this is a sampler set of some of my works. There is a wide range of styes and influences. I hope you enjoy! :-)

B'Racz Sampler

This work utilizes a note-matrix that I have been working with for a few years. Its 15 minutes long. I presented the "score" to the members of Goorilla, with a few specific performance-game-rules, and this is the realization they came up with. It is slow, expansive, and sensual. It is 12-tone only as an ancient philosophy, through the interpretation it moved on from the old rigidity. Performed/realized by Goorilla, this is my absolute favorite that we did together next to "I have an Ant Problem, and Nosferatu. Joseph Florindo Di Ponio, Sax; Edward Ludvigsen, guitar; Myself on keyboards. One take, no edits.


Goo-Cereal-Ish

This is a live performance of the first version of "Ghosts for Miles" in collaboration with Loop243 (an awesome percussion group in NYC headed by Thom Kozumplik). The eerie sounds are from an old scratched Miles Davis record that I sound-designed and put into my sampler (an old Emu). Recorded at the Neighborhood Music School (New Haven, CT) during a performance.

Ghost for Miles

A dream I had, this is a very very rough representation of the sounds I heard, and the way it looked. There is a YouTube Vid of this as well you can see, just click on the "Track Video" button above this text, and it will take you to YouTube...but please come back after!  
:-)

 Score will be available soon on Lulu soon

Incision

Alexander Skriabine's amazing and exhausting masterpiece "Vers la Flamme" Op.72 (towards the flame, into the flame). Starts out with a very quiet and distant theme which is unsettled, and is constantly shifting, never quite sure of its final resolution. His unique tonality gives this work a forward motion, even though its extremely placid in the beginning. As the work begins to have motion and flow, he creates a rippling effect with the Right hand playing in an uneven 9 (8th notes) while the left hand is doing an uneven 5 (quarter notes). The piece gains energy and focus as it begins to literally "tremble" and it continues all the way to the end in a giant climactic cadence that burns up (and the poor pianist is probably nearing muscle-failure at this point). Live performance of mine in Hungary years ago.

Skriabin: Vers La Flamme, Op. 72 (live performance)

from a live concert: Bach's Baroque Blender II 
(acoustic and electronic mash-ups of Bach 2-Part Inventions.
Alphonse Izzo is playing the guitar at the middle-end.

(terrible audio quality warning, SORRY!)

In this work, I took the 10th invention ("Olde Tuun/PinballMIX..1"), turned it upside-down, re-keyed it, and re-composed it for guitar and piano adding substantial connective-tissue between each Bach note, and then had a second section in which the 2 instruments "pinball" through their parts to the end. The result was a work that changed faces radically- yet still felt as if it came from the same genetic "father". It can be performed with any other instrument and piano. 

This is here purely as an audio example to accompany the score for those interested in performing this work.
The score will be available soon at www.lulu.com

OldeTuunPINBALLmix (live)

(2001)- LIVE PERFORMANCE- World premiere at the Neighborhood Music School by "Goorilla". For any number of players. Structured improvisation. Performers read a score in different directions, and react according to various rules. Performed/interpreted by “Goorilla” (B’Racz, piano; Ed Ludvigsen, guitar; Joe Di Ponio, sax).
I have a magic- square grid I was playing with for several years, and we created another work from it called “Goo-Cereal-ish” (180° different from “ant” version). Starts out hectic, ends narcoleptic. In one movement. [6'00"] Free download.
p.s. my apologies that the engineer decided to pan-around in the middle of the recording...its that way forever...

ADDENDUM: 11/13/11 I have compressed it so that you can hear everything. It has extreme dynamics and transients, and the digital levels wont go higher unless the transients are compressed. I deeply HATE compressing classical music, and I do it here holding my nose, but since it was recorded poorly, this it the only fix I can do so it is loud enough for most.



I Have an Ant Problem

translates roughly from Haungarian to “Rattling Rock in a Beer Mug” or "Pebble Playing in a Pot". Written in 1978.
I first heard this beautiful piece one night at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. My teacher Szokolay Balázs was performing it, and I was turning pages. I instantly knew I had to play it. Its a minimalist work that uses a pure and simple additive and subtractive process with retrogrades and inversions. The harmonic content is limited to six pitches (technically 5, becuase both hands play a C#), three notes per hand, and the score is a bit like reading graph paper. 

Its wonderfully fun and requires a lot of concentration to play. It is simple, quite beautiful, and trance inducing. This recording is live at a New Haven Worx concert (now known as “SOUNDunderGROUND”), at the Neighborhood Music School’s Recital Hall in New Haven, CT. Please let me know what you think, and thanks for stopping by!
:-)

Kotyogó Kő Egy Korsóban (by László Sáry)

"Tin Man" starts out 'normally enough': acoustic guitar with vocals like bad Neil Young (slightly cheesy synthy stuff in background)...then, it moves somewhere quite distantly "electronic" and never quite makes it back. Its gotten some play on 89.5 FM WPKN, Bridgeport CT, USA, on Rod Richardson's show "Radio Nothing", so that's a huge honor. Its been described as "...Nick Drake meets Neil Young" drunk...on a bad day
ha ha...


"Tin-Man" LYRICS (lyrics, music, recording by I.P.B'Racz)

Tin-man walks down the road gazing up at the starlight sky.
A star that he once called his own is now a twinkle in someone else's eye.

He stops by a moonlit rose-garden, and tries to remember the sweetness.
Tears roll down his rusty cheeks when all he smells is emptiness.

What is a rose to Tin-Man? Its a place-holder of memories.
He opens the door in his chest, and places it in a nest of sleeping bees.

Tin-Man keeps on walking hoping the sun will never rise
for once the sun has reclaimed the sky, he'll only see
his own desolation...his own desolation

[...so Tin Man runs from the sun, he keeps on moving north
because he knows if he thaws, he'll feel again...]

[...that way he'll never have to feel...]

[...a star that he once called his own, is now so far away...]

[...so far...]

Knowing the sweet scent of a rose in the noon-day sun...
knowing the sweet scent of a rose...
in the noon-day sun...

[...so far away...]


©1999: I.P.B'Racz, all rights reserved

Tin Man

01 X-Fields, Ist mvmnt. v3.0

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To all who drift
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I sincerely WELCOME you
and give THANKS!

B'Racz Sampler

IstvanPeterBRacz