There are many things that take us away from home, but occasionally we find ourselves reconnecting to our hometowns in ways we never anticipate, with people we haven’t seen in years, in places that we don’t expect. One such example is the story behind snowmonks, a New York City-based “poetry/jazz/classical/fusion ensemble.”
Poet Gil Helmick and pianist Jesse Lynch first met here in the Wyoming Valley through Lynch’s parents. Helmick met him at a Christmas party, and when asked what he thought was common among human beings, Lynch answered, “Carbon.” Helmick adds, “I liked him immediately.”
Helmick operated a business in Wilkes-Barre for 20 years before pursuing his passions of poetry and fiction. Instead of heading off to graduate school after graduating with honors with distinction from California State University in Sonoma, Calif., in 1976, he chose to travel throughout the United States, Canada, South America and Central America, as well as through parts of Europe and Asia. He flew to Paraguay and Brazil in March of 1985 to write fiction, completing two novels, “The Accomplice,” and “Wounded Angels,” and he recently completed a collection of poetry titled “Wounded by Zen.” In September of 2008, Helmick’s poem, “The Evolution of Apocalypse,” was used as text for a jazz opera, performed at the Brooklyn Lyceum. He currently resides near Portland, Maine, and is the master of the lyrical poetic in the snowmonks.
Lynch is a native of Wilkes-Barre who began playing piano at age 3. With his bachelor’s of music in piano performance from the Oberlin Conservatory, he has served as full-time pianist at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park in California and has been a guest artist at the White Barn Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine. He regularly travels to California for seasonal jazz duo performances with Christer Norden. Lynch wanted to be closer to his family, and after his parents moved to Maine, he followed suit and moved north.
Now, ironically, after the long separation between friends, following years on separate paths that lead to many destinations, the two artists found themselves reconnecting in Portland, where they now regularly perform and record with local artists. Helmick explains the visionary epiphany of the snowmonks group.
He writes, “snowmonks evolved from a random idea shared by pianist Jesse Lynch and myself. In November of 2008, Jesse and I spent an afternoon improvising at his piano. We haven’t looked back. Seven months later, Old Port Records offered a recording contract.”
And now, after a long absence from the Wyoming Valley, the two will showcase some work by their ensemble snowmonks at 8 pm on Saturday, May 30 at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church (35 S. Franklin Street, Wilkes-Barre).
Of the group, journalist, Emily Tuttle, writes, “Snowmonks are a tight group that collectively expresses itself with the inseparable blend of voice as instrument and of notes as meaning. They are meant to be heard.” Through the stimulating musical interaction and sharp articulated poetry, snowmonks conjures masterful eruptions of adventurous rhythms and tones as Helmick’s controlled vocal lyrics envelop the listener in soft, soulful illumination. “Gil Helmick’s poetry is powerful, and his delivery deceptively quiet. The snowmonk music swings underneath Helmick’s words,” writes Michael Simmons of the Huffington Post.
With launching blazes from “The Marriage of the Future to the Moment” to the sudden spark of “Proletariat Zen Prayer,” the Wilkes-Barre community will get a fulfilling taste of the snowmonks in NEPA as Jesse and Gil perform with longtime Wilkes-Barre friend and the 2008 F. Lammot Belin Arts Scholarship recipient Ron Sabinsky for a trio performance.
The entire ensemble of snowmonks, consisting of cellist, Wayne Smith (who is known from his work with the Moody Blues and the Spin Doctors) and Mark Tipton, jazz horn master, will return later this year to give the NEPA community the full-flavored experience of snowmonks that is damn-near criminal upon release of their album, “crimes against inhumanity.”
Of the full band of snowmonks, Emily Tuttle writes, “You could read poetry. But would you hear the rhythmic tap of percussive syllables, or the dissonance of conflicting observations, or the meandering of thoughts looking for satori? The poetry of snowmonks emits its truth in the tightly interwoven utterances of voice and instruments. The combination of word and note make ‘crimes against inhumanity’ a unique art form that must have one element to complete the other.”
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