The first rule of MANTRA is “You do not talk about MANTRA.” The second rule is that if you find yourself unable to stop thinking about MANTRA, you talk around it, circle it, cultivate the soil from which it grows. That is how this album begins, not with Karlheinz Stockhausen’s looming monolith, but with John Liberatore’s Sedgeflowers, a choice that feels both mischievous and deeply principled. Pianists Ryan McCullough and Andrew Zhou do not kick down the door. They plant something. And what emerges is an astonishingly inventive and coherent program that understands that radicalism is a spirited little ouroboros
Read moreHappy 87th birthday Philip Glass! Composers who live into their late octogenarian years would be justified in resting on their laurels. Glass, however has returned to playing his earlier piano music, releasing a new recording, Philip Glass Solo (Orange Mountain) of older pieces such as Mad Rush, Metamorphosis, and Truman Sleeps. Below is the video for Opening.
Read moreWilliam Byrd and John Bull The Visionaries of Piano Music Kit Armstrong, piano Deutsche Grammophon CD In The Visionaries of Piano Music, Kit Armstrong plays two of the greatest English keyboard composers active during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I on the modern piano, aiming to show what he calls “a seamless line of development” between this repertory and more recent music written explicitly for the piano. William Byrd (ca. 1540-1623) and John Bull (ca. 1562-1628) wrote for very different instruments from the piano, the harpsichord and its smaller companion the virginal; Christofori developed early versions of
Read moreBernhard Lang Piano Music Wolfram Oettl, piano Kairos Music CD Bernhard Lang (b. 1957) writes in a number of different media, from chamber music to theatre works. His solo piano music is reflective of the composer’s omnivorous interest in various musical styles and his adroit sense of scoring, which allows the piano to have an orchestral impact in the two multi-movement works on his latest Kairos CD. In liner notes for the CD, Lang remarks that he is interested in free improvisation and DJ electronica as well as contemporary concert music. One can hear this in the angular
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American Music Center, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Music Events, New York, Piano, Recitals, Twentieth Century Composer
(This is an expansion of an earlier post for a concert ultimately postponed due to snowstorm Jonas in January) Augustus Arnone performs a double bill of Milton Babbitt’s solo piano works including the complete Time Series, at Spectrum, Sunday March 6, at 12-5 pm (12 and 3:30) This year marks the centenary of the legendary composer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011). To my ears, his extensive body of piano works especially channels his singular charm as a raconteur. Over the decades a number of pianists have championed some of his major piano works, for instance Robert Helps and Robert Miller performing and recording his Partitions
Read morePOSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER! Thanks to Joshua Banks Mailman for this post about Augustus Arnone’s Babbitt recitals. Augustus Arnone performs Milton Babbitt’s Time Series and other solo piano works at Spectrum, Sunday January 24, at 2pm This year marks the centenary of the legendary composer Milton Babbitt (1916-2011). To my ears, his extensive body of piano works especially channels his singular charm as a raconteur. Over the decades a number of pianists have championed some of Babbitt’s major piano works, for instance Robert Helps and Robert Miller performing and recording his Partitions (1957) and Post-Partitions (1966) in early days and much more recently
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