Sufjan Stevens – Reflections Timo Andres, Conor Hanick, piano Asthmatic Kitty Reflections is a studio version of Sufjan Steven’s sixth collaboration with choreographer Justin Peck. Over the course of his career, Stevens has explored a number of genres: indie rock, electronica, and folk music. His work as a concert music composer shows considerable facility, with idiomatic, indeed virtuosic, writing for piano duo. The opening track, “Ekstasis” begins the ballet with emphatic, thickly voiced chords and glissandos, followed by brilliant passagework and a briefly inserted swinging melody. Pianists Timo Andres and Conor Hanick are perfect for the challenges posed
Read moreFrederic Rzewski Late Piano Works Bobby Mitchell, piano Naxos Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021) was a gifted composer and pianist. His oeuvre included pieces in many genres, but it is his piano works that, to date, are best known. Rzewski premiered a number of pieces, but in his later years deputized pianist Bobby Mitchell, dedicating works to him and trusting his talent to be sufficient for their often virtuosic and complex interpretive demands. Rzewski’s pieces combine modernism and vernacular styles, particularly leftist folk songs, often in sets of multifaceted variations. War Songs (2008) includes songs that are both pro and
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Chamber Music, Composers, Contemporary Classical, Events, Interviews, New York, Piano, Premieres, Recitals, viola, Violin
On May 31, 2023, four long-time champions of contemporary chamber music – violinist Curtis Macomber, violist Lois Martin, cellist Chris Gross, and pianist Christopher Oldfather – perform Hayes Biggs’ works in a composer portrait at Merkin Hall in New York City.
Read moreSufjan Stevens is an indie rock luminary who, throughout his career, has explored a number of styles. His first contemporary classical release, Reflections will be released on Asthmatic Kitty on May 19th. The music is for piano duo and performed by Time Andres and Conor Hanick. This meeting of stalwart musicians crosses the boundaries of pop and post-minimalism to create music that is carefully crafted, well-paced, and has a strong sense of drama. Below is the recording’s lead off single, “Ekstasis,” both in a visualizer and a live performance.
Read moreTiny Thunder is a new CD of graceful piano music by Nicholas Chase, released February 10, 2023 by Cold Blue Music. This album includes two new works performed by pianist Bryan Pezzone. The press release for Tiny Thunder states that: “Held in motion by their internal logic, these pieces drift and weave through alluring, often serene musical landscapes.” Nicholas Chase has enjoyed a long career as a composer and performer. He has appeared in a number of concert festivals in Europe and the US. Chase has participated in the Whitney Biennial in New York and was an inaugural Composer Fellow
Read moreWhen the pianist Adam Tendler received a windfall of cash a few years ago, he chose not to blow it on such ephemeral items as rent and groceries. Instead, he commissioned 16 composers to write short works, and assembled those into a program called Inheritances which he performed at The 92 nd Street Y, New York on Saturday in the collection’s New York premiere. Inheritances is deeply personal for Tendler: the money was an unanticipated bequest from his father, whose death itself was unexpected. Nearly all of the music was tender and gentle; an impression that was formed from both
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CD Review, File Under?, jazz, Piano, Pop
Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles Brad Mehldau Nonesuch Records Pianist Brad Mehldau is a chameleon-like figure, able to play music in many styles and a creative composer. He excels at finding new standards, recent pop songs that benefit from jazz treatment. The Beatles’s songbook is among the most durable in the pop canon, having endured numerous revisionings, some inspired and, sadly, some insipid. Your Mother Should Know: Brad Mehldau Plays the Beatles is strongly inspired. A live recording that consists of ten Beatles songs and a David Bowie encore (“Life on Mars”), the
Read moreBeethoven Piano Sonatas, Opp. 101 & 106 Maurizio Pollini Deutsche Grammophon Maurizio Pollini turned eighty during the recording sessions for this CD in 2021 and 2022. The great pianist spent forty years doing his first recording of all thirty-two piano sonatas by Beethoven. He returned to the last three during the anniversary year of 2020. Now, Pollini has decided to document two of the late sonatas again for Deutsche Grammophon. Redundant? Hardly. These renditions are distinctive, demonstrating Pollini’s assured technique and interpretive powers in recrafting these sonatas, which he has played for so many years. Generally here, Pollini
Read moreBenjamin Lackner Last Decade Benjamin Lackner, piano; Mathias Eick, trumpet; Jérôme Regard, bass; Manu Katche, drums ECM Records Pianist Benjamin Lackner makes his ECM debut with Last Decade. Joined by a stalwart group of collaborators, many of them ECM alumni who have appeared on many of the label’s releases, Lackner is in an ideal situation to present his compositions, as well as one by bassist Jérôme Regard. A few of the constraints the pianist placed on himself, no electronics, a staple of his previous recordings, and the addition of trumpeter Mathias Eick to his usual piano trio format, have
Read moreOn October 28, 2022, Greyfade released Filters, a debut album of solo piano music by Phillip Golub. Based in New York, Golub has been performing for decades in both classical and improvisational settings. In Filters he explores the intersection of musical repetition and improvisation. The album consists of four piano ‘loops’, each about 8 minutes long. Each loop is a series of repeating phrases that maximize expression by the performer while severely limiting harmonic and rhythmic changes. Careful listening allows discernment of the unique contributions of the performer without distraction. As Golub writes: “When we know the repetition is not
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