Photo Exhibit

May 4, 2016 by Starlit Nights

Medina

For a long time now, photography has given me an alternate creative medium, alongside my work as a writer. This past summer, my partner Tim and I traveled through Spain and Morocco collaborating on a new photography project. Some of the resulting images are now on view at Silver Circle Art Center in Putnam, CT.

If you’ll be in New England, you can see our work in the Art Alley outside of Silver Circle through June 30th. Those of you further afield can also view and purchase prints from our show. I’ve included a selection of images from the exhibit below. To order prints or see additional images, contact Silver Circle here — or just send me a note.

p.s. You can learn more about the first photography project Tim and I collaborated on here.

Pajaros in Blue

Siesta, Chefchaouen

Fes, Morocco

Andalucian Hills

View of Sevilla

Resolutions and Rivulets

January 4, 2016 by Starlit Nights

Two years ago, at a New Year’s Day brunch in New York City, my partner Tim and I made a resolution:

Write a book. Record an album. Enjoy.

(Somewhere, there is a video of us resolving this.)

These weren’t resolutions we expected to accomplish in one year, but resolutions for our largest and most important goals as artists. And for two years, they’ve been the guiding forces of our lives.

On New Year’s Day this year, we whiled away the entire day in Cambridge — first at Starbucks, perched above Harvard Square, then for several blissful book-browsy hours, at the Harvard Coop. As I have done most days this year, I worked on my book. And sitting looking out over the Square, I thought about those resolutions we made.

Tim’s album Rivulets was released today. Five years in the making, Rivulets is his best work yet. Dynamic new jazz compositions, filled with a sense of expansion and play. Check it out:

Announcing Rivulets!

Rivulets is a dynamic album of new compositions from jazz pianist and composer Tim Peck. In support of this release, Tim Peck Trio will take Rivulets on tour in March, with anticipated tour stops in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Nashville, and other cities. Visit www.tpeck.com to learn more.

Building on the strengths of the trio’s 2007 release, Ms. Matched, Rivulets explores intersections between composed and improvised music in the trio format. By combining influences from modern jazz, contemporary classical, and international music genres, Rivulets creates a series of dynamic new vehicles for improvisation.

The members of Tim Peck Trio are in-demand musicians in the greater Boston jazz scene, and have performed with such musical luminaries as George Garzone, Bob Gullotti, Charlie Kohlhase, and Ben Schwendener. The trio has developed an engaging group sound, and Rivulets showcases its lyricism and conversational interplay.

Tim Peck Trio is Tim Peck, piano; Sean Farias, bass; Miki Matsuki, drums.

purchase Rivulets on
iTunes • Spotify • CD Baby • Bandcamp

Creative Getaway / Jacob’s Pillow

July 20, 2015 by Starlit Nights

After months of intensive bookwriting and Kickstarting, Tim and I reached creative burnout on Thursday night. So we did the only sensible thing: we packed up the car and drove to Jacob’s Pillow for a much-needed dose of creative rejuvenation.

I’ve been wanting to go see the summer dance performances at Jacob’s Pillow for ages. It felt good to be in a space where choreographers and dancers were practicing and living and creating new work. Being there reminded me of the feeling of being at an arts residency, surrounded by all these other people embarking on creative projects. At this moment of creative burnout there was a restorative energy in being in that kind of generative environment.

Plus, Jacob’s Pillow’s has the most spectacular stage for its outdoor performances. It backs right into a drop-down view of the tree-lined valley and the surrounding mountains, so the dancers aren’t dancing so much in the amphitheater as in the landscape. It’s incredible the way this vista amplifies the meaning and impact of movement.

We were lucky enough to catch the Alonzo King LINES Ballet, too, and their first piece to Concerto For Two Violins was so jawdroppingly stunning from the rich powerhouse first movement to the subtle, entwined quartet of dancers in “Largo Ma Non Tanto,” that it was one of those moments where you just sit there and think thank God I’m alive for this.

Our good friends Kate & Robert (of the amazing Oakes & Smith art folk duo), live not too far from Jacob’s Pillow, so we decided to make a night of it and sat up impressively late over wine and brie talking about Edith Wharton and artmaking and Pluto.

And then, because it’s the Berkshires — and what trip to the Berkshires would be complete without a visit to Tanglewood? — we wandered over and listened to the symphony rehearse Mozart to the intermittent peal of thunder and downpour. During a break in the storm, we walked all through those genteel landscaped grounds and through the strains of opera practice and summer institute orchestras and the tuning of a grand piano.

After a stop at the Amherst Bookstore (where I picked up this book — so excited!) and a great visit with Judy, we wended our way back home and back to work on our own creative projects. There really is nothing like a couple of days of art and dance and music to interrupt and reinvigorate this long, crazy last stretch of bookwriting.

p.s. Tim’s new album is almost ready! Check out the preview title track! (And lend a hand, too?)

Photography

July 13, 2015 by Starlit Nights

Mt. Vernon Staircase / Melissa Wyse & Tim Peck

Last year, I started working on a collaborative photography project. I’ve been taking photos on an old Pentax SLR camera, and my partner, Tim, has been going into the dark room to develop the film. Tim is a professional musician and composer, and so for both of us this has been a fun creative enterprise, an opportunity to experiment in a third medium while we complete major projects in our primary fields.

So far, my favorite photos from our series are the ones I’ve taken in my neighborhood in Baltimore. One of the interesting elements of the collaboration has been that Tim never knows what will be on the film I send him, and I don’t know how he’ll choose to interpret the images once he gets them in the darkroom. It can be a freeing experience — especially as a writer, where so little of my creative work is open to that kind of collaborative serendipity. I really like the painterly effect we wound up with in Mt. Vernon Staircase.