This is a page for hiring Famous October for a private event. For the website, please go to www.famousoctober.com
Here’s why Switzerland’s beloved acoustic duo is perfect for wedding or private events.
Brought together by music from opposite sides of the world, American Sarah Bowman and Swiss Rene Coal Burrell joined forces in music (and later in matrimony) after meeting in 2006 at a small Swiss music venue. Today, the couple is pleased to announce a program designed for weddings and private events. As veteran wedding performers and event organizers, Famous October knows how to make your special day truly unforgettable.
Famous October is the songwriting duo of Sarah Bowman (US) and Rene Burrell (CH). Though both artists are from different hemispheres, it was their individual fervent pursuit of music that brought them together. Since officially becoming the duo Famous October in 2012, Bowman and Burrell have amassed an international following with their tours through Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.S. They perform weekly events, including themed concert series via Pillow Song, annual holiday concerts, and weddings year round. They have recorded and released original music and classic covers for these occasions. As a married couple, the duo has an intimate presence on stage that feels instantly friendly and familiar.
In their first collaborative year, Famous October won a number of prestigious Swiss music awards and was commissioned by Kanton Nidwalden to compose and perform an embodiment of the 300th anniversary of the great “Stans Brandnacht 1713.” Their album “One Day Baby” is full of joyous love songs about life and family. Sarah’s Christmas album “Make Sure the Snow Falls” brings original soon-to-be classics and well-known favorites to the Famous October set.
Offstage, Sarah and Rene organize diverse and exciting events for the ever-expanding Pillow Song community, businesses, private parties, and other organizations. They are an exceptional team with skills in sound engineering, promotion and design, event management, and of course musical performance.
Famous October’s music is best described as folk songs that carry stories over waves of images and emotion. Sarah Bowman performs with her angelic voice over the cello, piano, or guitar as Rene drives the rhythm and harmony with his vintage guitar and smokey vocal sound. Their catalog is diverse and they take requests, so don’t hesitate to share your wishes!
Please contact us today to start planning the music for your very special event.
WEDDINGS
Listen to Famous October original songs here.
Cover song examples to inspire your list:
*We will arrange and perform songs of your choice, too!
Classics: (incomplete list)
Harvest Moon – Neil Young
Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon and Garfunkel
Make You Feel My Love – Bob Dylan
Come Away With Me – Norah Jones
What A Wonderful World – Lois Armstrong
It Takes Two – Marvin Gaye
Crazy Love – Van Morrison
Baby I Love You – Aretha Franklin
At Last – Etta James
Dance Me to the End of Love – Leonard Cohen
A Case of You – Joni Mitchell
I Will Always Love You – Whitney Houston/ Dolly Parton
Love’s in Nedd of Love Today – Stevie Wonder
Modern/Pop: (incomplete list)
All of Me – John Legend
Heartbeats – Jose Gonzales
Together – Raconteurs
Take My Hand – Emily Hackett
Home – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
For Pricing, please contact us at info@pillowsong.com
FAMOUS OCTOBER
INDIE FOLK DUO Switzerland/ USA
Winners of the Werkbeiträge Prize of kantons Nidwalden and Obwalden, CH, and the Verein für Musikschaffende Schweiz selected artists for the prestigious Künstlerbörse in 2014, the indie folk duo Famous October made an impact in their first collaborative year in Switzerland. The American and Swiss pair’s initial tours across the United States, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands caught widespread attention with their touching and imaginative performances. Their album ‘One Day Baby’ is available everywhere.
Sarah Bowman and Rene Burrell are intimately intertwined singer-songwriters, combining vocal harmony with cello and guitar in a way that gives breath to a new acoustically driven, yet versatile sound. Their writing daringly pulls from Americana and modern folk music with underlying classical arrangements. The songs tackle the ‘Schluesselerlebnisse’ (key moments) the two have faced separately and together in the wide scope of their collective paths.
Sarah Bowman is an American-born songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with a legendary voice. She studied cello, piano, and voice, earning degrees in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. During her studies, she was invited to teach cello in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which later became the subject for her solo album ‘Empty Houses’ in 2012. Born and raised in Davenport, IA, she toured the United States and Europe with her twin sister Claire Bowman after arriving in NYC in 2004. The Bowmans compiled 5 albums and performed more than 1,000 concerts internationally.
Rene Coal Burrell stepped on stage at age 16, gaining immediate success and recognition as a rising star in Switzerland, the youngest of the three musical brothers. Early in his career, he was invited to open for Neil Young, ZZ Top, and Amy Winehouse. He then went on to become Switzerland’s most recognized voice of Country Music. He released 5 acclaimed albums, including his own vision ‘The Song Circus’ which brought Switzerland’s biggest talent on stage with Coal and His Band. Today, Rene runs the historic venue Chäslager Stans Kulturhaus, bringing international artists to the heart of Switzerland.
Famous October are two exceptional artists Sarah Bowman and Rene Coal Burrell. Based in Central Switzerland via New York City, they have turned heads from the start with sold-out concerts and a city-commissioned serious work for the 300-year anniversary of the great fire ‘Stans Brandnacht 1713.’ An excerpt of this work appears on their upcoming debut release ‘One Day Baby,’ produced by Todd Sickafoose, and recorded at the Clubhouse Studio in Rhinebeck, NY. The duo performs regularly in Stans and beyond. They have recorded performances of events curated by their beloved Pillow Song. For more information, visit www.pillowsong.com
ABOUT THE ALBUM
Sarah and Rene started singing and writing together to create the venturesome spectrum of song and sound that is their debut album ‘One Day Baby.’ Appropriately named, the debut album’s work began just as the couple found they were expecting their first child in late 2014. This body of work encompasses this most intimate time in life, relayed through the separate and overlapping influences of each songwriter’s musical past. Rene and Sarah’s return to their roots at this time signifies the acuteness of this transition into parenthood.
Sarah elicits the sound of the blues and folk festivals that defined her summers in the Mississippi riverside neighborhood where she grew up. Her writing on this record is noticeably shaped by the 1960s folk revival songs her late mother spun on the record player at home, although she uses her classical background as a cellist and arranger to sew her melodies through a very different cloth. The outcome is revealed in songs that mirror the tug and pull of her current living situation in Switzerland, far from her former homes in New York and the Midwest.
Rene divulges his unique affinity for a handful of great and timeless songwriters through his sweet melodic guitar and gritty tender voice. Figures such as Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, and Jeff Tweedy are strikingly channeled by this native Innerschweizer. Rene grew up at the foot of the alps with an insatiable urge to familiarize himself with the musical culture of the vast United States. One long and solo Greyhound trip was what first brought him face-to-face with the sounds and musicians he had formerly revered from afar.
Together with the artistic vision of producer Todd Sickafoose, Famous October presents ‘One Day Baby,’ a modern folk revival record in which Zentralschweiz meets the Midwest, via every highway in between. ‘One Day Baby’ features an exceptional ensemble of musicians working in the historic Hudson Valley.
The album features Allison Miller (Brandi Carlile, Indigo Girls), Todd Sickafoose (Ani DiFranco, Anais Mitchell), Matthias Kunzli (Regina Spektor, Moby), Jenny Scheinman (Lucinda Williams, Bill Frisell) and Kyle Sanna (Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile).