Official Piano Day 2020 Playlist
Happy Piano Day!

Artwork: Alice Baldwin.

Piano Day 2020 Playlist

Piano

boom

pianoambulance

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The first full track stream from Nils Frahm's new album 'FELT' which will be released worldwide via Erased Tapes on October 10, 2011.



￼
ORDER it on CD/LP/DL here: http://erasedtapes.com/store/index/ERATP033
and receive 2 exclusive outtakes and a limited edition postcard.

LIKE and FOLLOW Nils Frahm here: http://facebook.com/nilsfrahm



￼
★★★★ – MOJO | ★★★★ – CLASH | ★★★★★ – MUSO | 9/10 – Drowned In Sound
★★★★ - ROLLING STONE (Germany) | ★★★★★ – WESTZEIT


￼
CONTEXT: Berlin-based pianist Nils Frahm is already a firebrand in the modern classical world, collaborating with contemporaries such as Peter Broderick, Ólafur Arnalds and Anne Müller. His unconventional approach to an age-old instrument, played contemplatively and intimately, has won him many fans around the world.

As announced by Drowned In Sound, he finally returns on October 10th 2011 with the successor to his highly acclaimed solo piano works Wintermusik and The Bells. Released on Erased Tapes Records and entitled FELT, the album will coincide with a European tour in November 2011 – a truly memorable and magical live experience.


CONTENT: Having recorded his last album live in a large, reverberant church, Nils Frahm now invites you to put on your headphones and dive into a world of microscopic and delicate sounds – so intimate that you could be sitting beside him.

Recorded late at night in the reflective solitude and silence of his studio in Berlin, Frahm uncovers a new sound and source of inspiration within these peaceful moments:

'Originally I wanted to do my neighbours a favour by damping the sound of my piano. If I want to play piano during the quiet of the night, the only respectful way is by layering thick felt in front of the strings and using very gentle fingers. It was then that I discovered that my piano sounds beautiful with the damper.’

Captivated by this sonic exposition, he placed the microphones so deep inside the piano that they were almost touching the strings. This brought a host of external sounds to the recordings which most producers would try their hardest to hide:

‘I hear myself breathing and panting, the scraping sound of the piano's action and the creaking of my wooden floorboards – all equally as loud as the music. The music becomes a contingency, a chance, an accident within all this rustling. My heart opens and I wonder what exactly it is that makes me feel so happy.’

FELT creates its own personal microcosm, offering a refuge of tender and honest beauty.

A video for the pre-release single UNTER can be watched here:
http://vimeo.com/13833500


￼

Press reactions to his last album THE BELLS:

'The Bells is a record of astonishing beauty' (8/10) – Drowned In Sound  

'Nils Frahm is poised to become something of a sensation' – The Economist's Intelligent Life  

 ‘Emotionally charged piano music which always errs toward the melodic side of melancholy' **** – Mojo  

 ‘If there’s any justice The Bells, along with his recently released Wintermusik set, will expose Frahm to a wider audience, a demographic with a seemingly insatiable appetite for more prime neo-classicism’ – BBC Music  


TRACK LISTING:       1. KEEP 2. LESS 3. FAMILIAR 4. UNTER 5. OLD THOUGHT 6. SNIPPET 7. KIND 8. PAUSE 9. MORE

OFFICIAL WEBSITES:          

WWW.DURTONSTUDIO.COM
WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/NILSFRAHM
WWW.ERASEDTAPES.COM 


Felt

Nils Frahm - Snippet

From the new album Asperities

http://juliakent.com
http://theleaflabel.com/juliakent
https://www.facebook.com/juliakent.music
https://twitter.com/juliakent

Asperities

Tramontana

Klangriket & Sjors Mans - Hamerstraat

Part 3 (Improvisation) taken from the new album 'In London' By Paul Wilkinson.  Download/CD link:-
https://paulwilkinson1.bandcamp.com/album/in-london-live-concert
pianoday2020

In London (Part 3)

🙃🎹Piano day 2019!!🎹🎉
Stream on Spotify and more! -> https://fanlink.to/PlinkPlay

🌱And what better way to celebrate our roots then dusting off the 🎼sheet music 🎶 and relearning some of the most important pieces from our youth 🤔

🇫🇷 Satie's Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes are two incredibly important pieces to us, and have been for a long time. As we're sure they are for many 😊 When you play them, it really holds up a mirror your craft as a performer, really showing you /and/ the listener what's going on behind the hands 🙌 There's so much s p a c e, that you can't help but reveal yourself in them 🧙‍♂️With the Gymnopédies you play the 🔕silences🔇 as much as you do the sound! How long should a chord last ⏰⁉️ When does it finish saying what it's saying 🙊 Is the melody at the top or dancing between the phrasings of the chords?! It is bare in execution but so so dense in decision, and we've heard so many different ways of playing it! 🌿

The 🗿Gnossiennes🗿 on the other hand school you in your own sense and style of rubato 🏃‍♀️it's like finding ones musical pulse 💙 It evokes such pulsing summation tones between phrasings, that with the wrong pedaling it can be a somewhat unforgiving journey- we tried our best with it haha 🙉

🎵 Set together these two pieces aim to show how we arrived where we are as a player, as well as play homage to the track that started it all, and of course- the Piano itself. Hopefully it will resonate with other like us too- let us know! ✍️ A large motivator too was a friend who's been asking for ten years for us to record a version ⏳ so if you're any requests for 2029 let us know haha 😆 With our next album nearly finished, it felt like a great stop gap to reflect 🔍 on the greats that brought us to where we are, with hopefully our unique and soft take on an old classic! 👩‍🎨

🌚 For all new listeners and old, thank you so, so much! It means to the absoloute world to us that people are tuning in to our little songs- and pushes us forward to do more and more. We hand't expected anything near the engagement we've gotten and it genuinely makes our world a better place. Thank you 🍃

Now...to the album!!

Love love
💙
PP
xx

Plïnkï Pläys: Satie

Trois Gymnopédies: No 1, Lent et douloureux

Everytime You Leave

Everytime You Leave (pianoday 2019)

Taken from the album Inwards.
https://1631recordings.bandcamp.com/album/inwards

Nil Ciuró -  Even

Dearest  - Piano day 2019

Untitled 28 was a sculpture, video and sound installation created in 28 days by artist Marie-Louise Jones and composer Lucy Claire. It was exhibited in July 2017 at Here East in London as part of Gavin Turk and Anna Maloney’s show, Inside Out. 

The music reflects each sculpture in the installation and explores themes of duality and pairs through atmospheric binaural recordings, beautiful violin melodies and vocal textures. The materials used in the physical installation; wood, stone and metal play a prominent role in the soundtrack and the sounds created when collided together were used to create unusual textures which were weaved into the piece.

On October 4th 2019, Penguin Cafe released 'Handfuls of Night', the highly anticipated follow-up to their much applauded 2017 album 'The Imperfect Sea' 

Using gut-stringed violins, viola, cello, bass, percussion, upright and grand pianos, synthesiser, harmonium and more, Arthur Jeffes and his cohorts have crafted a vivid series of panoramic sonic landscapes, that are as rich in cerebral poignancy as they are in emotional depth.

Bookended by the atmospheric ambient piano pieces ‘Winter Sun’ and ‘Midnight Sun’, the album traverses glacial minimalism with ease, combining their signature contemporary classical panoramas, such as the melancholic yet upbeat lead track ‘At the Top of the Hill, They Stood...’ and the colossal cinematic piece ‘Chapter’, with the crystalline folktronica on ‘Pythagorus on the Line Again’ — a re-visiting and continuation of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra’s 1993 Union Cafe song on the principles of harmonics.

'Handfuls of Night' began life after Greenpeace commissioned Jeffes to write four pieces of music corresponding to four breeds of penguins, to help raise awareness for the endangered Antarctic seas . A fundraising evening at EartH in Hackney followed, where Penguin Cafe premiered the four songs named after their feathered counterparts to a sold out audience; the rousing contemporary folk inflected ‘Chinstrap’, the mournful and minimalistic ‘Adelie’, stoic and rhythmic ‘The Life of an Emperor’ and the wistful, string-laden ‘Gentoo Origin’.

“Such is its mastery of slowly uncoiling drama you can almost taste the salt in the breeze" ★★★★ — MOJO⠀
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"Arthur Jeffes' music has a direct clarity. Dramatic swells and sweeps showcase the jaw-dropping landscape. Most importantly, though, the music carries an environmental message, which is a critical issue for this generation" — A Closer Listen ⠀
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"One of their most impeccable moments to date" ★★★★ — Music OMH ⠀
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"Elegiac strides across epic landscapes... Arthur Jeffes is doing the legacy of his father proud" — Prog Magazine ⠀
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"Another winner from this group, with Jeffes and company mixing minimalism, folk music and classical string writing into a charming combination” ★★★★ — All About Jazz ⠀
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"A sensitive, frequently lovely follow-up to 2017’s ‘The Imperfect Sea… Handfuls of Night’ conjures pastoral panoramas and weathered vistas" — DJ Magazine⠀

Handfuls of Night

Midnight Sun

Buy LP/CD/DL

Penguin Cafe - Midnight Sun

River Path

Beside the Spring

RIVER PATH: Beside The Spring

#pianoday2020

Taken from the album 'To Believe (Remixes)', released 6 March on Ninja Tune: http://tco.lnk.to/remixesSo

Follow James Heather -
Spotify: http://found.ee/jheather-sp
Apple Music: http://found.ee/jheather-am
Instagram: http://found.ee/jheather-ig
Facebook: http://found.ee/jheather-fb
Twitter: http://found.ee/jheather-tw
Youtube: http://found.ee/jheather-yt
Soundcloud: http://found.ee/jheather-sc

Follow The Cinematic Orchestra -
Spotify: https://found.ee/tco-sp
Apple Music: https://found.ee/tco-am
Instagram: https://found.ee/tco-ig
Facebook: https://found.ee/tco-fb
Twitter: https://found.ee/tco-tw
Youtube: https://found.ee/tco-yt
Bandcamp: https://found.ee/tco-bc
Soundcloud: https://found.ee/tco-sc

To Believe (Remixes)

A Caged Bird/Imitations of Life (James Heather Rework) [feat. Roots Manuva]

thesisproject.bandcamp.com/album/thesi…artyn-heyne

Ben Lukas Boysen - editing, zen garden.
Martyn Heyne - guitar, organ.

Composed, mixed, and mastered by Martyn Heyne + Ben Lukas Boysen at Lichte Studio Berlin.
Additional engineering by Matthias H. Franz Hahn. Vinyl cut by Mike Grinser.

Thank You!
Gregory Euclide, Matthias H. Franz Hahn, everyone at Manners McDade, Erased Tapes Records & Publishing, Claudia Gödke, and Karolina Zenobia Heyne.

Dedicated to Frieda and Frau Bellmann.

Thesis 16

& Martyn Heyne - June

To mark this year’s 88th day and as an acknowledgement to these unprecedented circumstances we find ourselves in, Piano Day founder, pianist and producer Nils Frahm releases a collection of eight solo piano pieces titled 'Empty'. 

Stream and download 'Empty': https://idol.lnk.to/nils-frahm-empty

Conceived of just before Nils broke his thumb and composed the similarly intimate solo piano album 'Screws', 'Empty' is a soothing vessel of eight simple and serene pieces originally recorded as the music to a short art film he shot with his friend and film director Benoit Toulemonde. Drifting through emotions from the stark and sobering opener 'First Defeat', to the gently euphoric 'No Step On Wing' and the contemplative but hopeful closer 'Black Notes', with its poignant minute of silence, 'Empty' is a comforting score for these turbulent times.

“When I came back from the hospital with a broken thumb and listened to the recordings, I felt they were unfinished. I decided to put them aside and started to work on my small album, 'Screws'. 

Many many other notes of the piano have been struck since these days, and before we all forget about this, I thought it would be a good moment to share these lullabies with you. I hope they help you stay all strong and calm in these days of solitude – despite the hardship, we can discover introspection and reflection unexpectedly. Who knows what it is good for.  
 
Much love, Nils”

Empty

No Step On Wing

Stream & order LP · CD

Nils Frahm - No Step On Wing

Kindred piano lovers Peter Broderick and David Allred have gifted the sheet music for their song Hey Stranger, taken from their collaborative 2017 record Find The Ways. Reminding us of the importance and power of friendship, it was originally performed on double bass, with Peter on violin and the two singing together. David kindly recorded this solo piano version to make it easier for you to follow the notes.

www.allredbroderick.com
www.pianoday.org

Find The Ways

Hey Stranger (Solo Piano Version)

Free sheet music

Allred & Broderick - Hey Stranger (Solo Piano Version)

For Radio Nova (Fr), HØJDE composed, recorded, and clipped a track in Lockdown. It illustrates the apprehension of this period, through moments of doubts, creation, impatience, troubles, pleasures. It's called 𝗟 '𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗿𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻, or how intimacy can become captivating.

I invite you to watch the video clip here:
https://www.facebook.com/129336307138013/videos/550186348974322/

L'autre Main #pianoday2021

My Dad Came Home and He Was Hungry

Look Up Through The Trees

Vortex

Hero

When Frieder Nagel got the invite to use a part of the city park Nuremberg for an installation, he teamed up with light artist Stephan Scheiderer "to make music livable again“: When park goers passed by an old, majestic plane tree, it automatically sprung to life (thanks to some complicated motion sensors installed and hidden by the two) - and the first soft notes of „Calm Territory“ beckoned people to stop and spend some time by this historic tree.

All tracks written, produced & mixed by Frieder Nagel.
mastered by @a_b_d_a_b_d Adam Badí Donoval (Bratislava, Slovakia)
A&R by Alexandre Cazac
Photo by Yvonne Michailuk
A&D by Motoplastic 

Calm Territory is part of Sonido Blanco, an audiovisual work of art by Frieder Nagel (music) & Stephan Scheiderer (lighting designer). This installation was presented during Lost & Found, an art circuit in Nuremberg, Germany in 2020. Played on a combination of prepared pianos including Klavins Una Corda.

released January 22, 2021 via @infine-music
iF3099 - ℗ & © InFiné - 2021

The Arrival

Calm Territory

Hojarasca

Pianist and composer.  www.paulwilkinson.co.uk
Where the music the lives:-
https://paulwilkinson1.bandcamp.com