Pianist Hauschka moves closer to the motoric environs of minimalism and even house music on his latest release, Salon des Amateurs (FatCat).
HAUSCHKA ON TOUR
April 17 – San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
April 19 – Portland, OR @ Holocene
April 20 – Seattle, WA @ Triple Door
April 21 – Vancouver, BC @ Media Club
April 23 – New York, NY @ Joe’s Pub
April 24 – Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe
April 26 – Chicago, IL @ Schuba’s
April 28 – Toronto, ON @ Music Gallery
April 29 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Kuumbwa Jazz
May 1 – Los Angeles, CA @ Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Indie songwriter/violinist Owen Pallett is an excellent example of an artist who blends pop and classical styles. Judging by his record sales, Pallett, at least initially, came at things starting from the pop vantage point. But his career is increasingly intersecting with venues and artists from the classical side of the ledger. For instance, his music was recently featured on the Ecstatic Music Series at Merkin Concert Hall, a festival that celebrated crossover and dialogue between indie and post-classical concert music.
This spring, he’s touring in support of his 2010 CD Heartland (Domino), his first recording with full orchestra (dates below). Among the performances are a full orchestral presentation of Heartland at the Barbican (London), a special performance at the String Theory Music Festival featuring Nat Baldwin of Dirty Projectors (Minneapolis), and a performance at the MusicNow Festival (Cincinnati).
He’s also released a video for album track “The Great Elsewhere,” directed by Yuula Benivolski and Geoffrey Pugen.
TOUR DATES
15th April, USA, Minneapolis, History Theatre (String Theory Music Festival)
20th April, GERMANY, Erlangen, Markgrafentheater
21st April, GERMANY, Berlin, Berghain (Friction Festival)
23rd April, POLAND, Gdansk, Centrum Stocznia Gdanska
25th April, SWITZERLAND, St. Gallen, Palace
26th April, SWITZERLAND, Fribourg, Fri-son
28th April, AUSTRIA, Krems, Halle 1 (Donau Festival)
30th April, DENMARK, Aarhus, Voxhall (Pop Revo Festival)
1st May, MALTA, Hamrun, Gejtau Band Club
4th May, SPAIN, Barcelona, Bikini
8th May, UK, London, Barbican Hall (Reverberations: The Influence of Steve Reich)
14th May, USA, Cincinnati, Memorial Hall (MusicNOW Festival)
In the current economy – particularly in the recording industry – expediency can sometimes trump artistry. All too often, classical artists with a recent CD release can’t afford to worry too much about the curatorial vision of a concert series on which they appear: they’ve got to make their album’s program fit somehow in order to promote the product. Happily, there are times when an artist’s work and a venue’s vision come together seamlessly.
The Rubin Museum’sResonating Light music series continues tonight with a concert by cellist Maya Beiser. Her recording Provenance, released last year on Innova, explored music from disparate faith traditions, reflecting cultures that coexisted during the Middle Ages on the Iberian Peninsula.
Her program tonight takes a similar approach, bringing together music inspired by different religious traditions. But rather than just featuring music from Provenance in a “close enough” curatorial approach, Beiser studied the artworks in a recent exhibit at the Rubin entitled Embodying the Holy.
In response to the pieces on display, Bhe has programmed together works reflective of Orthodox Christianity (Arvo Pärt’s Fratres and John Tavener’s Lament To Phaedra) as well as Tibetan Buddism and other Easter philosophies (Even Ziporyn’s Kabya Maya and Douglas Cuomo’s Only Breath). Beiser’s arrangement of Max Bruch’s Kol Nidre represents Judaism. Rounding things out, Beiser is joined by accordionist Guy Klucevsek for Sofia Gubaidulina’s In Croce, arranged for cello and bajan.
On March 10, Alarm Will Sound is presenting their concept concert “1969″ at Carnegie Hall (details here). AWS director Alan Pierson talks about the underpinnings of this imaginative programming idea in the video below.
Galactic Diamonds
Steve Hudson Chamber Ensemble
Groovaholic Music CD
New York based composer and pianist Steve Hudson performs his compositions with several groups. He’s currently working in a quartet setting with violinist Zack Brock, singing cellist Jody Redhage, and percussionist Martin Urbach. The group just released their debut CD and will be touring in Europe in March 2011.
All of the members of the Steve Hudson Chamber Ensemble are skilled genre benders and genre blenders, able to adroitly move between styles such as jazz, tango, and avant classical – and many points in between. “Tune with Tango” (video below) is a signature example of their simpatico sense of ensemble and deftly phrased, gently articulated, yet still zesty sense of rhythm.
A more eclectic offering is the title tune, which moves from fusion tinged modern jazz to a lushly harmonized neoromantic coda. There are tender stretches too, like the ballad “Song for John Lennon.” It’s one of Hudson’s most affecting solo turns; he combines impressionist post-bop chord voicings with wistful waltzing.
Galactic Diamonds is indeed a versatile outing; and by no means does it only showcase its leader. Brock lends a bluegrass fiddle’s inflections and gentle swing to “Keep it Simple.” Redhage crafts a cantabile, double-stop laden solo on “Moving On” and doubles her cello line with supple vocalise on “PG.” Urbach never swamps the acoustic instruments, but still makes his presence felt in fulsome grooves, as on the effusively syncopated “Speak Out.”
Meanwhile, Hudson doesn’t restrict himself to just playing piano. He plays cafe jazz solos on melodica on the lilting “Para.” On “Funky Hobbit,” he tears it up on a Fender Rhodes electric piano, moving the ensemble closer to ‘out improv.’ Both Brock and Redhage are encouraged to shred a bit in response to Hudson’s enthusiastic acid jazz riffing.
Whether pushing the envelope with energetic improvisatory exertions or crafting more gradually developing essays, the Steve Hudson Ensemble is consistently engaging. Galactic Diamonds is a thoroughly enjoyable recording.
On Foreign Landscapes, his latest Fat Cat recording, composer and pianist Volker Bertelmann has retained a penchant for prepared piano, complete with ping pong balls (see video below)! But he’s also widened his palette to encompass other instruments. Nine of the release’s twelve pieces feature a dozen additional musicians: members of the San Francisco-based Magik*Magik Orchestra. The group’s strings and winds lend greater depth to Hauschka’s sound world, often imparting a sense of cinematic sweep to the proceedings. The language of much of the material here is inspired by post-minimalism, and the motoric ostinati that populate pieces such as “Madeira” and “Union Square” are certainly abetted by the varieties of timbres and energetic performances contributed by the Magik*Magik players.
On one of the recording’s most striking ensemble works, “Kamogawa,” both arcing melodies and repeated oscillations are brought together in a particularly fetching arrangement. Led by a sepulchral ground played by the bass clarinet and accompanying figures played by pizzicato strings, the ensemble crackles with rhythmic vitality, building an engaging essay out of myriad interlocking repeated figures.
Elsewhere, as on “Mount Hood,” Hauschka opts to place his piano front and center, combining a harmonic language of considerable lyricism with the percussive interjections of the instrument’s prepared strings. It is a delicious juxtaposition – sometimes reminiscent of Cageian experiments and at others of a well-worn saloon piano pressed into service to play a 19th century salon piece. The resulting ambience allows for an exploration of Romanticism – but with a deconstructive sensibility and detachment that denudes the music of any overly sentimental residue.
Whether he’s performing solo or abetted by collaborators, Hauschka continues to grow as a composer. Foreign Landscapes is a significant step forward for an already compelling musical artist.
Swanlights, Antony Hegarty’s fourth Secretly Canadian LP, is his most musically adventurous recording to date. That said, he doesn’t lose sight of any of the focal points of his previous releases. Antony and the Johnsons still craft music that has one foot in the pop singer-songwriter domain (“The Spirit Was Gone”) and the other in a wondrous kingdom devoted to the post-folk aesthetic (“Everything is New”).
But there are forays into still more adventurous terrain here. His duet with Björk on “Fletta” could seem, at first blush, like an overt attempt to add some star power to proceedings. But it’s hardly a marketing ploy. Placed on the back half of the album, it serves as a meeting place for two famously stylized vocalists: a high wire prospect to say the least. But Antony and Björk, while remaining distinct entities on the track (how could they not?), come together as a felicitous pairing, singing dovetailed phrases and stacked harmonies that are both effusive and elegant. Correspondingly, the piano-only arrangement channels a bit of the character of Vespertine’s post-classical ambience.
Elsewhere, Hegarty and company explore other classical reference points too. “Ghost” is rife with minimal piano ostinatos and awash with string section underpinnings, all buoying a sumptuously soaring vocal. The chamber orchestra returns for “Salt Silver Oxygen,” creating a pastoral ambience that accompanies Antony’s elfin double-tracked vocals.
But Swanlights isn’t all longhair charts for strings. On the single-worthy “Thank you for Your Love,” Antony is backed up by a horn section, supply singing a modern day version of blue-eyed soul. If the song presents itself as a comfortable echo of Antony’s previous work, it’s a most welcome reminder of his uncanny ability to thoroughly inhabit a warmly embracing hook with affecting earnestness. That quality is most welcome in the often jaded terrain of today’s indie pop.
Antony and the Johnsons appear live on 10/30 in New York City at Alice Tully Hall
I’m looking forward to interviewing Ryuichi Sakamoto on Wednesday for Signal to Noise Magazine. His latest US release is a double CD featuring two albums: Playing the Piano and Out of Noise. The former is a collection of “self-covers,” featuring Sakamoto revising some of his most famous earlier pieces, many of them from film scores, for solo piano. The process of distillation and refinement has resulted in fascinating and fresh-sounding performances.
Out of Noise on the other hand, is a collection of a dozen new pieces. Here, Sakamoto explores an atmospheric and multi-hued sound palette, and enlists a host of noteworthy collaborators: among them Keigo Ayomada, Karen Filskov, Fretwork, Christian Fennesz, and Skúli Sverrisson.
Thus, the interview occurs at a timely crossroads, and will be a chance to ask Sakamoto about a broad range of music, from his earliest compositions to his current creative process. It will appear in the Winter issue.
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