“LIKE A FISH OUT OF TROUBLED WATER” — live event
Rob Schwimmer in “LIKE A FISH OUT OF TROUBLED WATER” Music for Piano, Haken Continuum, Ondioline and Theremin* I’m thrilled to be back at Bargemusic! There’ll be new music for each of the mentioned instruments + possibly a special guest(?) and maybe even more fascinating instruments such as the ondioline! In addition to originals the show may contain selections from A to Z! Arlen to Zemlinsky! Selections will be announced from the stage. Also I may finally get to play Frederic Rzewski’s “No Place to Go But Around” which I was scheduled for at the Rzewski Festival at Merkin earlier this year but an injury prevented that from happening… so now may be the time! It’s a great early piece written right before his epic “The People United.” A note re the title-The “troubled water” refers to trying to play theremin in a moving room, an idea which could be characterized as heroic or just a very bad idea depending on how rough it is on the performance night… We shall see. *depending on the weather I love these 4 instruments! Piano: What I love about the piano is obvious-It’s an orchestra at your fingertips! Drawbacks: Once you’ve played a note you can only decide when to let go of it. Also no vibrato, sustain etc. (But this doesn’t inhibit my love of playing the piano… Nevertheless they are facts.) Ondioline: This crazy mono phone synthesizer from the 1950’s has a whole lot of Technicolor personality. I might play Arvo Pärt’s arrangement for ondioline and piano or maybe Coltrane’s After The Rain. Haken Continuum: The Haken Continuum also feels like playing an acoustic instrument because of its incredibly precise hi-tech electronics and sensors. Nothing will replace the theremin but in a way you can do with one finger on the HC what it takes your whole body to do on the theremin. Then you look down and think, “Wow, I have 9 fingers left!” Yes, the Haken Continuum has the expressiveness of the theremin but adds back the polyphony/harmony that I would miss if I only played the theremin. The HC is a huge step forward in the evolution of electronic instruments and I love it! I think about the moment Leon Theremin thought “Let’s make an instrument out of electricity”… I imagine that the Haken Continuum Fingerboard arose from a lightning flash moment like that one… There is magic here… A technological wonder and yet the technology is invisible in the service of expressive playing.” Theremin: The great thing about the theremin is that it gives you expressive phrasing! That means I can hold notes forever (don’t worry; I won’t), bend notes, add vibrato, and think about phrasing more like a singer than the piano allows. Strangely enough it feels like an acoustic instrument when playing: The immediacy and accuracy of what you’re doing is reflected totally. That means if it sounds like bad, well, then you played bad-It’s just doing exactly what you tell it to do. Drawbacks: It’s really hard to play in tune (especially on a boat) and it’s monophonic-Just one note at a time.
Starts: 2023-12-08T19:00:44Z
Ends: 2023-12-08T21:00:44Z
Where: Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard, New York, New York 11201, United States
Price: $38.59