Music Performance Reviews

Every musical instrument requires an innovator, an experimenter, a virtuoso to explore its potential, exploit the possibilities and take its sound to a new level. For the Dulcimer – an instrument that has been around for 2,500 years – that groundbreaking musician is Joe Venegoni. – Randall Davis, The Creative Service

Venegoni has taken the dulcimer into the realm of fusion and has extended its harmonic possibilities in a manner no less revolutionary than Hendrix did with the guitar. – Piero Scaruffi, Chicago Reader

Venegoni and his five-piece band opened the show with a scintillating, fully-charged jazz set, featuring Venegoni performing principally on hammered dulcimer. Venegoni clearly had a virtuoso mastery of this mallet instrument from antiquity. The band’s performances of Venegoni’s vivid compositions betrayed an unmistakable commitment to them. As the old saw goes: They stole the show. – Paul Harris, Music In Motion

Excellent! Venegoni sees the dulcimer as having sounds unheard. With gusto, imagination, and invention, he brings exciting new music from what resembles a miniature version of the insides of a piano. – The Indianapolis Star

In February we had the privilege of hearing Joseph Venegoni perform on piano, hammered dulcimer and various Appalachian instruments such as the autoharp and mountain dulcimer. A musical tradition that was aurally translated, Mr. Venegoni plays these expressive harmonic instruments with vitality and virtuosity. A captivating feature of this family of instruments is that they allow for this musician to be a complete one-man band. If you missed this concert online, we highly recommend listening to this special performance featuring unique folk instruments in the hands of a master. – Evan Kory, Santa Cruz Foundation for the Performing Arts

[Venegoni is] A remarkably fast, innovative, and technically precise player, whose musicianship is outstanding. – The Oakland Tribune

Recording Reviews

Occurrence

This intense, ranging form of self-expression - pioneered by John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Pharaoh Sanders - frequently is tried but seldom brought off as successfully as it is here; the music is furiously energized without becoming disintegrated. – St. Louis Post Dispatch

…a seamless blend that shimmers and ripples like a mountain stream. – St. Louis Journal

Diverse… Sometimes blazing! – The Riverfront Times

Open Road

To anyone who is a fan of Pat Metheny, Bela Fleck, or Chick Corea , Venegoni's work is a must. A musician's musician, Venegoni is a master at one of the world's oldest instruments, the dulcimer. – NY Village Voice

This is jazz of a different color. It is easy to find sax players - David Sandborn and Wayne Shorter rank among the best - and guitarists like Mike Stern and Al Di Meola. But I defy you to find someone who bases all his work around the dulcimer. Joe Venegoni is nothing if not original. –The San Francisco Chronicle

Open Road is one of the Top 10 Albums of the Year. The performance is tight, imaginative, and skillful. There is always something unexpected or arresting to savor. – Bay Area Music Magazine

Critical Path

Critical Path’s ten instrumentals weave Venegoni’s beguiling hammer dulcimer with rich layers of classical and electric guitar by Weingarten.– Spotlight

An incredible sound, unlike anything we have heard before. – CD Review

There is a trance quality to some of these compositions, but there are also squeals and roars, along with assorted percussion flourishes that help to build in musical tension and even humor. –St. Louis Post Dispatch

Where Rivers Meet

Describing the music on Venegoni's recordings, or in one of Venegoni’s live performances, one tends to revert to “motion” words such as “propulsion” and “momentum” and “flow.” Venegoni’s compositions might convey the feeling of a purposeful departure, and the gathering momentum of an eventful journey, with fleeting, lyrical reflections along the wayside. This sense of motion in his music no doubt makes a forceful play upon the imaginations of his audience. – The Riverfront Times

Where Rivers Meet is the title of Venegoni’s new album.  The disc takes much of its thematic force from the riverine landscape of the Mississippi Valley, where the Father of Waters meets in confluence with the Missouri and the Illinois rivers.  For this recording he has teamed with his jazz quartet, musicians who have performed together for over the past 25 years, adding a few select guest artists to the mix.  As Venegoni states, “My first album received reviews comparing the music to John Coltrane, Pharaoh Sanders and Eric Dolphy.  Where do you go from there?  The performers who made up that group were greatly responsible for the success of that music.  I am truly blessed to be continuously bolstered by such great artists that contribute so much.  It’s what makes this music the triumph that it is. ” – Paul Harris, Music In Motion

Music for Dance Reviews

Sue Li-Jue's "Facing East". This introspective trio, Sue Li-Jue, Vivien Dai and Aileen Kim, presents a study of intergenerational solidarity in the Asian community. The work deploys props (baskets from which the dancers scoop handsful of rice and scatter it in patterns) and an arresting original score by Joe Venegoni. – Allen Ulrich, San Francisco Examiner

This year's "Izzy" Awards, (the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards), which recognizes contributions to the annual dance season, were given out during a ceremony at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Wayne Hazzard, (spokesperson for this year's National Dance Week), presented the Izzy for Best Ensemble Performance to dance artist, Robert Moses, percussionist, Joe Venegoni, and cellist, Dan Reiter for their Untitled Solo #4. – Dance Magazine

Robert Moses is a remarkable dancer and a truly multilingual one, and his choreography is similarly varied and fluent. We can look forward to three new works: a duet in silence for the choreographer and Tianne Frias; a quartet to John Lee Hooker and Howlin' Wolf; and a solo to music by San Francisco’s own Joe Venegoni. – SFGATE

The haunting score, by San Francisco composer Joe Venegoni, manages to evoke country rhythms yet stay sophisticated, whether relying on percussion, saxophone or folk stringed instruments. (Unheard Voices) – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On a dance floor situated in the cavernous ODC Performing Arts Center, two dozen or so of the San Francisco Bay Area’s elite modern dancers take motion, as a staccato burst of percussion sounds issues from a corner of the room. The percussionist is noted San Francisco musician, composer, and impresario Joe Venegoni. Playing an array of instruments, both conventional and exotic—djembe, kalimba, cymbals, piano, dulcimer—Venegoni keenly tunes in to the almost-intoxicating swirl of physical, emotional, and dramatic forces undulating before him. Emphatically, he accents and ornaments the dance, enticing and challenging the dancers.

The time-honored title for this role is “accompanist.” However, the confident momentum of the dancers makes it clear that Venegoni is not so much “accompanying,” as he is creating an acoustic canvas upon which the choreographer and dancers freely paint: a volatile, evolving acoustic space. As this dramatic interface of music and motion gathers force, the dancers and the musician form a feedback loop. The music drives the motion driving the music, driving the motion… – Excerpt from, Music in Motion, feature article by Paul A. Harris.