Contemporary Classics August 29, 2017 - Piano and Electronics

This show features contemporary music using both piano and electronics – in most cases solo piano with either a separate performer doing the electronic elements or prerecorded electronics.

Jakub Ciupinski  Morning Tale    I. Nocturne      II. Alba      III. Awakening      IV. The Miracle of Being Earnest      Vicky Chow AORTA   New Amsterdam Records

Morning Tale centers around the motion from a placeof darkness to a new beginning. Technically, the piece strives to useelectronics as an extension of the piano’s capabilities rather than a separatemedium by featuring an electronic layer derived from piano sounds, with thespeakers placed inside the instrument to achieve a greater blend with acousticsounds. 

Jacob Sudol  threads unraveling… (2014)    Chen-Hui Jen (piano) and JacobDavid Sudol (live electronics) Live recording at the Miami Beach Urban Studios as part of 2014 ISCMMiami New  Music Miami Festival  downloaded Jacob Sudol website

threads unraveling…is the third in a series of worksfor piano and electronics written for his wife – pianist/composer Chen-Hui Jen.This work involves solo piano with recordings of three Tibetan bells and alarge tam-tam. The piano writing is primarily based on spectral analyses ofthese same Tibetan bells. Sudol describes the work “As a whole the work focusesless on melody, harmony, or even timbre than it does on material and memoryprogressively unravelling and rewriting themselves.”   http://www.jacobsudol.com

John Melby Concerto #2 for Piano and Electronics   fromalbum  John Melby  Concerti   ALBANY RECORDS   This work features pianist WinstonChoi.  This is one of severalconcerti that John Melby has written for solo instrument and computer.  This second concerto for piano and electronicswas written in 2006.

Jacob Cooper Clifton Gates        Vicky Chow AORTA NewAmsterdam Records

Clifton Gates (2011) Written for Timo Andres for 1performer  Piano with Laptop. namedfor the place it was written (Clifton Place, Brooklyn) and the piece it payshomage to (John Adams’s “Phrygian Gates”). “Clifton Gates”employs—among other digital effects—actual audio gates, creating a rhythmicalteration out of sudden shifts in amplitude. The gating effect is especiallyaudible as the work begins, processing music whose tonality and texture arereminiscent of the slow middle section of Adams’s piece.    jacobcoopermusic@gmail.com

INTERVIEW WITH COMPOSER KIRSTEN VOLNESS AND HER WORK “NOCTURNE”  Included below

Jonathan Harvey Tombeau de Messiaen  Philip Mead, piano  Tombeau de Messiaen SARGASSO  

This work is for piano &CD and is a homage to the composer Olivier Messiaen on hearing of his passingback in 1994. The prerecorded portion is composed of piano sounds entirelytuned to harmonic series – twelve of them, one for each class of pitch. The‘tempered’ live piano joins and distorts these series, never entirelybelonging, never entirely separate. Tombeau de Messiaen was written for PhilipMead (who commissioned it with funds provided in part by Eastern Arts).

Mario Davidovsky  Synchronism no. 6 from the album Aequalis: Brody/Davidovsky/Gideon/Steiger/Ung    Fred Bronstein, piano New World Records 

This work is a combination of the new and classic –It starts with a sounded G in the piano mimicked by the electronic track but structurallyit is sonata form with theme, development and recapitulation.

 Chris Cerrone: Hoyt-Schermerhorn     Vicky Chow AORTA NewAmsterdam Records

Chris Cerrone: describes Hoyt-Schermerhorn is a tributeto the New York nightscape. Named after a subway station in Brooklyn where hehave spent many a night waiting for the train.  To him “the piece explores the myriad and contradictoryfeelings that often come to me late at night in my city of choice— nostalgia,anxiety, joy, panic.” chris@christophercerrone.com

Allen Strange: Velocity Study No. 3 “Rip”Keith Kirchoff, piano  Live recording

Allen Strange (1943-2008) was considered the leadingauthority on analog electronic music, and he wrote dozens of pieces for soloinstruments and electronics. Among these works were five compositions each fora different instrument he titled “Velocity Studies”  which were etudes that explored newmethods of integrating live acoustic performance with pre-recorded media. Hisonly work for piano wasVelocity Study No. 3. The DAT tape with the electronicscore was damaged after his death but remastered with some clicks and pops byBrian Belet.  Here the work isperformed live by Keith Kirchoff, piano