Recorded as an Improvisation. Single take, no overdubs.

'Wall' is taken from the new album by Nils Frahm – 'Solo'. Revealed on Piano Day as a free download and available on CD/LP/DL via www.pianoday.org

Fans can donate to the special piano project which will enable Nils and piano builder David Klavins to create the Klavins M450, the tallest piano in the world.

“Why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons. But mostly, because it doesn’t hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.” – Nils Frahm

HOW WILL YOU CELEBRATE PIANO DAY?

create your own piano events with friends or simply share your videos, poems, photos - anything that is piano inspired. don’t forget to tag us in your posts!

Instagram – #pianodayofficial
Twitter – twitter.com/piano__day
Facebook – facebook.com/pages/Piano-Day/382403391947996
Email – share your fun stuff with info@pianoday.org


Solo

Wall

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Austrian composer Georg Fredrich Haas is best known in the UK for his instrumental work in vain, acclaimed by Simon Rattle as ‘an acknowledged masterpiece of the 21st century’. But there is much more to Haas than one piece: a complete list of his works includes song cycles, symphonic works, six operas and chamber and solo pieces. His music is clearly influenced by his studies with the Spectralist composer Gérard Grisey, but Haas’s music is freer in structure, guided not by harmonic series but by an emotional drive.

During rehearsals for a new production of his song cycle ATTHIS in the Linbury Studio Theatre, and shortly after the announcement of his new commission, Morgen und Abend (Morning and Evening), for the Royal Opera House’s main stage in the 2015/16 Season, Haas spoke of his music, the intense collaboration needed to create an opera and the impulse to write music as a politically conscious person.

Interview with Georg Friedrich Haas

Order 7"/DL here: www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP073
or via iTunes: http://snip.ftpromo.net/lifestoryloveandglory

Erased Tapes artists and friends Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm have separately carved out a musical career that defies genres both with their unique live shows and a loyal fan base that’s always eager to hear what their prolific output will bring. 

Their latest collaborative 2-track release ‘Life Story Love and Glory’ is a live improv affair on two pianos, recorded in 2012 at Nils’s Durton Studio in Berlin. Fans may wonder why they have waited until 2015 to release these tracks, but having revealed a new website www.arnaldsfrahm.com you may think this may not be the end to their musical story this year. 

“We would meet in Reykjavik or Berlin with the intention to share some days off work, hiking, swimming or eating pizza. That is great for a couple days, but after a while we would always end up back in the studio, fiddling with synths or pianos.” – Nils Frahm 
“You can hear in the beginning of ‘Life Story’ how I have already started playing the piano whilst Nils is still moving microphones around and preparing everything. It was all kept in!“ – Ólafur Arnalds 

‘Life Story Love and Glory’ will be released as a 7” on Erased Tapes – exclusively through record stores only on August 21, 2015 ahead of its digital release later on – as an ode to this classic and beloved format. 

More info: www.arnaldsfrahm.com · www.erasedtapes.com

Life Story Love And Glory

Life Story

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Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm – Life Story

‘Loon’ will be released on Erased Tapes as a 12” vinyl as well as digitally on October 2nd. 
Pre-order it here: www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP072
or via iTunes: http://snip.ftpromo.net/loon

Containing five synthesiser-led pieces, ‘Loon’ was recorded in autumn 2014 across five days at Nils’s Durton Studio in Berlin, and continues on from the ambient sounds of ‘Stare’ but with the addition of more percussive elements and dub influences. For this new EP the duo wired an Oberheim 4 Voice and a Korg PS3100 to the mixing desk and performed live takes on both instruments. With all four hands on its pots, all mixes were recorded straight onto 2-track ½-inch tape.

Like on ‘Stare’, their first collaborative affair in 2012, they simply followed what was laying in front of them, and this time they were driven by some new synths, a kick drum and tape effects. Indulging in dub, the tracks where all performed rather than engineered, with Ólafur riding a few elements on faders and Nils bringing effects in and out. After running several mixes, they went for the five strongest moments from this session. The release was announced on a joint website www.arnaldsfrahm.com together with the launch of an intimate 45-minute studio film titled ‘Trance Frendz’, featuring another seven improvisations.

“Nils got some new synths and we thought we’d try them out. We loved them so much that we didn’t actually end up using anything else to make these songs.” – Ólafur Arnalds

“When I was young I was smuggled to Goa parties by my brother. The music played there in the late nineties had a somewhat deep effect on me. ‘Loon’ is almost a blurry memory of these times. In other words, it is what I’d like to remember that music sounded like back then. In fact it sounded probably really cheesy.” – Nils Frahm

Loon

Four

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Ólafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm – Four

Taken from their forthcoming mini-album 'Ellis' out July 8 on Erased Tapes.

Pre-order the LP/CD/DL here: www.erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP086
or from iTunes here: http://snip.ftpromo.net/ellis

For the first half of the twentieth century, Ellis Island stood as the gateway to America. For some twelve million people, it was their first encounter with the land they hoped to call home.

Directed by acclaimed artist JR, ELLIS tells the story of one such migrant. Starring Robert De Niro, the film winds its way through the crumbling hallways of the abandoned Ellis Island hospital complex, now home to JR’s Unframed art installation. It’s a place that reverberates with the hopes and fears of those who passed through it, the echoes especially resonant today.

Entwined with the narrative is a score composed by Woodkid, performed and co-written by Nils Frahm. The delicate piano motifs of Winter Morning I culminate in a crescendo of strings, while the harmonium swells on the B-side are the foundation for De Niro’s narration: an encomium for those who shaped modern America.

There’s perhaps never been a more fitting time for this story, with all the proceeds going to the Sea Watch initiative, a non-profit charity dedicated to the protection and rescue of civilian refugees.

Following a screening as part of Nils’s Barbican Weekender, the ELLIS score will be out July 8th, the same week as America’s great federal holiday. It will be available via Erased Tapes as a mini album on CD, vinyl and in digital format containing a 12-page picture booklet.

IN THE ARTISTS’ OWN WORDS:

Nils Frahm: ‘The opportunity to work on JR´s fantastic short film ELLIS came through my good friend Yoann aka Woodkid. We agreed on recording the piano parts in my studio in Berlin and so it happened that JR and Woodkid were guests at Durton studio on a wonderful late summer day in 2015. We managed to record all the crucial elements that day. The music fell in our laps and melted with the images: a wonderful experience. The film has stuck in my head ever since; it moved my heart and changed my soul.

A couple of weeks later I had to cancel a trip to Brussels because of a terror warning; all events got cancelled and I stayed home, having an unexpected day off. I felt rather depressed that day, thinking that the Europe I knew was already gone. I sat down at the harmonium, listened to Robert De Niro’s voice and played for the rest of the day. The result is ‘Winter Morning II,’ the B-side of the ELLIS soundtrack release.

Robert says it all in 17 minutes. We are not facing a refugee crisis. We are facing a crisis because we do not embrace, we do not sympathise and we cannot give up fear. Art can encourage so I hope this project will help fight the fear in all of us.’

Yoann Lemoine, aka Woodkid: ‘Ellis is my second collaboration with JR after the New York City Ballet piece for Les Bosquets. I initially wanted this piece to sound like it was recorded on an old piano that we found in the ruins of Ellis Island, in the restricted area that is not open to the public, where JR pasted the pictures on the walls for the film Ellis.

I had worked with Nils before and I wanted him to create a sound for this piano part that I composed that was extremely gentle and organic. I wanted the listener to hear the mechanisms, the breathing of the instrument. I wanted it to be imperfect, to sound like a ruin, a trace, an echo, the way the pastings on the walls seem to be ghosts, almost imperceptible.

After a few rehearsals, Nils stripped down my piano parts and we removed almost all orchestration around the piano. He then worked on the extended version that is his interpretation of my piece, with Robert de Niro’s vocals.

Because this film and this recording is historically meaningful, it was important for us to create this piece as an echo to the immigration situation in Europe, and decided to release it in support of Sea Watch.’

Ellis

Winter Morning II (with Robert De Niro)

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Woodkid & Nils Frahm - Winter Morning II (with Robert De Niro) - teaser

Everything Everything - Don't Try (Brandt Brauer Frick Remix)

Christoph Niemann zählt zu den bekanntesten und gefragtesten Illustratoren der Welt. Nach seinem Studium ist er mit seiner Mappe mal eben nach New York gezogen und hat es geschafft für den amerikanischen Rolling Stone, Wired, The New York Times und den The New Yorker zu zeichnen. Für den The New Yorker hat er über 20 Cover gestaltet, er hat mehrere Bücher veröffentlicht, er baut Apps, bekommt Preise und hat sogar eine eigene Netflix-Dokumentation. 

Dass dieser Erfolg in der täglichen kreativen Arbeit nicht wirklich hilft, darüber sprechen wir im Interview. Christoph gibt Tipps für Einsteiger, er zeigt, wie man auf Knopfdruck kreativ sein kann und welche Kritiken ihn treffen. Christoph sagt den schönen Satz “Ich brauche 49 gute Kommentare um einen schlechten weg zu machen.”

Und er sagt noch mehr über die Kunst, über das Kunsthandwerk, über Inspiration über die Trennung zwischen Beruf und Familie und wie er sich die Aufmerksamkeit des Publikums erarbeitet.

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#40 Christoph Niemann – Wie schafft man es auf Knopfdruck kreativ zu sein?

Christoph Niemann's pictures paint a thousand witty words, Niemann claims to have only one trick. The New-York based humorist calls it: "sitting in front of a white piece of paper and thinking, staring and drawing until my head hurts." The end result, often excoriating political commentary, have caused others, in places like the White House for instance, a few headaches. (03.10.06)

On Design Observer: http://observermedia.designobserver.com/audio/christoph-niemann/9027/

On iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/design-matters-debbie-millman/id328074695

Design Matters with Debbie Millman: Christoph Niemann

Herzlich willkommen zu DUETT – dem Operntalk des Förderkreises der Deutschen Oper Berlin mit interessanten Persönlichkeiten aus dem Umfeld des Opernhauses.

www.deutscheoperberlin.de

DUETT #4:  Donald Runnicles (Podcast)

Deutsche Oper Berlin 🏳️‍🌈 Official  | 😴Non-active

DUETT #4: Donald Runnicles (Podcast)

Deutsche Oper Berlin

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