The group is very much of the classical world. “We use the studio, like another instrument,” Webster says.
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A producer, a knob-twiddler, yet as key to the sound as the musicians themselves. Then add Webster, who describes his role with fivebyfive as similar to what George Martin was to The Beatles. Polenik, pianist Haeyeun Jeun and Lentz on flute. “We started doing crazy amounts of recording,” Lentz says.įivebyfive is Marcy Bacon on clarinet, electric guitarist Sungmin Shin, bassist Eric J. And over the last two years, Webster says, “the pandemic just put it into overdrive.” They record and, like, that’s pretty much it.”īut fivebyfive is classical turned loose in the toy store. “Classical groups usually don’t think in that way, they don’t talk in that way. “And so, how do you create that?” she adds. “We spent a lot of time in the mixing sessions,” Lentz says, “using words like, ‘We want this to sound like being wrapped in a blanket.’” But in a few moments, a recognizable composition emerges. The piece opens with anarchy, as though someone has rolled a piano down the stairs. Webster puts on “Blue Jewel,” from the group’s fascinating and uncategorizable debut album, “Of and Between,” which is available on the fivebyfive website. The quintet doesn’t settle for static boundaries. Fivebyfive also speaks jazz, although Lentz notes that it is “improvising on classical language rather than jazz language.” The music of the Rochester chamber ensemble fivebyfive is classical that thinks like rock.
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They’re speaking an exclusive language that straddles the classical world and the pop-music world: Reverb. Laura Lentz and Marc Webster are sitting in front of a mixing board that sprawls along one wall of Webster’s Blue on Blue recording studio. Fivebyfive is clarinetist Marcy Bacon, flutist Laura Lentz, guitarist Sungmin Shin, bassist Eric J.