Hammer & Nail is a fast and furious duo inspired by heavy metal and progressive rock.  It features hard hitting, razor sharp contrapuntal lines between the two instruments, creating a brazen and percussive sound with the sophistication of Bach and the rebelliousness of Sid Vicious.

Performance by the Soli Chamber Ensemble - https://www.solichamberensemble.com/

D.J. Sparr - Electric Guitar
Carolyn True - Piano

See the entire concert! - https://youtu.be/0yFTLHPEF2o

More Info

Hammer And Nail, for Electric Guitar and Piano

for electric guitar, piano and drums.

Commissioned by Frank Nawrot and Rachael Rule

Electric Guitar - D.J. Sparr  http://www.djsparr.com/
Piano - Carolyn True  https://www.trinity.edu/directory/ctrue
Drums - Delta Empire  https://www.youtube.com/c/DeltaEmpire/featured

Presented by the Soli Chamber Ensemble  https://www.solichamberensemble.com/

Hammer & Nail is a fast and furious duo inspired by heavy metal and progressive rock.  It features hard hitting, razor sharp contrapuntal lines between the two instruments, creating a brazen and percussive sound with the sophistication of Bach and the rebelliousness of Sid Vicious.

Notes

Hammer, Nail & Skin - feat. DELTA EMPIRE

il dolce stile nuovo (The Sweet, New Style) – Jan Valta, Violin; Lukas Polak, Cello; Jan Petr, Piano.  Recorded in Prague, Czech Republic.

il dolce stile nuovo began as a song for voice and piano.  After I had written the intro, I called the poet only to have her tell me that she didn’t want me setting that particular poem.  Dismayed, the piece sat in a drawer for a few months while I tried to figure out what to do with it.  Finally, I got an idea to compose a piano trio, and use the introductory material as a basis for the piece.

This piece for me is just about the joy of writing and playing music.  It brings together all of my major musical influences – rock, jazz, heavy metal, renaissance and baroque music, classical Japanese music, and modern concert music.

Get it on Bandcamp.Com!  http://anthonyjosephlanman.bandcamp.com/album/synesthesiac

Buy at Bandcamp!

Il Dolce Stile Nuovo (Excerpt)

Performed by the Indiana University Concert Band under the baton of Dr. Eric Smedley

I’ve often been told, “When writing for band, you can’t think like a guitarist”.  This was always a bit difficult for me, as I’m, well, a guitarist.  I struggled with finding the “right” way to think about band for years, and that always kept me at somewhat of a distance from the band world.  I felt like an outsider, which in many ways, I am.  You see, guitar is a very attack-based instrument.  When played, there’s a strong initial attack on the strings, followed by a rapid decay of the note.  And while wind and brass can certainly make strong attacks, they can also perform the opposite – near silent initial attacks with long, sustained tones.  I struggled with this idea of, “…you can’t think like a guitarist”, until I decided to just embrace my “attack-y” way of thinking, and make it work for band.  This piece wholly embraces my guitar way of thinking, and incorporates many influences from guitar based music – most notably, heavy metal.  It is my hope that you can think like a guitarist and make it work for this amazing ensemble.

Blackout Metal Mixtape for Concert Band

Rush – Anthony Joseph Lanman, 8-String Electric Guitar; Paul Bro, Alto Saxophone; Ted Piechocinski, Accordion; Kurt Fowler, Electric Cello. Recorded by Don Arney at Quantum Productions in Terre Haute, IN.

I’ve always loved progressive rock and metal music. As one wise man once said, “You’ll never escape the music you loved when you were seventeen.” And I’ve never tried. This piece is a tribute to all of that wonderful progressive rock that fueled my passion for music during my formative years, and contains that same drive, that same passion, and that same rush that it gave me all those years ago. The title is a reference to the feel of the music, and a tribute to one of the bands that got me started on my journey.

Rush also explores a whole new sound world for me – electric guitar, electric cello, alto saxophone and accordion – a combination I never thought I would hear, let alone have the opportunity to write for. It wasn’t until I did an arrangement of Astor Piazzolla’s L’Histoire du Tango for this group that I realized what a special sound and what a special group this was. Musically, the piece explores a few main ideas – one fragmented statement and one rock influenced melody. Its aim is to be a fusion of all of my past musical experiences, from playing in a touring rock band, to performing Bach suites on classical guitar, to playing John Dowland on the renaissance lute, to performing Steve Reich in a contemporary chamber orchestra.

Get it on Bandcamp.Com! anthonyjosephlanman.bandcamp.com/

Rush

Following the death of my friend Mandy Morris in 2002, I was finding it difficult to compose, or do much else for that matter.  Towards the end of the year, I turned to one of my favorite composers – one who relished in writing music with a melancholy theme.  This was the renaissance composer John Dowland.  Using his music as inspiration, I filtered my own personal pain through his, and created a concerto of lamentations for alto flute and strings. Stylistically, I imagined the string orchestra as one giant consort of viols, and they are asked to mimic the play style and sound as closely as possible.

The first movement, inspired by Dowland’s Flow My Tears, is scored for strings only, and recalls the 5-part choral writing of that time. This movement serves as a kind of prelude.

Three Lamentations, I. Flow My Tears

The Five Rings of Miyamoto Musashi takes it’s inspiration from several different literary, historical, and musical sources. The main inspiration for the piece comes from a book entitled The Book of Five Rings by, you guessed it, Miyamoto Musashi. The book is divided into five chapters – I) The Earth Scroll – II) The Water Scroll – III) The Fire Scroll – IV) The Wind Scroll – and V) The Scroll of Emptiness. In the five chapters Miyamoto imparts his life experiences as a wandering Samurai warrior in 17th century fuedal Japan. Musashi was also a devout Buddhist, and the book is laced with Zen philosophy as well. I tried to take the spirit of the four elements of the first four chapters and translate that into the music. For the last movement, I focused on the Zen concept of duality, as did Musashi in the last chapter of his book.

The second source of inspiration for this piece was the shakuhachi flute. After some study of this incredible instrument, I realized that it would inspire the music in my piece musically and also would carry some historical ties as well. Much of the music in the first and last movements was inspired by Sokaku – Reibo, a Japanese folk theme often improvised upon by shakuhachi players. The instrument itself was linked to the samurai during Miyamoto’s lifetime. The shakuhachi was imported from China, and was originally much smaller. During the 17th centrury, the shakuhachi became the sole “property” of the samurai. They would often learn to play the instrument to become spies for different shoguns, masquerading as a musician at another shogun’s court. The samurai also enlarged the shakuhachi and made it more solid, so it could double as a weapon if needed. Most of the extended techniques used in the piece are approximations of sounds heard on the shakuhachi.

The Five Rings of Miyamoto Musashi - IV. Wind Scroll

The Five Rings of Miyamoto Musashi - III. Water Scroll

The Five Rings of Miyamoto Musashi - II. Fire Scroll

The Five Rings of Miyamoto Musashi - I. Earth Scroll

From the album 'HOMMAGES', available on double LP at Bandcamp, and streaming everywhere.

Holly Roadfeldt - Piano

Hommage a Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) – The music of Hildegard has always amazed and inspired me.  Well, EVERYTHING about Hildegard has amazed and inspired me—the things that she composed, wrote, built, and accomplished—especially in an age when women were completely oppressed.  She is quite simply one of the greatest geniuses this world has ever produced, and it’s criminal that she’s not as well known as other male geniuses from her time (or later).  When I was thinking about this Hommage, I wasn’t sure how to approach it.  Then, one day (July 11th, 2018), I was doing some completely unrelated work, and out of nowhere, the entire piece came to me all at once, as in a vision.  Yeah, I know how that sounds, especially given Hildegard’s history, but that’s what happened.  The piece was written in one afternoon.

Hommage à Hildegard von Bingen (Official Album Version)

Holly Roadfeldt - Piano

Hommage a Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) – I have been fascinated by Nadia Boulanger for a long time now. How did this person inspire and produce so many of the 20th century's greatest composers? After reading about her life, I think at least part of that dedication to composers was born out of her relationship to her younger sister Lili, and the circumstances surrounding her early death. From what I understand, Nadia was a great lover of the rigors of counterpoint, but also had the rare ability of helping composers find their own voices during a time of strict dogma in the composition landscape. This piece is inspired by Lili Boulanger's "Theme and Variations", and also by Nadia's love of counterpoint, and by her voice in my head telling me, "Just be yourself."

Buy the album!

Hommage à Nadia Boulanger (Official Album Version)

Holly Roadfeldt - Piano

Hommage a Gary Gygax (1938-2008) - Given all of the artistic and scientific people I've covered so far, why write an Hommage to Gary Gygax, the creator of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons? When I set out to write this series, I wanted to pay respects to people who inspired me to create. Gary was the first. I was introduced to D&D in the 3rd grade, and I became fascinated with it immediately. I used to sit in class drawing dungeon maps on graph paper instead of listening to my lessons. This was my first real creative outlet, and where I first encountered the mechanics of telling a story. For instance, if I drew a long hallway on the graph paper, and then drew in a secret door halfway down on the left wall, this in itself posed many questions - questions that I had to answer. Why is there a secret door here? What is it hiding? Is it an object of significance relating to the rest of the story? Is it a dangerous monster, sealed away forever? How does that relate to what the adventurers are going through? My 3rd-grade mind was sent wandering with almost endless possibilities. Through Gary's creation, I learned to craft a narrative - a skill that became invaluable in writing music. How could I not write an Hommage to Gary?

Hommage à Gary Gygax (Official Album Version)

Holly Roadfeldt - Piano

Hommage a Eddie Van Halen (1955-2020) – Eddie Van Halen, guitarist of the band Van Halen, was, simply put, the person that inspired me to become a musician.  I remember the moment vividly.  It was 1984—I was 11 years old—sitting in my dad’s recliner, listening to Van Halen’s album 1984 on his Walkman.  The beginning of side B (of the cassette) starts with the song Hot for Teacher, and features this blazing explosion of finger tapping from Eddie.  I heard that, and right then and there, I decided I was going to learn to play the guitar.  Much of the piece uses the tapping pattern that Eddie used in Hot for Teacher, as well as nods to moments from Jump and Eruption.

Hommage à Eddie Van Halen (Official Album Version)

Holly Roadfeldt - Piano

Hommage a Neil Peart (1952-2020) - One of my earliest true musical influences was the Canadian prog-rock band Rush. Considered by many to be one of the greatest rock drummers in the history of the genre, Neil Peart introduced me to many advanced musical concepts long before I stepped into the halls of a music school. These concepts included odd time signatures, mixed meters, metric modulations, thoroughly composed rhythms, and intense but metered virtuosity. I have always been captivated by his drum solo from their 1988 live tour release A Show of Hands. Neil plays a masterfully composed and executed drum solo in the middle of their legendary instrumental YYZ. In it, Neil created a simple melody on the glockenspiel in opposition and contrast to the thundering drum rhythms of the rest of the solo. It's this melody, the rhythms from the drums, and the YYZ Morse Code rhythm that I focused on in this Hommage.

Hommage à Neil Peart (Official Album Version)

Holly Roadfeldt - Piano and Looper Pedal

Hommage a Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) – Living life as a synesthete, Pollock’s work has always fascinated me.  Looking at these huge canvases, for me, is like setting off an explosion of sound in my head.  For this work, I wanted to try to represent that aurally.  Using his painting Convergence as a model, I assigned the various colors present in that work to different musical sonorities.  Then, I literally traced a path through the painting, and translated the painting into music.  The material on the looper represents the white/gray background, with the played material representing everything else sitting on top of it.

Hommage à Jackson Pollock (Official Album Version)

Holly Roadfeldt, Piano

Hommage a Hayao Miyazaki (b. 1941) – Miyazaki’s films have always been an inspiration to me.  Among my favorites are Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004).  Among his recurring themes of coming of age, war as folly, and having a strong environmental message, I have always felt this impending sense of inevitability in his storytelling.  In many of his films - Spirited Away in particular - the use of the clock as a metaphor is ever-present.  In this Hommage, I represent that feeling of inevitability through the metronome, as I tried to evoke the feeling of his films through the music.

Hommage à Hayao Miyazaki (Official Album Version)

Holly Roadfeldt - Piano

Hommage to a Broken Fairy Tale – This Hommage was like the others – written for a specific person. This author, who is a master of fantasy, whimsy, the fantastical and the morbid, wrote a poem called Instructions (on How to Survive a Fairy Tale) that I love.  In 2012, I set that poem for soprano and chamber orchestra and the music for this Hommage is inspired by that original song. In 2025 (shortly before the album’s release) some very disturbing revelations came out about this author which greatly disturbed and saddened me.  As a result, I decided to disassociate from this author and look at this piece as more of a tribute to those stories that once fascinated my imagination.

Hommage to a Broken Fairy Tale - Official Album Version

Holly Roadfeldt, Piano

Hommage a Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was my first attempt at writing serial music. I wanted to write something that was not typical of the 12-tone style, and I think I succeeded with this work. The short piece is in homage to the late Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa. The delicacy, as well as the highly structured nature of the pitch material, reflects how I feel about Kurosawa’s films. The piece is also a mirror of itself – in other words – the second half of the piece is a mirror image of the first half. I felt this tied in with Kurosawa’s storytelling.

Hommage à Akira Kurosawa - Official Album Version

Holly Roadfeldt - Piano

Hommage a Mandy Morris (1980-2002) – Amanda Akers Morris was, put quite simply, my first love. I met her when I was an undergraduate at the University of Texas, and I was fascinated by her from the start. She was a very talented singer, but also an artist and poet. She possessed an insatiable curiosity and felt things deeply. Tragically, in 2002 while auditioning in NY for graduate school, she was struck by a vehicle and lost her life. To say that all of this changed me fundamentally as a person would be an understatement. I was confronted by true loss and true grief for the first time in my life, and it would be years before I really fully recovered from it – well, as “fully” as is possible. 

At Mandy’s funeral, her mother gave me a CD labeled “For our Tony.” It was a series of recordings that Mandy had made of songs that she had written - just her in a practice room playing piano and singing. Some were complete songs, but others were just fragments of ideas. It was one of these unfinished fragments that I latched onto to build this Hommage.


Hommage à Mandy Morris - Official Album Version

Holly Roadfeldt - Piano

Hommage à Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977) - I'll never forget the first time I saw Wiley's work - giant paintings of modern-day African Americans in this Imperialistic European style. The message was incredibly thought-provoking, and it was stark - it stared you in the face, not giving you the slightest chance to misinterpret. And the skill - the skill that went into these huge canvases was just mind-blowing. Several years later, Wiley was commissioned by Interscope Records to paint a new cover for a remastered version of Dr. Dre's 2001 album. He painted Dre in this same context, decked out in golden medieval armor. This Hommage is full of Easter eggs - from West Coast rap, especially Dr. Dre, Domenico Scarlatti, J.S. Bach and Handel, and even Beethoven.

Hommage à Kehinde Wiley - Official Album Version

Paul Bro - Soprano Saxophone
Anthony Joseph Lanman - 8-String Electric Guitar

The word Viridian is defined as a chrome green pigment that is a hydrated oxide of chromium.  Originally written for the sax/harp duo Pictures on Silence, Viridian Soliloquy is the third piece in my series of duets for one melodic instrument and one harmonic instrument.  Each soliloquy is titled after a color – the first being cerulean (for flute and piano) and the second being obsidian (for cimbalom and theorbo).  As a composer, I experience the phenomenon of synesthesia.  This is where I see colors associated with sounds and vice versa.  I was inspired to choose viridian for this piece because of the sometimes shiny green hue that reflects off of the body of the saxophone and the “green” timbre of the instrument.  The spirit of the piece is short, fast and furious and incorporates influences from rock, jazz, heavy metal and early music.

Viridian Soliloquy

Etude 1 for Classical Guitar

Hommage a Kurosawa was my first attempt at writing serial music. I wanted to write something that was not typical of the 12-tone style, and I think I succeeded with this work. The short piece is in hommage to the late Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa. The delicacy, as well as the highly structured nature of the pitch material reflect how I feel about Kurosawa’s films. The piece is also a mirror of itself – in other words – the second half of the piece is a mirror image of the first half. I felt this tied in with Kurosawa’s story telling.

Buy!

Hommage a kurosawa

This piece was written for, and dedicated to my wife, Jennifer.  I tried to create a story - a journey through music that followed and complimented this charming and evocative poem.

The players:

Jennifer Lanman: Voice 
Anthony Joseph Lanman: 8-String Electric Guitar
Paul Bro: Alto Saxophone
Nathan Rainey: Horn
Ted Piechocinski: Accordion
Beverley Simms: Piano
Sharilyn Spicknall: Violin
Kurt Fowler: Cello
Todd Gallagher: Contrabass
Jimmy Finnie: Vibraphone, Glockenspiel, Steel Drums, Suspended Cymbal, Cajon
Roby George: Conductor

Recording Engineers: Matthew Pauley and Don Arney
Mixed and mastered by Don Arney

Instructions (on How to Survive a Fairy Tale)

il dolce stile nuovo (in English: The Sweet New Style) begun as a song for voice and piano.  After I had written the intro, I called the poet only to have her tell me that she didn’t want me setting that particular poem.  Dismayed, the piece sat in a drawer for a few months while I tried to figure out what to do with it.  Finally, I got an idea to compose a piano trio, and use the introductory material as a basis for the piece.

This piece for me is just about the joy of writing and playing music.  It brings together all of my major musical influences – rock, jazz, heavy metal, renaissance and baroque music, classical Japanese music, and modern concert music.

Jan Valta, violin – Lukas Polak, cello – Jan Petr, piano

Synesthesiac

Il Dolce Stile Nuovo

The Five Rings of Miyamoto Musashi - I. Earth Scroll (Alto Flute Version)

Sonata 46 for violin and classical guitar

Sandra Haniszewska - Violin
Tomasz Kandulski - Classical Guitar

I was attending music school as an undergraduate in 1998 at the University of Texas at Austin. At the time, Matthew Gould (of Duo 46) was attending as a Doctoral student in guitar and living in Austin with his partner, violinist Beth Schneider. They had started Duo 46 maybe a few years before this. I was hanging out with them a lot in those days - just going over to their apartment or whatever. One day, Matt said to me, "Hey man, why don't you write us a piece?", and I said, "Umm.. ok."

At this point, I don't think they expected much. They hadn't had that many pieces written for them yet, and I was just starting as a composer, only in my second year of school. I decided I wanted to write something that would really show off what they could do technically and musically, and that would leave audiences breathless.

Not knowing how to begin, I lifted a line from a piece that I had just written - a solo flute piece titled "The Five Rings of Miyamoto Musashi". That became the opening line of the piece. Then, inspired by the one movement sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, I wrote the piece based on that line. The piece is full of things that I was just discovering and becoming influenced by at the time: baroque sonatas, renaissance lute music (hence the "lute" tuning of the guitar), the tangos of Piazzolla as well as the ever-present rock and heavy metal that has always been part of my music. Since Duo 46 premiered the piece in 1999, Sonata 46 has become one of my most frequently and widely performed pieces.

Sonata 46 (Haniszewska-Kandulski Duo)

J.S. Bach - Cello Suite No. 1, Prelude

My recording I did a few years back of Andrew York's "Sunburst".

Andrew York - Sunburst - Anthony Lanman, Guitar

Anthony Joseph Lanman is an active and passionate musician that divides his time between composing, performing, teaching and advocacy for new classical music.

As a composer, Anthony creates music that reaches general audiences as well as new music connoisseurs. Embracing influences that range from progressive rock and metal, to medieval and renaissance music, to jazz, to new classical, Anthony strives to create a sound that is his own. He has written for ensembles and soloists around the world.

Recent commissions include – E.G.S./A.J.L. for guitarist Matthew Cochran, Hear Us! for children’s choir and string ensemble commissioned by Otter Creek Middle School, Automaton – a concerto for 8-string electric guitar and percussion for Clocks In Motion, The Rag and Bone Shop – a song cycle for baritone and piano trio for Brian Lewis and David Small commissioned by the University of Texas Butler School of Music, Rush – a quartet commissioned by the Music Teacher’s National Association and the Indiana Music Teacher’s Association, Hommages for Piano, Book 2, for Holly Roadfeldt, and Damselfly – a duo for 8-string electric guitar and percussion for Kyle Lutes.

Anthony’s performing career began in high school while singing and playing electric guitar with his touring progressive band Canvas. His principle instrument changed to classical guitar during his undergraduate years at University of Texas at Austin where he studied with Adam Holzman. Through his graduate study at Indiana University he added renaissance lute and theorbo to his instrumental arsenal, studying with Nigel North. He has performed with the University of Texas New Music Ensemble, the University of Texas Early Music Ensemble, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, the Indiana State University Wind Ensemble, and Clocks in Motion. He has also performed many concerts of solo and chamber music.

Anthony’s advocacy is life-long. In the nineties, he hosted a contemporary classical music radio show on KVRX in Austin, Texas. In the 21st century, he promoted fellow Indiana University composers through a web presence on Mp3.com (now defunct); created Guitar Heroes, a weekly presentation series in Second Life; and produced more than 100 episodes of his ongoing music-centric podcasts All the Cool Parts and the 1,000 Recordings Podcast. He has appeared as a guest on Soundnotion, Composer Quest, Classical Guitar Insider, Goes 2 Eleven, and The Portfolio Composer.  His new podcast 1 Track focuses on the music of the contemporary classical world.  In addition, he has exposed thousands of new listeners to contemporary classical composers by sharing this music to his more than 400,000 followers on Soundcloud.

Anthony has held several positions at multiple universities and colleges, as well as K-12 public schools. In 2016, he held an adjunct position at Butler University in addition to teaching choir and music at West Vigo Middle School. He holds a BM in composition from the University of Texas, and an MM and DM in composition from Indiana University.

Anthony currently resides in Bloomington, IN with his wife Jenna and their cats Silas and Bod.

Anthony Joseph Lanman

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