RECORDING PROJECT
Music by Andrew Byrne
Stephen Gosling, Piano
David Shively Percussion
Anthony Burr, Producer
This CD contains Andrew Byrne’s recent pieces for piano and percussion:
White Bone Country for piano and percussion, Tracks
for solo piano, Fata Morgana for prepared piano.
Below is information on the indivual pieces (including audio), track
listing, and bios on performers.
White Bone Country for piano and percussion
“To see the desert is like peeling the skin off a landscape” (Fred Williams)
This evocative statement by the great Australian landscape painter Fred Williams was the inspiration for the first work on the CD. In White Bone Country, Byrne pares the music back to its bare bones and discovers an inner landscape full of moving shapes carved from time. The enigmatic stillness and vastness of Australia's outback led painters to new ways of distributing forms and surfaces on the canvas. Byrne explores the sonic possibilities of this esthetic heritage, making a sound “canvas” that is no longer a story from beginning to end, or from foreground to background.
Gone are traditional piano and percussion melodies and textures. Instead a sparse and delicate musical world emerges to the ears. In each of the nine pieces, a musical snapshot is captured and sustained through circular melodies and rhythmic processes, giving the listener the impression of going inside the music. Whether it’s a fixed in melody that slowly falls in register (no. 1) or a quiet mysterious repeating incantation (no. 2) or buzzing crotales that build and then die away (no. 3), what is constant throughout White Bone Country is the meditative quality, evoking a magical auditory environment.
The relationship between the piano and percussion also reflects the enigmatic quality of the music: in some pieces (1, 5, 8, and 9), the two instruments fuse in rhythmic unison to create a colorful “super” instrument; in others (4 and 6) they exist on different planes; while the remaining movements are solo pieces.
Audio Excerpts
Movement 1 (6.27 MB, 5'31)
Movement 9 (3.27 MB, 3'15)
Tracks for solo piano
Tracks takes the listener on a musical journey--a circuitous voyage through a land of varied topography. Over eight minutes, the music moves in ever tighter concentric circles before finally arriving at the destination in the final section. Simultaneous motives animate the ear's journey, creating tensions through complex overlaid rhythms. The relentless rhythmic character vanishes in the final section as the arrival is marked by the sudden appearance of a joyful melody.
Audio Excerpt (310 MB, 3'36)
Fata Morgana: Mirages on the Horizon for prepared piano
The image of fata morgana, or mirages, is the inspiration for these four pieces. In each, a fata morgana, a static shimmering figure appears on the horizon and then just as suddenly is gone. The prepared piano—John Cage’s hybrid invention, straddling the tuned world of the piano and the untuned of the percussion—is an apt choice to depict these varied kinds of musical mirages.
Audio Excerpts
Fata Morgana 1 (4 MB, 3'33)
Fata Morgana 2 (4.5 MB, 3'58)
TRACK LISTING
White Bone Country: Nine Musical Landscapes for Piano and Percussion
Part I: Desert Terrain
1. for processed piano and percussion (5:29)
2. for solo piano (4:02)
3. for solo crotales (4:37)
Part II: Desert Life
4. for piano and gongs (2:31)
5. for piano and bells (1:08)
6. for piano and knocking (2:35)
Part III: Desert Weather
7. for solo piano (1:49)
8. for piano inside and out (3:12)
9. for piano and crotales and glockenspiel (3:13)
Stephen Gosling, Piano
David Shively Percussion
Tracks for Solo Piano
10. (8:58)
Stephen Gosling, Piano
Fata Morgana: Mirages on the Horizon for Prepared Piano
11. First Mirage (3:34)
12. Second Mirage (3:58)
13. Third Mirage (5:26)
14. Fourth Mirage (4:34)
All music by Andrew Byrne
BIOS
Stephen Gosling enjoys a varied career as soloist and
chamber musician, with a particular focus on the music of our time. He
is currently a member of the New York New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Sospeso,
Columbia Sinfonietta, American Modern Ensemble, and Ne(x)tworks. He is
additionally a frequent guest artist of many other groups, including the
New York Philharmonic, Orpheus, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center,
Bang on a Can, American Composers Orchestra, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s,
Speculum Musicae, and Absolute Ensemble. His work has garnered consistent
critical acclaim, and he was profiled by The New York Times in October
2005. Mr. Gosling has collaborated with a number of American composers,
among them John Adams, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Steve Reich, Roger
Reynolds, Charles Wuorinen, and John Zorn, as well as several European
composers, including Pierre Boulez, James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough, Oliver
Knussen, Helmut Lachenmann, Poul Ruders, and Mark-Anthony Turnage. Recent
highlights include the world premiere of John Psathas’s Three Psalms
with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, solo programs ranging from works
by Alexander Tcherepnin and his students at Weill Recital Hall to music
for piano and electronics (a recital awarded by the International Society
for Contemporary Music), and performances of Xenakis and Ligeti with Shen
Wei Dance Arts at the Barbican Center in London. Mr. Gosling has performed
throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia, and made over 30 recordings
to date.
David Shively has appeared as percussion soloist and
chamber musician throughout North America and Europe. Recent projects
have ranged in media from traditional percussion to micro-tonal instruments,
treated guitar, Hungarian cimbalom, or musical saw. Festival appearances
of recent years include ICMC (Thessaloniki, Greece), Schwerpunkt: Strom!
(Zürich), Ciclo International de Percusiones (Mexico City), Wittner
Tage für neue Kammermusik (Witten, Germany), Tribeca Film Festival,
and Münchener Biennale (Munich, Germany). Theatrical credits include
Pnima... ins innere (Munich, Bayerischen Theaterpreis 2000), The Persians
(National Actors' Theatre), and Ice Floes of Franz Josef Land (Whitney
Biennial). He has recorded for CRI, Einstein, Mode, Quecksilber, Tzadik,
and other labels in addition to work for film. Since 2005, David has been
a member of Ethos Percussion Group and tours nationwide with that quartet
and its collaborative projects.
Anthony Burr has enjoyed a distinguished career as an
exponent of contemporary music. He has performed in this repertoire with
many leading groups, including Elision, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Sospeso,
and the Chamber Music Sociey of Lincoln Center, often as soloist. He has
worked widely outside the classical arena too with artists including Jim
O'Rourke, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, Mark Feldman, Chris Speed, Jim Black,
Ikue Mori, Tim Barnes, Alan Licht, Mark Dresser and many others. Ongoing
collaborations include a duo with Icelandic bassist/composer Skuli Sverrisson,
The Clarinets (a trio with Chris Speed and Oscar Noriega), a series of
recordings with cellist Charles Curtis, and a series of live film/music
performances with experimental filmmaker Jennifer Reeves. He has produced
and/or engineered records for La Monte Young, Charles Curtis, Skuli Sverrisson,
Ted Reichman among others, and has a doctorate from University of California,
San Diego. Upcoming releases include a new Anthony Burr/Skuli Sverrisson
double CD with guest vocalists Yungchen Lamo and Arto Lindsay.