From a weekly jam session among friends in Fall of 2006 to sizzling dance parties, debaucherous rock concerts, and international music festivals in 2009, West Philadelphia Orchestra (WPO) is a band, a celebration, a movement, with a big, loud voice and a well-spring of good news. A brass band (plus a few fiddlers) with musical roots in Eastern Europe, WPO blends jazz, dancehall, and the avant garde to create a home-grown, ecstatic, and powerful sound. The band is an eclectic collective of Philadelphia's finest musicians, each with their unique voice in the ensemble - the fiery sax of Elliott Levin, the earthy voices of Petia Zamfirova and Jack Ohly, percussionist Gregg Mervine's rhythmic delirium, the barbaric yawps belched from Jim Parker's sousaphone, and so on. Through countless performances, the notes and rhythms have been bent and hammered into a new, original sound, a sound that is always in process as WPO revels in the energetic gaps between tradition and innovation, rawness and refinement, order and anarchy.
WPO performs most regularly at parties, concerts, and community events around Philadelphia; their monthly dance party at Tritone Bar has become a local institution. The band has performed at Mexico City's Ollin Kan festival, Ann Arbor's Top of the Park, Michigan's Noreastr Festival, New York's Goldenfest, Maine's Sacred and Profane Festival, and will play at Bethlehem Musikfest and Philly Folk Fest summer 2009. They've played many venues in Philly, including Kimmel Center and Electric Factory (w/ Gogol Bordello NYE 2009). They've also collaborated with several groups, including Camerata Chamber Orchestra, Dr. Dog, and Gemini Wolf. And they've lent their joyous sound to weddings, celebrations, and events of all kinds.
West Philadelphia Orchestra is Gregg Mervine (percussion), Jack Ohly (tapan, bass, vocals), Jim Parker (tuba), Dawn Webster, Adam Hershberger and Patrick Hughes (trumpets), Elliott Levin (sax and flute), Larry Goldfinger (clarinet), Brendan Cooney and Larry Toft (tenor horns), Jacob Mitas (viola), and Petia Zamfirova (accordion and vocals).
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