Mel Bay releases classical guitar anthology including 4 Oliver compositions.

Contemporary Anthology of Solo Guitar Music

By Charles Postlewate

I am proud to announce the release of this Mel Bay publication, to which I contributed 4 compositions, titled Sea Spray 1, 2, 3 & 4.

This is the first compilation of guitar music specifically composed for right-hand technique that includes the little finger. The 57 compositions include original pieces in the Easy-Intermediate to Intermediate -Advanced levels by renowned guitarist/composers from Europe, North America, South America and the Caribbean. Music by Ernesto Cordero, Carlos Dorado, Jim Ferguson, David Flynn, Gerald Garcia, John Hall, Ricardo Iznaola, James Lentini, John Oliver, Charles Postlewate, Mirko Schrader, Burkhard “Buck” Wolters and Luis Zea show the advantages of a five-finger technique in the playing of scales, chords, arpeggios, tremolos and harmonics. They also show the advantages of using the little finger for speed, accuracy, strength and balance. All of these compositions are edited and fingered by Postlewate, pioneer in the use of a five-finger technique. This book is a companion to Anthology of Nineteenth Century Guitar Studies for Five Fingers of the Right Hand (MB21153), compiled and fingered by Leonhard Beck and edited by Charles Postlewate. Standard notation only. In English and Spanish.

DIRECT PRODUCT LINK:

http://www.melbay.com/product.asp?productid=21290

Labyrinth Event a success!

The August 11 performances at Christ Church Cathedral of John Burke's Labyrinth music were a success. Both performances sold out (likely because only 100 tickets sold for each). The continuous performance, in about a dozen sections, created an intense experience, as the music journeyed from simple minimalism to rather more intense musical surprises. Due to the repetition of musical material for long stretches of time with minimal or gradual changes in texture, the sudden changes to a new section had a similar effect to a Philip Glass score, but the harmonic movement is entirely a different beast, taking this music to a place rather far removed from the OpArt-related Glass style.

Today's entry reports my thoughts on the first performance of "La Sombra Espiral" for guitar and string quartet. This special event required that I sit on stage in the orchestra waiting to play for 40 minutes! For a number of reasons, that became a rather unnerving experience. First of all, it was my first participation as musician in this ritual event, and I had essentially no idea how "La Sombra" would sit in the overall concept. Then there is the first performance jitters, which are to be expected.

It is an unusual thing for classical musicians to perform while people engage in any activity other than concentrated concert-hall listening, especially with music designed to engage the listener in a special way, as Burke's music does. So as I sat for 40 minutes watching people walk the labyrinth – which sometimes became quite crowded – I thought about how they might be dividing their concentration. Would they bump into each other if they got lost listening to the music while walking? Would they be able to listen and pay attention to the walking? With the labyrinth so full of people for the first half of the performance, I became convinced that it may have been a wise decision to limit the number of people who could actually walk the labyrinth at any one time. Then, a surprising thing happened: as soon as it was my turn to play, the labyrinth was suddenly empty. This completely changed the atmosphere in the room, as now everyone was seated and it felt just like a regular concert. So suddenly, all eyes were on the musicians. Okay: normal concert now… Strangely, I had prepared myself to play the piece to motivate labyrinth walkers: now it was just a regular concert!

The second performance at 9 p.m. was much better than the first for all the usual reasons, but also because the labyrinth had the perfect number of people on it when my piece came around. Having bult up certain expectations the first time around which were not realized in the first performance, I was ready for the ideal conditions of the second and so was quite pleased with how things went. And the first performance jitters were behind me.

I think John Burke's labyrinth music project is very special. It posits to help those who attend to achieve a catharsis, or to "work through personal issues." The event needs to be presented and handled in a very sensitive way – as it was here, with the possible exception of the traffic problem mentioned above – that is informed by the feedback of those who attend the event. In this way, it can build a dedicated following for a special type of sensitive music-lover who may also be seeking to attend the event to reflect on their own existence. In this way, it is not so far removed from the goals of those who attend performances of the more serious works from the classical music canon.

First performance of Labyrinth Sold Out

MusicFest Vancouver's first performance (6:45 pm) of the Labyrinth music of John Burke at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver on August 11 is sold out! Get your tickets in advance only from Ticketmaster for the second show at 9 pm. Only 100 lucky souls will get to witness each show!

La Sombra Espiral for guitar and string quartet by John Burke

On August 11 I will be performing (classical guitar) the premiere of La Sombra Espiral for guitar and string quartet by Canadian composer John Burke at MusicFest Vancouver, a work I commissioned from John a few years ago.

This music, designed both as concert music and as sonic "assistance" for those engaged in walking the labyrinth at Vancouver's Christ Church cathedral, is hypnotic and continuous, yet evolving in ways certainly unexpected if compared to the usual reference points for this sort of music: minimalism and New Age music. John Burke's music is unclassifiable in this regard.

My anecdote for today is to shed a little light into the process of internalizing the music, that is, practising and preparing for the concert. Usually a musician will prepare the music by identifying the difficult passages, working them until they are smooth and under the fingers, and then integrating them into the musical passage in which they exist. With minimal music, the challenge is more often mental and muscular stamina: the repetition and the counting put me, as a musician, in a different relationship with the sound I am making. There is time to "view oneself" performing the music. But such viewing is a distraction and the result of a busy mind. So I find I need to conquer the technical challenges, just as usual, but then, to actually perform the music, I need to put my mind into a meditative mode. In this respect, performing Burke's piece requires of me to enter the stream of the music in a similar way that the audience might: to quiet the mind and the body, and to focus on the sound. Those walking the labyrinth may have a two-fold task, making the possible rewards of the experience double: focus on the walk and the music at the same time. For those who enter the stream of John Burke's composition entirely, there will be a few surprises.

There are two performances of the work on August 11, the first at 6:45 and the second at 9 pm. More information here.

Chenoa Anderson's "Birds of Paradise Lost" completed

I've just finished the first version of my composition for amplified flute and computer for the great Canadian flutist Chenoa Andreson. The work is designed to be performed by a duo of solo flutist and computer musician. The flutist plays into a microphone which is attached to the audio interface of the computer. Once in the computer, the flute sound is transformed in real time to be sent out the loudspeakers in the hall.

The computer part is uniquely designed to run exclusively with Ableton's "LIVE" software. For anyone unfamiliar with the software, it allows the mixture of realtime processing and the launching of audio files with an interface that is easy to set up and use. The company also provides a 14-day completely functional trial version that allows the user to open any previously-saved files and play and manipulate them (but saving is disabled). This allows a composer to create an entire working document that can be sent anywhere in the world because the software runs on both Windows and Macintosh computers. The computer keyboard is used to control the flow of the processing and computer performance, so no extra devices are needed to perform the work. All that is needed is audio cables to go from computer to sound mixer. Very simple, this piece could be played anywhere.

The title comes from the nature of the sound materials themselves. Chenoa sent me recordings of herself performing various special flute sounds and techniques. After I multitracked the sounds and created the first few minutes, the title came to me, and it has stuck. (The connection to the Milton text is an echo rather than any direct reference to meaning in this great classic.)

The solo acoustic instrument (here the flute) is processed through various multiplication and sound colour manipulation techniques to create an entirely new sonic beast that evokes soundscapes and sound textures one would normally associate with nature and/or industrial noise; yet within the large sound, one hears the "motives" that are the source of it all, as performed by the soloist. With electronic music, it is possible to go further than "motivic development" as the primary source of forward movement in music. Where the primacy of sound rules, excitement is created using other means than the (harmonic) modulation techniques of times past. We speak of "textural transformation" rather than "modulation" – although "modulation" in electronic music refers not to chord changes, but to "frequency modulation", which is another beast. "Birds of Paradise Lost" presents a seeming contradiction between consonance and dissonance, with microtonal chromaticism colliding with beautiful tonal resonances.

Is "dissonance" defined purely by the resonating/beating properties of musical intervals and sounds? Or does the rate of change also contribute to perceived "dissonance"? As Stockhausen, Grisey and others have observed, the structure of moving sound, from still (static) to hyperactive (chaotically dense movement) is a complex web of interdependent components. For example, a dense cluster of quiet, slow-moving microtones can be quite peaceful if the beating of the intervals – the sound texture – has a very slow rate of change. It is the behaviour of the sound over time that defines its level of tension for the listener. As is often the case in my music with manipulated sound, the texture may seem fairly busy, but the underlying rate of change is often quite slow. This allows the listener into my sound world, which often contains very high, sometimes "rough" sounds.

This is music for those who would like to hear music beyond the equal-tempered music for pianos and pop-computing: music for curious minds and thirsty ears.

Premiere yet to be determine, likely 2010.

Turning Point Ensemble commissions Oliver for 2010 Olympics Cultural Olympiad

Although news of this commission was announced almost a year ago, my work on this project is now in full swing. As is so often the case, my process began with the exploration of ideas about the commission that are quite broad, encompassing everything from the specific instrumentation, to the theme of the concert, to "extra-musical" inspirations.

This post is an invitation to follow my musings on this topic – "the Olympic Chamber Concerto" – in this blog. This work will be the focus of my creative work for much of the remainder of 2009. the premiere is scheduled for the Queen Elisabeth Playhouse Theatre in Vancouver Canada on Febrary 24, 2010. See the Turning Point web page for more details.

Meanwhile, visit often for other updates about projects for ARS NOVA of Sweden, Canadian flutist Chenoa Anderson, the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra and others, as well my latest recording project.

Artist's Statement: Driven by Sound

The 20th century saw an unprecedented expansion of musical invention, the most notable of which were what I call the hidden and obscure arts of neo-medieval post-serialism derived from Webern and Varese. The great music of the 20th century is full of remarkable works that are sometimes frightening in their originality and daring. A new kind of beauty can be found in these works for the curious and persistent listener.

But what about the music of the future? If the 20th century raised questions about the relation of music to psyche, perception, number and social theories, will the music of the 21st century ask different questions? What about "New Music" in the 21st century?

When people ask me what kind of music I write, I say "New Music." I do not mean avant-garde, experimental, serial, neo-romantic, post-modern, minimal, maximal, etc. These are 20th century terms. No. I mean, "made recently." But we need more than simply "New" in a society dominated by marketing. My term for the new music of the 21st century is "New World Music."

At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian painter Kandinsky described three "mystical necessities" that define artwork of lasting value: The Personal, The Ephemeral, and The Eternal.

1. Every artist, as creator, must express what is peculiar to himself (element of personality).
2. Every artist as a child of his time, must express what is peculiar to his own time (elements of style ...)
3. Every artist, as servant of art, must express what is peculiar to art in general (element of the pure and eternally artistic which pervades every individual, every people, every age, and which is to be seen in the works of every artist, of every nation, and of every period, and which, being the principal elements of art, knows neither time nor space.)"
[from W. Kandinsky: "On the Spiritual in Art"]

I believe there is a well-spring of desire among the public to hear new music that takes these responsibilities seriously, that engages with society through its expression, that has immediate impact yet sustains a lasting impression due to its intrinsic value. In short, music that ignites the flame within because it is a gift to listeners, music without borders, "world music." Popular music fanatics receive this gift from their artists regularly since good popular music so easily communicates personality and style.

It is the artist's sensibility to the third "mystical necessity" that has the potential to secure his work as art of lasting value. Kandinsky's "art in general" is what I would call "World Art," knowing "neither time nor space." "World Music" means music that transcends boundaries and cultures, that synthesizes the musics of the world into a global expression. This already happens in much popular music, where the mixture of musical personalities and styles, from within and among different cultures, is increasingly common. Yet this merging generally eludes New Music today.

The 20th century was a century of experimentation and reaction. The scary first 15 years of the century brought us unprecedented musical invention in the works of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Webern, Varese, Ives and others, to which the rest of the century responded. The obscure hidden voice of the 20th century began with chromaticism, which begat atonality, which begat 12-tone music, which begat serial music, which (justifiably) spawned several reactionary movements of which three are the most visible: 1] towards improvisation and arbitrary musical organization (or none at all); 2] towards referential music, of which neo-romanticism was the first "ism"; and 3] towards music based on phenomenology, the study of sound organization ideas and sound itself and their effect on experience and consciousness. The third of these trends is a holistic path that embraces Kandinsky's three necessities, principally because it is based on sound perception and the psyche.

Most music of the world is organized with melody, harmony and rhythm. The New World Music I want to hear and to write will embrace the realty and potential of these powerful aspects of music and will also integrate those advances of the last century that best enhance and intensify cultural and musical experience. Audiences will listen for more than the traditional elements, to experience a music of many voices, rhythms, harmonies and textures, to experience the physical power of sound and the cultural power of events driven by sound. This will not be a secret society music. There may be hidden voices, mysteries, and obscurities within the music, but they will not obscure the music's power. Composers face a challenge: to give to the world the gift of music, the gift of culture - beyond the personal, beyond the ephemeral, toward the eternal.

Copyright © 1995 & 2008 John Oliver