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AUGUST 2008
flames in the ulaanbaatar night as the mprp building burns
the view from our new balcony of the tower on piazza re astolfo
football stadium and appenini mountains in the distance
harmonia, harmonium
liber al 2008 performance
I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Esbjorn Svensson, pianist from the Swedish trio EST. His untimely and tragic death came about earlier this month in a diving accident, but I didn't read about it on the internet until yesterday morning. We saw EST perform at the Communal Theatre in Carpi only a couple of months ago, on April 9th, and it was the first time I had seen the group. Both myself and Hannah left the theatre on a high after having witnessed a great band at work. And in stark contrast to his and his band's greatness and uniqueness, Mr Svensson himself was as humble and self-effacing an individual as you are ever likely to see on the stage. A terrible loss to the musical world.
Wed 2nd July 2008
"There are as many versions of a story as there are tongues telling it," the Mongolians say, and it's difficult to judge the recent and continuing events in Ulaanbaatar based only on the news filtered through to the west, but here is what the Guardian has to say about the current state of emergency in Ulaanbaatar: Mongolia calls state of emergency. From what little we've heard so far from our friends who are still living in the city (except to say thankfully that they are safe), the TV stations have all been switched off except for the MPRP/communist party's MNB, and the city centre has been closed off, with soldiers and tanks in evidence. Deaths have occured and hundreds of people have been hospitalised, the MPRP headquarters has been burnt, and both a nearby art gallery and the instruments from the Mongolian State Philharmony and the Bayarmongol Big Band have been stolen or broken up. On a personal note, I also heard from Purevsukh that my old Jazz Academy room was broken into, and the piano smashed up. Our thoughts go out to our friends living in Mongolia at this terrible time in the country's recent politically turbulent history.
Sat 19th July 2008
Moving time again! We've moved once more, but this time only a few kilometres down the road from our old apartment in Carpi. We are now more centrally-based and enjoying the sounds and smells of Carpi's more ethnically-mixed quarter, overlooking the football stadium on one side, and with a great view of the roofs of the houses and the tower on Piazza Re Astolfo on the other, from the balcony of our fifth-floor apartment. I should say that our occupancy of this current apartment is only a temporary measure, since we'll be moving into a more permanent residence on the tiny Piazza Garibaldi from September 1st, when we return to Italy after a couple of weeks back in Birmingham from August 15th.
The apartment has the aforementioned balcony and a large terrace where, for the last week, we have been able to have dinner under the stars and feel - at last! - the cool breezes that are accessible from such an exposed and lofty position. It is also possible, on clearer days, to see the Appenini mountain range in the far-off distance. Considering how miserably hot and humid it has been for the last few weeks, the move has done the power of good for us, though I'm still looking forward to some good old-fashioned UK summer weather come mid-August. Yes, seriously!
I've also recently been inputting the full score of my old Indo-Jazz Fusions piece, "Miyan ki Malhar", into my "Sibelius" music software, since I'm happy to announce that it's going to be performed in Colorado, USA, by an ensemble called Ethos West. If you click their link you'll see that my piece is going to be performed on October 19th at the Rialto Theater in Loveland (love that name!), Colorado. I'm going to send the full score and relevant parts over to Colorado as soon as I've printed them out and am very keen to find out how the American-premiere of my piece goes. Watch this space for any concert reviews that may be forthcoming!
Tues 22nd July 2008
Great news regarding musical activity on my return to the UK from the middle of August. I've been asked to perform at the Atlantis Bookshop in London on the evening of Thursday August 21st. I've been in contact with Geraldine Beskin at Atlantis ever since I set Liber AL vel Legis to music back in 2006 - in fact, the Atlantis Bookshop was one of my original ideas for the venue for the premiere performance of that work. In the end I chose the Vortex Jazz Club in North London, where in recent years I also had the chance to present my musical setting of Howl, as well as perform alongside ex-Crass poet/vocalist/songwriter Penny Rimbaud not long before re-camping to Mongolia. The original Liber AL event was co-promoted by Treadwell's Bookstore (also in London), and it's nice to be getting the chance to finally present some of the Liber AL material at Atlantis in 2008, in a version similar to that which I recorded whilst living in Ulaanbaatar last year.
The Atlantis concert will consist of two 45-minute sets, the first presenting selections from the instrumental sections of my Liber AL setting, realised on harmonium accompanied by electronic drone (my special-created, heavily-harmonically boosted combination of the words of all three chapters of the Book of the Law, read simultaneously, resulting in a harmonic wash of sound, similar to an Indian tanpura aural background to the work - think Alvin Lucier's magnificent "I am sitting in a room" in its final 10-or-so minutes). The second set will consist of a special one melodica realisation of my work for four melodicas, "Urquhart Fifths", which is available (as are the instrumental tracks to my Liber AL setting recorded in Mongolia) through the RECORDINGS page of this website. If you're likely to be in London on the evening of August 21st, then please consider making a beeline for the Atlantis Bookshop around 19:30 to hear what effect my time in Asia, the Middle East, and now North Italy, has had on my solo playing style - and my melodica and harmonium "ecstatic" performance style - as opposed to the usual, more secular, approach to musical performance one hears all too often, which I've rarely, if ever, really felt at home with expressing in concerts. Long-term readers of this website will be familiar with my feelings on what I see as the "sacredness" of musical performance/improvisation (see 2=1=0 for more of my musing on the very act of musical performance.