

Lucille is a pizza place. It's so they're going to have pizza there, right? Yes, it and really good empanadas as it turns out

Oh really, man that really sounds good

Well, let's talk about your band for this event

I mean, I just really couldn't believe it. It's a 14 piece ensemble

It includes brass strings keys percussion vocals and

First you have to come up with an official name for the band because you said it was put together especially for the show, right?

Yeah, where do you even find 14 people?

You know, honestly the hardest thing was really

Pairing it down if you can believe that wow. Yeah, I mean if I could I would I'd rope in literally everyone that has

The heart and the soul and wants to do the thing and we'd find a spot for them on that stage

But they don't really have a stage. It's really just a lovely corner that we're turning into the stage

So I was kind of say where do they put 14 people in the seal in a band?

And a couple prayers

Yeah, we're gonna fit wow give the drummer some who is your drummer for this band? Yeah, we actually have a couple people

assisted with that

Yep, you know decided instead of guitar. Why not three percussionists, you know, yeah, just bring the whole bag

So but on our lead percussion we have Greg Riss and on our lead kit

We have Jordan Kowalski

So both of them have played at we seal in the past for jazz night, but in very different arrangements and they have

Really eclectic and diverse and very cool different backgrounds, but

Everyone in the ensemble gets along great even though they most of them are coming together for the first time

The chemistry in the group has been really beautiful to watch

How many rehearsals are you able to have before the show? Yeah, oh man

You can't imagine the spreadsheet of the time that went into that, but

We've had more than a few and in this town. I want to say that is good

That is very good

So in some ways, you know, we're really disadvantaged because it is

It is a group of folks that have really different musical backgrounds

I think that's a strength, but it also meant that the biggest hump we had to get over was we had to get comfortable with each other

And find our common ground in the rhythm

So it actually really helped out that we had such a strong rhythm section an incredible basis

Who's been coming in from Chicago Frank McCurne and our keys two keys players

Aaron Conkel and Dan Van Zeeland who is really yeah sure is yes, Nadine nation. Yeah

Purple people and people

Yes, he's say purple people, but it's wrong work

He's been doing a lot for them and we're just thrilled to have him

Bringing that organ heat for sure

That is this sounds really good in your ensemble

They're gonna be covering music with a theme

What kind of music can people expect to hear at a show called love songs for everyone?

Yeah, you know

Because I kept telling people it's a Valentine show and then they would say well, but it's not on Valentine

So here's my pitch, okay, it's early

So if you don't like Valentine's day, you can get it over with quickly

Yeah, and we're doing with pizza

I keep with pizza and or empanadas or actually really fantastic salads too

shameless plug for the salads

But um, you know, we're doing the full-life cycle of love

Every little inch of it, you know from the pining to maybe revenge at the very end

We'll find out

And we're also doing every kind of love

So we've got love of self love of community, you know, there's a the really is a slice of everything

We tried to go for that

We also wanted to sell us to you know fit into our like two-hour slot. So, you know

The shades were limited of course, but

The excitement has been real and I think we'll be back. What kind of artists might you be covering?

Oh, man all over that was an important thing

For me was to make sure that every single member of the ensemble had a song that really

Made them sparkle and that made them really excited

And that they could take lead on or take a big solo on if they wanted that

So our genres are quite there's a big span the only skew that I noted was that we have

More than a couple from the decade of the 70s

Yeah

Yep, oh, that's funny

March 7th you are performing at the majestic theater on King Street

Is that gonna be with the band or what are you doing there? Yeah, I'll be backed by the big payback with that

Local group that is just fantastic. They're originally so good

But we'll be doing I'm gonna be doing

That's the respect show. So that's a celebration of women and music. Oh, yes, okay a little bit of history

I'm doing Billy holiday songs. Oh, nice. Yeah

Thanks again big shoes to feel but you know, I think with the right band and a little luck we can make a miracle

Oh, yeah, I mean you can't go wrong with the big payback

That makes it easy for you, right? It's certainly gonna help. Oh

How can we keep up with modern art online? Yeah, um, well, you know that like I said this project

Really started for me only in the last year or two. I started to lean into it um

actually took a

Long-term sabbatical from doing a decade of of being a trauma specialist as my my regular life

Just to focus on the art

So, you know as long as you're willing to give grace and look for something a little interesting. I've got I'm on YouTube

I'm on Instagram. You can find me at modern art music and follow along because we've we've started to really kick it off

And so now there's gonna be a lot more that's gonna be posted soon making sure everything is locked and tight for our artists and our collaborators

but

You asked earlier what is challenging about being an artist in this yeah this particular era

And I really think the hardest thing is how do we protect the work and still share the work

So I'm still looking for ways to be involved in the protection of original work to make sure that when I am putting out there that is gonna be safe

And won't be stolen by the robots as it were but

But I am really excited

I've gotten a lot of support and the people I've been working with been absolutely fantastic

Now we hit we should clarify the name minor in art because it's not a traditional spelling it well

It's modern art with a E on the end so modern ARTE and it's all one word so if you're searching online

Search modern art with an E all one word and it'll get you there

Maya, thank you so much for coming into chat with us tonight. We really appreciate it

Thank you

Catch modern arts love songs for everyone. It's happening at Lucille restaurant on Wednesday February 11th with Maya

Modern art in her 14-piece ensemble and I think one of the songs you're going to hear

You may not hear very often on maxing radio, but I know that this is my wife's absolute favorite song

I think you might even call it our song. So Alice this one goes out to you. How deep is our is your love?

This is the brilliant slip

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