Flutist Leah Paul presents two engaging compositions in multiple movements, performed with a chamber ensemble of Chris Speed (reeds), Rob Jost (french horn), Sara Schoenbeck (bassoon), Peter Sachon (cello), Tanya Kalmanovitch (viola), Ben Kono (oboe) and Michel Gentile (flute).
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Sample The Album:
Leah Paul-flute
Michel Gentile-alto flute
Chris Speed-clarinet
Ben Kono-oboe
Sara Schoenbeck-bassoon
Rob Jost-french horn
Tanya Kalmanovitch-viola
Peter Sachon-cello
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UPC: 888295091527
Label: Skirl
Catalog ID: Skirl 026
Squidco Product Code: 19813
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2013
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard sleeve
Recorded at Brooklyn Recording in August 2013 by Din Piper.
"This is proudly proclaimed to be composed music, though many of the players, including Paul herself (who has played with Anthony Braxton), are associated with the free improvisation/jazz scene(s), clarinetist Chris Speed and bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck being the best known. There are two pieces, the two-movement "Steps to Stairs", which opens the album, and "California Quintet", in six movements. The music is entirely tonal, perhaps a bit influenced by Minimalism in its gestures, but not in its structures: it develops more quickly and switches moods more often. The contrasting timbres of strings and woodwinds-the latter dominating-are handled adeptly and do a lot to keep the music sparkling and attractive."-The Big Takeover
Leah Paul is a composer/ multi-instrumentalist who plays regularly with Blarvuster, Anthony Braxton, and has guested with rock bands and new music ensembles through New York City and Los Angeles. Leah has her own ensemble of dynamic musicians that regularly perform her genre-bending chamber music.
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Leah Paul "Leah began her music career in Brooklyn, NY in 2002 after studying flute performance at the University of Michigan. As a flutist, Leah has played a vital role in NYC's new music and downtown scenes. She has been a longtime member of Matthew Welch's Blarvuster, recently performing his new opera Borges and the Other at Roulette, as well as playing on his Tzadik release Blarvuster. In 2010 Leah recorded with Anthony Braxton's Triilium E Orchestra as a soloist, the first-ever Braxton opera studio recording, Leah is also featured on his upcoming release of Trillium J recorded in the spring of 2014.Leah has also recorded and performed with countless bands and ensembles such as TV on the Radio, the Dirty Projectors, Milagres, Michael Leonhart, Aaron Seigel and City Center. Leah's upcoming release 'We Will Do the Worrying' is being met with high praise from high places. We Will Do The Worrying is an extension of the rich chamber writing Leah has honed on her previous albums, this time bringing in lushly layered vocals, alluring string quartet arrangements and percussive elements to create vignettes of other-worldly landscapes and experiences. Leah's gift for weaving harmonically textural motifs, playful rhythmic counterpoint and sparse yet meaningful lyrics allow the ten pieces on this album to soar, sparking imaginative daydreams in the minds-eye of the listener. Leah Paul's album Trenza is unlike any chamber music you've heard. Featuring genre-busting musicians such as Chris Speed and Sara Schoenbeck, every piece takes on an identity in the way your favorite rock song might, unraveling complex counterpoint and harmonic shifts at breakneck pace. Leah's work as a flutist with artists such as Anthony Braxton and the Dirty Projectors informs her compositions as they are simultaneously unexpected and catchy. California Quintet was written during her first year in Los Angeles after relocating from Brooklyn. Each of the six movements chronicles an exploration and shift in perspective that one experiences when completely changing one's surroundings. Steps to Stairs employs lower strings mixed with winds to create an ensemble that blossoms into full orchestral timbres while maintaining an intimate backdrop for sparse melodic textures to emerge. Trenza beautifully braids the nuances of classical, jazz and contemporary music into a singular voice and a joyful listening experience. This is Leah's second release on Brooklyn's Skirl Records. Leah Paul's 2011 release of her works for quartet Bike Lane, on Brooklyn's Improvisation/new music label Skirl Records has been met with enthusiasm and praise. Bike Lane is a collection of composed music for flute, clarinet, bassoon and viola. The inspiration for this album is the ever-merging scenes of classical, improvised, and rock music that are unique to New York City. It is composed chamber music channeling pop structure, with an improvisational spirit and feel. Peter Margasak of eMusic says "...while operating like a sophisticated chamber ensemble, the quartet reveals a wonderfully fluid, graceful pop sensibility. There's nothing cheap or shallow about the music, but the themes lodge in the memory like radio hits." Leah's earlier projects include the Bridesmaids, a chamber pop group which received acclaim from TimeOutNY, the Big Takeover and Venuszine. Currently Leah is currently living in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles, in addition to her career as a composer and flutist, she is also an active teacher working for the Harmony Project of Los Angeles, YoungArts, as well as a guest lecturer at the Longy School of Music and a presenter at the Los Angeles Composer's Salon." ^ Hide Bio for Leah Paul • Show Bio for Chris Speed ^ Hide Bio for Chris Speed • Show Bio for Sara Schoenbeck "Sara Schoenbeck is a bassoonist who dedicates herself to expanding the sound and role of the bassoon in the worlds of classical, contemporary notated and improvised music. The Wire magazine places her in the "tiny club of bassoon pioneers" at work in contemporary music today and the New York Times has called her "riveting, mixing textural experiments with a big, confident sound." Originally from California, Sara spent her time on the west coast freelancing in various orchestral bassoon sections such as Santa Barbara Symphony, California Symphony, Redlands, Mancini Orchestra, the Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra and touring as a member of creative music ensembles Gravitas Quartet with Wayne Horvitz, Ron Miles and Peggy Lee, Anthony Braxton's 12+1(tet) and Vinny Golia's Large Ensemble. Sara also recorded for various sound and film projects including the Matrix 2 and 3 and Spanglish. Sara now calls Brooklyn home and performs regularly with Petr Kotek's SEM ensemble, the composers group WetInk, Wordless Music Orchestra, LPR, Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Orchestra, Gravitas, Harris Eisenstadt's Golden State Quartet,the Lyrica Chamber Orchestra as well as performing with many other creative and inspiring musicians in the New York scene. She has performed at major venues and festivals throughout North America and Europe, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, the Kitchen, Iridium, Disney Hall, SXSW, New Orleans Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Free Music Festival in Antwerp Belgium, Biennale Musica in Venice Italy, Montreal Jazz Festival, Ottawa Jazz Festival, the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and the San Francisco Jazz Festival to name a few. Sara received her BFA from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts." ^ Hide Bio for Sara Schoenbeck • Show Bio for Tanya Kalmanovitch "Tanya Kalmanovitch is a Canadian violist, ethnomusicologist, and author known for her breadth of inquiry and restless sense of adventure. Her uncommonly diverse interests converge in the fields of improvisation, social entrepreneurship, and social action with projects that explore the provocative cultural geography of locations around the world. Based in Brooklyn, Kalmanovitch's layered artistic research practice has rewarded her with extended residencies in India, Ireland, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Siberia. Named "Best New Talent" by All About Jazz when she emerged from New York's vibrant downtown scene, Kalmanovitch has continually stretched the boundaries between classical, jazz and improvised music. The Irish Times called her "an exceptional musician," writing that her music possesses "austere beauty and remarkable unity between the written and the improvised." She completed her conservatory training at the prestigious Juilliard School only to debut as a jazz violist with the Turtle Island String Quartet soon after. Her stylistically fluid recordings have garnered critical acclaim. Hut Five (2003) was hailed by the Montreal Gazette as "an exceptional recording." Heart Mountain (2007) with venerated pianist Myra Melford won France's "Choc" award and topped many critics' year-end "Best of" lists. Pianist Ethan Iverson (Do The Math) praised her most recent release Magic Mountain (2016) with fellow violist Mat Maneri as "an exceptionally surreal and beautiful performance." Kalmanovitch's career has become a broad platform for artistry and advocacy. She has been an invited speaker at the Society for Ethnomusicology, Carnegie Hall, the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women at Georgetown University, Columbia University, and National YoungArts Week, among others. She was drawn to ethnomusicology as a way to explore the ways in which music can speak to the world's biggest problems and earned her doctorate at the University of Alberta. Kalmanovitch's fieldwork on the globalization of Carnatic traditions in Chennai, Dublin, and Amsterdam has been published in World of Music and New Sound. In Istanbul, she reworked themes in Song Books for the John Cage centenary to reflect growing resistance movements. Her two residences at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul resulted in at total of 15 public performances, panel discussions, workshops, master classes, collaborative rehearsals and a student exchange with the United States. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Canada's Globe and Mail, the Irish Times, the Boston Globe, Time Out New York, Jazz Times, and DownBeat, as well as on air for the Canadian Broadcasting Company. Kalmanovitch has shown her commitment to education through her dedicated teaching practice for over a decade. She has given master classes at Woodstock's Creative Music Studios, the Banff Centre for the Arts, London's Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the Estonian Academy of Music, the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, and the Helsinki Pop & Jazz Conservatory. As a faculty member at the New England Conservatory since 2006, she played a leading role in new initiatives in the school's departments of Contemporary Improvisation and Entrepreneurial Musicianship. In 2013, she joined the faculty at Mannes School of Music at The New School New York City, where she is an Associate Professor, Affiliated Faculty with the Tishman Environment and Design Centre, and a fellow of the Graduate Institute of Design, Ethnography and Social Thought. Kalmanovitch is currently performing in duo settings with pianist Marilyn Crispell as well as in a collaborative trio with pianist Anthony Coleman and accordionist Ted Reichman. She is developing the Tar Sands Songbook, a documentary theater play that tells the stories of people whose lives been shaped by living in close proximity to oil development and its effects." ^ Hide Bio for Tanya Kalmanovitch
10/2/2024
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10/2/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
10/2/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
10/2/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
Track Listing:
1. Steps to Stairs Movement 1 6:49
2. Steps to Stairs Movement 2 7:45
3. California Quintet Movement 1 4:28
4. California Quintet Movement 2 4:41
5. California Quintet Movement 3 2:54
6. California Quintet Movement 4 4:19
7. California Quintet Movement 5 4:15
8. California Quintet Movement 6 4:49
Compositional Forms
Septet recordings
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