THE BLUES ASIDE PROJECT
Join Tipping Point Theatre for an evening of enchanting music in beautiful downtown Northville! Laurie Jarski, Brad Russell and Aurora & Antheia (Cori Somers, Laurie Jarski and Carolyn Koebel) take the intimate TPT stage to delight audiences this December. Laurie Jarski’s music will also be featured in this season’s production of Lungs.
ABOUT THE PERFORMERS
LAURIE JARSKI
“Laurie Jarski effortlessly crosses musical boundaries from folk to classical, from traditional to experimental. Her music connects us to the natural world and to each other by taking everyday moments and expanding them to an expressive breadth and width. Her compositions are colorful, imaginative, and thought provoking, deep with imagery.” -Gail Hollinger
Laurie A. Jarski is a composer, cellist, singer/songwriter, guitarist, multi-string instrumentalist, and owner/director of Broughton Music Center, Northville Center for Music & Art, and WPI Festival On the Land Music Camp for Women & Girls. she is a professional cellist and multi-instrumentalist in several groups: the Aurora & Antheia ensemble, C•O•R•Etet String Quartet, Octocelli, the Presence of Three Trio, Red Willow Dream, and the Battle Creek Symphony, and has served as principal cellist with The National Women’s Music Festival Orchestra under Nan Washburn since 2015. Laurie currently coaches a “String Quartet Plus” program in Northville and Kalamazoo for youth and adult string players, and has recently coached at a Sturgis Chamber String Music Retreat last spring. The most recent performance project was a collaboration between her newly formed ensemble, Aurora & Antheia & the Wellspring Dance Company, to create an original program including several improvisations for ‘Tendrils’, which resulted in three sold out shows in May, 2024.
Laurie has composed commissioned works for orchestra, chamber orchestra, choir, and a variety of chamber ensemble pieces. In her compositions, the interplay of antiphonal, rhythmic, and colorful fabric is woven around lyrical song-like melodies, a natural extension of Laurie’s folk music origin as singer/ songwriter from age nine and onward. In a recent work, “Rhythm Cordia for Solo Cello,” Laurie further blurs the idiomatic lines between cello and guitar with a variety of pizzicato techniques and col legno variations embedded into the piece.
BRAD RUSSELL
Born in Detroit to a multi-talented family, Brad Russell (aka Russo) was raised in a musically diverse household. He recalls, “my brother Brian listening to James Brown and the Temptations, my brother Kevin jamming to Grand Funk Railroad or Aerosmith and my mother spinning her favorite Bill Evans record. And this was all before dinner!” At the age of seven, Brad joined his two older brothers, a duo featuring Brian on drums and Kevin on guitar. The Brothers Russell played the Detroit club circuit featuring “Little Brad” on vocals. “By day I was a regular seven-year-old kid who went to school and played with the other kids, but at night I was like the motor city version of Donny Osmond.”
Five years later, Brad gave up the microphone for the acoustic bass and began playing with the school orchestra. Private studies with Detroit Symphony bassist Maxim Janowsky and virtuoso Gary Karr followed. In high school, Brad won numerous solo bass competitions and scholarships to the Interlochen music academy in northern Michigan. Also, upon recommendation from “American Idol’s” Randy Jackson, he received a scholarship to the highly acclaimed University of Miami. While living in Miami, Brad cut his teeth on everything from symphonic music to rock cover band gigs.
After being featured in Guitar Player magazine’s “Spotlight” column, Brad moved to the San Francisco area and began playing with his brother Kevin and Journey guitarist Neal Schon. Word spread quickly and within a short time he was recording for producers Mike Varney (Shrapnel & Blues Bureau Records) and Narada Michael Walden (Columbia & Arista Records). Tours with Bruce Springsteen saxman Clarence Clemons and auditions for rock frontmen David Lee Roth and Ozzy Osbourne followed.
Throughout the 90’s, Brad served as a session bassist/sideman for Pat Travers, Ric Derringer, Greg Allman and Jeff Watson. He also focused on the Russell Brothers Band (a blues rock power trio which often featured drummers Steve Smith and Narada Michael Walden). Brothers Kevin and Brad relentlessly played the San Francisco club scene, opening for the likes of Huey Lewis, Steve Morse and blues legend John Lee Hooker. In the late 90’s, Brad’s love for education led him back to school earning a B.A and a Masters in Music. While in residence at the University of Miami, he recorded and/or performed with the University of Miami’s Concert Jazz Band, Jack DeJohnette and organist Lonnie Smith.
Upon graduation, Brad briefly moved back to California and began working for various musical theater productions. After playing for the west coast production of the Broadway musical Caroline or Change, he decided to relocate to NYC and currently freelances on such Broadway hit shows as Grease, Jersey Boys and Memphis. In 2008 Brad auditioned and was hired for guitarist Joe Satriani’s world tour. Recently, Brad completed his CD Lets Hear It! which features guest appearances by Joe Satriani, Gregg Bissonette and Kevin Russell and was released on the Digital Nations label.
AURORA & ANTHEIA
Cori Somers, Laurie Jarski and Carolyn Koebel
Aurora & Antheia (A&A) is a new ensemble formed to foster the creativity of sound, texture and in-the-moment improvisations by diverse and talented musicians; Cori Somers on violin, Laurie Jarski on cello (multi-string instrumentalist) and Carolyn Koebel on percussionist (also, multi-instrumental percussionist with extensive training in practices of several cultures). In the winter of 2023, A&A entered into a very wonderful collaboration with the Wellspring Dance Company to create musical compositions and structured improvisations for the production of Tendrils for three sold out shows in May, 2024. A reprisal of this show is planned for fall, 2026. The next A&A show is slated for November, 2024 for the WITA festival in Lansing.