Acoustic trio takes stage at Mt. Lebanon church
From left are Jay Weaver, Olga Watkins and Subha Das.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Jay Weaver and Olga Watkins perform at NOLA on the Square in Pittsburgh.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Subha Das performs with the Olga Watkins Band at NOLA on the Square in Pittsburgh.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Jay Weaver performs at NOLA on the Square in Pittsburgh.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Olga Watkins leads her band during a NOLA on the Square performance.
Music school is, of course, the optimal place for aspiring musicians, and that certainly was the case for percussionist Subha Das at Duquesne University.
By Harry Funk
Staff writer
hfunk@thealmanac.net
The Olga Watkins Band performs “Bad Dog.”
“What I realized my junior year of college was: Oh, man. How am I going to get a job in this field? What in the world am I going to do?” he said. “The first two years, you don’t think about that.”
And so the Bethel Park native sent résumés to local school districts, hoping to land a summer job even though he hadn’t worked in education before. Richard Minnotte, director of percussion studies for nearby Mt. Lebanon, contacted him and set up an interview.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Olga Watkins performs at NOLA on the Square in Pittsburgh, where her band has a regular gig.
“He was giving me a tour, and I said, ‘Wow! This is a great opportunity. I hope I get this gig,'” Das recalled.
That was in 1998, prior to his senior year at Duquesne. Twenty years later, he still is working for Mt. Lebanon.
Now serving as principal assistant director of Mt. Lebanon’s percussion program, he leads two ensembles and also teaches 30 hours’ worth of private lesson per week. Believe it or not, his workload with the school district once was even more substantial.
“For about 10 years, I was doing a lot of different things. I was young and had a lot of energy, and it was a great experience,” Das said. “But as you get older, you have more responsibilities. There’s family life. And you figure out what you really want to do, and you do it.
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Jay Weaver performs with the Olga Watkins Band.
“It’s a nice balance right now between teaching, directing my own ensembles and my own performing with the various projects I have,” he continued. “At this point, I want to work with artists who have something to say, who are passionate about their craft, and where I share their passion and their love for music.”
One of his projects is playing percussion for the Olga Watkins Band, which he has been doing since the powerhouse blues-jazz-rock vocalist formed the group 15 years ago this month.
“Eighty-five percent of what we’re doing is original, and I’ve been a part of writing all of those songs,” he said. “It’s hard to get bored with that.”
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Harry Funk / The Almanac
Subha Das performs with the Olga Watkins Band.
The band will perform as the Olga Watkins Acoustic Trio at 8 p.m. April 27 at Unitarian Universalist Church of the South Hills, 1240 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon. Guitarist Jay Weaver completes the three-person configuration.
“It’s a pretty basic setup. As much as I love playing the drum set,” Das joked, “it’s nice not to carry all that stuff.”
He also plays in Resonance, a percussion ensemble founded by steel drummer Dan Meunier, and works as a freelance percussionist, including musical theater performances in Pittsburgh.
“You have to keep busy doing different things,” he said. “And I like the diversity.”
For more information about the Olga Watkins Acoustic Trio performance, visit www.sunnyhill.org.
Olga Watkins has been performing in public since before she was 2 years old. She studied classical piano, violin and then voice, and attended Chatham University on a music performance scholarship.
Initially, she pursued a singing career in opera and musical theater. After a 10-year hiatus from music, she began to perform at pickup jazz gigs and then formed her own band when she again started writing songs.
A resident of Pittsburgh’s East End, she works as a director of food service operations for Parkhurst Dining Inc. a Pittsburgh-based division of Eat’n Park Hospitality Group.
Jay Weaver earned his bachelor’s degree in music from Shepherd University and performed in the mid-Atlantic region before moving to Pittsburgh to obtain his master’s in guitar from Duquesne University.
Weaver has continued to work throughout the United States with many acts as a freelance guitarist and sound engineer. He also has extensive teaching experience, with 25 years as a private music instructor and service as assistant director of the Duquesne Guitar and Bass Workshop.
He owns and operates SoundColor Productions, which offers artist development consultation, astate-of-the-art multitrack recording studio and live sound production.
For more information, visit www.olgawatkinsband.com.