
Reuniting pianist Pandelis Karayorgis with bassist Nate McBride and drummer Randy Peterson, and featuring composer-pianist Eric Moe, this microtonal project bridges jazz and contemporary composition through Werntz's Capricious Nocturnal Variations, as Karayorgis' trio expands its themes with richly textured interplay and fluid explorations of the uniquely tuned Werntz Nocturne Scale.
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Pandelis Karayorgis-piano, microtonal keyboard
Nate McBride-bass
Randy Peterson-drums
Eric Moe-microtonal keyboard
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UPC: 5904224874827
Label: Driff Records
Catalog ID: CD2502
Squidco Product Code: 36815
Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Firehouse 12, in New Haven, Connecticut, on March 19th, 2025, by Greg DiCrosta.
"As students in the late 1980s, Julia Werntz and Pandelis Karayorgis both enrolled in Joe Maneri's Microtonal Composition and Performance class at the New England Conservatory, beginning a formative period of mentorship and collaborations with musicians in the scene surrounding that course. During those years a special mindset was cultivated regarding rhythm and musical form, as well as the rich world of microtonal melody and harmony. We also were married during that period, but our musical paths diverged and have run in parallel ever since-Julia being a composer of contemporary, mostly microtonal concert music and Pandelis being a jazz pianist (on standard, equal-tempered pianos). Almost four decades later we have joined forces musically for the first time, to create this project: a fully composed, microtonal piano piece, Capricious Nocturnal Variations, that becomes the source of material for a jazz trio-who expand further on the piece's themes and special tuning.
Climbing to Sleep also reunites another group with roots in that early Boston scene: the Pandelis Karayorgis Trio with bassist Nate McBride and drummer Randy Peterson. The trio was active from 1997 to 2005, releasing three CDs and touring in Europe and the US. Here, Pandelis still uses the standard grand piano, but with the addition, on tracks 1-6 and 8-12, of a keyboard tuned with the same microtonal scale used in Werntz's Capricious Nocturnal Variations-which is heard on track 7 performed by pianist (and composer) Eric Moe.
The commission for this piece led to yet another happy musical reunion; Julia and Eric had worked together in the past, but to compose a new, microtonal work for keyboard, specifically for Eric, was a fantastic opportunity. As the title implies, Capricious Nocturnal Variations was written in a nocturnal spirit (after some moon-gazing on a spring night), and it is a theme and variations form-an introduction and theme followed by seven distinct variations. A certain friction is present within the early variations, resembling the tug-of-war between wakefulness and sleep on nights of insomnia. Eventually this leads to two variations that embody the states of Non-REM sleep and REM sleep, just before the closing variation. The premiere was in February 2025 at the Beyond: Microtonal Music Festival in Pittsburgh.
Finally, some technical things, for anyone interested: the "Werntz Nocturne Scale," used on this CD, is a twelve-note, microtonal scale that is mapped easily onto a standard keyboard using the re-tunable Pianoteq virtual instrument. (Pianoteq also offers superb piano sounds.) Nine of the scale notes comprise a 2/3-tone scale starting on C. Stepwise runs sound wonderful here, and a curious, two-octave, extended "diminished" chord is possible using small minor thirds of approximately 267 cents. The remaining three scale notes, D, F#, and A#, create areas of micro-chromatic density within the scale, and they also make it possible to build conventional major thirds and augmented triads on any scale note-some using all microtonal pitches and some using pitches from the standard equal-tempered system. These major thirds can be played off of each other to expressive effect, and they also sound exciting played off of the shrunken minor thirds described above."-Julia Werntz and PandelisKarayorgis
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Pandelis Karayorgis "Pandelis Karayorgis is a Boston based jazz/improvised music pianist, composer and educator. In the last twenty years mostly led or co-led numerous groups in performances at festivals and clubs in Europe and the United States and Canada. Recordings appear on labels such as Hat Art, HatOLOGY, Clean Feed, Not Two, Leo Records, Nuscope, Boxholder, Okkadisk, Cadence, Accurate, Leo Lab, Ayler and more recently on Driff Records, a new artist-run label co-founded by Pandelis Karayorgis and Jorrit Dijkstra. Some of the most extensive recording/performing collaborations have been with Nate McBride, Curt Newton, Ken Vandermark, Mat Maneri, Guillermo Gregorio, Jorrit Dijkstra, Luther Gray, Jef Charland, Randy Peterson and Dave Rempis.Pandelis Karayorgis performed and recorded with Joe Maneri, Han Bennink, Mary Oliver, Jeb Bishop, Steve Swell, Frank Rosaly, Jason Roebke, Keefe Jackson, Tony Malaby, Michael Formanek, Forbes Graham, Matt Langley, Jeff Galindo, Taylor Ho Bynum, John Lockwood and Eric Rosenthal. Also performed with Josh Abrams, Chad Taylor, Jason Adasciewicz, Jacob William, Laurence Cook, Eric Hofbauer, Jeff Parker, Tim Daisy, Jason Stein, Mike Reed, Josh Berman, Charles Waters, James Falzone, Nori Tanaka, Daniel Levin, Kresten Osgood, Jeff Platz and Charlie Kohlase. Notable projects include The Pandelis Karayorgis Quintet, The Whammies, The Pandelis Karayorgis Trio (whose first trio CD "Heart And Sack" was featured on National Public Radio's program Fresh Air), the mi3, Construction Party, System of 5, the quartet Matchbox, the large group Bathysphere and more recently, the quintet Cutout. Born in Athens, Greece in 1962, moved to Boston in 1985. Prior to that, studied piano and performed in various jazz groups in Athens while pursuing a degree in Economics. Earned BM and MM degrees in music from Boston's New England Conservatory while studying with Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell, Dave Holland and Joe Maneri (composition). Studied and performed extensively Thelonious Monk's and Lennie Tristano's music and in 1991 compiled a collection of all of Monk's compositions." ^ Hide Bio for Pandelis Karayorgis • Show Bio for Nate McBride "Nate McBride, who was born in 1971, is a very versatile double-bassist and electric bassist, and has performed with such important musicians as Dennis Gonzalez, Pandelis Karayorgis, and Ken Vandermark. McBride is a Boston native, and recently relocated to Chicago, Illinois. He has played in the groups: Bathysphere, Bridge 61, Dennis González Boston Project, Dull Thud Trio, FME, Jason Adasiewicz's Sun Rooms, Joe Morris Quartet, Joe Morris Trio, MI3, New Fracture Quartet, Pandelis Karayorgis Quintet, Pandelis Karayorgis Trio, Powerhouse Sound, Predella Group, Riot Trio, Spaceways Incorporated, The Engines, The Frame Quartet, The Whammies, Tripleplay, Wheelhouse" ^ Hide Bio for Nate McBride • Show Bio for Randy Peterson "Far from the spectacle of music, drummer Randy Peterson has been quietly cultivating a singular approach to pulse and time that is both deeply profound and mysteriously idiosyncratic. Peterson spent numerous years working with pioneering microtonal free jazz saxophonist Joe Maneri, often in a quartet with son Mat Maneri (violin/viola) and double bassists Ed Schuller and John Lockwood. Decades of work with the Maneris provided a context for Peterson to develop his esoteric approach to drumming - a microtonal translation from the melodic to the rhythmic he calls the Rhythmic Continuum. Peterson has appeared on several albums with both Joe and Mat Maneri on the Leo, Hat Hut and ECM labels. Other collaborators include saxophonist Tony Malaby, double bassist Nate McBride, pianist Pandelis Karayorgis, and double bass maestro Michael Formanek." ^ Hide Bio for Randy Peterson • Show Bio for Eric Moe "Eric Moe's music has been variously described as "maximal minimalism", "Rachmaninoff in hell", and "music of winning exuberance". Although the surfaces and genres are varied, his works share a concern for rhythmic propulsion and a disregard for stylistic orthodoxies. Sometimes tonal, sometimes not, harmony (generally crunchy) and melody (often angular) play privileged roles in his work. Active as a pianist and keyboard player, Moe writes music he enjoys playing, and otherwise plays music he wishes he'd written. Mr. Moe is represented by Howard Stokar Management. Eric Moe (b. 1954), composer of what the NY Times has called "music of winning exuberance," has received numerous grants and awards for his work, including the Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Guggenheim Fellowship; commissions from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Fromm Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Barlow Endowment, Meet-the-Composer USA, and New Music USA; fellowships from the Wellesley Composer's Conference and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; and residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Bellagio, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the UCross Foundation, the Camargo Foundation, the Aaron Copland House, the Millay Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, the Montana Artists Refuge, the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians, the Hambidge Center, and the American Dance Festival, among others. Tri-Stan, his sit-trag/one-woman opera on a text by David Foster Wallace, premiered by Sequitur in 2005, was hailed by the New York Times as "a blockbuster" and "a tour de force," a work of "inspired weight" that "subversively inscribe[s] classical music into pop culture." In its review of the piece, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette concluded, "it is one of those rare works that transcends the cultural divide while still being rooted in both sides." The work is available on a Koch International Classics compact disc. Strange Exclaiming Music, a CD featuring Moe's recent chamber music, was released by Naxos in July 2009 as part of their American Classics series; Fanfare magazine described it as "wonderfully inventive, often joyful, occasionally melancholy, highly rhythmic, frequently irreverent, absolutely eclectic, and always high-octane music." Kick & Ride, on the bmop/sound label, was picked by WQXR for album of the week: "...it's completely easy to succumb to the beats and rhythms that come out of Moe's fantastical imaginarium, a headspace that ties together the free-flowing atonality of Alban Berg with the guttural rumblings of Samuel Barber's Medea, adding in a healthy dose of superhuman strength." Other all-Moe CDs are available on New World Records (Meanwhile Back At The Ranch), Albany Records (Kicking and Screaming, Up & At 'Em, Siren Songs), and Centaur (On the Tip of My Tongue). The Sienese Shredder, a fine arts journal, includes an all-Moe CD as part of its third issue. As a pianist and keyboardist, Moe has premiered and performed works by a wide variety of composers. His playing can be heard on the Koch, CRI, Mode, Albany, New World Records and Innova labels in the music of John Cage, Roger Zahab, Marc-Antonio Consoli, Mathew Rosenblum, Jay Reise, Ezra Sims, David Keberle, Felix Draeseke, and many others in addition to his own. His solo recording The Waltz Project Revisited - New Waltzes for Piano, a CD of waltzes for piano by two generations of American composers, was released in 2004 on Albany. Gramophone magazine said of the CD, "Moe's command of the varied styles is nothing short of remarkable." A founding member of the San Francisco-based EARPLAY ensemble, he currently co-directs the Music on the Edge new music concert series in Pittsburgh. Moe studied composition at Princeton University (A.B.) and at the University of California at Berkeley (M.A., Ph.D.). He is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh and has held visiting professorships at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania." ^ Hide Bio for Eric Moe
10/6/2025
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
10/6/2025
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
10/6/2025
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
10/6/2025
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
Track Listing:
1. Introduction and Theme 5:16
2. Variation I 6:01
3. Variation IV, excerpt 5:56
4. Variation V (NREM Sleep) 4:09
5. Variation VII, excerpt (Chorale) 4:51
6. Variation VII, excerpt (Scherzo) 5:36
7. Capricious Nocturnal Variations 10:32
8. Submerged Steps 6:25
9. Roving Lullaby 4:34
10. Bouree 4:36
11. The Invisible 6:40
12. The Known World 4:40
13. Cochlea 4:59
14. Climbing to Sleep 5:10
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