Gavin Bryars After The Requiem For Mac
Richard Gavin Bryars (born 16 January 1943) [1] is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism. Gavin Bryars: The Fifth Century. The music of English composer Gavin Bryars has long managed the distinction of being both “accessible and defiantly personal” (The New York Times).
Continued ' journey away from the more experimental work that made his reputation early in his career toward pieces possessing a more melancholic and romantic quality. In two of the works herein, 'The Old Tower of Lobenicht' and 'Allegrasco,' one can hear echoes of his brilliant composing on the album. But where the romantic elements were stricter and more crystalline on the prior effort, here there is an expansiveness that sometimes succeeds and at other times verges on kitsch. Guitarist performs on three of the four compositions, but his creamy, sustained chords tend to sound somewhat bland and occasionally subvert some otherwise very attractive melodic material. The standout track is a saxophone quartet number, 'Alaric I or II,' featuring the surprising presence of.
In fact, ' earliest musical ventures were as a member of the British free improvisation community, so the inclusion of has some historical background. The composition is a very enjoyable melange of minimalist technique and references to that manages to cohere into a satisfying whole. Fans of ' more substantial work from the '70s or his improvising skills in groups like may find a little too sweet for their tastes, while listeners who are looking for something a bit meatier than or may find their appetite satisfied.
But what’s it really like to grow up Nordic? The region is known for its efforts to ensure social equality, using high taxes to support family life and high-quality education. It’s possible to identify a typical Nordic childhood, involving subsidised child-care, free schooling, informal classrooms and plenty of social activities. Many of the youngest Nordic citizens are independent (a quarter of Danish kids aged 7–14 have part-time jobs) and well informed (Iceland’s children recently helped rewrite the country’s constitution). Find out more about their lives at this year’s Imagine Children’s Festival, which takes place from Thursday 9 until Sunday 19 February. Pollini is now considered by many to be one of the world’s most outstanding pianists. Yet he was only 18 when he obtained international recognition, by winning first prize at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1960.
It was three years later that the maestro made his debut in London in a concert in 1963 at Royal Festival Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by Pierre Monteux, the repertoire chosen for Pollini’s first solo performance was:. Tchaikovsky Fantasy Overture, Romeo and Juliet. Beethoven Piano Concerto No.3 in C minor, Op.37. Schubert Symphony No.9 in C (Great) In the early 70s, Pollini began to establish an international career of the greatest importance.
In 1971, he signed with Deutsche Grammophon and released his first recordings on the German label; these included Stravinsky’s Three Movements from Petrushka and Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata. With regular appearances in music centres around the world, Pollini began the career of piano superstar.
Gavin Bryars Jesus Blood
Fact: Pollini’s strong political convictions formed an important part of his musical life, improving his technique by playing in factories for causes such as peace in Vietnam with Italian conductor Claudio Abbado and Italian composer Luigi Nono. He also performed concerts in the neighbourhoods around Reggio Emilia and recitals for students at La Scala, animated by their ideals of justice and peace. The collaboration between Abbado and Pollini continued after those years, with several concerts held at Royal Festival Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra. Pollini began the 80s at Southbank Centre, with a televised opening season concert playing Mozart’s D Minor Concerto with Sir Georg Solti and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He continued to give several recitals in Royal Festival Hall throughout the decade as well as a performance in 1983 with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Masse by Giacomo Manzoni – written as a homage to Varese, the first explorer of Manzoni’s favourite musical sounds – was part of that evening’s repertoire.
Fact: New York, 1987: Under the direction of Claudio Abbado, the maestro played the complete piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven with the Vienna Philharmonic. On this occasion he received the orchestra’s Honorary Ring. In 1996, Pollini brought back his superb pianism to Royal Festival Hall with the Beethoven Sonata Cycle. The audience was taken on an intense journey through eight recitals, that followed the chronological order in which Beethoven wrote his works, with the exception of Opus 49. What attracted you to get involved with A Thread? While some of my existing compositions have been featured in a few choreographic performances, I’ve never composed original music for a choreography before.
But I always was interested — some works that were composed in the past were written with choreographic performances in mind. Plus, it was a great chance to work with wonderful musicians (Andrew Maginley and Benjamin Kaminski) which I don’t get very often as I specialize in electroacoustic music, don’t have a formal music education and usually spend most of my time working alone in my studio. Using studio as an instrument, as Brian Eno would have probably said. So when Jean offered a collaboration I couldn’t resist. Actually, while working on Bound, I was working in parallel on another exciting project which is quite related to choreography — Bound, a video game by Plastic / Sony Santa Monica. Princess, the game’s protagonist, moves and interacts with the world with dance.
Her movements were captured from a professional dancer and feature if I’m not mistaken both contemporary dance and ballet. I think some of the ideas I had for Bound were influenced by the work I did on A Thread and vice versa. What should the audience expect from the show? In terms of music, it features both rather free interpretations of old music by Monteverdi, Dowland, anonymous author performed by Andrew (theorbo) and Benjamin (viola) and electroacoustic compositions recorded by me. Both original pieces of music were written specifically for A Thread and one old composition which Jean decided to have in the work. Actually, music’s structure was heavily influenced by Jean’s method of work, which is much closer to improvisation and the process itself feels like solving a difficult puzzle.
Instead of composing for a fixed, rigid structure of a complete performance, I had to make lots of edits and rearrangements as we went through numerous changes both in the structure and fragments. It was quite challenging because, when you deal with a composed electroacoustic it’s very difficult to make changes to it, as it exists in the form of audio recordings, not scores (there are exceptions, of course). What influences did you draw upon when preparing for A Thread? It might sound strange, but Rothko’s works. In my solo work, I rely heavily on a looping and layering technique, which is similar to Rothko’s Color Field painting. I employed this technique to a certain extent in music for A Thread. Another influence is Renaissance and late Medieval pieces that were considered for the project.
Fro example, some of the electroacoustic compositions started out as heavily processed versions of music by Dowland and Monteverdi. How does your music interact with the dancers and set design? A Thread’s set design feels both ‘minimal and’ ‘unsafe’ — the dancers interact with heavy and loud weights, there’s a lot of tension in the choreography. Instead of writing a clashing percussive score, I decided to incorporate the sounds produced by the dancers and accentuate the mood and dynamics for the particular fragment of the piece.
As I mentioned before, the music wasn’t written to fit a complete, finished performance. Both choreography and music were in a flux until the very end.
I believe, a lot of decisions Jean has made were influenced by music and a lot of decisions I made were influenced by Jean’s changes in choreography and structure while we worked together in London. I think it became so intertwined and interdependent that’s it’s difficult to separate certain aspects of it and tell how a specific part interacts. The Fashion Undressed event at Southbank Centre was a sight to behold due to its boundary breaking effects. On Saturday 3 September, there were two categories of fashion shows, the People’s Catwalk which allowed non models to strut their personal stuff on the runway, and the #AfricanSquad show, which comprises professional models and voguers. As with each and every traditional catwalk, it comes with music.
But the multimillion festival question then becomes what type of music was played and who provided it? During the People’s Catwalk, the music was provided by an ensemble of 35 young adults making up the Chineke Junior Orchestra. They all did exceptionally well, so interviewing Ayesha, the only lady who was playing the double base, was cool. “I like to defy the odds by playing an instrument that a woman wouldn’t play. This is why I got a full scholarship to Wells Catholic School by beating over one hundred and fifty students.” 18 year old Braimah who could not hide his inspirations added, “I think the main thing that inspires me is playing with other young players from the diaspora.” This is especially inspiring in context of the wider Africa Utopia Festival. Sheku plays the Cello and when asked where he got his discipline from, playing in front of such an audience at the festival, he said: “It kind of great feeling sharing the music I love with other people.” We couldn’t agree more. Read more about the fashion of Africa Utopia 2016 and find out more about the Africa Utopia Fashion Journalism course in Issue One of Dual Magazine.