About Us
Beautiful Bird was formed in 2003 by Noah Thomas (Giant Sand, Bernadette Seacrest and Her Yes Men, Libre de Grasa, Fasionistas) and Kelly Michaelis. Our musical concept is based on our interest in vocal ensembles. We found that the combination of the trumpet and human voice in improvised music had a certain raw quality to it that we wanted to explore further than was possible in standard jazz ensembles. We bring to the project a lifelong participation in music including experience in theater, small jazz ensembles, orchestral and operatic music, and current genre bending projects under the rubric of indie rock.
We are based in Tucson, Arizona, and have been fortunate to work with many great local musicians, music venues and recording studios that also call this place home. Tucson audiences are true listeners, giving most projects the benefit of a good listen despite their apparent oddity, a receptive attitude that is rare and has inspired us to take our music in new directions.
The current ensamble is organized as a trio with Noah Thomas on trumpet, theremin, piano, samples, pedals and small instruments, Kelly Michaelis on voice and small instruments, and Vicki Brown on viola and pedals. We are fortunate to have Vicki as a collaborator, her depth of sound and range of texture through her playing is phenomenal, please give a listen to her work at www.myspace.com/vickibrown.