can feel a sad beautiful lead, and nice piano background

Such an interesting, mysterious composition. Love your choice of instrumentation. A love song with complicated outcomes perhaps? So nice. Durge

Wauw, prachtig, wil zo graag ook meer Piazolla spelen 😃😃

I was excited to see this in your catalog.  It's beautiful and I really enjoyed listening.

Classical Vol. 3

Let There Be Light

Solstice

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxpKNJFDUm4
--
Someone once said that symphonic orchestra is the most sophisticated musical instrument humanity ever invented. And I always felt like this is an ultimate challenge for a composer to write music for such a giant. I started my first shy attempts to compose orchestral music a few years ago. Of course, at that time it was all done using digital libraries. I did dream that one day I may experience the thrill of hearing a live orchestra performing my compositions but that was truly an ephemeral dream, no actual plans to do it. Until now.

This summer my husband and I took a composing course (focusing on film composing). As a part of that course I had a homework: to compose a piece for a string orchestra. I chose the solo piano piece I wrote earlier this year as a foundation. It took a few evenings to come up with the orchestral arrangements - again, using digital libraries... at first! But then my husband said that he feels like this piece deserves to be recorded with live orchestra. And so it happened - two months ago we hired a session orchestra from Budapest. We only had half an hour session to record 2.5 minutes of this composition. Gosh, it was such an amazing experience! When I heard 40 musicians playing the harmony I burst in tears. Then I was shocked again to learn that my composition was nominated for Hollywood Music in Media Awards.

I called this piece "Distant Memories". It was written during one of the lockdowns when I was on the edge of breaking down. I devoted it to my mom, who lives on the other side of Atlantic but she used to come here every year.. until 2020.. and then 2021.. I hope we will see each other next year. But meanwhile all we have are those "distant memories".

The original piano solo version is coming next week!

"Distant Memories" (Orchestral) by Milana Zilnik

"On Madness at Sea" was created in collaboration with investigative reporter and journalist Ian Urbina (The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and more). Each track features field recordings gathered during Ian's reporting at sea.

On Madness at Sea

❤️ Buy Here

Little Voices

Composed by my then-10yr-old daughter and gifted to me on Father's Day, 2023.

Myra Arnaudov - Happy Father's Day!

In Solitude

Autumn Mood

I share with you the last song made with my partner Roberto Riccò, Between us!
Good listening!

Between Us Daniela Spadini - Roberto Riccò

For more orchestral tracks please check out my full orchestral album here:
soundcloud.com/pianissimo/sets/orchestral-works-original

~~~~~~~~~~
Track Notes
~~~~~~~~~~

Thematically this track went on a very interesting journey from its inception on through completion. To explain that journey adequately I need to first explain how I typically compose ... 

Nothing is more important to my composing process than IMAGERY. My songs tend to be rather evocative. They all live in their own world replete with their own history, their own culture, their own lore. The songs then give a window into that world by painting images in the minds of my listeners (I hope anyway!). People often ask me what inspires my music. The answer is that this imagery inspires it. The world that the songs live in inspires it. 

What's interesting though is that said imagery is not actually present at the time that I sit down at my piano to start on a new piece. Rather typically I'll just sit down and start messing around until I latch onto some interesting sonic ideas. Then once I have a fledgling new song, the imagery around it slowly starts to take shape. It's that initial imagery that then informs further development in the song. And then once the song is further developed, the imagery comes into even sharper focus ... and so on and so forth until the song is finally complete. In this way, my inspiration is actually almost paradoxically derived from the music itself. So how then does this whole process I'm describing relate to this particular piece of music?

Well the initial version of this song, despite not being terribly far removed from the final version, had a rather different thematic aesthetic. Initially it evoked strong imagery of Russia, soviets, communism, order, marching soldiers, etc. (I kept imagining those soviet-era propaganda posters in my head.) As a result, the initial working title of the piece was "Tsar". 

Once the piece developed further though, it outgrew this initial moniker. Instead now it was evoking a rather dark, industrial vibe. I saw factories, machines, gears, clocks. Cobblestone streets shrouded in a sky tainted with soot.  There was also a bit of a retro, dystopian sci-fi vibe that emerged. I saw robots, automata, an army of drones (and this is where it tied into the original soviet imagery). This new imagery informed some development in the composition and I ended up changing the working title to "The Machine". 

But then the piece developed further and once again the song outgrew the name. Some of the original imagery remained, surely, but there were new elements now. There was an element of fear, but also an element of excitement, adventure, and almost child-like curiosity and wonderment. Now the imagery in my head revolved around exploring an uncharted and perhaps somewhat scary/forbidden land. This is when the name "The Black Forest" emerged as I feel that it ties in all of these ideas. The wonderful piece of visual art also ties in nicely with the name and the music and rounds out the world that this song lives in. I imagine that the little girl in the image has escaped home. Adorned in her little crown and dress she makes her way rather naively into The Black Forest, the place that all children are forbidden to enter. She's afraid but she also has a lot of courage and she stubbornly marches on into the unknown. 

I invite you to please put on a good pair of headphones and march right along with her :)

Thank you for listening (and reading)! 

~~~~~~~~~~
Instruments:
~~~~~~~~~~

Brass: tuba (staccatos + legato)
String: violin ensemble (legato), cello ensemble (spiccato), bass ensemble (pizzicato), solo violin
Woodwinds: piccolo flute, c flute x2
Percussion: timpani, toms, bass drums
Vocals: female choir, male choir, children's choir
Other: music box

Image credit: the Swedish painter John Albert Bauer (4 June 1882 – 20 November 1918)

The Black Forest

One of 13 pieces; 
composed by Volker Freidel/played by Stefanie Maschke; 
available on CD; spotify or youtube :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWfa4UZ89usPrgybkfVxDvA?app=desktop

"Arioso" for piano Album out now.

The following is once again the source for this concerto:

[...... The Six Brandenburg Concertos
[...... and the Four Orchestral Suites
[...... in Full Score
[...... Published by Dover, 1976
[...... ISBN 0-486-23376-6
[...... Library of Congress Catalog Number 76-12016

Although this was written as a Violin Concerto,
I thought I would try to blend some other instruments together
to make it sound a little bit like a music box, or an old timey Polyphon:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphon


So the substitutions ran like this:

-----ORIGINAL: = LOGIC:

-----Violino    I = Accoustic Guitaro
-----Violino   II = Roundback Accoustic
-----Violino  III = Bluegrass Banjo

-------Viola    I = String Decay
-------Viola   II = String Tub
-------Viola  III = 80s Wave Synth

-Violincello    I = Fast Pad
-Violincello   II = Droplet Harp
-Violincello  III = Alien Lead

Violine e Cembalo = Basses


In the process as I neared completion, 
I occasionally found that, after I had done a SAVE
I then realized that I had DELETED a whole track.
So, by the time I had finished making this,
I had wished I had selected something else besides the mallets.
They were beginning to take their toll on my eardrums.

ALSO: When I was in high school, I bought a little book of Bach's 2 Part Inventions that also included the Brandenburg Concertos. I transcribed this particular tune as a piano piece. This one I played well over a thousand times and probably only got through it twice without making a mistake. As such, my mom estimates that number to be much more...poor thing.

Addendum:
I had just posted this on SC when I played it for my mom.
She passed away within a couple of weeks after that,
but she was never one to go on about these soundtracks I would make.
On this particular one though, for the first time ever,
she said, "Turn it up a little bit."

Now coming from her, that was high praise.

Brandenburg 3 Movement 1

Espressivo

Sometimes it's just so Damn hard to say Goodbye.
When you know 
Dreams age gone
Feelings unclear
Do you hold on 
for something that you thought was there?

Hard To Say Goodby

Hard To Say Goodbye

There are many performances of this world famous theme of Astor Piazzolla. This is mine. I used Ivory 2, SWAM cello and double bas and PSound bandoneon. And Altiverb.
I hope you will enjoy it.
For the best result use headphone or hifi-stereo.

Oblivion (Astor Piazzolla) performer Ad van Nederpelt

In Spirit

This piece contains all the love I have felt and still feel for all those who I love! and have loved, where there is love there is hope!!

Hope.WAV

Actually I am a piano-musician by profession, but I discovered the huge possibilities of music designing with a computer.  I like to compose in very different styles like classical, pop, filmmusic, hardrock, synth rock, jazz, tango, etc. I hope you'll enjoy it and I do appreciate practical, and especially serious criticism as well.
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science."
-Albert Einstein

Since 1984 I am composing and recording electronic instrumental music of different styles like ambient, soundtracks, pop, new classics, or noise improvisations. "Studio Lupus Polaris" is the pseudonym of my home studio and of my musical non-profit activities.

Thanks to all for listening!

Oblivion (Astor Piazzolla) performer Ad van Nederpelt

Ad van Nederpelt

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