When the Toy Piano Is Not a Toy

Here is an album of selections from a live performance of contemporary compositions by Karlheinz Essl performed by classical pianist Víctor Trescolí on toy piano and grand piano and processed by Essl with live-electronics.



The concert was held at New Theatre of the Fine Arts School Alfons Roig at Universitat Politècnica de Valencia. Videos of the performance are on the release page. Below is a work not included in the album.



For more toy piano works, please see the Oddio Overplay article "The Underappreciated Kinderklavier" and associated compilation mix at the Free Music Archive.

Víctor Trescolí | Karlheinz Essl | Audiotalaia Label

Music License: © CC BY-NC-ND
Artist Location: Valencia, Spain and Vienna, Austria

Improvisation from Knyaz Mishkin

The intuitive improvization group Knyaz Mishkin of Belarus has been performing together for more than 22 years. The ever-changing musician lineup is under the direction of the group's founder, guitarist Leanid Narushevich.

The skill of the performers and their improvisational ability to work off of one another is apparent in this collection of three performances, Usialiakaje (1:08:02). offered at the impressive, cutting edge HAZE netlabel.

For more works by the Knyaz Mishkin ensemble, see the HAZE, Clinical Archives, Classwar Karaoke, and suRRism-Phonoethics netlabels, the Free Music Archive, and the Internet Archive.

Official Website | Discogs | FMA | Bandcamp | myspace | ReverbNation | Live Journal

Music License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
Artist Location: Minsk, Belarus

Sylvain Rifflet

Last summer, composer and reed multi-instrumentalist Sylvain Rifflet and his group Alphabet released a remarkable album simply titled Alphabet. The Free Jazz Collective review states that among the bounty of great albums released last year,  there are few "that contain compositions and performances possessing the conviction, immediacy, and joie de vivre of Alphabet."

Sylvain Rifflet shares his album Alphabet with you on his website. Also, preview and purchase the album at Amazon.

Personnel: Sylvain Rifflet - compositions, saxophone, clarinets, computer, toy instruments, electronics; Joce Mienniel - flutes, computer, toy instruments, electronics; Benjamin Flament - vibraphone, percussion, electronics; Philippe Gordiani - guitars.

New group, New Compositions, New Sounds: Sylvain Rifflet Introduces Alphabet
Alphabet is a mix of all his influences, from acoustic to electronic music, from pop-rock to contemporary music, from Tom Waits to Cliff Martinez alongside Steve Reich or Phillip Glass.

The review at All About Jazz reports that the album:

... presents an ensemble using electronics, sound manipulation, minimalism, classical ideals, film score suggestions, trance music—and, yes, jazz—as the "basic elements" that lead to the "complex entities" that are his compositions.

Rifflet's pieces can best be viewed as hypnotic sound collages for quartet. While no two numbers sound the same, Rifflet does revel in the opportunity to create balance between change and consistency throughout.... While it takes a track or two to acclimate to Rifflet's world, it proves to be a wonderful place to visit once the ear has made its adjustment.

Sylvain Rifflet's next album is dedicated to the music of Moondog!

PERPETUAL MOTION: A celebration of Moondog (Teaser)

Official Website | Metisse Music Profile | myspace | Selmer Profile | Vimeo

Music License: © All Rights Reserved
Artist Location: Paris, France

Contemporary Works by Lloyd Rodgers

Contemporary composer Lloyd Rodgers is a remarkable person. He is a critically acclaimed California State University faculty composer, performer, and video installation artist who composes brilliant, cutting-edge, contemporary music. His compositions are so diverse he cannot be pigeonholed. Lloyd Rodgers is also remarkable in that he has released several of his scores and recordings into the public domain.

Among those recordings is a performance of the beautiful chamber piece Trio composed for the Mirecourt Trio. Trio premiered in New York City in October 1975. The recording is a performance of the piece in 1979.

Also among those recordings is The Lloyd Rogers Group album 13. It contains 12 selections from The Black Book, a private collection of 374 compositions and exercises written over the span of a year and notated in ink with no edits. 13 also includes "The Swing" which was composed in 1979 for the Cartesian Reunion Memorial Orchestra (who we love). The album and some collections of the CRMO are now hosted on the FMA.

   

Related, a recording of a composition by member of The Lloyd Rodgers Group: Paul Bailey Ensemble - Principle of Sufficient Irritation

 

Official Website | FMA

Music License: US Public Domain
Artist Location: Fullerton, California, USA

Women's Choral Music: The Goddess Suite

North Carolina's Community Music Project has been promoted by Oddio for years for their international folk music compilation series. Among the other recordings they share is a 1987 performance by the Community Music Project Chorus of the contemporary work The Goddess Suite by composer Cynthia Crossen.  

The Goddess Suite is a choral work for women's voices celebrating the Greek goddesses. Composed in 1986, performed in 1987, and revived in 2010, the performances raised more than $8,000 for women's charities.

Produced by Cynthia R. Crossen. Engineered by Don Mercz of WUNC Radio. Goddess Stories recorded at L.A. Sound Studios Ltd. (Lower Apex, NC); Engineered by Grant Wizard Spry. Cover by Hope Wilder. Re-mastered 2004 by Bob Gaude, Cynthia and Ken Crossen. CDs available from Cynthia Crossen.

Music License: © All Rights Reserved
Artist Location: North Carolina, USA

Klezmer and Classical Reinterpreted by City & Eastern Symphonia

In it's heyday of the late '80s to mid-'90s, City & Eastern Yass Bend was the greatest Klezmer Band in the Netherlands, famous for its weekly concerts in "Het Syndicaat" in The Hague. The group was founded by Marcel Cuypers and Wilma Paalman. It morphed into other groups over the years based on the instruments and performers. All specialized in unorthodox interpretations of classical and folk music. Through their idiosyncratic versions of forgotten classics, City & Eastern Symphonia breathed new life into centuries old music.

The City & Eastern Symphonia album Time Release is a chronological overview of music beginning in antiquity at the time of Confucius and Pythagoras, working through the Middle Ages and classicism, to come to the brink of the twentieth century. It features compositions by Mozart, Mussorgsky, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Satie, among others, focusing on Asian-style pieces, like "Danse Arab" and "Turkish Marches". They also sing Roma and Swedish folk songs.

Performing are Marcel Cuypers, clarinet, piano, vocals; Astrid Rubenowitz, violin; Wilma Paalman, cello, zang; Alain Labrie and Erik Schurman - guitar; Jan den Boer and Peter Wassenaar, contrabass; Rupert Rubenowitz - percussion; and Marcel van der Schot, accordion.

Cupers shares many other recordings on his site, as well. Time Release has long been a favorite at Oddio Headquarters.

Marcel Cuypers | Wilma Paalman

Music License: © All Rights Reserved
Image: Candid photo of some members of City & Eastern Symphonia from website of Wilma Paalman
Artist Location: The Netherlands

Freeway Audio's Zamalek Soundtrack

Several years ago, Oddio shared the news that Test Pressing shared four tracks by Freeway Audio (Jil Christensen, Stephen Levitin). Those tracks bear sharing on Blogio.

Test Pressing writes that Jil Christensen "studied at the New England Conservatory, wrote a piece for the American Symphony Orchestra, scored an opera, plays in a jazz ensemble, lives in North Carolina and makes modern classical music influenced by the likes of John Cage."

The four Freeway Audio tracks Christensen shared are from the Zamalek original soundtrack she produced. The first of which, "Maadi", features vocals from Yazarah, a singer who has worked with artists such as Erykah Badu.

Music License: assume © All Rights Reserved
Image: from original Test Pressing post
Artist Location: Sweden?

Emanuel Salvador Performs Works by Modern and Contemporary Composers

Emanuel Salvador, "one of the finest Portuguese violinists of his generation" per Strad Magazine, has released an album with the incredible cutting edge label XS Records in Portugal. The label is a champion of contemporary classical music and improvisational formats.

Salvador's Selected Performances features exquisite performances of works by modern composers Sir Edward Elgar and Claude Debussy followed by contemporary composer Karl Fiorini.

This album is a genuine treat for modern art music enthusiasts!

Official Blog | SoundCloud | ClassicalConnect | XS Records

Music License: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND
Artist Location: Portugal

Pierrot Lunaire

In 1884, Pierrot Lunaire: Rondels Bergamasques (Moonstruck Pierrot), a collection of 50 poems by symbolist Belgian poet Albert Giraud was published. The protagonist in the poems is Pierrot, that classic sad clown who dates back to the 16th century. Pierrot ached for the love of Columbine who broke his heart when she ran away with Harlequin. He is such a classic that Pierrot is the inspiration for the white-faced pantomimes in theaters and on city streets for more than 500 years.

Many composers have set the Giraud poems of Pierrot to music. However, it was expressionist composer Arnold Schoenberg who created one of the landmark musical masterpieces of the 20th century with 21 of the poems. His Dreimal Sieben Gedichte Aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot Lunaire" (Three Times Seven Poems From Albert Giraud's "Pierrot Lunaire"), more commonly known as Pierrot Lunaire, Opus 21 or Moonstruck Pierrot, premiered in 1912 in Berlin. Schoenberg used a German translation of the poems for his work.

Schoenberg, leader of the Second Viennese School of musical composition is best known as an atonal pioneer, and Pierrot Lunaire is atonal, but this work predates his famous twelve-tone technique of composition.

The narrator in Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, typically a soprano, sings in the technique of Sprechstimme (spoken voice), an expressionist vocal technique that lives between singing and speaking.

Soprano Jessica Abel performed the difficult Sprechstimme in Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with Ars Nova Dallas conducted by Jordan Randall Smith at the 2009 Dallas Festival of Modern Music.

The recordings of that performance are available at

NoiseTrade (free, suggested donation) | SoundCloud (stream) | Bandcamp ($4)

The musicians are Jocelyn Goranson on flute/piccolo, Mary Druhan on clarinet/bass clarinet, Veronica Gan on violin/viola, Craig Leffer on cello, and Reuben Allred on piano.

Arnold Schönberg Center | Jordan Randall Smith | Ars Nova Dallas |  Jessica Abel

Music License: all rights reserved
Image: Pierrot, by Mabel Dearmer (1872 - 1915), The Studio (magazine), Volume 11, page 262, 1897. (source)
Artist Location: Dallas, Texas and Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Spooky Orchestral Works from Nigel Simmons

Nigel Simmons is the gifted young American composer whose work "Devil's Candy Shop" opens the Calling All Fiends horror compilation at Oddio Overplay.

 

Simmons has two collections of his orchestral works available on SoundCloud. Nigel Simmons also shares a fun rock album, Nana Man, on Bandcamp.

Official Site | SoundCloud | Bandcamp

License: not found

Location: Ellensburg, WA, USA

Sound Interpretations Series

The adventurous avant-garde HAZE netlabel has a series of compilations titled Sound Interpretations by contemporary composers and experimental sound artists. Each compilation is inspired by and dedicated to the brilliance of an outstanding 20th century writer.

HAZE writes, "In this project we propose to rethink literary heritage of the 20th century. Over the 2012-2013 years, each month we will release the compilation dedicated to the 12 most outstanding writers of the 20th century."

The most recent collection is dedicated to Jack Kerouac. The eight earlier editions celebrate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James Joyce, Stephen King, Albert Camus, William Gibson, Franz Kafka, and Julio Cortazar.

There are gems in every collection. Here is an example from the Kafka collection, Kafkaesque Orchestra - Letters to Milena [mp3, 03:04].


Location: Belarus
Music License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0

Compositions For Visual Arts

Works of
Contemporary Composers and  
Experimental Musicians

to enhance exhibitions of

Works by
Contemporary Visual Artists and  
Performance Artists

Lights Out In The Habib Gallery

featuring

Anthony Braxton; Ben Johnston; Bosques De Mi Mente; Christian Wolff; Jared C Balogh; Jonathan Harvey; Larry Polansky; Lee Hyla; Lee Maddeford; Lloyd Rodgers; Mary Ann Roberts; Melvyn Poore; Muhal Richard Abrams; Nick Didkovsky; Sandro Marinoni; Sirius String Quartet; Stephano Roncarlo

license: multiple licenses, please refer to individual tracks for licensing information

cover photograph: Robert S. Donovan (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License)

Acoustic Work from Sergi Boal of Barcelona

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Sergi Boal of Barcelona studied classical guitar studies, flamenco guitar, and oud with masters. In his work Silenci, he composed for trumpet, cello, oud, and voice with the guitar as the central instrument.

Boal writes that Silenci "reflects a mood, a declaration of intentions, in this convulsed times. The first notes the work, an Oud solo..., it is a metaphorical way to say that the music is a spiritual thing, and you have to sit down, cease your minds, and only listen to. i think you will need to listen this work during a Sunday evening, in the dawn, during a raining day or just when the house is almost in silence. Like the last word in the David Linch’s film Muholland Drive:.. 'silence'…. My intention is summarized in the words written on the back cover (translation from the Catalan language)."

The silence is the origin
The absence of sounds
The silence is the utopia
listen to the silence, not to the noise.

Silenci was released yesterday on Acustronica and is available for download.

License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

Compositions That Inspired Frank Zappa

Inspired by a release of composers and compositions influential to Frank Zappa and his work, Happy Puppy Records compiled a similar Creative Commons release for all ears.

The Happy Puppy Records compilation is made of works by genuine mavericks of the world of 20th century classical music featuring works from 1899 to 1970.

Regardless of one's opinions of Zappa, this is an important collection of modern compositions. Get Various Artists - The Classicality of /'Zəeppə/ [hpr049] from Happy Puppy Records.

album license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0






More about the selected compositions:

Cyclops

Lee Maddeford (composer) and Roland Vouilloz (actor, musician) composed, performed, and recorded the modern work Cyclops. Maddeford and Vouilloz have worked together in other theater music projects. In this project, Vouilloz performed strings and percussion, and Maddeford performed piano and brass.

Cyclops is now at the Free Music Archive. Here are some highlights:



The string quartet in "Auméssassèpasnormale" is from Le Bal du Cyclope by Daniel Perrin.

license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Protecting Civil Rights

In The United States America, we pride ourselves in protecting citizens' rights. We tell ourselves all citizens not incarcerated for crimes have the right

1. to fair housing practices
2. to fair hiring practices
3. to love those they love
4. to representation in government
5. to need-based assistance with food, shelter, and medical attention
6. to personal safety protected by military and police forces
7. to equal rights despite age, race, or beliefs

One has but to walk in any US city or impoverished rural area to learn that we are failing on those counts. Is our empathy declining?

In 1991, the then governor of California opted not to pass legislation that would potentially protect some of our citizens from housing discrimination. This led to a protest in one California city that led to a riot in which a state building was vandalized.

Bob Ostertag composed a work, All The Rage, inspired by and incorporating recordings of that riot. It was performed by Kronos Quartet and is available to you at Ostertag's website. Libretto by Sara Miles. [Originally Elektra-Nonesuch 79332-2]

There was a lot of despair ultimately that we weren't saving our friends lives, that we weren't bringing about the change that we expected to bring about, that 70% of the country still thought it was okay that we should be denied our jobs and denied places to live and treated to hate crimes and generally excluded and ignored as our community was dieing.

The Veto Riot emerged out of that long period of cultural ferment.

-- Gerard Koskovich, co-organizer of the protest that led to the riot heard in All The Rage

license: assumed all rights reserved by artist

Erik Satie

Erik Satie was an original, a composer who pushed boundaries and influenced others to do so. Here are traditional and innovative renditions of Satie classics, as well as some readings of Satie's words.

THE TRUE MUSICIAN
by Erik Satie

He grows in wisdom...He is brilliant...He learns to do without
and is prepared to make great sacrifices...enormous sacrifices...
if I may say...His energy is tremendous...
In other words he is prepared for the struggle...and with honesty he shall fight it...

The performance of an Art demands complete self-denial...
...It was not meant as a joke what I just said...about sacrifices...
The Music makes heavy demands upon those who want to
devote themselves in it...This is what I have wanted you to call your attention to...

A true musician must subordinate himself his Art;
...he must place himself above human suffering;
...he must draw courage from within
...and only from within.

:: Various Artists - Satie In White Robes
a compilation of some versions of Satie compositions shared at the FMA

license: varies by track

:: Barbagallo - Plays Satie Barbagallo performs the classics by Erik Satie in Gymnopédies (1888) and Gnossiennes (1890). The latter are the more interesting in this set. Arranged, performed, recorded, and mixed by Carlo Barbagallo. license: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

:: Chad Crouch: Satie: Rearranged Furniture Music Crouch's own arrangements and performances, especially focused on the piano with some other instrumentation and field recordings. This album includes Satie's Sarabande series.  license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial

:: B.L.Underwood - Tribute to Erik Satie  Underwood performs Satie classics on a Korg Wavestation and Akai S5000 sampler. His version of "Je Tu Veux" is almost ethereal. license: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK

:: Pierre Laniau - Erik Satie Pieces Pour Guitare Laniau performs guitar renditions of a broader scope of Satie's work. license: uncertain, assumed all rights reserved      

:: Howard Hersh - Selected Writings and Music of Erik Satie [1968] "The selections, which seem to be taken from assorted lectures, essays, and perhaps diary entries are both whimsical and enlightening. Subjects vary from his love for cabbage soup (only surpassed by his love of his mother); a schedule of activities; a list of his preferred diet (only white foods); comments on the education system of France; as well as the admission that he never married for a fear of being cuckold and the belief that no woman could understand him. In the second half of the program we hear Satie’s comments on critics and animals; ruminates on his heritage and lifestyle; as well as a description of the purpose of furniture music. Satie was known to be a bit of an eccentric and these brief insights from his own pen do nothing to disabuse the listener of that impression. The readings are interspersed with unidentified selection of piano music, also by Satie." license: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0    

:: Anna Carol Dudley (soprano) and Nathan Schwartz (piano) - Selected Songs by Erik Satie [1969] Howard Hersh introduces this set of Satie songs "with a sprinkling of Satie’s solo piano music and a song cycle by his friend Claude Debussy included for added seasoning. Although Satie is perhaps best known for his serene works for solo piano as well as his many dramatic works, he also produced a selection of song cycles and cabaret songs. While motivated by the fees such popular songs demanded in turn of the 20th century Paris Satie did not stint on the quality, and his cabaret songs are still as delightful to the ear as when they were first performed in the cafes of the French capital. For this program the performers are Anna Carol Dudley, soprano and Nathan Schwartz, piano." license: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

Art Music from Saxophone Quartet

The West Point Saxophone Quartet, from the United States Military Academy Band at West Point, New York, is comprised of members of the saxophone section of the Military Academy's Concert Band.

Founded in 1965, the West Point Saxophone Quartet consists of soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones. The ensemble performs across genres -- classical, jazz and popular music, and demonstrates beautifully the technical virtuosity, tonal beauty and versatility of which the saxophone family is capable.

In their album Fault Lines, the Quartet performs modern compositions by Perry Goldsmith, David Kechley, Pierre Lantier, David Froom. This is an album we come back to often and recommend to all lovers of modern composition. It is beautifully done. With the exception of a Radiohead piece, Fault Lines is available for free download from the Academy website where there are complete program notes and credits.

license: uncertain (US Government Public Domain?)

Vox Novus

Vox Novus is a collective of composers, musicians, and music enthusiasts collaborating together to create, produce, promote, and enjoy the new music of today. The mission is to cultivate a music community and make artists' work available to the greater public.

Hundreds of works by contemporary composers are made available to you at no charge on the Vox Novus website.

From the Wikipedia entry for Vox Novus:

Vox Novus is the name of a New York City-based organization consisting of composers, musicians and music enthusiasts who state they want to support and spread new music. Vox Novus was founded by Robert Voisey to promote contemporary composers in 2000.

"This organization was created for the purposes of expanding the presence of contemporary music in the public's vision, empowering composers and contemporary musicians to create, produce, and promote their music. Vox Novus does this by the production of concerts, exposure on the Internet, and facilitating networking between professionals. Vox Novus promotes and produces contemporary music using repeatable methods and models that composers can take and use on their own. This way contemporary music can reach an ever wider audience thereby continuing the advancement of culture and art."

Vox Novus is most noted for its 60x60 project [an artistic project contain 60 one minute art performances by 60 composers], the Composer's Voice Concert Series, Fifteen Minutes of Fame music project, and the American Composer Timeline. Vox Novus has produced and promoted more than 300 concerts in over 20 countries around the world. The organization boasts more than 200 composer members including notable composers: Beth Anderson, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, Jay Batzner, Noah Creshevsky, Emma Lou Diemer, Dennis Eberhard, David Gunn, Jennifer Higdon, Liana Alexandra, Mary Jane Leach, Mike McFerron, David Morneau, Serban Nichifor, Maggi Payne, Ruth Schonthal, Laurie Spiegel, Allen Strange, and Augusta Read Thomas.

The Impressionists

25 recordings of works by Impressionists

A free compilation of 25 recordings of works by Impressionist composers

Impressionism

Impressionism in music was a movement in European classical music, mainly in France, which appeared in the late nineteenth century and continued into the beginning of the twentieth century. Similarly to its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere rather than on a strong emotion or the depiction of a story as in program music. Musical impressionism occurred as a reaction to the excesses of the Romantic era....

Impressionist composers

Musical impressionism was based in France by the French composer Claude Debussy. He and Maurice Ravel were generally considered to be the two "great" impressionists.

Ernest Fanelli was claimed to have innovated the style, though his works were unperformed before 1912. Some important precursors of musical impressionism include works by Chopin, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Chabrier, and Grieg.

The French composer Maurice Duruflé is sometimes said to be "the Ravel of the organ" and is clearly inspired by both Ravel and Debussy in several of his compositions, most notably perhaps the Sicilliene of the Suite pour orgue, op. 5. A Duruflé biography edited by Ronald Ebrecht is even titled "The last Impressionist".

Impressionism has also influenced at least some of the music of Isaac Albéniz, John Alden Carpenter, Frederick Delius, Paul Dukas, Manuel de Falla, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, and Ottorino Respighi....

 

music licenses: see individual tracks  text source: Wikipedia  image: Nymphéas (Seerosen), c 1915, by Claude Monet (1840–1926)