In this retrospective release of composer’s Stefan Prins output, I am featured with a solo performance (“Not I”) and a large ensemble piece (“Third Space”) together with Ensemble Klangforum Wien. The physical object is also including a DVD and some other gems by Prins that made their way into the contemporary canon of Euroean Art Music.
Founded in 1921, the Donaueschinger Musiktage is one of the oldest festivals for Contemporary Art Music in the world, and among the best-known and most prestigious. Each year the festival is releasing a CD compilation of that year’s best live performances offering a “stills audio image” of current streams in New Art Music. This release features my performance with ensemble Klangforum Wien of Mirela Ivicevic’s new creation (“Case White”) for large ensemble.
A solo album capturing the “Sgorgo” triptych for electric guitar written by Italian composer Pierlugii Billone. From electric hum to fractured synth sounds – the audioscape and techniques covered in the three featured works are one of the most aspiring attempts in re-defining the codex of electric guitar in contemporary Art music.
Nikel has been working with composer Marco Momi since 2010 and this album is the capturing of this long term friendship and collaboration. Featuring two quartets and a series of intertwined solos (NUDI) it is a proper representation of the group’s interest in the fusion of acoustic and electronic sound sources.
Featuring a verity of pivotal groups in the European art music scene this triplet release is probably the vastest publication of recorded music by Austrian composer Clemens Gadenstaetter. I am featured here with a quartet (“Sad Songs”) performed by Nikel and a duo for electric guitar & accordion (“Bodies”) with my long time colleague, accordionist Krassimir Sterev.
Release Date: September 8th, 2020 (Orders available below)
For a long time I have wanted to tackle canonic repertoire and offer my perspective on certain works. At the same time a central idea was to counterpoint such classics with recent creations to reveal something of the aesthetic, instrumental and idiomatic change that has taken place in New Art Music for electric guitar. Binding it all together is my ongoing interest in nostalgia, here taking shape in the presence of harmonies which could roughly be categorised as tonal or modal. These I find fascinating as they hold a double (almost contradicting) quality. On one hand contemporary by the recontextualization of such material while at the same time nostalgic by its offering of a familiar, cradling musical sensation from the past.
And with nostalgia, what’s better (besides the sonic quality) than enjoying the music on vinyl, resonating the above ideas both in format and listening manner with two very distinct sides. Side A addresses solo pieces with accompaniment (from 80’s prerecorded tape to current electronics) while side B is rougher, stripped in nature and more suggestive of a “live in the studio” sensation. Therefore 33 RPM points both to the medium (vinyl) and to the time (+/-33 years between the old/new pieces) over which this musical transformation took place.
Track Listing:
SIDE A
1. Steve Reich: Electric Counterpoint (I. fast) [6:52]
2. Steve Reich: Electric Counterpoint (II. slow) [3:21]
3. Steve Reich: Electric Counterpoint (III. fast) [4:27]
4. Marco Momi: Quattro Nudi [10:33]
SIDE B
5. Tristan Murail: Vampyr! [6:31]
6. Clemens Gadenstätter: Studies for a Portrait [15:25]
Credits:
Yaron Deutsch: Acoustic & Electric guitars // Stefano Bechini: Mixing & Mastering // Yoav Perry: Graphic design
Release Date: March 4th, 2022 (Orders available below)
Nikel’s most recent release is a capturing of Klaus Lang’s 60 mini work – “Bright Darkness”. This piece we’ve been touring around with for quite some time often performing it outdoors – in parallel to sundown. During the pandemic we had the chance to get in the studio and put this work onto the tapes but this time with the obvious studio indoor benefit of having proper silence to allow the listener the chance of enjoying the verity of details and layers Lang had carved so meticulously. Here is what he had written about the work:
“Listening with clogged ears and seeing with closed eyes.”
“What we perceive is very often not what our senses are suggesting – in fact it is our notion of something, shaped by concepts. We are impeded in realizing our sensory perception by a learned mechanism of our mind. It’s not uncommon that our preconceived expectations, our prejudices, are exactly the opposite of what we sensorially experience. If we obviate all noises, it gets louder, if we close our eyes, it gets light. We might question what we really see when we close our eyes in order to ‘see nothing’, and what even is our idea of ‘seeing nothing’ and ‘darkness’? The same applies for movement, too. Sometimes we can’t tell whether an object is moving or not. Is it a chord we’re listening to, or a line? A layer or a process? Or is it just our mind moving? Where can we find the answers to these questions?”
Klaus Lang
Buy & listen here: https://nikel.bandcamp.com
Release Date: November 16th, 2022 (Click here to Buy & listen )
“Live in New York City” is my humble take & contribution to the genre of live recorded albums which was one of the most captivating formats accompanying me in my youth as a music lover. From U2’s “Under Blood Red Sky” to Neil Young’s “Weld” & Rush’s “Exit…Stage Left”, such live renditions were not only offering a raw and bigger than life interpretation to familiar studio versions but also functioned as miraculous teleporters, transferring a boy from his room straight into the heart of Red Rocks’ general admission. Recorded this summer at the TIME:SPANS festival in New York the album features a world premiere performance of Klaus Lang’s “chanson lointaine et doucs” alongside Lisa Illean’s recent creation – “Tiding”. Also included are some of my most favorite repertoire going all the way back to Fausto Romitelli’s “Trash TV Trance”. For the latter awaits you sharp listeners a brand new interpretation I’ve prepared especially for the occasion. A great bonus also comes in the shape of a masterfully made concert film directed by Paul Moon, to be published later in December on youtube/vimeo. Thankful to the many people involved (credits below), a special thank you goes to Thomas Fichter, artistic director of the Time:Spans festival and a driving force behind the project.
Enjoy the music and the performance, it’s all yours now.
Track Listing:
1. Intro (Live) [0:47]
2. Fausto Romitelli: Trash TV Trance (Live) [11:15]
3. Avshalom Ariel: All the Boys Forgot About You (Live) [3:18]
4. Pierluigi Billone: Sgorgo Y (Live) [20:49]
5. Lisa Illean: Tiding (Live) [8:53]
6. Klaus Lang: chanson lointaine et douce (Live) [11:45]
Credits:
Yaron Deutsch, electric guitar
Caley Monahon-Ward, recording and mix
Stefano Bechini, mastering
Photography, H. Paul Moon
Album design: NINETYTWO studio
Recorded at Mary Flagler Cary Hall, DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York City on August 22, 2022. Produced for TIME:SPANS 2022 by the Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust.
TIME:SPANS Contemporary Music Festival:
Thomas Fichter, Executive/Artistic Director
Caley Monahon-Ward, Director of Production
Kayleigh Butcher, Program Coordinator
Carly Levin, Production Manager
Nikel’s third album is a homage to the medium of Radio and its role in the 21st century. Recorded in France, Germany & Switzerland during the years of covid pandemic the album features four works commissioned by various European radio stations only to remind us of the power public broadcast has in producing cutting edge content. As a result listeners are in for the rare chance to hear Nikel playing works that were brand new or only performed once or twice prior to their recording date. As such the album has a raw energy nourished also by the strategy of not recording more than 2-3 takes per piece. Repertoire wise Radio Works also offers a great introduction to up and coming composers Nikel has not yet worked with. Among them Didem Coşkunseven, Huihui Cheng & Sylvain Marty. Closing the album is a piece by Matthew Shlomowitz & Jennifer Walshe (also featured on vocals) which grew from a 10 minute work as documented here into a one hour extravaganza that we recently premiered at the notorious Darmstadt International Summer Courses festival.
I have been immersed with the music of Hugues Dufourt for almost two decades now and more so since 2021 as the idea of a triple album marking the composer’s 80th birthday began to take shape. My role in this was to curate and record Dufourt’s electric guitar catalogue ranging from 1986 to 2022 – a rewarding task that summoned numerous one on one hours with the composer and great sessions with some of my favorite musicians and engineers. On Jan. 26th, 2024 Bastille Musique label published the result in a 3 cd box set featuring world premiere recordings by ensemble recherche, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Ensemble Nikel, Remix Ensemble, Nicolas Hodges (piano) & myself. Produced by the WDR, the box set includes an 80-page trilingual booklet (EN, FR, DE) with articles by Martin Kaltenecker, Harry Vogt and an interview with the composer, several autograph pages as well as two concertina-fold inserts featuring photos of the composer and the performers during the recordings.