Event
A Musical Seance with Jill Tracy and Paul Mercer
About SEATING OPTIONS at Thrillpeddlers' Hypnodrome:
Our intimate venue seats only forty-five guests, so we do recommend purchasing your tickets in advance. "General Admission" seats are filled on a first-come basis and we encourage patrons to arrive early (the doors open a 1/2 hour before show time). For couples seeking privacy and an extra jolt during the Musical Seance, the Hypnodrome's signature "Shock Box" seats are well worth the higher ticket price of $69 per couple. (Plus Shock Box tickets holders will get a limited edition Jill Tracy/Paul Mercer autographed photo and Hypnodrome poster!) Winner of SF Weekly's "Best of San Francisco 2008" Award for "Best Bonus Theater Experience" Hypnodrome's "interactive audience-invading" Shock Boxes are themed loveseats (Heaven and Hell, The Pharaoh's Tomb, and The Asylum of Shock), that offer the same opportunity for illicit trysting that was once a feature of the Parisian Theatre du Grand Guignol - thanks to a sheer curtain that can be drawn to conceal the goings on inside each private booth. A "Shock Box" couple can see the show, but the show cant see them! In our "Turkish Lounge" for two, couples may bask in decadent languor and kick back among oriental carpets and silken pillows while enjoying the show
About A MUSICAL SEANCE:
Channeling spirits, science, and seduction...
A Musical Seance returns to The Hypnodrome! TWO NIGHTS ONLY!
Hailed by LA Weekly as "the cult darling of the underworld," our favorite chanteuse fatale Jill Tracy returns to Thrillpeddlers' Hypnodrome to resurrect her wildly popular "Musical Seance", a collaboration with Atlanta cult composer/violinist Paul Mercer, and featuring master percussionist Randy Odell, and special guests.
PLEASE NOTE: Audience members are asked to bring small objects of special significance, such as a photo, talisman, jewelry, toy, token. This is a very crucial part of manifesting the music.
Since joining forces on Halloween 2007, Jill Tracy and Paul Mercer have become widely known for their astonishing duets on piano and violin, mostly improvised or channeled. The pair affectionately refer to their duets as "spontaneous musical combustion." Their uncanny ability to conjure spirits through unsettlingly lavish compositions has led to spellbinding results, eerily transporting the room and its rapt audience.
Following the pair's Music Seance last year in Victoria B.C, a man approached violinist Paul Mercer: "While you were playing, I could see a figure looming behind you, a man, he was soaking wet." He had no idea that the antique violin Mercer was playing that evening belonged to a murder victim who was drowned in a river.
The duo were commissioned to compose the popular Midnight Waltz at the 2008 International Ball of the Vampires (Portland, OR), a dramatic and ambitious work entitled "Coronation of the Witch Queen." The waltz was later featured when Jill Tracy and Paul Mercer were the headlining performers at Anne Rice's legendary Halloween Ball in New Orleans.
Tracy and Mercer will be directly returning from concerts in Spain and Portugal (February 2010) to perform A Musical Seance at the Hypnodrome.
Legendary author Clive Barker states: "Jill Tracy creates an elegant netherworld both seductive and terrifying."
V. Vale of RE/Search publications described a Jill Tracy/Paul Mercer Seance as "Sheer magic! Perfection. Improvised... If you're lucky enough to be there, you realize you've just had a hint of something extra-mortal, uber-human, transcendent - maybe the concentrated ghosts of Shakespeare's Globe Theater or the Commedia Dell'arte of the past are swirling around the room . . . and you think that THIS is the new avant-garde: live, un-censored, living theater."
A recent interview in Tor.com describes the Jill Tracy/Paul Mercer Seance as "musical psychometry."
"These compositions are delicate and glorious living things they materialize, they transport, and in the same second they vanish," explains Jill Tracy of the Musical Seance. "They embody the fragile essence of Time. No two shows are ever alike, we have no control, that is the rare beauty of it."
"A Musical Seance" brings it one step further-- harnessing the energy of the audience, a synergistic summoning of what dwells within each of us.
Mercer, whose collection of ages-old violins each tells its own story, was the impetus for his highly regarded "Ghosts" CD and lecture series. His personal instrument collection features very unique voices, spirits with such strong personalities they have their own names. His current instruments include a mysterious late 19th century violin named Daphne, a luminous late 17th century violin named Abigail, and a stunning 1820 Viola named Henryetta. Paul has had the fortune to play some powerful instruments such as 1842 Nicolas Vuillaume, two Stradivari, including the magnificent Firebird Stradivari 1718 ex Saint Exupery.
BIOS:
ABOUT JILL TRACY:
"Jill Tracy will transport you into a seductive and magical realm far beyond the Everyday. The place where we wished we lived. A dark, elegant netherworld full of hidden passageways, wonder cabinets and opium dens. Of monsters, marvels and mayhem, You know it's not safe here; but with Jill Tracy as your guide, you'll be in no hurry to leave."
The San Francisco-based singer/pianist/storyteller has garnered multiple awards and a devoted following for her evocative cinematic music, sophisticated lyrics, old-world glamour, and curious passion for strange tales. Hailed by critics as a "femme fatale for the thinking man," Tracy has performed everywhere from the famed Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, to vampire fetish clubs and haunted Victorian asylums. She holds the title of "Belle of the Edwardian Ball," performing at the lavish and beloved Bay Area event annually. And let's not forget her now-legendary performance as guest on Twisted Sister Dee Snider's Sirius Satellite nationally syndicated radio program. (Dee outrageously crammed a grand piano into the tiny radio studio so Miss Tracy could perform live on his New York City show. Not to mention her on-air discussion of the finer points of ancient torture devices). Jill Tracy is currently collaborating with music legend David J (Bauhaus/Love and Rockets) for an upcoming CD, as well as performing together.
Jill Tracy info: http://www.jilltracy.com
ABOUT PAUL MERCER:
Born and raised and living in the haunted environs of Atlanta, Georgia, USA, Paul Mercer is a self-taught composer and performer. His music is visionary, chimeric, phantasmagoric. He has been enthralling audiences since the early 1980s when he first learned his improvisational style, streetperforming in the subterranean alleys of Underground Atlanta and practicing in overgrown old cemeteries. In the 1990s, he cofounded the critically acclaimed neoclassical quintet the Changelings. Currently he is with The Ghosts Project, a improvisational group whose lineup always includes Mercer and Davis Petterson, with a parade of diverse guest musicians from around the world. Paul is also a member of experimental prog rockers Brass Knuckle Surfer and a frequent guest of Jill Tracy's Malcontent Orchestra. As a film score composer, Mercer has created new soundtracks for old silent films being preserved on dvd, including several avant-garde films of the 1920s and 1930s by F. Leger and Man Ray. Contemporary film makers such as Tracy Martin, Brent Wood, and Tal-Kasia, among others, have commissioned Paul for their projects. His soundtracks have appeared at several film festivals and his best known may be for the feature film "Psychopathia Sexualis" (2005).
Paul Mercer info: http://www.paulmercermusic.com/
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LocationThe Hypnodrome
575 10th St.
San Francisco, CA
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: No |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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