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September 8, 2018--Burbank, CAThe Raymond Scott Festival
This site is now a legacy retrospective of our 2018 event at the Colony Theatre in Burbank CA. But we’re hoping and planning for another edition of the festival when the fates allow.
We’re Reckless Night Music—Raymond Scott’s family—and we hosted ScottWorks | The Raymond Scott Festival to honor our dad’s groundbreaking impact on music, culture, and technology. He was born in September 1908, so we celebrated on what would have been his 110th birthday weekend.
Find out more about Raymond Scott’s life at our primary website
Our September 2018 afternoon event celebrated Scott’s creative and technical legacy, with music, panel discussions on Scott-related themes, and interactive exhibits.
We had many special guests and panelists who each brought a unique perspective to the event–some who worked alongside Raymond Scott, and others who were inspired by him.
We had an evening concert featured various performers with their own interpretations of Raymond Scott’s timeless music, including electronic music performances.
One day to explore the man, the music, and the machines.
This section is currently a retrospective list that includes most of our panelists, presenters and musicians from 2018.
Our News and Updates keeps all informed of latest developments and breaking news–currently a retrospective of 2018. We’ll be updating when we have more news.
Have a look back at the September 7th L.A. Times article about Raymond Scott and the festival. Click here to read.
Also–we had a pretty incredible new addition to our fest–a new modern version of the Raymond Scott Fascination Machine–it’s kind of a micro–Electronium with 5 different modes and random pattern generation. Huge thanks to everyone at Rebel Technology, the London based collective that pulled this off. off. https://www.rebeltech.org/ See our promo video below.
Have a look back as Skip Heller rehearses his Reckless Night Ensemble for the festival concert. Excerpts from three tunes, the mysterious and not so well known Naked City, the usually electronic Portofino done with traditional instruments, and Powerhouse. See below in video section or click here.
On Saturday Night, Jeff Winner produced a tribute to Scott’s legendary creativity and his multi-dimensional career. This unique concert was an evening filled with interpretations of Raymond Scott’s timeless music, including electronic music performances.
Three-time Grammy Award nominees Quartet San Francisco, led by Jeremy Cohen, expanded the reach of chamber music as they interpreted 1930s ‘cartoon jazz” by the Raymond Scott Quintette. Check out their previous YouTube performance of Scott’s The Penguin.
Guitarist/Bandleader Skip Heller works in many musical genres — from Philly Jazz to rockabilly, soul and exotica. He’s also a real authority on Raymond Scott. Skip and his Reckless Night Ensemble took a deep dive into the Raymond Scott catalogue and brought new life to Scott’s Quintette, big band, orchestral and electronic compositions from the 1940s-60s.
Questions? email info@raymondscott.net
And though the 2018 Festival is over, we encourage our community to keep spreading the word about Raymond Scott through their social media and personal contacts.
Thanks again to Brenda Ramirez Kalcoff, Genetra Tull and all the staff at the beautiful Colony Theater in Burbank, CA. They were essential to the success of our event.
555 N 3rd St,
Burbank, CA 91502
The event is over, so no more ticket sales…but stay tuned.
He had so much imagination, and so much intuition—this funny intuition that some people have—that he could sort of fish around and get something to work, and do exactly what he wanted it to do. Obviously not everybody could do this. It took a huge amount of money, and a huge amount of imagination. And an impressive amount of craziness too!
Scott’s electronic music is so perfectly crafted, so lyrical and easy, so completely charming and good-natured, that it seems all the more wonderful, even mysterious, that much of it was created with the sophisticated and complex technology he invented. Scott developed his instruments to make his music—and did it so well that what you hear is the music.
I love Raymond Scott, one of the egregiously undersung heroes of 20th century music.