Two Star Symphony

Two Star Symphony proudly presents our first music video! Written, produced, directed & edited by Two Star violinist Jerry Ochoa, The Ninth Level is intended to demonstrate the way our music works with moving images.

This music video was crowd-funded through an Indiegogo campaign  – we’d like to thank the following donors for their generosity and support:

$1000+

Jason Raschen

$250+

Emily Bruno

Kate Elmore

Jeff Hammer

Jerry Ochoa

Mary Ochoa

$100+

Rob Cromie

Cynthia Duboise

Sarah Gregory

David Lake

Mariana Lemesoff

Robert Sussman

Angela Velasquez

$50+

Blair Ault

Dave and Barb Bauer

Dmitry Bazykin

Chaunacy Broberg

Daniel Glover

Daniel Hazelrigg

Jimb Jackson

David Loewy

Pam Moore

Debbie Neuman

Francesco Paladino

Charles Siewert

Amy Sonnenberg

Ted Viens

$20+

Chris Becker

Meredith Borders

Fred Brieden

Andrea Cooper

Ruben Coy

Jordannah Elizabeth

Alicia Garza

Jessica O. Hendrix

Leslie Herbst

Sarah Hirsch

Ruth Hirsch

Brandy Holmes

Justice Jamail

Shannon Johnston

Monica Kressman

Jason G Poland

Cathy Power

Randy Pugh

Fina Reisinger

Michelle Sinched

Matthew Willhem

Our passion and career goal is to move into full time film scoring. We’ve scored films ranging from the silent classics (Cabinet of Dr Caligari, Girl Shy) to a Lionsgate horror release (Psychic Experiment, 2010). Two documentaries we scored – Con Artist and BAM 150 – premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival and our work has been featured in a variety of animated projects and short films.

We need a short, easily accessible demo to showcase how our music works alongside visuals, something we can direct filmmakers and producers to as an effective sample. We need a music video!

 

Two Star Symphony Haunted House Tree Sculpture

At the link below, you can see our Indiegogo page, complete with promotional video (featuring a Two Star guided tour of our haunted house location) and a great list of giving incentives ranging from exclusive digital downloads to original paintings, private performances by Two Star Symphony, set visits during the shoot and more!

Two Star Symphony Makes a Music Video!

Check the link and share with your family and friends and anyone you can think of who would enjoy our music. This is a 30 day campaign running for the month of February – please help us reach our goal!

Two Star Symphony reunites with choreographer Paola Georgudis to bring you a new original dance & live music performance! The Photobooth on Montrose plays host to these non-traditional artists, and invites you to experience them in a setting unlike any other.

This collaborative show begins outside The Photobooth with dance & prerecorded music and continues inside the venue, where Two Star will perform alongside Paola. The live dance portion begins promptly at 8pm and lasts approx 15 minutes. Two Star will continue the performance with a mixture of old & new music- classic pieces from a 10yr repertoire and our very newest works.

Did you miss our premiere screening & performance of “Silent Shadow of the Bat-Man?” Maybe you saw it and want to relive the experience? Two Star Symphony and Andre Perkowski are proud to present to you the entire movie, including our original score performed live, for free! This video includes a split screen so you can watch the movie while seeing Two Star perform the score, as filmed by Bat-Man director Perkowski on the night of the premiere!

We in Two Star are so proud of this project and thrilled to have worked with a talent like Andre – film scoring is our passion and we hope to make a career scoring for film, television, dance and any other area in need of original music. So enjoy the movie and score, and please share this video with as many people as possible!

Thank you again to Discovery Green Park, Houston Public Media, Houston Arts Alliance, the city of Houston, our friends, family and fans, and most of all Andre Perkowski, without whom none of this would have existed.

On October 19, Two Star Symphony and Discovery Green Park proudly present “Shadow of the Bat-Man”, an original Bat-Man film written, directed and edited by Andre Perkowski (in attendance) and featuring an original score performed live by Two Star Symphony.

This one-of-a-kind movie built from public domain footage and new custom title cards was originally created by Mr. Perkowski as a series of Youtube shorts. Thanks in part to a grant by the Houston Arts Alliance, Two Star partnered with Perkowski, who created an expanded, one hour version of the Bat-Man story, to which Two Star composed an original score. Click HERE for our original trailer for the movie and soundtrack.

“Shadow of the Bat-Man” will premiere as a one night engagement at Discovery Green Park (1500 Mckinney) in downtown Houston on October 19, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. Filmmaker Andre Perkowski will introduce the film and Two Star Symphony will perform their original score live onstage.

“Shadow of the Bat-Man” is made possible by Discovery Green Park and Houston Arts Alliance. It is appropriate for all ages and lasts approximately one hour.

It’s been a busy year for us and we’re preparing for an exciting fall! This spring, we were recipients of a 2012 Houston Arts Alliance Established Artists Grant, which we’re using for a soon-to-announced premiere in October. Also this spring, we hosted a Cultured Cocktail event with Spacetaker at Bar Boheme, where our Spanking Booth and live performance resulted in a record-setting fundraising total. These funds allowed us to cover costs of our summer projects – a huge thank you to Bar Boheme and Spacetaker for their invaluable support!

This summer, we remixed & remastered our Love & Other Demons album and (re)released it with all new artwork painted by our own Margaret Lejuene & Jo Bird. We traveled to San Francisco to perform at Amnesia and Revolution Cafe, and we signed a deal & recruited additional musicians to perform with us on our first big project of the fall – The Heart Chamber Orchestra.

The Heart Chamber Orchestra is a collaboration between Two Star Symphony and European electronic artists PURE and BERGER, who together call themselves TERMINALBEACH. For this performance, Two Star Symphony will expand to include 12 musicians. This performance will mark the U.S. premiere of the award-winning creation.

“During a recital the musicians are hooked up to a heart rate monitor. Every time their hearts beat a musical score is immediately generated on a laptop in front of each. The musicians then play this score using their brass or string instruments. They are at once composers and interpreters. There is no conductor. Behind them is a huge screen that translates their pulsating hearts into an impressive light display.

Each concert begins with one musician entering the stage. Her heart, connected by a computer to a PA system, makes a pop, pop, pop, pop sound. Circles flash on, off, on, off the giant screen. The next musician comes on stage and his heart pop pop pops discordantly with his comrade’s. And so the stage fills with 12 musicians, and the air with the poppoppoppoppoppoppoppop of their hearts. The movement becomes frenzied as their heart rates quicken. Eerie squeals turn to frantic buzzes to discordant melodies. Lights dance and jump and weave on screen. Each recital is different because the music depends on the ‘state’ of the musicians’ hearts.” -wowdewow.co.uk

The Heart Chamber Orchestra represents a huge leap forward for Two Star. While we’ve collaborated with artists across a number of mediums, this show offers something different – the chance to expand our ranks and compose & perform in an entirely new way, guided literally by our own hearts and the vision of TERMINALBEACH.

The Heart Chamber Orchestra is sponsored by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts and Nameless Sound and is part of the Aurora Picture Show’s 2012 Media Archaeology Festival: Real Time. It will be presented at the Barnevelder Movement/Arts Center at 2201 Preston on Friday, September 21, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 for Aurora members, $15 for non-members (available here). This will be a one-night performance with limited seating — advance purchase is strongly recommended.

Thursday, May 17 from 5-10pm, join Two Star Symphony & Fresh Arts at Boheme (307 Fairview) for Cultured Cocktails! This event offers a portion of all drink proceeds to a different arts group every Thursday and Two Star is thrilled to be the featured artists!

From 5-10pm, come enjoy drinks, live performances of our original music, temporary tattoos, a raffle for a private performance by Two Star (place & time of your choosing), and the SPANKING BOOTH, operated by Mistress Bird, Dealer of Naughty Delights!

Raffle tickets are $20 and available at the event. Spankings are $5. As always, we are happy to accept cash or credit cards. Take your spanking at the tip of Bird’s whip and choose one of our custom-designed stickers as your reward! Get spanked twice and collect both!

Two Star spank sticker #1

Two Star spank sticker #2

After a great CD release show that included 17 fans, ages 17-69, getting complementary Two Star Symphony tattoos, our Titus Andronicus album is now available for purchase! You can order the CD or purchase the album as a digital download directly from Two Star Symphony by following the link to our Band Camp page. You can also purchase our music through iTunes, Amazon or just jam it through Last FM, Pandora, or Spotify!

Visit the Two Star Symphony Band Camp store

Thank you again for your interest and support! We look forward to sharing our music with you!

**UPDATE** The 8pm show is sold out! We have 20 standing room tickets available through the paypal button below, and you can always show up and see if ticket holders don’t claim their seats, but we encourage you to look at the 10pm show — plenty of tickets left for 10pm!

Two Star Symphony is proud to announce the Titus Andronicus CD release show! Our first album in 3 years, Titus Andronicus is an original score we composed for Dominic Walsh Dance Theatre’s ballet production of Shakespeare’s bloodiest and most notorious work.

To celebrate the CD release, we will perform the score in its entirety twice, at 8 and 10pm, at the new Divergence Music & Arts studio space in Spring Street Studios (1824 Spring Street). This beautiful venue offers fantastic acoustics, three-sided thrust seating and plenty of dedicated parking.

In order to offer the best possible experience, seating for each show will be limited to 85 people. Because of this, we strongly encourage you to purchase tickets in advance, though tickets will be available at the door on a first-come-first-served basis until we reach capacity. Your $10 ticket includes a free beverage (beer, wine & water) and guaranteed seating. The Titus Andronicus album will be available for purchase before and after each performance.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. Tattoo artist Antone Pham from  Texas Tattoo Emporium will be on hand at the show to offer FREE Two Star Symphony tattoos to attendees. That’s right — actual tattoos of the Two Star Symphony icon, designed by Two Star’s own Jo Bird, just like the members of the quartet (and our most dedicated fans) have!

We’ve put everything we have into making Titus Andronicus our best album yet. We hope to see you at the CD release!

The following donors contributed to our IndieGoGo campaign, allowing us to record and release our original score for Dominic Walsh Dance Theatre’s production of Titus Andronicus. Two Star Symphony thanks these awesome people for answering the call and supporting original music and the arts in Houston. We love you!

Lovers ($500+):                                        Fancy Pants ($250-$499):

Chet and Erin Farmer                                Miriam Elmore       Deborah Thomas

David Lake                                                 Anonymous          Tim and Norma Thomson

Top Notch ($100-$249):

Karen Antone                Wayne Donowho              Anonymous               Jason Raschen

Mark C. Austin              Shawn La Favers              Anonymous               Anonymous

Christopher Champion  Taylor Gibson                   Anonymous               Brent Zius

Steven Cowart               Anonymous                      Sarah Prikryl

True Fans ($50-$99):

Donna Alexander   Sara Cress          Brandy Holmes fffffffffffffThomas H. Padgett, Jr.

Marisa Avelar         Daniel Glover       Mark Horn                gffffFrancesco Paladino

Steve Bolen           Anonymous          Nicole Longnecker      ffffMarina C L Rosas

Meredith Borders   Daniel Hazelrigg  Jennifer Love-Moreno ffffJenni Rebecca Stevenson

Robert Boyd          Allen Hill               Lindsey McCartney     ffffAnonymous

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff Ted Viens

Dedicated Followers ($20-$49):

Robin Babb         Anonymous                 Ericka Hernandez          Heather Pray

Caroline Catlin    Elaine Dillard               Larry Olivarez                Ignatius J. Reilly

James Colvin       Bjorn Gudmundsson   America Palacios           Anonymous

Venda D’Abato    Michelle Hempton        Melody Patelis               Tom Vaughn