piano | music clip of the day

Category: piano

Thursday, October 17th

lucid, adj. clear, transparent, luminous. E.g., Víkingur Ólafsson playing Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Aria variata (alla maniera italiana) in A minor; Víkingur Ólafsson (piano), live, Berlin, 2018

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Oak Park, Ill.

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reading table

[B]y the latest count, there are 70 million persons displaced from their homes worldwide.

—J. M. Coetzee, “Australia’s Shame” (review of No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani), New York Review of Books, 9/26/19

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Thursday, October 10th

serendipity

John Cage (1912-1992), Amores (1943, for prepared piano and percussion trio)

Some sounds, heard in the middle of the night, can make you feel grateful to have ears.

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lagniappe

random sights

this morning, Oak Park, Ill.

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Thursday, October 3rd

sounds of Ukraine
day four

How about something quiet, delicate, beautiful?

Valentin Silvestrov (1937-), Post-scriptum (1990); Movses Pogossian (violin), Alexei Lubimov (piano), live, Los Angeles, 2016

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lagniappe

reading table

Floating on a Marsh
by Wang Wei (701-61), translated from Chinese by David Young

Autumn
the sky huge and clear
the marsh miles from farms and houses

overjoyed by the cranes
standing around the sandbars

the mountains above the clouds in the distance

this water
utterly still
in the dusk

the white moon overhead

I let my boat drift free tonight
I can’t go home.

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Saturday, September 28th

tonight in Chicago

They’re playing at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival. (Big week for the guitarist: she just won a MacArthur “genius grant.”)

Sylvie Courvoisier (piano), Mary Halvorson (guitar), live, Belgium (Ghent), 2018

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lagniappe

random sights

yesterday, Chicago (Columbus Park)

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Friday, September 27th

tomorrow night in Chicago

He’s playing, in a trio with pianist Kris Davis and drummer Nasheet Waits, at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival.

Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet, composition) with Mattie Mae Thomas (vocals, lyrics; recorded in 1939 at Mississippi’s Parchman Farm), Dean Bowman (vocals), Marvin Sewell (guitar), Gerald Clayton (piano), Joe Sanders (bass), Kendrick Scott (drums, computer), “MAE//MAE,” live, published 2018

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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lagniappe

random sights

other day, Oak Park, Ill.

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2019

Thursday, September 26th

never enough

This kaleidoscopic collection of miniatures—many lasting less than a minute—I return to again, and again, and again.

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), 24 Preludes, Op. 28; Shura Cherkassky (1909-1995, piano), 1968

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lagniappe

reading table

just one
but he goes honking . . .
departing goose

—Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827), translated from Japanese by David G. Lanoue

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2019

Tuesday, September 17th

sounds of New York
day two

Sam Pluta (1979-), Broken Symmetries (2011-12); Wet Ink Ensemble (Sam Pluta, electronics; Joshua Modney, violin; Erin Lesser, piccolo; Alex Mincek, tenor saxophone; Eric Wubbels, piano; Ian Antonio, percussion), live, New York, 2016

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lagniappe

random sights

other day, Bellwood, Ill.

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2019

Tuesday, September 10th

more

Jürg Frey (1953-), Extended Circular Music No. 4 (2011-2014); Flex Ensemble (Kana Sugimura, violin; Anna Szulc-Kapala, viola; Martha Bijlsma, cello; Endri Nini, piano) with Yoann Trellu (video art), live, Germany (Hannover aka Hanover), 2017