Luke Parkin

A Rainbow in Curved Air

lukep — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:47:58 +0000

The great Terry Riley is still very much Alive. His second groundbreaking album A Rainbow in Curved Air sent shockwaves through musical life, and unlike his esteemed contemporaries Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Pauline Oliveros, and Morton Subotnick, ricocheted through Classical Minimalism and Rock simultaneously.

(Source Wiki)

The album inspired Pete Townshend’s synthesizer parts on The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Baba O’Riley“, the latter named in tribute to Riley and to Meher Baba.^[2]

Some of the music on this album was used as the background accompaniment of The Guide in the original BBC Radio 4 series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

In C (1964)
A Rainbow in Curved Air (1967)
Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band (1968)
Shri Camel (1980), for solo electronic organ tuned in just intonation and modified by computerized digital delay
Terry Riley: Cadenza on the Night Plain (1984), a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet
The Cusp of Magic, with Kronos Quartet (2004), composed by Terry Riley (b.1935) for his seventieth birthday, an ode to the rite of Midsummer Eve
The Harp of New Albion (1986), for piano tuned in just intonation
Salome Dances for Peace
Chanting the Light of Foresight, with Rova Saxophone Quartet in just intonation
Persian Surgery Dervishes
Sun Rings for the Kronos Quartet
Church of Anthrax, with John Cale

The title song appears on the ambient/chill out radio station The Journey in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.

His music is usually based on improvising through a series of modal figures of different lengths, such as in In C and the Keyboard Studies. In C (1964) is probably Riley’s best-known work and one that brought the minimalist music movement to prominence. Its first performance was given by Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Pauline Oliveros, and Morton Subotnick, among others, and it has influenced their work and that of many others, including John Adams, Roberto Carnevale, and Philip Glass.

THE CROWNING OF DREAMING JOHN

lukep — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:28:32 +0000

A poem for which I have an enduring love

Written by British Poet John Drinkwater. (1 June 1882 - 25 March 1937)

Of the two musical adaptations I’ve written, one appears in the album Synaesthesia under the title “Dreaming John of Grafton” the other, under the actual title of the poem itself ”The Crowning of Dreaming John” on a forthcoming album of collected piano works called “Exhibition Pieces”

Dedications

lukep — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:14:41 +0000

In the writing of musical scores and in literature, personal dedications of manuscripts, Books and records still has currency. One historical example, notably Beethoven’s great Symphony number 3 in E flat major (opus 55) which many regard as the watershed between the Classical era and the Romantic epoch, retains novel folklore for an unusual dedication to Napoleon with whom Beethoven was generally enamored. Napoleon’s French Revolution repulsed Beethoven when Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of the French in 1804 (hence the redaction) but formerly, the dedication was inscribed to the villainous revolutionary as a tribute.

His then assistant, Ferdinand Ries, retells what happened (source Wikipedia)

“In writing this symphony Beethoven had been thinking of Buonaparte, but Buonaparte while he was First Consul. At that time Beethoven had the highest esteem for him and compared him to the greatest consuls of ancient Rome. Not only I, but many of Beethoven’s closer friends, saw this symphony on his table, beautifully copied in manuscript, with the word “Buonaparte” inscribed at the very top of the title-page and “Ludwig van Beethoven” at the very bottom. …I was the first to tell him the news that Buonaparte had declared himself Emperor, whereupon he broke into a rage and exclaimed, “So he is no more than a common mortal! Now, too, he will tread under foot all the rights of man, indulge only his ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men, become a tyrant!” Beethoven went to the table, seized the top of the title-page, tore it in half and threw it on the floor. The page had to be re-copied and it was only now that the symphony received the title “Sinfonia eroica.”

I havent any dramatic or historically importunate (or nearly importunate) dedications to report but Many of my now 70 albums (that are slowly being published) have dedications and they all bare significant meaning. Here they are:

EST. MMIX To: Chelsea McLean

Synesthesia To: Corwin Fox

The Engine Album To: Daniel Wyman

Classitronica (The Trinity Remixes) – EP To: Moira Campbell

Classitronica To: Quinn Newcomb

Winter Journal Special Edition To: Vanessa Petrovich

Winter Journal To: Chris & James

Halcyon Days To: Paul Moskewitz

29 Tangos To: Anne Carson

Lustre: To the Late Tony Humphries

Another Wild and Peculiar Joy To: Richard Nuttall

Things I Didn’t Know I Loved To: Mike Wood

Chagall Pieces To: E.J. Arsenault

Organfire To: Larry Schipull

Searching For Plastic Beauty To: Charles Bestor

Black on Black, Symphony for Electronics To: the late Allen Strange

Chrysalis, Symphony for Electronics To: Lucian Parkin

Single-”New Beginning” (Songs for Obama) To: the 44th President of the United States

Album Leaf Preludes To: Christopher Kelly Charlton

Divertissements for Piano To: Susan de Burgh

Tickling the Dragon’s Tale To: Brian Belet

Harpworks To: the late Matthew Levesque

Songs Without Words To: Elizabeth M. Courtney

As more publications emmerge both old and new, dedications will follow.

Looking over the edge of the world

lukep — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:00:27 +0000

I’m a Johnny come lately to this vast ocean of blogging, twittering and like kind. No matter how considerable you or others see your art, fastening to those who are inclined to read appears to mean as much as the music you write. It’s easy to feel as trifling as a grain of sand in this do it yourself world.

While the ground shifts and the record business folds in, we’re meant to go back to basics and grow careers from the ground up no matter how far we are along. For those artists who were grandfathered-in and sold platinum before a ubiquitous online transformation, connecting with fans is more an added bonus than a privation.

I wonder; When an artist comes into his or her celebrity ought there to be some intrigue without having to permeate an “all access” shield? Is that really what the public wants? Sometimes I watch CSPAN and wonder if a generation’s maudlin, blow-by-blow politics of a sausage making process killed a generation of stars in the Senate. lol

I’m now a willing participant in this “all access” data cloud. I’ll prefer to reflect by and by but I do think my music clearly speaks for itself. For now, I’ll muse with a pen (or my laptop keyboard in this case) and hope that the acervatim; en foule takes notice of this ball game worthy of “Dear Diary.”

Hello world!

Lukemaster — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:08:00 +0000

This is the first blog post.

So there.