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Snarky Puppy | Metropole Orkest

Sylva

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Snarky Puppy & Metropole Orkest - Sylva (Official Trailer)
Snarky Puppy, Metropole Orkest - Gretel
Holland Festival 2018: Metropole Orkest & soloists of the Syrian Big Band
What Heat🔥 - Bokante & Metropole Orkest - Album teaser

Tour Dates

09/18/2015 - Red Rocks Amphitheater / Evergreen, CO
09/20/2015 - Monterey Jazz Festival / Monterey, CA
09/24/2015 - Royce Hall (UCLA) / Los Angeles, CA
10/01/2015 - O2 Academy / Leeds, UK
10/02/2015 - The Ritz / Manchester, UK
10/03/2015 - O2 ABC / Glasgow, UK
10/04/2015 - The Institute / Birmingham, UK
10/05/2015 - O2 Academy / Bristol, Uk
10/06/2015 - Eventim Apollo Hammersmith / London, UK
10/07/2015 - Concorde 2 / Brighton, UK
10/11/2015 - Le Rocher De Palmer / Cenon, France
11/20/2015 - Eastern Washington University Jazz Dialogue Festival / Cheney, WA
1 Sintra
2 Flight
3 Atchafalaya
4 The Curtain
5 Gretel
6 The Clearing
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When Snarky Puppy won a Grammy in January of 2014, the question I was asked most was, "Was this on your bucket list of things to do before you die?" And my answer to each of them was, actually, no. I have only one thing on my list. The only thing I want to do before I die is make an album with an orchestra. It had been a topic of discussion for three months at that time. During the October 2013 recording sessions for "We Like It Here" in Utrecht, our good friend Friederike Darius had invited two of the Metropole Orkest's managers to join us as guests. Within ten minutes of the performance's end, we had already crafted a plan to make a record together. Sometimes life is that easy. Not always, not most of time, but every once in a while, it is.

  • Sohn and Metropole Orkest will open this year's Amsterdam Dance Event / EDMLife
    Posted At: June 20, 2019 12:00 AM

    Now a permanent fixture of the Amsterdam Dance Event, the Metropole Orkest will be joined on stage by songwriter/producer SOHN for the opening concert of this year's festival and conference, kicking off on Wednesday 16 October in the Rabozaal at the Melkweg. SOHN's live electronics and infectious voice will complement the epic orchestral sound of the Metropole Orkest under the leadership of conductor Han...
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  • Even if you can't stand Schubert or hate Handel, you can still enjoy the Proms / Evening Standard
    Posted At: July 15, 2018 12:00 AM

    For eight weeks of summer, the city will be alive with the sound of music thanks to the return of the Proms, one of the world's greatest classical music festivals. But what if you can't stand Schubert or harbour a hatred of Handel? Classical isn't for everyone, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the Proms. With a whole world of musical genres represented at the festival, from Argentine tango to disco-...
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  • Maria Schneider Orchestra & Snarky Puppy nominated for 2016 Jazz FM Awards / Jazzwise
    Posted At: February 24, 2016 12:00 AM

    The nominees for this year's Jazz FM Awards, which are produced by Serious, have been announced, and include a wide range of jazz names alongside blues and soul artists. The winners will be announced at the Bloomsbury Ballroom on 26 April and will feature a special live performance by jazz vocal star Gregory Porter, who is set to receive the Jazz Impact Award. The nominees include composer Maria Schneide...
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  • Snarky Puppy | Metropole Orchestra - Sylva makes DirtyDog Top 10 for 2015
    Posted At: December 14, 2015 12:00 AM

    For CJAM: Windsor ON programmer Judy Adams, these are some of the best Jazz releases that came out this past year. It wasn't easy for Judy to narrow it down to just ten since there were so many great Jazz recordings that came out. Grammy winning, Brooklyn based collective, led by bassist Michael League - Snarky Puppy, has built a loyal following since their 2004 debut. Joined by the Metropole Orchest...
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  • Snarky Puppy on Public Radio Tulsa
    Posted At: November 27, 2015 12:00 AM

    Tune in for the next installment of All This Jazz, airing at 9pm local time on Saturday the 28th on Public Radio 89.5 / KWGS-FM and publicradiotulsa.org for a Live Recording from Snarky Puppy. Taken from a great show that originally aired in early August. We'll hear mighty tasty recorded-onstage tracks from Woody Shaw, Snarky Puppy Kurt Elling, and many others. And elsewhere in the program, we&#...
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  • A dinner date for Snarky Puppy / Jazzfm
    Posted At: November 24, 2015 12:00 AM

    American Grammy Award-winning band Snarky Puppy has released a teaser video for the forthcoming ‘Family Dinner Vol.2' vocal album. Recorded down in New Orleans this album has the biggest and most diverse array of guest performers so far, comprising legendary, established and emerging vocalists and instrumentalists. The band have again worked with film maker Andy LaViolette for the DVD rele...
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  • Snarky Puppy earns first DownBeat poll win topping the Jazz Group category
    Posted At: October 27, 2015 12:00 AM

    The results of the 80th Annual DownBeat Readers Poll are in. Tony Bennett has been elected into the DownBeat Hall of Fame, and the ever-youthful singer also topped the Male Vocalist category. Snarky Puppy earned its first win in a DownBeat poll by topping the Jazz Group category.  Other winners include - Pianist/keyboardist Chick Corea who topped the categories Jazz Artist and Jazz Album, for&nb...
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  • Snarky Puppy in Spokane this November / INLANDER
    Posted At: October 22, 2015 12:00 AM

    Jazz collective Snarky Puppy spent 10 years shaping a popular sound before reaching the big time. They will perform in Spokane at the INB PAC this November. Snarky Puppy was never supposed to be this big. The Grammy awards? The collaborative music projects with international titans like the Metropole Orkest? None of that ever seemed like it was in the cards. "If I had any anticipation of it succeedin...
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  • Snarky Puppy plays London's Hammersmith Apollo / The Telegraph
    Posted At: October 6, 2015 12:00 AM

    What sort of animal is a Snarky Puppy? Is it a latter-day big band with only three melody instruments, cunningly pumped up by the sound-system to sound like a battery of horns? Is it a recreation of one of those irresistibly funky 1970s Latin bands like Irakere?  The answer, given by this packed gig at London's Hammersmith Apollo, was - a bit of all these, and other things too. It's clearly a wi...
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  • Snarky Puppy Spotlight - relix
    Posted At: October 1, 2015 12:00 AM

    Snarky Puppy's roots trace back to the University of North Texas College of Music, whose alumni include Roy Orbison and Norah Jones. While most of the 10 members of Snarky Puppy's earliest lineup were enrolled in the school's pioneering Jazz Studies program, the band's original mission came from their desire to work outside of those academic restrictions. Bandleader and bassist Michael League explains, "...
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  • Jazz Journal Preview: Snarky Puppy's seven-date UK tour
    Posted At: September 22, 2015 12:00 AM

    Grammy-winning instrumental jazz-funk band Snarky Puppy (pictured right) arrive in the UK in October for a seven-date tour (there's also a 29 September gig at Dublin's Vicar Street). The tour begins in Leeds, 1 October, and includes their biggest UK show to date, in London at the 5000-capacity Eventim Apollo Hammersmith, 6 October.  Snarky Puppy won the Grammy for Best R&B Performan...
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  • Out of the grassroots rise Snarky Puppy / Texas Public Radio
    Posted At: September 10, 2015 12:00 AM

    They're a keyboard band. No, they are a guitar band. Nope! They're a synth band. Wait! Maybe Snarky Puppy is a big band. The truth is they are all of these and they are none of them. They are unique. An enigma. They are an amalgam of a dozen or more highly individual and accomplished musicians. Beyond what you see on the stage, they are a collective of 40 or more musicians, each player capable of...
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  • DamnMag interview with Snarky Puppy's - Michael League
    Posted At: August 6, 2015 12:00 AM

    Although Snarky Puppy's sounds are labelled jazz, truth be told, their silky smooth 300-thread-count musical fusions are successful voyages to new lands in jazz, funk, rock, and now orchestral music. The jam band, made up of a wide-ranging group of talented musicians–"The Fam"–grew 10x in size with the addition of the Metropole Orkest for Snarky Puppy's new live album, Sylva. ...
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  • Snarky Puppy@Montreal Jazz Fest / Voice Of America
    Posted At: July 15, 2015 12:00 AM

    MOJA's Russ Davis returns from covering the 2015 Festival International de Jazz de Montreal with rare music from the festival, highlights of the major events and conversation with two artists who he spoke to there…guitarist Al Di Meola, who received the festival's prestigious "Miles Davis Award," and Michael League, the leader of the most popular young group in modern jazz, Snarky Puppy! ...
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  • Snarky Puppy plays Montreal's Metropolis / exclaim.ca
    Posted At: July 3, 2015 12:00 AM

    What is the jazz equivalent to "poptimism"? Jazz festivals have answered this question poorly: it's pretty easy to spot who the designated crowd pleasers are supposed to be in a festival lineup because they're usually not jazz artists - someone like Willie Nelson or the Steve Miller Band is supposed to draw crowds that jazz itself cannot. But like any other form of music, there are artists who li...
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  • Snarky Puppy plays Ottawa Jazz Festival / Ottawa Citizen
    Posted At: June 30, 2015 12:00 AM

    For more than a week, this year's TD Ottawa International Jazz Festival's main stage series had pretty much maintained that purely instrumental music just wouldn't cut it. From Lisa Fischer to the Roots to Chris Botti's singer Sy Smith to Huey Lewis, Steve Miller and Joel Plaskett, vocal music ruled. It was up to Snarky Puppy then on Saturday night to show that a singer wasn't essential. And so ...
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  • Snarky Puppy plays Vancouver Jazz Festival / BroadwayWorld.com review
    Posted At: June 29, 2015 12:00 AM

    If the first casualty of war is truth, the first casualty of capitalism is music. Snarky Puppy is a reminder to the American (and thus, global) consciousness that in a culture homogenizing music faster than milk, there are still authentic explosions of human ingenuity in the midst of the seemingly endless mires of tasteless musical capitalism. They do it all. Like a surfer paddling beyond the invigoratin...
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  • Ask Snarky Puppy Anything!! / Google Hangout
    Posted At: June 29, 2015 12:00 AM

    Snarky Puppy members - percussionist Nate Werth, Keyboardist - Cory Henry, Guitarist Bob Lanzetti, and Bassist/leader Michael League answered questions from fans last week from Chicago's Millennium Park - Downtown Sound gig, and we have the video. Check out ""Ask Snarky Puppy Anything"" Google Hangout!  and, Follow Snarky Puppy on Twitter:   https://twitter.com/realsnarkypuppy ...
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  • Snarky Puppy returns to Ottawa Jazz Festival. Q&A with Michael League / Ottawa Citizen
    Posted At: June 22, 2015 12:00 AM

    One of the highlights of last year's Ottawa Jazz Festival was a blistering performance by Snarky Puppy, the Brooklyn-based instrumental fusion collective led by bassist Michael League. By combining jazz with rock, funk, R&B, hip hop and more, the band has connected with an ever-increasing audience. Last year's Grammy win didn't hurt either. League, who formed the ensemble more than a de...
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  • Snarky Puppy & Metropole Orkest / Audiophile Audition
    Posted At: June 16, 2015 12:00 AM

    I had never heard of this group before but it turns out they have released eight CDs before this one, and have another new one (Family Dinner Vol. 2) this year. Snarky Puppy is a Brooklyn-based instrumental fusion band led by electric bassist, composer and producer Michael League. Formed in Denton, Texas in 2004, it is a collective of nearly 40 musicians performing on a variety of instruments. Many of th...
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  • Snarky Puppy plays DC Jazz Festival / Washington Post
    Posted At: June 12, 2015 12:00 AM

    For the past six years, the jazz-fusion collective Snarky Puppy has invited fans inside its studio sessions to observe the recording process. It's an inclusive mindset that's helped the group amass a cult following. Snarky Puppy, which formed in Denton, Texas, in 2004, even recorded its new album, "Sylva," live in front of a 300-person audience over two nights. The band transformed a soundsta...
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  • Snarky Puppy plays San Francisco Jazz Festival / SF Weekly
    Posted At: June 11, 2015 12:00 AM

    As a child growing up in Southern California, Michael League would often travel with his family to visit the redwood forests that hug the coast of Northern California. Now 31 and the leader of the celebrated instrumental jazz fusion group Snarky Puppy, League's composed a new record that takes listeners on the same trip: Sylva. The jazz chart-topping album, a collaboration with Netherlands-b...
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  • 37th annual Playboy Jazz Festival features Snarky Puppy / Los Angeles Times
    Posted At: June 10, 2015 12:00 AM

    Maybe the most unfortunately named act on this (or any other) festival bill Is Snarky Puppy, this 12-piece collective also stands out with a furious commitment to defying musical categories. Last year it stormed the Grammys with a win in the R&B performance category for "Something," a collaboration with Lalah Hathaway, and the group ventured to Europe to record its genre-skipping new album, "Sylva," ...
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  • Snarky Puppy Goes Big with Metropole Orkest on Live Album 'Sylva' / Music Times
    Posted At: June 6, 2015 12:00 AM

    Snarky Puppy, one of the more notable jazz fusion ensembles in the game at the moment, already blends the genre with plenty of rock and punk, so the only way to go on its major label debut (Impulse, under the Universal Music umbrella) Sylva is even wider. The easiest way to do that is to perform a live release with the Metropole Orkest, a Dutch orchestra built with interchangeable rhythm sections-one for...
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  • Snarky Puppy & Metropole Orkest - Sylva / New York Times 'Press Play'
    Posted At: June 2, 2015 12:00 AM

    Press Play is the place where The New York Times debuts noteworthy new music. Every week, we present tracks from an upcoming new album. Listen to them here exclusively.  Bouncing between New York, Texas and everywhere in between, the jazz collective Snarky Puppy has been steadily gaining acclaim over the last decade. They've scaled up for their major label debut, "Sylva," with a little help ...
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  • Snarky Puppy's Michael League interview on WBGO - The Checkout
    Posted At: May 28, 2015 12:00 AM

    Sylva, the Snarky Puppy - Metropole Orkest collaboration is the most challenging, dynamic, unique release in Snarky Puppy's entire catalogue. Bassist Michael League talks with Alex Ariff about the new album. Check it out on WBGO: Newark NJ - THE CHECKOUT....
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  • Snarky Puppy | Metropole Orkest - Sylvia / Stanford Daily review
    Posted At: May 27, 2015 12:00 AM

    They're called Snarky Puppy (I don't know why), and depending on the day they have anywhere from eight to 18 members. It's hard to say what genre they fall under, if any. They won a Grammy for best R&B single of 2014, regularly play international jazz festivals and their compositions bear the fingerprints of a world of influences ranging from Brazilian baião to dubstep to straight-up funk. And...
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  • Snarky Puppy keyboardist Bill Laurance releases Swift / theguardian review
    Posted At: May 22, 2015 12:00 AM

    With last year's Flint, Snarky Puppy's British keyboardist Bill Laurance revealed his parallel life as an imaginative TV and film composer, and used the band's powerful rhythm team of bassist Michael League and drummer Robert "Sput" Searight to reinforce the point. Swift resumes where Flint off, with Laurance further broadening his soundworld of blended classical music, jazz, funk grooves and improv. Voc...
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  • Snarky Puppy | Metropole Orkest - Sylvia / Buffalo News 4 Star review
    Posted At: May 20, 2015 12:00 AM

    Snarky Puppy leader, bassist and principal composer wasn't exactly bummed when his strikingly original jazz-funk-soul-rock ensemble won a Grammy in 2014, but as he makes plain in the liner notes that accompany the new "Sylva," the industry approval statue was not exactly going to quell the creative wanderlust. League dreamed of making an album with an orchestra. While touring behind Snarky's last release...
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  • Snarky Puppy & Metropole Orkest - Live@Normandy's 'Jazz Under the Apple Trees' / France TV - Culturebox
    Posted At: May 8, 2015 12:00 AM

    The Jazz under the Apple Trees festival takes place every year in Coutances Normandy France during Ascension week. Every year features lots of unique experiences, creations, special evenings, headliners, new discoveries, jazz in all its diversity, a few related music forms, a stage for amateur musicians. The very eclectic line-up ranges from "New Orleans" jazz to electronic music. It also includes many s...
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  • Snarky Puppy | Metropole Orkest: Sylva - refined, playful orchestral suite / theguardian
    Posted At: May 8, 2015 12:00 AM

    he New York collective Snarky Puppy have made an album unlike any of their earlier ventures, with Holland's genre-crossing Metropole Orkest. Sylva is a refined and cohesive orchestral suite rather than a collection of quirky groove vehicles, and also the band's first work for a major label. Fans can relax, however: this isn't a mainstream smoothing out out of an inimitably original band's rough...
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  • Snarky Puppy set to play 'Art of Cool Festival' / Durham Herald Sun
    Posted At: April 24, 2015 12:00 AM

    One of the goals of the Art of Cool Festival, and the Art of Cool organization that produces the festival, is to expose more listeners to jazz and related styles. Snarky Puppy, a 13-piece ensemble that will perform on Saturday April 25 during the festival's second year, is arguably a prototype for the festival, and an example of how a younger generation is shaping jazz. "Listeners want to see a band ...
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  • Snarky Puppy | Metropole Orkest - Sylvia / artsdesk.com
    Posted At: April 22, 2015 12:00 AM

    From fulsome, modally inflected string lines ("Sintra") to the funkiest of New Orleans brass grooves ("Atchafalaya"), this first major label album from Grammy-winning, NYC-based collective Snarky Puppy, paired here with Holland's crack Metropole Orkest under their principal conductor Jules Buckley, is a brilliantly arranged and artfully executed tour de force. Penned by Snarky Puppy bassist and b...
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