Looks like we may be calling our show “Murder Ballads and Love Songs for Violin, Cello and Voice.” Emil and I will have our first rehearsal next Monday night. I’ll probably make a flyer some time this week.

I’ll be recording cello tracks on Moss Mountain Project’s new CD some time this Summer. I’m not sure when this CD is coming out, but it’s looking like this Fall. Check out their first CD here. The second will be just as good.

Just started my site back up. I had sort of put my guitars and cello away ever since I started my new job last year, but I can no longer restrain myself. I’ve booked a show at The Burren in nearby Davis Square with Emil, and I’ve fired up a brand new site called fingerpickingood.org….and of course I have this site back up. The show at the Burren will have a murder ballads theme (as usual) using cello and violin. It will sound like my CD, “Murder Ballads and Love Songs for Cello and Voice.” And as for fingerpickingood.org, I’m hoping to try and turn it into a community site for fingerpicking guitarists and any other instruments that are fingerpickable (cello). I have it up right now as a Wordpress site but I quickly realized Wordpress won’t give me the flexibility I need to really make the site social, with cool stuff for subscribed members to do. My general idea is a digg-like Youtube, where people can vote on each others’ videos and watch their videos go up and down the charts. I’ll most probably use Django or Rails rather than Wordpress/PHP.

My CD, “Murder Ballads and Love Songs for Cello and Voice,” is finally printed and I have a couple of boxes full of them. It is a half-length CD (EP), and I think what I’ll do is gradually sell them for $5 online and at shows. I’ll post again when I have them available on Itunes, Amazon, and any of the other channels. For now if anyone wants one just email me at josiah.altschuler@gmail.com and I’ll mail it to you.

I’ll be uploading more to the “Art+Design” page today. There should be quite a few drawings, flyers and paintings up by the end of the day. Let me know what you think.

Here’s the cover sleeve artwork I did in Photoshop for my new CD, “Murder Ballads and Love Songs for Cello and Voice.” The CD is being manufactured at Oasis CD Manufacturing as I write this, and I’ll keep you posted when I have them in my hand in mid-August. I’ll make it available via Amazon, Itunes, etc.

I’d love to do more CD artwork, but I fear CDs may be obsolete by the time I’m ready to record another one. If anyone wants me to do theirs let me know.

Here’s a painting I made a while back that was inspired by some Picasso work I was looking at in a book or something. I later used a photo of it in photoshop to make a flyer for one of my shows.

I’ve changed this site around quite a bit lately, moving it away from just a place for my music, but also something I can use to show some artwork and web design stuff. I’ll be putting more and more of my drawings, paintings and graphic design work on the new Artwork+Design page. The first thing to go up is this drawing I did a while back. I called it “A Lame Orphan.” I don’t know why. I think it’s a self-portrait:

This is a beautiful, yet simple classical guitar piece. I tabbed it out in Guitar Pro 5, and you can find the .gp5 and .pdf files on my Tab/Sheet page. Below is a video so you can hear what it sounds like.

Big show coming up on June 26th, at Cafe St. Petersburg, Newton Center, MA. This will be one my first with “The Altschuler-Caplan Ensemble.” This is a new venture with my brother, Emil, and classical guitarist, Aaron Larget-Caplan. Below is a description and flyer. Also, if you are a Newton resident, we will be mentioned on the NewTV channel tonight at 6:30, and next week (25th) they’ll show the full interview plus footage of us playing some of our Libertango arrangement.

Hope you can make it to this show:

The Altschuler-Caplan Ensemble and Talent, the Agency present an evening concert of virtuosic dances & love songs in an exciting program entitled “Summertime” on Thursday June 26th, at 8pm, at Cafe St. Petersburg.

Admission is $15. Reservations are preferred. Call 617-467-3555 or 617-467-3133.