Exposiciones for Toy Piano and Tape
Performance at the 12th Annual Portland International Piano Festival, July 11-18, 2010, Portland, Oregon, USA
Thursday, 3 June, 2010, Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, Oregon, USA
Phyllis Chen – toy piano
“Stephen Montague's 'Mirabella: A Tarantella' and Fabian Svensson's 'Toy Toccata' dispelled any notion the toy piano is unworthy of a virtuoso touch; the latter, a furious play of right hand on white keys and left hand on black, was intended precisely to counter the toy piano's image as cute and innocuous. Chen's fingers were fleet and precise, and she made the most of the instrument's limited dynamic range. By contrast, Takuji Kawai's "Prayer" and John Cage's 'Suite for Toy Piano,' the seminal toy piano piece, highlighted its quirky sound in music of beguiling simplicity. Electronic augmentation figured into Andrián Pertout's 'Exposiciones,' with a CD of sampled gamelan sounds accompanying increasingly convoluted chromatic arabesques, and Alvin Lucier's 'Nothing Is Real,' for grand piano, tape recorder and amplified teapot. An ingeniously simple sound exploration, the Lucier piece introduced fragments of the Beatles' 'Strawberry Fields Forever' on the piano, then repeated them in a recording on a tiny, tinny speaker in a teapot whose lid Chen manipulated like a wah-wah pedal...”
James McQuillen, The Oregonian, Saturday, 5 June, 2010
Exposiciones for Toy Piano and Tape
Review of the ‘UnCaged Toy Piano: Phyllis Chen’ CD (Concert Artists Guild, New York, NY, USA)
Phyllis Chen – toy piano
“Description: For this unique disc Phyllis Chen performs solo toy piano compositions by John Cage, Julia Wolfe, Stephen Montague, Andrian Pertout, Karlheinz Essl as well as a couple of original pieces by Ms. Chen. Every week another surprising promo is given to me, this is one of the joys of having an adventurous music outlet like DMG. This week's undiscovered gem features Phyllis Chen performing pieces for toy piano from six composers. Over the past few years Margaret Leng Tan has been searching for and performing pieces for toy piano. Ms. Chen has also taken up the challenge and the results are quite fascinating. The toy piano has a smaller keyboard and a unique, rather quaint sound. Composer Stephen Montague is a favorite of mine, his piece "Mirabella a Tarantella" pushes the limits of the toy piano into a short tour-de-force. The pieces by Andrian Pertout and Karlheinz Essl are both for toy piano and CD, which add some surprising sounds to the toy piano's sound. Pertout's "Exposiciones" adds a clock-like ticking and a solemn thud to this dark, stark work. Essl's "Kalimba" featuring a hazy, echo effect to the piano making it even more harrowing as if time is slowing down and speeding up simultaneously. Cage's "Suite for Toy Piano" is more minimal and has a child-like melody at its center. Julia Wolfe's "East Broadway" is for toy piano and toy boombox and it is more intense and a bit harsh yet effective. Ms. Chen concludes the program with her own "The Memoirist - Parts I & III". "Part 1" is for toy piano, music box & frying pan. The toy piano and music box sound somewhat similar and work well together, even when Ms. Chen strikes the keys loudly. Cooking something in a frying pan adds a more homey vibe. "Part III" is for toy piano and bowls and again these sounds work well together when the bowls are ringing. I don't think that are there are (m)any discs out now of modern toy piano so check out this one and hear the wonders...”
Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
Exposiciones for Toy Piano and Tape
Performance at the Adventurers Series
Thursday, 22 January, 2009, Symphony Space/Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre, New York, NY, USA
Phyllis Chen – toy piano
“The toy piano pieces were less substantial and certainly flightier than the Bach and Janacek works, but their sheer peculiarity commanded attention. The first was 'Exposiciones,' a 2005 work by Andrián Pertout for a microtonal toy piano and a CD with recorded bell tones and a steady, hollow percussive sound. It begins slowly, with rhythmic and melodic allusions to gamelan music, but gradually becomes a swirl of thick-textured chromatic scale figures...”
Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, Sunday, 24 January, 2009
Digressioni modali for Tenor Saxophone and Pianoforte
Review of the ‘Crosscurrents: Noah Getz’ CD (Albany Records, Albany, NY, USA)
Noah Getz – tenor saxophone; Jeffrey Chappell – pianoforte
“In an era of digital smoke and mirrors that makes musical superheroes out of average talent at the click of a mouse, it is refreshing to hear Noah Getz playing music I can personally attest to having heard him perform impeccably at Carnegie Hall, Stella Adler School, and Manhattan School of Music. With his first-ever release, Crosscurrents (Albany Records), Dr Getz, an Artist-in-Residence at American University, blows onto the scene with tremendous depth of feeling, robustness of tone, and technical bravado that is sure to inspire musicians and saxophonists of all interests and backgrounds. Among this set are potent presentations on tenor, alto and soprano saxophones, with adroit and sensitive collaborations from pianist Jeffrey Chappell, all offering ‘a diverse exploration of contemporary classical repertoire containing a variety of jazz elements.’ To this end, one could not ask for a better ambassador on the horn than Noah Getz.
The opening Digressioni modali (Modal Digressions) unveils an expansive and accessible texture, immediately reminiscent of the ECM jazz label, which at times had me thinking I was listening to the more famous tenorman who shares Noah’s namesake. Don’t take my word for it: the comparison of timbre is clearly evident, especially when taking into account Andrián Pertout’s intent in “portray[ing] a sense of free improvisation within a strictly notated form.” Explorations of the melodic movement through the seven modes are both rich and rewarding, with harmonic shifts arriving at highly intuitive moments, which ultimately makes this finely crafted composition a genuinely satisfying experience...”
Dr. James Noye
La flor en la colina for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Violoncello and Pianoforte by Andrián Pertout
Performance at the XXIX Foro Internacional de Música Nueva ‘Manuel Enríquez’, 2007
31 May, 2007, Sala Blas Galindo, Centro Nacional de las Artes, México City, México
Onix Ensamble: Alejandro Escuer – flute; Fernando Domínguez – clarinet; Viktória Horti – violin; Edgardo Espinosa – violoncello; Krisztina Deli – pianoforte
“La flor de la colina, del chileno Andrián Pertout, es una pieza enérgica y potente, trabajada a velocidades diversas (a veces consecutivas, a veces simultáneas) y con la sólida presencia del piano a la manera de un ostinato. Hay aquí, apenas, unos instantes de respiro, y la conclusión de la obra es, a la vez, fogosa y fugaz.”
Juan Arturo Brennan, La Jornada, Sábado 30 Junio, 2007
La flor en la colina for Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Violoncello and Pianoforte by Andrián Pertout
Performance by the Sonic Art Ensemble
Saturday, 1 April, 2006, Music Workshop, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney, Australia
Sonic Art Ensemble: Marshall McGuire – Artistic Director; Christine Draeger – flute; Margery Smith – bass clarinet; Rowan Martin – violin; Adrian Wallis – violoncello; Bernadette Balkus – pianoforte
“Sydney's Seymour Group (formed in 1977) has been re-named the Sonic Art Ensemble and newly launched, opening with an engaging program, Southern Stars, focused on work coming out of Central and South America. Artistic director Marshall McGuire told his audience that the program was in part inspired by work he had encountered on his Churchill Fellowship travels in the USA, hearing the music of American Mason Bates, cuban-born Tania Leon (he'd enjoyed a whole evening of her music with its Cuban Rhumba swagger), and Argentinian Osvaldo Golijov. It was Golijov's Passion of St Mark heard at a Sydney Festival that first alerted McGuire to the composer. The work had been conducted by Anthony Fogg, founding conductor of the Seymour Group.”
“...Melbourne-based composer Andrián Pertout comes from Chile, born to a Slovenian father ('There are 100,000 Dalmatians in Chile', he quips). The Slovenian heritage is important for Pertout. He asks the flautist to play the key tune from the work for us 'at real speed', explaining that it will be much slower when we next hear it. La flor en la colina (The flower on the hill, 2003-04) has the surging power of a suspenseful movie score with a driven piano underpinned by a humming cello over which flute and violin dialogue, furiously together and apart. A spacious slow movement follows, violin and rumbling piano miles apart, a lyrical reflective realm soon made turbulent, a veritable romantic wind storm that settles into a minimalist pulse before shaking itself loose again and simply stopping. This demanding work warrants more hearings, its folk origins much less prominent anchors than in the Golijov and Bates.”
Keith Gallasch, RealTime + OnScreen, Issue 73, June-July, 2006
Echoes from the Past for Flute by Andrián Pertout
Performance by the Society for Chromatic Art (SCAnyc)
Tuesday, 31 May, 2005, Christ and St. Stephen's Church, New York, NY, USA
John McMurtery – flute
“Composers James Romig and Edward Taylor responded proactively to the challenges facing emerging composers by founding Society for Chromatic Art, a new music ensemble that is now entering its eighth season of presenting concerts featuring young, but highly accomplished, performers. Flautist John McMurtery and pianist Ashlee Mack performed nine pieces by up and coming composers at Christ and St. Stephen's Church, an intimate venue on the Upper West Side that is a friendly haven for young classical musicians seeking a New York performance space.”
“... Many composers on the program employed an impressive array of extended techniques for flute. Sun Mi Ro's Summer's Dream used glissandi as an idee fixe throughout, which served as a punctuating device amid long, arching and extremely wide-ranging melodic lines. Derek Charke, a composer as well as a flutist himself, presented a well-composed flute part in his duo Distant Voices. While the language of the piece was attractive, Distant Voices suffered from a lack of editorial restraint – it could have easily been more effective at half the length. Andrian Pertout's Echoes from the Past, on the other hand, played with a large array of extended flute tricks – glissandi, multiphonics, percussive attacks, vocalisms – while maintaining an integrated and compelling formal design.”
Christian Carey, Splendid Online Music Magazine
Sonus dulcis for Piano Trio by Andrián Pertout
Performance at the SCI (Society of Composers Inc.) Region II Conference, 9-10 April, 2004, Geneseo, New York, USA
Saturday, 4 April, 2004, Wadsworth Auditorium, State University of New York, School of Performing Arts, Geneseo, New York, USA
Vladimir Pritsker violin; George Macero violoncello; Steven Heyman pianoforte
“This aptly named work for piano trio provided an opportunity to hear Pritsker, Macero, and Heyman perform music that is squarely in the Western tradition of writing yet based on gestures and materials far removed. The composer has built the piece on the Japanese In scale and the opening ideas of the work suggest, without copying, links to the traditions of high art styles in Japanese music. The musical ideas are developed and expanded in fairly rapid succession building in complexity and rhythmic complexity. The relatively quiet style of the opening appears periodically to divert the momentum of the piece only to be pushed on a few moments later. Ultimately, however, the work subsides quietly. Mr. Pertout has written a work that is both emotionally alive and musically rewarding to hear.”
John G. Bilotta, SCI Newsletter, May-June, 2004, XXXIV:3
