PRESS RELEASE: Michael Mizrahi: Currents
ANNOUNCING:
Michael Mizrahi's
Currents
Mizrahi's sophomore album of solo piano works, featuring music by Patrick Burke, Mark Dancigers, Troy Herion, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Missy Mazzoli, and Asha Srinivasan
out March 25, 2016
pre-order via Bandcamp
Album Release Show:
March 26, 2016, 8pm
National Sawdust
w/ special guest Michi Wiancko
MORE INFO AND TICKETS
“...Michael Mizrahi is one of those musicians who is endlessly fascinated by everything and is, as a result, endlessly fascinating himself.”
“[T]he gifted pianist Michael Mizrahi...plays with both tenderness and fierce beauty.”
“A soloist of the first rank”
Revered pianist Michael Mizrahi will release his sophomore album of solo piano works, Currents, on March 25 via New Amsterdam Records. The album brings together six impeccably performed and recorded new American piano works, almost all written specifically with Mizrahi’s singular sound and approach in mind, and featuring composers Sarah Kirkland Snider, Troy Herion, Mark Dancigers, Asha Srinivasan, Missy Mazzoli, and Patrick Burke. As with Mizrahi’s widely acclaimed New Amsterdam debut The Bright Motion (2012), Currents showcases the continued vitality of the piano’s exceptionally rich musical heritage while exploring its capability to express the most contemporary of musical ideas. The result is a significant addition to the solo piano repertory of the 21st century that, as the title suggests, embodies movement forward -- building on the great piano works of the past while propelling the solo piano repertoire ahead in a new and energized direction.
The title track “The Currents”, composed by Sarah Kirkland Snider, is streaming now at Bandcamp. Currents will be celebrated with an album release performance at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust on March 26 at 8pm (with special guest Michi Wiancko). More information here.
Almost all of the pieces on Currents were commissioned and premiered by Mizrahi, and composed with his hands, sound, and approach to the keyboard in mind. Mizrahi communicated frequently with the composers throughout the process of learning, performing, and recording their music, resulting in an album that is profoundly personalized. The album opens with the title track, Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “The Currents”, flowing from start to finish, with currents of sound pulling the listener through eddies and whirlpools along the way.Troy Herion’s “Harpsichords” follows, evoking a transparent Baroque texture, replete with trills and shakes. Mark Dancigers’s “The Bright Motion Ascending” -- the third installment in his Bright Motion trilogy written for Mizrahi -- explores the vibrant upper reaches of the instrument before plummeting back to Earth with a cataclysmic final chord.
Next is Asha Srinivasan’s “Mercurial Reveries” is a probing five-movement work that draws on her Indian American heritage and is in one moment domineering and terrifying, and in the next, delicate, docile, and nostalgic. Missy Mazzoli’s “Heartbreaker” begins with focused precision and evolves into a trance-like state that eventually breaks down in a schizophrenic collapse. The album closes with Patrick Burke's “Missing Piece”, in which piquant dissonances into slow-moving triadic harmonies that plumb the lowest ranges of the piano. The works exhibit a tremendously varied compositional perspective, but feel unified by their custom design for Mizrahi’s sound, approach and virtuosic performance. Currents is at once both a vibrant reflection of the solo instrument’s storied past and charged movement in a direction it has not yet been.
Mizrahi will celebrate the release of Currents with a live performance at National Sawdust on March 26 at 8pm. Joining Mizrahi as a special guest will be acclaimed violinist Michi Wiancko, who will perform a fascinating and dynamic set of solo violin works by Paula Matthusen, Salvatore Sciarrino, and Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Christopher Adler, and Andrew Norman. Wiancko and Mizrahi will also join forces to present a special collaborative performance. Get tickets here.
Currents Track List:
1. The Currents (Sarah Kirkland Snider), stream now
2. Harpsichords (Troy Herion)
3. The Bright Motion Ascending (Mark Dancigers)
4. Mercurial Reveries - Movement I (Asha Srinivasan)
5. Mercurial Reveries - Movement II (Asha Srinivasan)
6. Mercurial Reveries - Movement III (Asha Srinivasan)
7. Mercurial Reveries - Movement IV (Asha Srinivasan)
8. Mercurial Reveries - Movement V (Asha Srinivasan)
9. Heartbreaker (Missy Mazzoli)
10. Missing Piece (Patrick Burke)
Upcoming Performances:
3/26 - National Sawdust (Album Release Show) - Brooklyn, NY