A New Album – Quiet Rhythms Book 1

When I think of an ideal pianist to play my music, it is someone like Nicolas Horvath. He possesses phenomenal technique and stamina combined with a profound curiosity and intellect. From his marathon concerts of Satie and Glass, to a myriad of contemporary composers, I would describe his performances and many recordings with words of joy, beauty and wonder.

I feel very fortunate that Nicolas chose to record all 11 pieces from Book I for this disc. It is the first time they have all appeared together on one album. Also, several of the tracks are premiere recordings. They are stunning interpretations that for me fluctuate between spiritual reflection, contemplation and astonishment.

In his inimitable way of dedicating himself to a composer’s work, Nicolas plans to record Books II, III, and IV in the near future.

As with this album, his deep exploration of Quiet Rhythms is bound to offer gifts and insights into these pieces that are both unexpected, powerful and sublime. A project of this magnitude is rarely undertaken and it reveals Nicolas as a bold and fearless performer.

Quiet Rhythms Book I releases March 20, 2022

FRAMEWORK

For the past few years film curator, scholar and archivist, Jon Gartenberg has presented Native New Yorker at many exciting film festivals such as the 50th Pesaro International Film Festival in Italy and the Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival in Greece in programs entitled A Panorama of American Experimental Narratives in the New Millennium. In May 2015, Jon curated a screening at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. called “AMERICAN EXPERIMENTS IN NARRATIVE: 2000-2015”

Original DVD box cover for the award-winning film Native New Yorker, Best Documentary Short, Tribeca Film Festival.

Jon recently published the essay NY, NY: A Century of City Symphony Films, Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, Fall 2014. Here is an excerpt:

“…Photographed during both day and night, through distorting mirrors and prisms, as well as by more direct photographic methods, the films include scenes filmed from atop skyscrapers, under bridges, through parks, down Broadway, and in Coney Island. Such motion pictures have come to be identified as “city symphony” films.

In cinematic terms, such works represent the articulation of both a defined time frame (most often from morning until evening) as well as a carefully articulated geographic space (e.g., a loft apartment, a city block, the length of the island of Manhattan)…

…The tragedy of 9/11 is woven into other filmmakers’ works…

In Native New Yorker (US, 2005), filmmaker Steve Bilich employs a hand-cranked 1924 Cine-Kodak camera to shoot a geographical city symphony, extending from the northern reaches of Manhattan to the island’s southern tip. The Native American protagonist first identifies with soaring birds, clusters of trees, and rocky outcroppings, and then is confronted with the effects of modern urbanization. As the protagonist encounters the smoldering World Trade Center towers, the filmmaker challenges in apocalyptic fashion the conflict between who can be considered the American native as opposed to the foreign intruder.”

Jon Gartenberg

Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media

Vol. 55, No. 2 (Fall 2014), pp. 248-276

Published by: Wayne State University Press 

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October 28, 2016, 6:15 p.m. at NYU Cinema Studies, Jon Gartenberg presents Native New Yorker in a special screening:

NY NY: A Century of City Symphony Films

Experiencing a Live Performance

It’s a different experience watching a live performance of music than listening to a studio recording on your stereo (or earbuds). Here the Rome-based Italian ensemble Piccola Accademia degli Specchi perform the first movement of Camille at Zeeuwse Concertzaal in Middelburg, Netherlands in 2011.

Camille (2010) was commissioned by Piccola Accademia degli Specchi. The work is scored for the group’s instrumentation which is a hybrid of the traditional “Pierrot Ensemble”:  flute, saxophone, violin, cello and piano 4-hands. The saxophone gives the work a unique quality different from the traditional clarinet used in a “Pierrot Ensemble”. Having the piano part played by 20 fingers instead of 10 expands the rhythmic and sound possibilities. There are three movements in Camille with the titles I. Vitality II. Tranquility and III. Triumph.

Earle Brown | Available Recollections: Non-linear

Score excerpt from Earle Brown’s masterpiece “Available Forms II”

Compose several constellations of sound and then allow the conductor to change the order of the constellations at each performance – a brilliant idea that is at the heart of Available Forms I and II. There is no fixed ‘through-line’; it is different at each performance.

I have been deeply influenced by this approach when I compose. I create small chunks of music or phrases that can be a few measures or many in length. After composing a certain amount of these chunks, I order them in a way that I think works. This approach is not much different from the Available Forms, other than the fact that the material is fixed: I do not have a preconceived notion of an overall arc or through-line.

I would like to try writing a piece someday where the conductor can choose an order of preference, but that would necessitate many performances to assume the desired effect of variation, as in the Available Forms. At the moment, I am not that optimistic.

Originally published in: “Earle Brown: From Motets to Mathematics” Contemporary Music Review, Volume 26, Issue 3 & 4 June 2007 , pages 371 – 375