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For Immediate Release: February 13, 2015
Tunnel Six
journeys :: spaces :: stories tour, 2015
Hi Resolution Band Photos
2015 Tour Poster (PDF)
Full Tour Dates
Tunnel Six, an international collaboration of musical storytellers, embarks on their fifth tour of the US and Canada. Their new program of original compositions will showcase the band’s collective vision, as this years theme of “journeys :: spaces :: stories” continues the group’s evolution.
Tunnel Six is:
Ben Dietschi / saxophones (Toronto, ON)
Chad McCullough / trumpet (Chicago, IL)
Andrew Oliver / piano (London, UK)
Brian Seligman / guitar (Nashville, TN)
Jesse Dietschi / bass (Toronto, ON)
Tyson Stubelek / drums (Portland, OR)
“Remarkably skillful ensemble interaction” – Cadence
“This might have been the best out-and-out jazz at the festival” – Exclaim.ca (St. John’s Jazz & Blues Festival, St. John’s, NL)
The Canadian-American collaborative sextet Tunnel Six takes to the road for the sixth consecutive year, bringing their distinctive melodic storytelling compositions to audiences throughout the Northwest US and Canada. With singable melodies that dare to be epic and an unabashedly emotional approach to musical storytelling, Tunnel Six tastefully blends elements of jazz, world, and folk to transport audiences from the peaks of the Rockies to the shores of the Maritimes. Their music has been described as “…a transcendent moment, almost spiritual” (eMusic).
Formed in 2009 at the Banff Centre’s International Jazz Workshop in Alberta, the ensemble has grown over the course of six cross-continental tours and two critically-acclaimed albums into a mature ensemble blending six distinct threads into uniquely impressionistic soundscapes. The group’s debut record, Lake Superior (OA2 Records), was released internationally and garnered a spot on the top 100 releases of the year in 2011 (eMusic). The group’s follow-up album Alive was recorded during various concerts on tour and captures the band in their most comfortable element – being hailed as “a breath of fresh air” (Oregon Jazz Scene). With members hailing from Toronto, Chicago, Nashville, Portland, and London, England, the the collective continues to dissolve geographic and musical boundaries to reach audiences across North America.
The 2015 tour will see Tunnel Six travelling from Portland, Oregon to Winnipeg, Manitoba, with stops in major cities and smaller communities along the way. The group will also begin recording their third album in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the tour, a yet-to-be-titled project that will dig deeper into group collaboration, album production, and ensemble-based compositions. “It’s always a challenge to record with this group – because we’re together for such an intense and focused amount of time that we want to be sure to capture the music at the right point of growth.” Trumpeter Chad McCullough said, from his home in Chicago. “I can’t wait for this upcoming project as we’ll be adding elements of post-production studio work over time, to truly make the artistic statement we want. It’ll be an international recording project. Challenging? Yes – but it’ll be worth the extra effort, and I’m sure the result will be (like the band) greater than the sum of its parts.”
In addition to this year’s tour and recording, the band has created an online collaborative space at http://tunnelsix.tumblr.com where they are taking advantage of their geographic separation to create new collaborative compositions, while taking in the surroundings of their diverse home cities. The new collaborative compositions will find their way into the repertoire of the group on the upcoming tour, providing a new element to their “collective group sound and style,” as drummer Tyson Stubelek called it. “The collaborations through the online [tumblr] site are like a in-depth look at how each musicians adds their own concepts. You can really see how all of the gears fit together, as the song’s being built.” The group has also recently been granted a week long artist residency at the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in New Hampshire, where they will continue to further work on their new album and compositions.
It goes without saying that Tunnel Six has spent more than half a decade defying the traditional concept of a band. They are six diverse artists, with very different mailing addresses – yet, each time they come together they further the common bond of weaving melodies and improvisations on a shared path.
Recent accolades:
– Lake Superior selected as one of emusic’s best 100 albums of 2011
– Nominated for the 2011 Galaxy Rising Star Award, Halifax Jazz Festival
– 2010 ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award, for “Lake Superior” (Andrew Oliver)
Hi Resolution Band Photos
2015 Tour Poster (PDF)
Full Tour Dates
Contact:
Ben Dietschi – ben@bendietschi.com +1-416-988-3127
Andrew Oliver – andrew@andrewoliver.net +1-503-985-6758
Chad McCullough – chadmcc@gmail.com +1-206-300-8100
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Tunnel Six 