Sara Warner recently caught up with Brett Deubner, renowned viola soloist and professor of viola at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College New York.

Brett, who is currently accepting scores through a Featured Recording Opportunity with PARMA, recently released MOTHER EARTH on Navona Records. He joined us to discuss the environmental themes and craft behind the album, along with the collaborative drive that led to this project with Latin GRAMMY-winner pianist Allison Brewster Franzetti.

Closing track: For Zayd and Zizi from Deubner's album MOTHER EARTH (Navona Records)

MOTHER EARTH

For Zayd and Zizi

Conversations with Violist Brett Deubner

Sara Warner of PARMA Recordings recently caught up with Gregory W. Brown to discuss the composer's work with vocal ensemble Variant 6 on his new album FALL AND DECLINE on Navona Records.

Features Movement III :: After the President’s Speech You Dream of Corpses from Brown's FALL AND DECLINE.

Fall and Decline

FALL AND DECLINE

Composer Conversations: Gregory W. Brown

Sara Warner of PARMA Recordings recently caught up with Dmitry Ishkhanov to discuss the pianist's new album of Frédéric Chopin works, VIRTUOSO, on Navona Records.

Features the single 12 Etudes, Op. 25: No. 1 in A-Flat Major, "Aeolian Harp" (Frédéric Chopin)

Virtuoso

12 Etudes, Op. 25: No. 1 in A-Flat Major, "Aeolian Harp"

Conversation with Pianist Dmitry Ishkhanov

A composition I wrote back in the spring of 2014.

Original text, 'Eternal Silence' by Okami Kamikaze:

Silence
Silence when we are walking, 
Silence when we think, 
Silence is what fills us all, 
With a binding eternal link.

Silence in the little children, 
Silence in the adults, 
Silence wrapping around us all, 
Silence pulsing in the walls.

Silence fills this hollow world, 
Silence is the choice we make, 
Silence is the death of this all, 
Silence is our fate.

Recording was taken at Keene State College, Keene, NH in the Fall of 2014
Performers:
Molly Schafer
Amanda Williams
Josh Brennan
Sam Bellmore
Zack St.Pierre
Tom Kendrick
Dimitrios Kapoukranidis
Julia Alma
Samantha Fowler
Katlin Hart

Silence

With his Navona debut ERGO, pianist and composer Zhen Chen makes an impressive contribution to the decades-long legacy of composers blending Chinese and western instruments and musical materials.
 
This musical trend can be traced back 20 years, when a potent generation of Chinese and Taiwanese composers who began to explode across American and European concert stages. Luminary composers like Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, Chen Yi, and Zhou Long paved the way for younger Chinese artists like Zhen Chen, who uses ERGO to continue this blend of his native musical culture with many parts of the Western musical tradition.
 
ERGO places piano alongside two of the most familiar traditional Chinese instruments to Western audiences: the pipa – a kind of Chinese lute – and the erhu – a bowed Chinese string instrument. Chen’s use of spacious piano accompaniments and straightforward and expressive melodies makes this combination sound natural while retaining its unique charm.
 
While the album’s compositions don’t directly draw from Chinese folk tunes, Chen does an excellent job of creating musical contexts that suit the piano, pipa, and/or erhu, as well as his typically naturalistic subject matter. The titles of many of the composer’s pieces describe a landscape, which he, accordingly, seems to illustrate with his music.
 
These pieces – such as Stroll by the Lake, Springfield, and others – are composed with clear forms that proceed with a gentle, rhythmically consistent piano accompaniment, from which a tender, sometimes plaintive, melody will emerge and develop in one or more solo instruments.
 
Chen’s melodies and textures play to the strengths of his instrumental forces, and he demonstrates keen awareness of their coloristic similarities and differences. Moreover, his harmonic language tends towards pentatonic and natural minor scales, though the song Plum Blossom Chant, for voice and piano, beautifully mixes different forms of the minor scale.
 
Two works on ERGO stand out in their style, rhythmic intensity, and playfulness: Turpan Tango and Dance Floor Banter. These pieces are based on Western dances – the tango and waltz, respectively – with Turpan Tango most notably departing from the album’s overall contemplative character for a more raucous mood. With this said, Chen’s earnestness, which abounds in his inward-looking music, remains a driving factor in these two dance pieces, and helps connect them with ERGO’s other works.

Zhen Chen - ERGO

Written and recorded in 2009
George Weithman - tenor sax
Tim Stone - congas
George Robinson - drums
Thomas MacLennan - guitar
Scott Mullett - piano, soprano sax
Chris Robinson - upright bass


S.O.L.

World Premiere Performance, University of Akron, September 22nd, 2017.  The first concert of the University of Akron New Music Series! Composed for Holly Roadfeldt.

I love this beautiful piece!  Willow is one of my favorite characters of all time! :)

Ross Crean: Willow from the Buffy Miniatures (2017), World Premiere Performance

This is an experimental song from my "Sounds of the baby" project. 
I record my experiments on my Korg synthesizer, which I call BABY.. 
I 'keep' what I'm making/creating while I practice and learn my instrument.

This audio is tied up with a live video upload on my YouTube for a series I maintain for 2 years now, called "live from the Black Hole". The link of the video is shared only with patrons of the "experimental" reward tier..

Title: Talk to You
the baby = KORG X50
Sound = Combi B_004 : Trancy_Euphoria

Enjoy! ^^
-----------------------------------------
Support my music on Patreon: http://patreon.com/lydiaplain

Sounds of the Baby

Talk to You (Sounds of the baby)

So many of us wonder about the big picture questions in life.  Why are we here?  What is the best I can do in my lifetime? COSMIC WHEEL OF THE ZODIAC, with lyrics by astrologer Benita Rainer, presents a cosmic rumination for meditation upon these great questions. These songs guide you through the labyrinth of the Cosmos, which, as perfectly attested to in “As above, so below,” is also the labyrinth of your mind; as what is without has its genesis in what is within. 

Let yourself relax down into what are the key feature blueprints of your life’s sun sign. What is your essence?  Your essential features that guide your inner world’s expansion, your externalizations? The twelve songs in the COSMIC WHEEL cycle cover a universal span, from each sign’s deepest motivation for love, to each soul’s most heartfelt desire for spiritual expression.

Journey with Aries, the first primal force of the calendar year, to Taurus’ expression of security, and onward to Gemini’s mercurial desire for freedom. Experience the depths of Cancer’s protection, the instinctual and strident soul creativity of Leo, the amazing Virgo the virgin’s cosmic genesis, and Libra’s search for harmony.

Scorpio will take you to depths you’ve never experienced, and, with Sagittarius, you will shoot for the stars.  Catch Capricorn’s goat -- if you can -- and Aquarius’ wide-ranging humanity, before experiencing the final resolution of the human spirit with Pisces, the completion of the cosmic wheel.
 
Perfect for times when purpose is lost and goals are hard to find, these twelve quintessential musical mandalas will bathe you in cosmic anchor points.  Find out what are the intrinsic motivators of your loved ones, and allow each track to revive the lost purposes of your own tribe or village. 

We are all different, and yet we all share these inner truths as expressed in Margaret Brandman’s transformative melodies. 

Margaret Brandman is an accomplished pianist, composer, arranger and music educator who has performed and lectured both in her home of Australia and abroad. She has composed music for a variety of instrumental combinations and voice. Her publications include a complete range of music education materials including Accent on Music (High School text) and the Contemporary Piano Method.

As well as being a world-acclaimed musician and composer, Margaret Brandman is also a second level Reiki Channel, and uses her healing insights to take you where you need to be.

Margaret Brandman - Cosmic Wheel Of The Zodiac Choral Settings: Cosmic Fire - Sagittarius Song

Escape Ten plays their version of Clocks by Coldplay

Clocks

A conversation with composer and educator Arthur Gottschalk recorded 11/7/18 at the MacDowell Colony in Petersborough, NH.

Arthur Gottschalk is recipient of a number of accolades, including the Charles Ives Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Special Distinction by the ASCAP Rudolph Nissim Award in 2009 for Requiem: For the Living, Gold and Silver Medals from the Global Music Awards, The American Prize in Composition in 2013 and 2014, annual awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers since 1980, and Arthur Gottschalk Day (October 16) from the City of Houston TX.

Zhen Chen - ERGO

PARMA Recordings

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