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The Songs Of Pink Floyd To Inaugurate New Haven’s College Street Music Hall

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How do you launch a new venue from the ashes of a venerable old one? With epic arena-rock, performed by as many top-shelf musicians as you can fit on a stage. Add lasers and smoke, and shake vigorously.

Pink Floyd tribute the Machine — drummer/founding member Tahrah Cohen, guitarist Ryan Ball, keyboard player Scott Chasolen and bass player/vocalist Adam Minkoff — breaks in New Haven’s College Street Music Hall, which replaces the long-defunct Palace Theater, on Friday, May 1 at 8 p.m. On “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” “Comfortably Numb” and the entire “Dark Side of the Moon” album, they’ll be joined by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, using symphonic arrangements prepared by Maxim Moston (Brooklyn Philharmonic, Antony and the Johnsons) and composer Nico Muhly.

The Machine, formed in Rockland County, N.Y. in the late 1980s, aren’t your standard tribute act; early on, the band wove improvisation, the type that leads outside the boundaries of the source material — into its core fabric. CTNow spoke to Cohen about the random precision needed to play with orchestras and what it means to deviate from the script.

CTNow: How many orchestra shows have you done over the years?

Tahrah Cohen: We’ve probably done at least 10, and we’ve performed with some of the biggest, most prestigious orchestras in the country: Detroit, Atlanta, we just sold out in Alabama. We’ve played with quite a few. I believe we’re in negotiations with Boston Pops as well. It’s a beautiful show.

CTNow: What are some of the preparations?

TC: We had the charts made many years ago. They were arranged by somebody in the band Antony and the Johnsons. I used to be a part of that band many years ago, so I had my friend Maxim Moston do the arrangements. Nico Muhly, another prestigious arranger, helped out with “On the Run.” So they’re pretty beautiful. Those were done a long time ago.

The day of the show is a little chaotic. That’s when we’re rehearsing with the orchestra. They’ve usually received the charts and have had a chance to look at them in advance. Sometimes they’re seeing them for the first time. But those players read music like we read books. It’s a non-issue for them. The only tricky part is the communication with the conductor. I’m the drummer, so I have to cue the conductor a lot in terms of where things speed up and slow down, where things start because of sound effects or clocks ticking or cash registers going off. So I have a lot of communication with the conductor. There’s a lot of eye contact. We do a different configuration than where we usually play in terms of position on the stage. I’m stage left facing stage right so that I can see the whole band and the conductor without turning my head. We’ve got it down.

CTNow: How do orchestral players respond to playing Pink Floyd?

TC: I’m not making this up: when we played in Detroit, [the orchestra players] thought we were Pink Floyd. I’m not kidding. They had no idea. They thought we were Pink Floyd, and some of the members of the orchestra were asking us to sign autographs for their children. But some of the players are very familiar with them because they are younger orchestras. Some have never heard of Pink Floyd. Some don’t care, but they’re appreciative of performing in front of a sold-out audience. Lots of orchestras are struggling throughout the country. Many of them are going bankrupt. So they’re very appreciative of us and that we’ve brought a huge crowd. They’re also very excited about the response from the audience. People usually aren’t jumping out of their seats and yelling at their shows [laughs]. It’s a really wide range. It’s really fun. Sometimes it’s just indifference: people don’t care. They’re doing their job.

CTNow: When the Machine plays on its own, you get to stray from the arrangements and to improvise. This doesn’t strike me as a situation where that happens.

TC: You’re right: it’s absolutely beautiful and structured to be able to do this show, but also something we do and we’re known for is to be improvisational, to stray from the arrangements and take liberties. However, we built in the smallest amount where we can stretch a little bit. There’s a breakdown in “Money” where we do a little soloing, and at the end we’ll do some improvising. We do “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” which is a completely original arrangement — there is no orchestral arrangement for that song — so that in itself is partly an original composition. But of course, [the orchestra players] are following charts, although there’s a little room at the end of it — we’re talking about a minute — where we can improvise. But it gives the audience a sense of, “Ooh, what’s happening here?” You can anticipate that there’s something unplanned happening in the moment. There’s a drop of that built into the show. But for the most part, we’re following the arrangements.

CTNow: What can we expect to hear at the New Haven show?

TC: We open the show with “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” with the orchestra. It’s gorgeous and beautiful and dramatic. Then we do “Set the Controls For the Heart of the Sun” with the orchestra, then two songs without the orchestra in the first set. They just sit there quietly. Then we close the first set with “Comfortably Numb” with the orchestra. It’s a powerhouse. I’ve played that song 2,000 times at least, and it brings tears to my eyes so many times. It’s gorgeous.

CTNow: Tribute bands have evolved over time. It used to be about how close they could get to the sound and emulate the recordings. You were one of the first bands to incorporate your own style of improvisation into Pink Floyd songs.

TC: That’s true. We’ve been doing that since the beginning of the band. It was just something that was natural to us, and Pink Floyd really was kind of improvisational, their early music. They improvised a lot. If you look at “Live at Pompeii,” they’re improvising all the time. So it’s a little bit inherent in the music, and we’ve been doing that since the beginning. It’s something that the band enjoys doing, and it’s something that differentiates us from all the other Pink Floyd tribute bands. You’re going to get a different show and different set lists every time, and even different jams. It keeps people from thinking, “Oh, we’re going to go see a Pink Floyd tribute band. we know what we’re going to hear.” You don’t get that with the Machine. You get a different set and you get improvising. It’s satisfying for the band, and it’s also satisfying for the fans. And luckily, that just sort of happens organically.

THE MACHINE performs at College Street Music Hall in New Haven on Friday, May 1, with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Showtime is 8 p.m.; tickets are $30-$40. Information: collegestreetmusichall.com.