Tag Archive for: Sonic Pie Productions

Outdoor wedding venue

Sonic Pie Event Venue Now Accepting Outdoor Event Reservations!

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Looking for an outdoor wedding venue you can make your own? We’re accepting reservations for outdoor weddings and receptions at our farmhouse! Read about it in Chapelboro.com. “Sonic Pie Productions already has PA systems. Staging. Lavalier mics. The ability to stream. Why not host micro weddings, receptions and birthday parties? Why not give folks a way to quietly celebrate the joyous occasions in their lives?”

#microwedding #dogfriendly #affordable #fourmilesfromDuke

Email sonicpieproductions@gmail.com to schedule your visit or view our slideshow.

Sonic Pie Productions 2020 Crew

Downtime is the right time to create a strong “new normal”

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The SPP Crew Takes Advantage of “Downtime”

The Sonic Pie Productions 2020 dream team! Left to right: Atiba Berkley, Scram Reynolds, Ryan Moeller, Jasmine Dml Battle, Tess Mangum and Jick Wins-Low.

 

What exactly is the “new normal” in the live events industry?

Look closely at the photo above and you’ll notice the full crew is masked up and distanced. It’s the “new normal.” Hand sanitizer is good for hands, but you can’t dip a microphone in it. With our entire high season cancelled due to Covid-19 mandates, we’ve been using the downtime (not downtime) to attend meetings via Zoom, scrub stage panels, wipe down muddy cables, write for small business grants, check in on colleagues, stay updated on production protocol and take care of and homeschool our children while schools remain closed.

Event Safety Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to promoting “life safety first” throughout all phases of event production and execution, has published a comprehensive 29-page Reopening Guide. This guide addresses health and sanitary issues that event and venue professionals need to consider in order to protect both patrons and workers.  It talks about sanitizing high touch items, staggered, scheduled bathroom visits, face masks, venues operating at lower capacity, how to pull off socially distant intermissions and concession sales…it’s an incredible resource.

GoFundMe, MusiCares, SoundGirls and the PPP

Thanks to you, we not only met but exceeded our first GoFundMe campaign goals with a total of $1185 in donations! Thank you so much. Thanks to MusiCares, SoundGirls, IBMA Covid-19 Relief Fund, Durham Arts Council Arts Recovery Fund, Durham Artist Relief Fund, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and other grants are also helping us get through, as our next live gigs might not come until fall.

Durham From The Heart concerts

Though that special magic of festival and outdoor music season is on hold, Downtown Durham Inc. has us managing a new project–Durham From The Heart.

Durham from the Heart is a weekly online performance featuring Durham musicians. Tune in to facebook.com/DowntownDurham at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays to experience some of what you love about Durham and connect, virtually, to the downtown Durham community. You can comment, cheer them on, or even play with them from the comfort of your home. Follow #durhamheart for up-to-date information and details. Featured next Tuesday: Jay Attys. Performers are paid a stipend but to tip him virtually via Venmo: @Jay-Attys, or CashApp: $JudnerAttys. Here’s why he’s one to watch!
Jay’s M.A., from NCCU, is in Jazz Studies.

“I remember when I first saw the picture of Emmett Till and the feeling it brought. I was in the 4th grade at Whitney Houston Academy. It made me sick and brought me to tears. They made it a point to teach us about our history and our music. Although I was born in Haiti, I felt a visceral connection to the culture of Black America. I was especially drawn to the music. There was something about Gospel, Blues, Soul, and R&B that moved me. The struggles and stories of a people were embedded in those sounds. Music spoke to me louder than words ever could. It healed me where medicine could not go.

Recently, I have been feeling that same feeling that I felt in Ms Wood’s class in the 4th grade. The only thing that brings me peace is music. I laid a foundation for my sound at Duke for undergrad. I had the distinct honor of pursuing a Masters degree in the great African American tradition of Jazz at the best HBCU in the world: North Carolina Central University. I am so grateful I got to go to a place that cared about a tradition that has been ostracized from pop culture. I am now a storyteller.

In my sound I hope to uphold the integrity of the history while presenting a voice that is uniquely my own. I want to heal as I have been healed, love as I have been loved and continue the walk to preserve our history that was started thousands of years ago in mother Africa.

Durham from the Heart is a weekly online performance featuring Durham musicians. Thank you Sonic Pie Productions for selecting me as a featured artist. Tune in to this link 1-2 p.m. on Tuesday for some music therapy. I have worked to pour my SOUL into every note of every phrase of every song. The world needs some sonic healing right now.”

The story behind the name Sonic Pie Productions

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With a name like Sonic Pie Productions, you might hope to find a bakery, rather than a sound production company, but there is a pie connection. Choosing a name when incorporating a business is harder than it seems. It’s got to somehow represent a worldview, mission and purpose. It should be easy to remember, timeless–and you must research beforehand that it’s not already in use. The last thing you want, three years into your branding and brand awareness is a cease and desist letter. So, here’s our story behind the name Sonic Pie Productions.

Sonic alludes to the importance of one of our five sense: sound.

Productions: we curate and produce concerts and events.

But why Pie? The way we figure, anything inside flaky dough is good. Peach pie, Jamaican beef patties, samosas, empanadas…they’re all good. When you go with Sonic Pie Productions, your pie might have some jazz in it–some soul–or rock and roll. Maybe you need help producing a street fair, vintage motorcycle rally or literary event. Your pie is going to be great!

Pictured above is a pie Sonic Pie Productions CEO Tess Mangum made today, in her beloved grandmother Kate’s 50(?) year old pie and biscuit pan. If the house was burning down, she’d grab the kids, the dog and this pan.

StArt of Cool jazz students get BIG gig opportunities with our gear and staging!

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Need something UPLIFTING? How would you feel, performing in front of more than 1000 people? These kids did just that, June 28, uunder Al Strong‘s wing, using Sonic Pie Productions’ gear, staging and crew at Durham Central Park. LISTEN to the ravishingly talented Ricardo Diquez, so generous of spirit, talk about how great they are, opening for him. UNC-TV, The Art of Cool Project, you rock. This is why sponsorships and grants are so needed.

This camp jazzes up summer for kids in Durham

The StArt of Cool makes jazz, well, cool for youth. ?This special summer camp, spun off the The Art of Cool Project, teaches elementary, middle and high school students the fundamentals of jazz. The week-long session culminates with the student ensemble performing as the opening act for the Friday night concert series in Durham Central Park.

Posted by UNC-TV on Thursday, September 26, 2019

The Curator: Tess Mangum Ocaña in Durham Magazine’s Women’s Issue

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Sonic Pie Productions’ CEO Tess Mangum Ocaña is featured in the new issue of Durham Magazine!

Sonic Pie Productions presents All-Ireland Uilleann Piper JARLATH HENDERSON 5.1.19

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Jarlath Henderson is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and doctor. Hailing from County Armagh, Ireland, Jarlath Henderson is the first Irish solo artist to win the prestigious BBC Young Folk Musician of the Year Award, which has led to performances at festivals throughout Europe and to GlobalFest in New York City. Jarlath combines modern, rhythmically intense, percussive electronics to his traditional singing style to create a signature sound that is all his own. He is a masterful balladeer, three times ‘All-­­Ireland Champion’ Uilleann Piper, a teacher both in Ireland and Scotland and has featured in numerous BBC television programs on piping and music. A talented and versatile multi-instrumentalist, Jarlath also plays whistle, flute and cittern.

See them live at Rhythms Live Music Hall, in Lakewood’s Reuse Arts District, between The Scrap Exchange and Scrap Thrift Store. (Tons of free parking.) This is a seated, all-ages evening presented by Sonic Pie Productions. Tickets: $15 adv, $18 day of show

SPP Newsletter: HippieFest, Parade logistics, Mambo, Golden Belt, Drink Local and Shows We Love

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Late FALL still had that summer fun vibe–what’s on the horizon for 2019?
See this covered stage, called SummerStage and a 100+ year-old smoke stack? This is the historic, newly-unveiled Golden Belt Campus in Durham, and a view you can’t see from Main Street. There are residential options, dozens of artist studios inside, Hi-Wire Brewing just opened, parking is plentiful and Cicely Mitchell of So When Do I Clap? is curating this stage next year!
Less than a month after AfroPunk reviewed a video from her forthcoming album, Good Luck America, Kamara Thomas traded her trademark “Cosmic Americana” comfort zone to channel Aretha Franklin last weekend. (Phil Cook’s Given Family/Chosen Family project at Motorco Music Hall.)
Diali Cissokho & Kaira Ba open for Weedie Braimah Wednesday, December 12. Click here for $15 tickets to this all-ages 8 p.m. show at Pinhook. Braimah, a phenomenally talented and highly sought-after Djembe Fola whose vision is to build a reverence for folkloric West African music in hopes of it evolving and being placed in the world musical arenas of jazz, funk, fusion, world music, and hip-hop, is a new face of African percussion both nationally and internationally. Kaira Ba is also closing out 2018 with a BANG. They’re playing both the early countdown and late night stage at First Night Raleigh, New Year’s Eve.
Batalá Durham and Paperhand Puppet Intervention led a people’s parade on November 30 from American Tobacco to CCB Plaza to light a huge tree across from the Unscripted Hotel. Downtown Durham Inc. contracted Sonic Pie Productions for a 2nd year, to curate talent, provide sound production services and assist with logistics.
Shows we love/gossip/drink local: did you hear Sam Bush AND Taj Mahal are playing Isis Music Hall in West Asheville? (No, not the same night, silly) It’s a gorgeous, intimate venue.

Do you like to “drink local”? Have you tried Mystic bourbon or Oak City amarettoyet? They’re about $25 a bottle, Triangle-based, hand-crafted and SO good, especially on the 29 degree nights.
Sonic Pie Productions is THRILLED to have signed a 2nd-year sound production services/modular staging contract with Hippie Fest. We’ll be returning to Ohio, South Carolina and Salisbury, NC in 2019!

Third Friday Durham, Durham’s monthly “gallery crawl” continues with a winter branding for January-March 2019. THANK YOU, EVERYONE, FOR A GREAT 2018!
OTHER UPCOMING SPP CONCERTS & EVENTS

It was our BIGGEST September ever, and Sonic Pie Productions gives you backstage, front row and front of house access!

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It was our BIGGEST September ever, and Sonic Pie Productions gives you backstage, front row and front of house access!

Erykah Badu, surrounded in by “pyramid” of magical light headlines the 5th annual Art of Cool Festival in downtown Durham, North Carolina. Sonic Pie Productions provided Production and Venue Management at five of this progressive jazz, soul, hip hop and R&B festival’s venues, September 28-29, 2018.

How about MAXWELL, last Friday night? “Fortunate” from between the barricade and stage. Night two of Maxwell’s ’50 Intimate Nights” North American Tour at the 5th annual Art of Cool Festival, Durham, NC. 

  

  

Did you see Don Cheadle play Miles Davis in the biopic, Miles Ahead? The soundtrack and all the recreated “live” tracks were played by trumpeter Keyon Harrold, pictured right, in a full band set at the 250 capacity Pinhook (at full capacity!)

Plus, we provided sound production services at the 12 act, multi-stage Groove In The Garden (below), at Stephenson Amphitheater and Rose Gardenin Raleigh, North Carolina, on this beautiful WPA-built stage.

 

 

The game plan: what to do when tonight’s artist never got on the plane

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Richie Havens, Odetta and Ani DiFranco are examples of cancellations Sonic Pie Productions’ founder Tess Mangum Ocaña navigated, but with ample advance notice, and one for unavoidable good reason (death). Sound Girls shows you how to handle patron disappointment (and anger) when the venue finds out the artist never got on the plane. The game plan has to be in place before #dayofshow https://theatreartlife.com/one-and-done/unexpected-show-cancellation/