2018 / SOLO
Abstractions for Cello and Piano
Abstraction 4 for Cello and Piano
Abstraction 2 for Cello and Piano
Abstraction 1 for Cello and Piano
Abstraction 3 for Cello and Piano
Abstraction 5 for Cello and Piano ︎
PREMIER PERFORMANCE
13 March, 2020
Esplanade Library, Singapore
PERFORMERS
Cello, Brian Patrick Bromberg
Piano, Phil Miscovich
The premier performance was done with accompanying video projections by James Weber and Paul Poggi.
NOTES
Abstract music doesn’t mean that the music wasn’t written ‘about’ something or that the composer wasn’t thinking of something, or that the composer wasn’t thinking when they wrote it. Although, sometimes this may be exactly the case.
By not fixing an extra musical title or a descriptive title to a piece, I never hear it the same way. And I can’t tell you (the listener) what the music should make you feel or think. You are completely free (finally!) to listen without instructions, guidance, or leash.
When you listen to a piece titled “The Sea” you are expected to hear the crash of the waves, the seagulls cawing, the boats honking. But the same piece could have been called “When Aliens Attack,” and the same sounds become explosions, laser beams and pulsing intergalactic battleships.
As a composer, listener, teacher, and performing musician, I have never felt this inexplicable urge for music to be ‘about’ something. What gives music infinitely more strength than other arts, is its ability to simultaneously affect multiple listeners in totally unique ways. One piece can have a profound influence on you one day and on second or third listen it has a completely different effect.
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