Business

Local Business and COVID-19: New Canaan Music

By |

What follows are responses from town resident Phil Williams, owner of New Canaan Music on Main Street, to our Q&A on how the local business is navigating the COVID-19 emergency here. New Canaanite: What has the past week been like for you and New Canaan Music? Phil Williams: This is a very trying time and like many local merchants, we are feeling the hardship of the situation. We have been doing everything we can to keep life as close to normal as possible but this is an unprecedented crisis. A lot of what we are going through right now is new to everyone. The health and well-being of our families, employees, customers, and the community is what is most important to us. We are also mindful of our moral obligation to help out our instructors. Our instructors are all pro musicians and with no public gatherings, their gigs have all been cancelled and therefore incomes have been cut significantly. We are hoping to help keep them working and get through this while providing a safe environment for our students to continue their lessons.

New Canaan Music

Summer Theatre of New Canaan Presents: Nick Depuy & The Big Fly

By |

The Summer Theatre of New Canaan announced today that Nick Depuy and The Big Fly are performing at Summer Theatre’s downtown New Canaan tent-theatre on Sunday, July 21st. The concert will be free, and any donations collected online or at the door will support the Summer Theatre’s education programs. Webster Bank is the sponsor of the free event. Singer-songwriter Nick Depuy, born and raised in New Canaan, has been compared to musical greats James Taylor, Dave Matthews, John Mayer, and Leonard Cohen. He has opened for Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb, Neil Finn of Crowded House, the Voice’s first-year winner Javier Colon, jazz-trumpet player Kermit Ruffins, and art-rock legend Procol Harum. Together with his band The Big Fly, the group delivers an inventive Americana soundscape that appeals across the music spectrum to fans of rock, pop, folk, and hip-hop.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

By |

The New Canaan Building Department on Tuesday received an after-the-fact application from the owner of 1541 Oenoke Ridge Road who had completed an estimated $150,000 kitchen remodel without obtaining a permit. The work included installation of new cabinets, countertops and appliances, moving a sink, running a propane line and reconfiguring lighting. ***

New Canaan Police at 11:26 p.m. Monday cited a 20-year-old Norwalk man for possession of less than .5 ounces of marijuana after stopping him on East Avenue for driving with a defective brake light. ***

New Canaan High School graduate Curt Casali went 3-for-4 Thursday for the Cincinnati Reds in the team’s 5-0 win over Miami. In 16 at-bats this season, New Canaan’s first MLB player is hitting .375 with an OPS of .938.

Around Town

Touched by Tragedy, Local Band Creates Music Event Benefitting ‘Sandy Hook Promise’

By |

New Canaan resident Sloan Alexander will never forget the morning his daughter entered his bedroom a few days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, telling him and his wife, Sara Bakker, that she feared getting shot. “We were both just very taken aback,” he recalled on a recent afternoon. “She knew what was going on and she knew what had happened. That moment has always struck me. I start to tear up when I think about it.”

Since that morning in December 2012, Alexander has seen his children come up through local schools practicing lockdown drills that he never had to, and has searched for ways to support an organization to which he feels profoundly connected, Sandy Hook Promise.

Around Town

New Canaan High School Graduate Patents ‘Gigbox’ Percussion Instrument 

By |

The idea for the musical invention he recently patented came Mark Pires in 2011. 

The New Canaan High School graduate had recently retired from touring as an actor and singer-songwriter and obtained his real estate license in order to support his new and growing family. 

Yet Pires continued to nurture his talent and love of music during monthly acoustic gigs at the Georgetown Saloon in Redding. One night when his drummer was unable to make the show, Pires—energetic son of a builder—decided he would make his own box drum or “cajón” so that he’d have live percussion superior to slapping his guitar or using a beatbox. A one-man-band, Pires quickly realized that the traditional Peruvian cajón didn’t suit him because its boxy shape made it awkward to tap underneath him while he played. “I realized then, what if I built something that came through my legs like a horse and its wider at the back and more narrow at the front?” Pires recalled on a recent morning from the retail floor of New Canaan Music on Main Street. “The first one I built in a couple of hours and that night I realized it didn’t work, so then I went and built another the next day.