Playlist

Live

 

January 25, 2014

Rigoletto - Verdi - Seattle Opera

McCaw Hall, Seattle

 

In Wagner the particulars of drama unfold within a globally applied expressive affect. There is not a moment in which the musical material does not reflect and deepen the mythical import of the whole story, beginning middle and end, in all its interleaved and cross-woven layers, as if viewed from a godlike perch on high. From the first note it is clear what it always has been and always will be.

 

In Verdi the affect of the music is entirely inside the singing characters. The music (except for the marvelous brief prelude) only knows what the characters know, only feels what the characters feel. It's taken me more than 30 years, but I think I'm finally beginning to get it.

 

Recorded

 

January 27, 2014

Blood and Fire, Hallelujah - Keith Eisenbrey

 

Recorded live at a concert Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer, and I presented at The Chapel Performance Space in November of 2010. This composition project was a long time in progress and changed a great deal from the original conception to this performance. One aspect of it that I like a great deal is how problematic it still is for me - especially in terms of what exactly it is. It behaves a bit like a concerto for piano and electronic orchestra, except the piano and the canned part don't interact so much as beat each other up. In that sense it becomes a forum in which I work out a personal struggle between sound-board sound and speaker sound, between mechanically amplified personal energy and an electronically amplified sound file. It also comes across, I think, as an allegory of disintegration, war, and grace.

 

Keyboard Sonata in E-flat Major Hob.XVI:38 - Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

 

The first movement is the best vaudeville drunk act ever.

 

Banned Telepath 5 Greenwood - Keith Eisenbrey - November 1985

 

Discipline: fill an expanse of time with sound. Use guitar, singing, talking, and chanting.

 

ain't no way to walk in the city

snow on the ground

 

walk down the street

by the river that you meet

 

green fingers on the floor

 

that part of what I still see

when my eyes are closed

 

 

January 28, 2014

Gradus: for Fux, Tesla and Milo the Wrestler - Neal Meyer

 

Also recorded live at the same show mentioned above.

 

Keyboard Sonata in G Major Hob.XVI:39 - Haydn - Christine Schornsheim

 

Starts like Polonius giving advice. But what it keeps coming back to are intricate preparations to arrive somewhere, sets of arrows deflected, reflected, and inflected, punctuated by astonishingly rare moments of stasis, moments of actually being somewhere.

 

Banned Telepath 5 Bickleton - Anna K, Karen Meyer, Neal Meyer - November 1985

 

We start in a house, a radio is playing in a distant room. We take a walk in the snow to an even quieter room where there is a great deal of typing and a space-heater.

 

Figure Study 5 - Keith Eisenbrey - November 2010

 

A solo piano improvisation. While keeping one ear firmly planted at the center, slowly and methodically twisting myself around.

 

January 30, 2014

Fantasia in c minor K.475 - Mozart - Mitsuko Uchida

 

An interesting performance. I remain unconvinced. The forte / piano contrast at the opening is understated, in order (I suppose) to make the slow / fast contrast more effective by making it also about forte and piano. The effect in the end just oversimplifies the dramatic dialogue. The tempo during the slow bits is very slow indeed - hyper-romanticized, as though profundity were being inflicted upon it. Surely there is plenty there already. Pretending it's late Schubert doesn't really help.

 

Recorder Studies - Keith Eisenbrey - December 1985

 

I have always been fascinated by the music made in the midst of working out music. Not improvisation in the performance sense, but rather the sound of the work shop. One evening in early December of 1985 I was writing a recorder quintet and wanted to work out fingerings and tunes and such. I turned on the tape machine and worked at it for an hour and a half. Then I put the two 45' sides on top of each other and pretty much forgot about it until it came up for listening this week. 

 

In Session at the Tintinabulary

 

January 28, 2014

Fox Spit 140128 - Keith Eisenbrey

 

I improvised for a few minutes on this beautiful guitar that my brother Paul made.

 

Upcoming

 

Herocat

March 7, 2014 - 8 PM

Seattle Composers Salon

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

 

I will be performing Aaron Keyt's Sonata (2012) for solo piano.

 

April 12, 2014 - 8 PM 

A Cat's Life Returns Again - a recital by Keith Eisenbrey, piano, with special guest Olivia Sterne, narrator

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Attitude - Doug Palmer

Greek Nickel 2 - J. K. Randall

Sonata (2012) - Aaron Keyt

A Cat's Life, a little opera for solo piano (1990) - Keith Eisenbrey

 

June 27, 2014 - 8 PM

Banned Rehearsal Celebrates 30 Years of Noise

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle