Emily Wells’s latest record Beautiful Sleepyhead and the Laughing Yaks was released to a full house at the Hotel Café in Los Angeles on December 2, 2006. She worked with bassist Joey Reiena and drummer Sam Halterman of the Simple Citizens. The addition of these two players and instruments added a fullness to the already lush arrangements of string sections and xylophone laments. Wells recently scored a short film by filmmaker Hilary Goldberg, In the Spotlight. Wells is most influenced by the songs and voices of Nina Simone and Bob Dylan. She writes through experience and observation. Some songs come out protest songs, some love songs, and some are simply for singing the blues.

The Section Quartet was formed on the principles of rock & roll: musicians challenging the establishment by knocking down the walls dividing two genres of music. With their kinetic arrangements, eclectic repertoire, and bold performance style, the worlds of classical and rock collide with spectacular results. In 1998, The Section Quartet emerged in Los Angeles as a recording entity with a dual purpose: to function as a string section and recording with major artists, from Wilco to A Perfect Circle. The quartet has also recorded/performed with Christina Aguilera, Maroon 5, David Bowie, Rilo Kiley, Rooney, James Blunt, Jon Brion, Sean Lennon, Grant-Lee Phillips, Sam Phillips, Devendra Banhart, Jakob Dylan, Tenacious D with Dave Grohl, Fiona Apple, Wes Borland, Tesla, Ryan Adams, Chantal Kreviazuk, The Twilight Singers, and Peter Case. Producers such as Linda Perry, Jon Brion, Bill Bottrell, Tony Berg, Danny Lohner, Michael Elizondo, David Bianco, Tom Rothrock, Dr. Dre, T-Bone Burnett, Trina Shoemaker and Nick Launay regularly call on TSQ to add strings to their productions.

MUSIC: House DJ Jean-Christophe Chamboredon of Milan Records/Chicooligan Records/From L.A. with Love
FOOD AND DRINK: Light fare at Patinette Café and outdoor cash bar
SCREENING: Music videos from Film Independent’s Los Angeles Film Festival

ARTMAKING: Workshop with artist Cheryl Walker
SCREENING: Richard Tuttle: Never Not an Artist
Filmed at Tuttle’s home in New Mexico, his studio in Manhattan, and the galleries at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the film offers an intense, intimate portrait of the artist’s working process.
TOUR: Exhibition walkthrough with a MOCA educator. Space is limited to 20. Sign up at the information desk inside the galleries beginning at 6pm.

MUSIC: Featured performances by Emily Wells and The Section Quartet

SCREENING: Music videos from Film Independent’s Los Angeles Film Festival

SPOKEN WORD: Rex Wilder
Rex Wilder’s first book of poems, Waking Bodies (Red Hen Press), has already been praised by luminaries as diverse as Richard Wilbur, Adam Zagajewski, Henri Cole, and a spotlight review in London’s Times Literary Supplement. Billy Collins, two-term Poet Laureate of the United States, says, “In Rex Wilder’s poetry, the tired English of everyday use comes back to us refreshed and full of its original surprise. In a world glutted with poetry, that Wilder has found a new way to say the old things is a notable achievement.” Wilder’s poems have been described as “marvels of imagistic economy and emotional plenty” and of possessing “a serene, almost classical spirit.” They have been anthologized widely, appearing most recently in Poetry Daily Essentials 2007. A former regional director of the Poetry Society of America in Los Angeles, Wilder has been published in The New Republic, Poetry, The Yale Review, The American Poetry Review, and The Nation. He is also an award-winning advertising creative director, with three Super Bowl commercials to his credit. He lives in Pacific Palisades, California, with his wife and three children.

SPOKEN WORD: Carine Topal
Carine Topal, a native New Yorker, writes and teaches in Los Angeles, California. She has conducted poetry workshops for veterans in the New Directions program and participated in the grassroots organization California Poets in the Schools. Since 1982, she has anthologized the poetry of special needs children. She was a resident poet for the City of Manhattan Beach as well as artist-in-residence for Manhattan Beach elementary schools. She has been conducting poetry workshops for adults for over 10 years. Her work has appeared in many journals in both Canada and the United States. She is the recipient of numerous poetry awards, including the Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize. In 2004, Topal was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and in 2005 she was awarded a June residency at Hedgebrook in Washington State, as well as a fellowship to write in St. Petersburg, Russia. Topal recently won the Robert G. Cohn Prose Poetry Award 2007 from the California Istitute of Arts and Letters, who will publish a special edition chapbook of poems selected by the editors of Black Zinnia.

TOUR: Exhibition walkthrough with a MOCA educator. Space is limited to 20. Sign up at the information desk inside the galleries beginning at 6pm.

SCREENING: Underplayed: A Mix-Tape of Music-Based Videos
This video project co-curated by Julio Morales and Berin Golonu features artists who incorporate music with their imagery or who use the music video itself, as a form for creative expression.
TOUR: Exhibition walkthrough with a MOCA educator. Space is limited to 20. Sign up at the information desk inside the galleries beginning at 6pm.