hola friends,

the leaves on the trees haven't exactly changed colors here in Brooklyn but it's only a matter of days before this freewheeling lifestyle known as summer becomes something a bit more... structured. but i'm sure no less musical.

i probably should be practicing my zampoña (often referred to as pan-pipes) right now but i'm very excited about our upcoming fall and so i've taken pen in hand to tell you all about it.

let's all gather in the garden. in the bronx! we'll be playing at the new york botanical gardenon september 14th for la fiesta de flores. this show will be a celebration of our nueva york friends and family. special guests will include isidro chavez, percussionist quintino cinalli, la bruja, la cumbiamba eneye, joaquin maria-delrosario, bernado palombo, daphne rubin-vega, silvia sierra, and the villa-lobos brothers. yes, the ¡nueva york! cd is coming to life along with favorite songs from the past. this is a celebration of the friendships which have developed over the past few years as we recorded our latest cd. we've been reviewed several times in entertainment weekly but it wasn't until we recorded a cd of songs in spanish from across latin america (as experienced here in nueva york) that they gave us an A on our report card! join us... dancing shoes a must.

as the tour continues this fall, colin brooks, john foti, sonia de los santos, elena moon park, saskia sunshine lane, and i will be in providence, baltimore, boston, ¡y mas! click on our tour page for the complete listing. and you can still get some of the best seats in the house for those and all upcoming shows on our presale page.

it's a little unsettling to be speaking of the fall, but how about this... the end of the year holidays! yes, our holiday house party, which premiered last year at montclair state university, is having a much bigger time of it this year. tickets are on sale for the shows at the herbst theater in san francisco on november 29th and 30th, the mondavi center in davis, california on december 2nd, the moore theater in seattle on december 6th and 7th as well as the 3 week run at the new victory theater in new york city from december 19th to january 4th. the show is a musical 21st century house party in which a freak snow storm turns a short visit to my house into an extended jam session dance party. the visiting friends share their mexican, jewish, arabic, korean, and anglo songs. there is tap dancing, there is shadow puppetry, there is food, there is snow, and there we are, my band and i in the middle of it all, rocking away. guests include tareq abboushi, basya schector, derick grant and his family, the villa-lobos brothers, claudia montes, and zafer tawil. our friend julian crouch helped with the staging and puppetry. when we did this show last year i felt two things: one, that it was my proudest moment artistically, all of the themes that i love - celebration, inclusion, and friendship were there on stage, and two, i had eaten more clementines in five days than i had in all my holiday seasons combined. i hope that you can join us for this festive event.

what else? this summer we took a few hours during our stay in tom's river, new jersey for more homespun fun, in this case a video for the song hello. you can see it on the blog.

for the completists among you there will be a few new back to school items in the shop- a new t-shirt and a limited number of fair trade backpacks- so keep your eye out for the new goods.

ok, time to get back to the zampoña and the final recording for the gospel cd to benefit the new sanctuary movement. it will be out this fall and i'll have more details for you next time.

thank you all for making this a memorable and musical summer.

love,
dan