Tickets to Tift's collaboration with Simone Dinnerstein, "Night," to premiere as part of the Duke Performances series at Duke University, January 21-22, 2010, are now on sale.  See the Duke Performances web site: 

dukeperformances.duke.edu/series/travelers/merrittdinnerstein

The duo will perform in Tallahassee, Florida, as well.

This preview of the Tift Merritt/Simone Dinnerstein performance in San Francisco offers more information:

Night features a set of new songs written especially for the duo by artists including Brad Mehldau, Patty Griffin, and Philip Lasser. Jenny Scheinman, whose previous collaborators include Bill Frissell, David Byrne and Madeleine Peyroux, has contributed arrangements of some of Tift’s and Simone’s favorite songs. Both artists will perform solo as well – Tift in her own songs, and Simone in some of her favorite selections from the solo classical piano repertoire.

Here's the official press release from Forrest's employer:

DURHAM, N.C. -- Singer/songwriter Tift Merritt and classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein will present the world premiere of their collaborative work "Night" Friday, Jan. 21, and Saturday, Jan. 22, in Reynolds Industries Theater in Duke University's Bryan Center.

Tickets for the 8 p.m. concerts, presented by Duke Performances, are $38 and $32, and $5 for Duke students, and are available through the Duke Box Office at 684-4444 or www.dukeperformances.org.

"Night" features a set of new songs written especially for the duo by artists including Brad Mehldau, Patty Griffin and Philip Lasser. Jenny Scheinman also has contributed arrangements of some of Merritt and Dinnerstein's favorite songs. Both artists will perform solo as well -- Tift with her own songs, and Simone with some of her favorite selections from the classical piano repertoire.

The collaboration was co-commissioned by Duke Performances as a result of long-standing relationships between the organization and the artists.

Prior to the concerts, Merritt and Dinnerstein will be in residence at Duke, participating in public conversations, a listening session, and offering master classes in their respective specialties. Full and up-to-date information on residency activities is available at www.dukeperformances.org.

The News & Observer offers a fascinating article on the Merritt/Dinnerstein collaboration:

Learning folk rock and reworking classics didn't come easily to the pianist. "I've been reading a chord chart and trying to improvise, and that's something that I've never done before," she said.

Merritt would ask, "How do you feel this should go?" and Dinnerstein would riff on a theme she had been playing for years. "It was really exciting to see her say, 'I don't like how that goes' and cross something out, or even throw the music out," Merritt said, laughing.

The guitarist recalled one particularly stressful moment when Dinnerstein was struggling to improvise and playing more notes than necessary.

"Finally, I told her, 'Don't think about anything except the two and the four and maybe a little bit about sex, and you'll have it,'" Merritt said.

Not exactly the dialogue you'd expect to hear.

The Durham Herald-Sun offers its preview today:

Rehearsing for this premier has presented challenges and rewards, both artists said. "What is new is that a lot of this music is starting on a page, and I've never in my musical life worked that way," Merritt said. "My challenge with all this was to speak Simone's language technically and proficiently. I do not speak the language of music theory, and Simone is the most nuanced speakers of music theory," Merritt said.

For Dinnerstein, being handed a chord chart and improvising melodies based on the chords has been a challenge, she said. "I think we both have very different styles of learning music," Dinnerstein said. At the same time, both musicians are very detailed in terms of what they want musically, and "have a similar work ethic," she said.

During rehearsals and sessions with the composers, Merritt and Dinnerstein have been able to work through those differences in approach. "We've been trying to find a place where our two ways of interpreting music meet, and where neither one of us feels compromised, or inauthentic to our musicianship," Dinnerstein said. "We've tried many things in different ways until it feels right."

Log on to the Durham paper's home page this morning, and this is what you'll see:

A good time was had by all at the listening session. Forrest took some photos. Perhaps you'll even see some of Tift's "studious" look.

The last song of the evening was Judy Collins' version of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne." Simone (pronounced sih-MOAN-uh) Dinnerstein shared a funny story about playing a gig with Judy Collins before she knew who Judy Collins was.

Tift explained that she once stalked Judy Collins in a grocery store.

Yes, Forrest, that was great.

Here's the Herald-Sun's coverage of the event.

Both musicians had some humorous give-and-take about their different traditions and approaches to music. "I can't look at a piece of music and play it [perfectly]. I just can't do that," Merritt said. On the other hand, Dinnerstein said she was learning from Merritt. "I've had to improvise the first time in my life," Dinnerstein said , who said Merritt sometimes told her she was "doing too much" musically.

Duke's student newspaper promotes the show as well.

That's pretty nice, considering Tift's a Carolina girl.

The News & Observer covers Tift's writing workshop:

"A really good song is three sentences, maybe four," she continued. "I mean, there are exceptions. There's always Dylan."

Merritt said some ideas just require a longer form, like a short story, rather than a song.

"If I have a feeling that's really complicated, it's not going into three sentences," she said.

Merritt, whose 2004 "Tambourine," was nominated for the country album and album of the year Grammys, said music follows patterns, much like the structures of good writing: setting, plot, characters, etc.

"There's this idea that you just have a drink and it comes out of you," she said. "It's like putting a sentence together. I think melody is a lot like a plotline."

Speaking of photos, you'll find more from Thursday's songwriting workshop here.

Guess who's featured as the top story this morning on the News & Observer's website?

I probably should have taken my camera, just because there were so many camera clicks that mine would not have been distracting, but by the same token I wasn't going to add anything - the N&O photo feature from the songwriting master class pretty much summed it up.

Tift sang a song in progress that was quite beautiful.  There were more than two recording devicesin the room, so this will make a great 96-Proof Bootleg if one can ever be tracked down.  The N&O reporter asked Tift if they could run a snip of the song, and after some hemming and hawing she agreed to allow it.  First time I looked at the N&O on-line this morning there was a link to an MP3 but it didn't play, and next time I looked the MP3 was gone, so I don't know whether it will be available.

What I can tell you about that song was that Tift's voice was exceptionallly full as she sang it.  I don't know if it's the influence of the kind work she's currently doing, and the music she's listening to, in association with Simone Dinnerstein, if it's from all the rehearsing she's doing this week, the acoustics of the room, or just the song itself, but there was a definite elevation to the richness of her voice.

That mp3 link works now at the "related content" section of this page.