Tag Archives: Bill Runge

Come on a Dream Ride Sunday September 4

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Dear Fine Folk… you are warmly invited to come on a Dream Ride with us September 4, 4pm @ St. Andrews Wesley Church in Vancouver.

DREAM RIDE

Can’t believe eight years have passed since I bounced off the end of my mother’s bed and into a very different head space! 

All was not lost though. Beautiful new music has come to the surface, twenty pieces for solo piano and new project called Dream Ride. Serendipitous events that have urged us forward in surprising ways, like finding baritone Pablo Romero in the forest. 

Featuring Linda Lee Thomas, renowned VSO pianist, also known as the “Queen of Tango”. Dream Ride explores the Tango idiom while venturing into realms of pure lyric beauty.

Next Performance: September 4 @ 4 pm – 5 pm

St. Andrews Wesley Church (Burrard and Nelson) Vancouver. By Donation *no upward limit! free parking under the church.

Dream Ride ~ the music of Holly Burke and Bill Runge

Featuring:
      Linda Lee Thomas – piano
             Pablo Romero – vocals
                    Bill Runge – soprano saxophone and clarinet
                              Holly Burke – flute

Here’s a video taste of what you’re in for…

On the subject of heads…here’s another cool thing I stumbled upon in the forest.

This amazing carving known as “Twin Spirits” is just off of Rawlings trail in Stanley Park, not far from Second Beach.

The Parks Board in their greater wisdom do not “acknowledge” this remarkable creation because the artist failed to go through their application process. Hey maybe the artist didn’t know where the office was – didn’t have a computer – was living in the park? I’m just so glad this carver went ahead with their vision, their inspiration for all the people to enjoy.

Thank you, Park Banksy. Love to know who you are and meet you one day ❤️

 

 

                                       “Cos you know two heads are better than one” – Twisted

‘Two Eagles’ takes flight January 8 @ Frankie’s Jazz Club

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Yes, it’ll be the first public performance of Two Eagles ~1000 hours later…or is it ten thousand hours later…Bill has meticulously finished the band arrangement of ‘Two Eagles.’ Can’t wait to hear it played by Bill’s stellar band The Bill Runge Quintet. Miles Black on piano, Bernie Arai on drums, André Lachance on bass and Nick Apivor on the magical vibes. It was a full circle type of experience with this tune. It began on a cold clear February day when I spied two magnificent eagles in the large evergreen just off my building. They were there for hours…just hanging out. I went to the piano and found a figure I liked, and a couple of potential places to go and Two Eagles was born (I kept running back and forth from the piano to the window to the window to see if they were still there.) Last week, Bill was completing the full band arrangement and looked out his window to see two glorious eagles soaring around his building. “We’re not changing the name!” said Bill.

Listen to an excerpt of “Two Eagles”!

Can’t help but get a little excited about stepping out onto the new terrain of a new year. The forever hope of things being better. Things will be better, it always feels that way, even this year. So here we are sending some good vibes your way )))))

Your buddies,

Holly and Bill

Mexico Travelogue 🇲🇽

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There we were all packed together like sardines in a Sun Wing flight to Manzanillo Mexico. What a relief to feel the warm, dry air as we emerged from the plane! Never fly Sun West 😉

Los Hadas (“the cherubs”) was where they filmed the movie, “10” with Dudley Moore and Julie Andrews. I don’t think there’s a straight line in the entire place! All the doorways are arched and there are towers and interesting curlicues and spires. We watched angel fish and zebra fish nibbling under the dock and at the beach baby yellow fin tuna were attracted to our toes and there was one puffer fish that was like a friendly little dog just following us around. The birds! The bees! The geckos! The iguanas! Zander saw one swimming across the hotel pool. It was wonderful to be amongst such happy people, to speak Spanish badly, and not to do any dishes! Please enjoy these photos and glimpses of our experiences there!

 

 

It’s All About Recording This Week

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Yes.  Maybe not the greatest pics of us – lol – but the new music is sounding great and so is the band.  Had an awesome time at Shaw TV yesterday.  Today, the Farm! The lower shot is me trying on outfits at my friend Marji Graham’s house.  She so great!IMG_1138 IMG_1134

Award Nominations, Mad Love and Room with a View.

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So Bill and I finally make it out to Harrison Hot Springs…hallelujah!

I check my email and see that ‘Serengeti,’has been nominated for an “Akademia Music Award”

out of Los Angeles. far out. I get a call from my brother Kerry, and find out that Dad has had a bad fall and is in hospital,

needing an operation. whoa. Bill and I sat by the fire for a long while, staring into the dancing flames…

The old man made it through. I spoke with him today and his tone anyway, was good. We have a room with a view and it’s

all you could ever want.

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Deep in the Calabash Music

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Deep in the Calabash magic last night

with all six of us, at last…

New friends, old friends

We share our hearts with each other

and the music rises

like a sail on the wind

drawing us forward…

almost to Antibes

Image

 

The Naturals relaxing at Calabash. Brent Gubbels, Randall Stoll, Nick Apivor and Bill Runge, who bicycled over from his Symphony performance…Kristian Alexandrov was on his way.

Stratospheric Lounging @ 7 Dining

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Thanks friends for another epic HB & The Naturals night! The band was described as “Stratospheric” – we can deal with that. Don Powrie did a stunning job on drums. He was Bill’s (Runge) first drummer – and Don and I go all the way back to the early days of VCC when we had class in portables. I had just returned from my years in New York, and super enjoyed my new studies with trombonist Dave Robbins at VCC.

Kristian Alexandrov – piano

Bill Runge – saxophones

Brent Gubbels – bass

Don Powrie – drums

” Stratospheric” 

pictures to follow

 

 

 

Chance of Zebras for #Searchlight CBC – cast your votes

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The tune that became “Serengeti” first came to me as a sort of wistful celtic melody in 6/8. It was hard for me to play it though. The melody soon became a wonderful obsession, and most challenging tune, the problem child of the whole batch! It took long hours and days for me to be satisfied with the initial Zoom recording. When my brilliant friend and collaborator Bill Runge first heard it, he was excited about the time signature because we had nothing in that feel yet. In all, we had ten versions of Serengeti going over many weeks before the chart was completed. Bill and I going back and forth with it like a game of ping pong. Bill had the vision of transforming it into an African adventure…complete with a small plane flying in over the Serengeti above herds of wild zebra and wildebeest. I had some grooves to add in and the intro. Bill added the awesome solo changes, sprinkled his stardust over the whole thing and named it. The band was sounding and feeling so amazing that day we recorded it was easy to be adventurous and free.

Almost everything you hear on this track is from the original recording day at Bluewave Studios in Vancouver. Randall Stoll came in and added layers of percussion over his epic his drum tracks. I had a lot of fun adding sound effects afterwards, like the animal hooves, crickets and the Morrocan woman’s “ululation”. Finally I asked John Korsrud if he could come in and lay down some trumpet because I thought that would be “elephant-like” and just take the track over the top. John also suggested fluegelhorn for the melody parts, rather than trumpet because it was a better blend with the other horns. Good call.

Our engineer Ken Burke was fooling around with his new camera on a recent float plane trip he took. He decided to put “Serengeti” under it and post it on You Tube, just for fun. It went viral and had over 6000 hits within a month, now over 7000.

I guess our Serengeti child has grown up.

I hope you enjoy “Serengeti” as much as we enjoyed creating it.

wild zebras running over the Serengeti

wild zebras running over the Serengeti

 

The Players:

Chris Gestrin – piano

Doug Stephenson – electric bass

Randall Stoll – drums/percussion

Bill Runge – soprano sax/synth pad/arrangement

John Korsrud – trumpet/fluegelhorn

Holly Burke – flute/vocalese

Engineer – Ken Burke @ Bluewave Studios

 

http://www.hollyburke.com