So many things to listen to on soundcloud - only just round to listening to this properly - brilliant work all round!


@dave-mckeown: Amazing composition. Love classical sax, its so rare. Thanks!

Hahaha oh man, this is great.
without a doubt the most difficult instrument to play this on, but very well handled.

Another unique and passionately played piece of work.  Nice work, Dave!  Favorited!

I'm out of breath after listening this... amazing, Dave! Thank you! :)

Here's a few of my favourite tracks that I'd like to have on my Spotlight page permanently if I had the room. To be here, it's important not only that I'm proud of the music, but also that I enjoyed the process of making them and the musical company of others involved

12 Front Page Favourites

This track is from the album No Fear Required and is available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/herzberg2

A Restless Stay

Here is a piece for piano and tenor saxophone. Big thanks to <a href="http://soundcloud.com/dgreening" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">♬ Dave Greening</a> for very kindly allowing me to root around in his extensive back catalogue for another tune suitable for collaboration; with it's wide open spaces at the beginning and end and with the beautifully voiced and intense middle section, this piece fits the bill perfectly.
All the different moods in the piece are created and played with gorgeous sensitivity and a sure-footed sense of structure by Dave. It was a huge pleasure to spend time adding an extra layer on saxophone.

I took the picture in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire

davemckeown.co.uk

Bliss, Dave McKeown with Dave Greening

Here is a Prelude and Fugue I've written for saxophone quartet. For those of you not familiar with the format, that's soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones and I'm playing them all on this recording.
This music was written for the <a href="http://returntostyx.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://returntostyx.com</a>/ project created by David Stuart, aka <a href="http://soundcloud.com/archimedes">Archimedes</a>. This is an exciting collaborative novel with contributions in text, music and image by all sorts of talented people here on Soundcloud and from elsewhere. It's a fascinating process seeing how people have interpreted the brief and brought their own creativity to bear on the project.
When David mentioned the "Return to Styx" project the first thing that came to my mind was Handel's amazing Baroque operas in which the Underworld was a common theme. It's difficult for us to imagine the incredible impact a Handel opera would have had on the audience of the day. There would have been no CGI or amplification or indeed, much acting or scenery. But Handel knew how to convey very real human emotions in his exquisite music, and that's what theatre-goers would have felt as they concentrated on the performers. That's why I decided to write this piece in a Baroque style....not as an attempt to capture any of the passion and artistry of Handel because that's an impossibility.... but to pay my respects to that first emergence of the personal and vulnerable voice in musical theatre.
For those of you interested in this sort of thing, I originally planned the first movement as a Toccata, but it's not quite long or difficult enough to justify that title, so I've settled for the less ambitious Prelude. The Fugue is in 4 equal voices, with two main themes heard together in counterpoint at the beginning of the movement, before being developed around the ensemble in various keys and combinations. The Prelude is principally in D minor, but the main key in the Fugue is F Major. The Fugue's coda however modulates back to D minor, bringing the piece to a close with the same harmonic sequence as in the Prelude .

I took the picture in a cave carved out of the ice in a glacier in the French Alps

Cave of Mirrors, Prelude and Fugue, Dave McKeown

Gata  pro

Music Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD8lqjh8Hvw
---
Where Giants roam the Earth there is a Giant piano - The Piano As Big As a Tree.

In the summer of 2015 I had the amazing chance to play the biggest upright piano in the world - "The Giant", made by David Klavins (@thepianoguy), the renowned pianomaker. 

When I touched "The Giant" for the first time, this very piece was born under my fingers. We called it "The Piano As Big As a Tree".

I knew right away that one day I would compose a whole album for this extraordinary piano.

This year my dream finally came true! Thank you for the inspiration, David!

Don't miss the music video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD8lqjh8Hvw

The digital album is available on:

* iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/album/where-giants-roam-the-earth/1431530487

* Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Giants-Earth-Milana-Zilnik/dp/B07GMWQSRD/

* BandCamp: https://milana.bandcamp.com/album/where-giants-roam-the-earth

* CDBaby: https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/milanazilnik4

The album has received some terrific reviews already!

* Pam Asberry: https://pamasberry.com/2018/09/26/album-review-where-giants-roam-the-earth-by-milana-zilnik/

* Kathy Parsons: https://mainlypiano.com/reviews/milana-zilnik-where-giants-roam-the-earth

I still have a limited edition CDs and sheet music books (both perfect and spiral binding) on my hands that I will personally sign for you if you order via BandCamp. Most have been preordered already, so act fast ;-) Thank you very much for your support! Any proceeds from album sales go back into music  - we got some plans already for the next musical project that will take about a year to complete.

Where Giants Roam The Earth

The Piano As Big As a Tree

"The Piano As Big As A Tree" - Music Video by Milana Zilnik and Arty Sandler

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn7FKPfaKDc
---
This is NOT "Carol of the Bells" but I hope my improvisational version will put you in the Christmas mood nevertheless :)

Not Carol of the Bells

Not "Carol Of The Bells". Improvised by Milana Zilnik

Video: https://youtu.be/zzaEIr15gm8
---
...Night... Notte... the time of silence, dreams, reflections.. the time when the music happens in between notes more than in the notes themselves. 

It’s two hours past midnight... it's calm, dark and quiet.. all you can hear is distant echoes..

"Notte" is released on all major platforms! You can listen to the entire album on Spotify or Apple Music, or get it on Amazon, Google Play or BandCamp. I can also send you an autographed CD!

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/1XxXuipva4MjptSkfvgmQD

BandCamp: https://milana.bandcamp.com/album/notte

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/album/notte/1463908431

Amazon MP3: https://www.amazon.com/Notte-Milana-Zilnik/dp/B07RNC5VZK/

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/music/album?id=Bc7lkxwftw3cwj6c4n3xlrblf4q

Notte

2am. Echoes

"2am. Echoes" from "NOTTE" by Milana Zilnik

02 - Stefano Guzzetti - Reaching Out

Filled with Light

Provence

Here is a beautiful song written and performed by http://soundcloud.com/anj-7 from Germany with a few subtle additions by the wonderful Michelle Eaton on piano and myself on clarinet. 

Anjù writes brilliant songs that are simple and direct. There are no pyrotechnics. She manages to imbue them with the deepest of emotions with the pure and intimate tone of her voice and impeccable phrasing and timing. Meanwhile, Michelle just captures the dark melancholy of this song perfectly on the piano. Just such a pleasure for me to be involved with such talent. 

Like the Sea, Dave McKeown with Anjù and Michelle Eaton

This is Barrios' Villancico de Navidad (Christmas Carol). It took many takes before I could get the recording down.

Agustin Barrios Mangore Villancico de Navidad

I've been having a bit of fun writing and recording some music over the last few days and I got a bit carried away with this one. The band is made up of flute, clarinet, alto sax and bass clarinet. It's a combo that seems to work quite well for me, lots of colours on the palette to work with. Don't ask me what key it's in, it's mostly constructed with augmented harmony around the note of Eb concert. 

Honey, Who Put the Toothpaste in the Microwave? Dave McKeown

Here is a collaboration with two of the nicest guys on the cloud, Vlad and Diederik. They met up in Sydney Australia last year and decided to make a track together. Before Christmas, just before Rik moved to the UK, he sent me his lovely gamelan track. I saw it was in the right key for my Uillean Pipes so decided to give them their annual outing. I also liked the idea of playing a  counterpoint on my yew wood flute, and that got me thinking about Wordsworth's powerful and mysterious poem about the yew trees he knew where he lived in the Lake District. 

Yew trees are wonderful. Some are thought to be over 5000 years old. I know one near here that is at least 1600 years old. The very same ancient yews that Wordsworth describes can still be seen in Borrowdale today. Because of their longevity they were places of worship in pre-Christian times, and many found in church yards in the UK were there long before the churches were built. The wood is a glowing mixture of purple, gold, red and orange, dense and very slow-growing. 
All this seemed to fit with Diederik's marvellous bubbling gamelan track. Yew Trees and Gamelan may seem strange bed-fellows but both represent cultural traditions whose origins are lost in the mists of time. I visited Buddhist temples in Cambodia a couple of years ago where the buildings and the trees had intertwined to become almost as one, and that's what I had in mind when I was making this track. 

In the meantime, Vlad recorded his bass track, and I couldn't believe when I heard it, it fitted so exactly with what I had added to the track. Apparently we had both heard Diederik's music in precisely the same way. 

Anyway, here is Wordsworth's poem.

There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, 
Which to this day stands single, in the midst 
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore:

Of vast circumference and gloom profound 
This solitary Tree! -a living thing 
Produced too slowly ever to decay; 
Of form and aspect too magnificent 
To be destroyed. But worthier still of note 
Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
 Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; 
Huge trunks! -and each particular trunk a growth 
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine 
Up-coiling, and inveteratley convolved, -  
Nor uninformed with Fantasy, and looks 
That threaten the profane; -a pillared shade, 
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, 
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged 
Perennially -beneath whose sable roof 
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked 
With unrejoicing berries -ghostly Shapes 
May meet at noontide: Fear and trembling Hope, 
Silence and Foresight, Death the Skeleton 
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate, 
As in a natural temple scattered o'er 
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, 
United worship; or in mute repose 
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood 
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.


Yew Trees, Dave McKeown with Diederik de Jonge and Vlad Josephson

I've been wanting to make a track about guns for a while now. I've collected a lot of samples and made a few false starts, but it wasn't until Kine posted these wonderful vocal stems for 'Father' that I could see a way forward. There are a few recordings from gun supporters and newscasters, but the main voice you hear is that of Kaitlin Roig, the incredible teacher who hid her first grade class in a tiny bathroom and kept them calm, quiet, and safe until the horror had passed.

I've been a huge fan of Kine since she put her first scratchy demos up on soundcloud a couple of years ago. There is a fragile power to her voice and a darkness and depth that is hard to fathom. The prayer she offers in this song puts into words perfectly what we all felt in the aftermath of events at Sandy Hook, Utøya, and elsewhere, but no-one can express it like Kine: and that, in a nutshell, is what music is for.

Darkness wash away my fear
make me forget I was ever there
take away my eyes take away my mind
make me understand how it feels to be blind

Father, Father hold me in your arms
make me feel safe make me feel strong
all I wanted was your love

Hold me in your arms
make me feel strong
I'm calling for your love
to wash it all away

Father, Dave McKeown with Kine Hjeldnes

From the composer of The Piano... Josephine Knight plays The Protecting Veil composed by Michael Nyman.

John Tavener: The Protecting Veil

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Riccardo Muti, conductor

Muti Conducts Mozart, Strauss, and Liszt - Broadcast

I am a working full-time musician, teaching, performing, composing, recording and arranging, and my gigs in the last few years have included jazz combo, big band jazz, folk, Irish traditional, rock, soul, latin, klezmer, funk, orchestral, chamber, minimal techno, musical theatre and more, so, safe to say, I’ll have a go at anything. 

I'm a firm believer in demolishing boundaries between genres, cultures, languages and ultimately people, and Soundcloud is a terrific place where all this can happen.

Cave of Mirrors, Prelude and Fugue, Dave McKeown

Dave McKeown

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