The Clue Bus

"The Clue Bus", a CD recorded by HMS jazz students in the spring of 2005, is available for sale ($10) in the HMS school store. The CD features guitarist Dan Rosenson ('05), bassist Cal Carey ('05), violinist Sophie Abrahams-Dematte ('08), drummer Jory Goodman (Souhegan '08), pianist Henry Lewers ('08), pianist Michal Szymanowski (a 2005 exchange student from Poland), drummer Joh Jans (a former HMS student and now a student at Berklee College of Music in Boston), and HMS music teacher Elise MacDonald.

The 5-track CD can be previewed on the archive page by clicking on the link in the "student musicians" box in the left-hand margin.

"The Clue Bus" CD is available for sale in the school store ($10) or through the mail directly from the Music Department ($15, shipping included; contact Elise for more information).

Article on Elise MacDonald from High Notes, May 2005

Music, Music, Music Surrounds Elise MacDonald

By: Virginia Buhr

At nearly every turn on the High Mowing campus, one can hear music being played. This is due in large part to our Music Director, Elise Mac Donald, who teaches five classes of chamber music ensemble, and two classes of jazz as well as a music theory class last semester and history through music this semester. In addition she also does choral work with some students and is also the director of the Concert Band for grades six through eight at the Pine Hill Waldorf School.

Outside of school during the last couple of years, Elise has been playing with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra in Boston, New Hampshire Philharmonic in Manchester, Raylynmor Opera Company in Keene as well as independent jazz and classical chamber music gigs for private events (“jazz for 400 corporate attorneys – that kind of thing!”)

Elise started playing the piano in first grade. She began playing the violin in the fifth grade at the Green Meadow Waldorf School in Spring Valley, New York but someone handed her a flute and she this has been her “instrument of choice” ever since. Elise says, “The flute is similar to the human voice. The sound is easy to relate to….

Elise attended Oyster River High School in Durham, New Hampshire. Their wonderful music program included a small concert band, a small symphony orchestra, and a particularly excellent pit orchestra for show. Elise went to All State and All New England music competitions. “I played a lot of music. I never considered doing anything else. Mine is ‘an unexamined life,’” reports Elise, with her characteristic twinkle and sense of humor.

After graduating from the Berklee College of Music in their Music Education Program in 1990, Elise moved to Central Massachusetts and opened a private flute studio where she had 20 students. In 1997 she moved to Peterborough, bought a large house with an attached renovated barn where she and her then husband opened the Two Rivers Music Studio, a Community music school with 7 classrooms and 10 to 12 teachers giving private instrumental and vocal lessons to 150 students. This was a big undertaking which has taken on a life of its own. Though Elise is no longer the directory of the Two Rivers Music Studio, it is still a center of music education.

Musically, one of Elise’s passions is jazz. “Jazz makes great intellectual demands on the player. You have to understand theory and compose on the spot. Jazz is a balance between group work on one hand and individuality on the other."

Elise has just bought a house in New Ipswich that borders a state forest, so she has hundreds of square miles of hiking and cross-country trails at her doorstep. In her free time, she loves pruning trees and flower gardening and tends to Tiny Mightylittle, her 20-pound Maine Coon cat.

At High Mowing, besides music, Elise plays at least two other important roles. One, not so visible: Elise is one of our house copy editors! The other role, a bit more difficult and time consuming: she is one of two faculty members on the Standards Committee. Of this role Elise says, “High school is a time of many decisions and ethical crossroads for students. The Standards Committee is just one facet of the picture High Mowing presents to students to help them find their way.”

For the next school year, we are pleased to announce that Elise will officially be at High Mowing full-time (she will also be teaching chorus). We are grateful that she brings her great gifts and love of music to our school. And Elise is grateful to be here. She says, “Music is truly valued at High Mowing. There is no big banner that says we value the arts—it just is.”

Ben Martel ('03) releases his first full-length album

Guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Ben Martel has released his first full-length album of original material. Below is a review which I wrote for his website at the time of the album's release. The CD, "Benjamin's Independent Release", is available through CD Baby (see the link under "Alumni Musicians".

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Benjamin Martel’s “Independent Release”, (2003, Infinitevolution Records) is a fresh, breezy collection of eleven tracks from this New Hampshire-based singer/songwriter. Martel’s groove-oriented instrumentals, largely acoustic guitar and bass, ably accompany his tenor, which is kept forward in the mix, featuring his pleasing vocals and engaging lyrics. Perhaps most reminiscent of Jack Johnson, Martel often uses a combination of a variation on the rap style (singing only a few notes while delivering lyrics) and sung melodies, switching back and forth between styles easily and seamlessly.

“A Capella Groove”, featuring Martel’s acoustic again, accompanied by light percussion and his multi-tracked vocal harmonies, becomes more complexly layered as it gradually grows on you. Martel’s lyrics, matching the sunny, confessional, un-fussy feel of the disk, draw you into the world of a 19-year-old with his eyes wide open but some real insights already gained:

I’m just a fly on the wall
I’m just flying by, please don’t mind
I am larger than life
what’s your name, please explain
cause it’s harder and harder to find a little corner in this life
I’m searching all the time
and getting warmer and warmer
and closer to the sunny side.

With the ballad “Hannah Rose”, Martel leaves the groove behind and gives us an old-fashioned wistful love song. The more rapid-fire lyrical style of most of the other tracks is left behind and more wide-ranging melodies are embraced, allowing Martel’s strong vocals to really shine. The relaxed, swirling ¾ time provides a wonderful contrast to the 4/4 grooves which populate most of the rest of the disk. Martel’s effortless delivery wraps itself around heartfelt lyrics:

love is an unfinished poem
waiting to be written
waiting for you
to come back home.

The gorgeous bridge on this track, contrasting in style and incorporating a soaring melody over an artful chord progression, is perhaps a hint of Martel’s writing as it matures further. It’s a device that both pleasantly surprises and engages the listener, and shows a completely different aspect of Martel’s potential as a writer and performer.

You get the sense while listening to Martel that you’ve just walked past a street performer --- the memorable kind that makes you turn back around, have a seat, listen, daydream a little, and end up missing your train or being late for your appointment. The spare instrumentation and straightforward production on this disk really take the listener to that very public but yet somehow intimate performance space that the best buskers create around themselves. There are very few tracks here that couldn’t be performed live by Martel himself, with perhaps the help of a bassist or another acoustic guitarist. In fact, on “Glorified Bum”, it seems that Martel has given that possibility some thought himself:

Oh what am I going to be
will I be a professor at some university (no no)
what am I going to become
If I pursue music I know I’m gon’ be some glorified bum
playing my guitar on the street
that don’t seem so bad to me…

After further fanciful rumination on a completely different existence as a door-to-door salesman, Martel concludes with the one thing he knows for sure: It’s plain as day to see…I’m gonna be me.