IMPRESSIONS of an EXHIBITION
THE GREATEST HITS of 2150
A Young Person's Musical Guide to the Universe
“Mont Ararat” evokes a voyage and recalls the sound of the duduk and ancestral chants of Armenian monks. It pays tribute to the suffering Armenian people throughout history, based on melodies heard in the Christian monastery of Echmiadzin, at the foot of the famous Mount Ararat where the Ark of Noah is said to have landed. Williencourt was inspired to create this shorter and slightly modified version of his original cello work, Opus 2, after listening to the violist Michel Michalakakos, to whom he dedicated this work.
Notes by Daniel Felsenfeld:
I wrote a short solo viola piece for Nadia Sirota called "Hooked to the Silver Screen" (2011), which is a kind of free-flowing fantasia on the most astonishing song that Bowie (or, frankly, anyone) ever wrote: “Life on Mars.” I love taking a tune like this, somewhere lurking in another genre, and doing just terrible musical violence to it. I’ve likewise assaulted Leonard Cohen and Wild Cherry, as well as done terrible things to works of Debussy and Bach. Because in a certain way all music (if you buy into the whole Agon theory of Harold Bloom) does violence to the music that has come before it, and from this wrestle a new set of ideas takes root. I just wanted to be obvious and extremely brutal about it.
Notes by Stuart Diamond:
Missions to Mars have always been close to me, ever since I created a nationally syndicated television production called “Mission to Mars” that documented the original 1996 Pathfinder mission to the red planet. This video uses NASA animations from the 2011 Curiosity Mission to Mars. It tells the story of the just how lonely life on another planet can be until one finds a true mirrored mate.
In the summer of 2016 Israeli composer Ayal Adler began working on a music-video collaboration. This was the first time I created a video for another composer's work. An exciting chance to deeply explore the world of another composer's pysche.
Five Bagatelles was composed for the Koper Contemporary Music Bienalle 2014. The work was premiered simultaneously in New York at The Firehouse Space and by the students of The Koper Music School in April 2014. The work is for one, two or three instruments with background music tracks. Performers improvise using written motifs as core material. This version was performed with solo piano and electronic wind synthesizer. Other parts can be added ad lib.
"Telling Tales" had its origins decades ago, when I was working on a series of children's' projects. The individual pieces were coalesced into a suite for flute and harpsichord. Though the details are only fragments of memory at this point, I do recall that the melodies were drawn from several sources including a record project, commercials, and if I am not mistaken a song for a lovely young, yet mysterious woman. These days I often revisit early works, reworking the material to see how they might sound if they were written more recently. So "Telling Tales" for Violin and Harpsichord is the 2013ish take on music from the 1970s.
This video uses an audio track recorded in 1983 or so using an Teac 8-track analog tape recorder. All parts are performed with the Lyricon wind controller, Oberheim and Arp 2600 monophonic synths, Arp sequencer and Crumar Orchestrator. Though, Sally Jo Anderson (the original Beauty) can be heard in the coda. The video (as it now stands) was created between November 2012 thru April 2013 - using Adobe Premiere and After Affects.
BAROQUE FANTASY by Stuart Diamond for solo violin is a three movement work that looks back at the Baroque solo violin pieces through a contemporary prism. It is played by Karen Bentley Pollick.
The work was originally premiered in 1974 and played by legendary violinist Max Pollikoff. The video was created in 2012. Original Score - 1974: Video - 2012
