Ian Power

Music, Music Writing, and Music Teaching. About       Concerts/Events        Music        Writing       Links       Contact

[ianpoweromg]

New website: ianpowerOMG.com

Hello,

This tumblr-based website is no longer being updated. Please navigate to ianpowerOMG.com for updates on my music and work. You can also sign up for my newsletter at https://groups.google.com/g/ianpoweromg.

Music music music,

Ian

[ianpoweromg]

Brace Each Other Dive

2020, for string quartet, 25′

Brace Each Other Dive is my latest in a series of works, starting with swathe for clarinet and mahrem bir eser for cello, to give a series of text instructions as a guide to practicing, performing, and ensemble coordination, which practicing ultimately becomes the piece itself. 

The result is a suspenseful, flowing melody through unisons, games, and heart-wrenching chords that end only when the players decide. In a work like this, there is very little distance between what is at stake for a performer and for a listener.

Written for and premiered by the Bergamot String Quartet at the International Contemporary Ensemble Rehearsal Space, Brooklyn, N.Y., 28 October 2020

Ian Power · Brace Each Other Dive

[ianpoweromg]

Maintenance Hums, from Carrier Records, out September 4, 2020.

Stream or download: http://ianpoweromg.bandcamp.com

Soundcloud stream for reviewers: 

Ian Power · Maintenance Hums

Artist: Ian Power Formats: CD and download Catalog Number: 053 Release Date: September 4th, 2020 Price: $18 for CD’s, $10 to download Contact: [email protected] Website: www.carrierrecords.com Artist Contact: [email protected]  Artist Website: https://ianpoweromg.tumblr.com/  Mailing List: eepurl.com/g7sLYT

Track listing:

1. for *current* resonance - 10:12

Brian Archinal, percussion Antoine Francoise, piano

2. aspirapolvere, sega, spettro, tenere, possedere - 12:22

Luca Piovesan, accordion Amit Dubester, alto saxophone Maarten Stragier, electric guitar

3. BUOY (after Laurence Crane) - 18:33

Ian Power, electric organ & appliances

-

Maintenance Hums––composer Ian Power’s second album––features three intense works for solo, duo, and trio. The pieces create warm, suspensive atmospheres derived from the drones that surround us in our daily life, providing brief comfort in their insistence. 

In for *current* resonance, a pianist plays with a percussionist playing small instruments inside the piano as well as the piano frame and strings themselves. The players are in exact coordination throughout, moving from obstinate tonality to ecstatic percussive repetition to a final flourish on a perverted overtone series. The work is all momentum, all downbeat yet never settling into a groove. 

In aspirapolvere, sega, spettro, tenere, possedere––which translates to vacuum cleaner, saw, ghost, hold [as in keep], hold [as in possess]––sees an accordion as a nearby cicada, pushing against an alto saxophone in a chainsaw duet. An electric guitar slips in, hauntingly, halfway through, and the piece culminates on lush chords, buzzing, warming, wailing. 

BUOY is for electric organ and household appliances–– blender, mattress inflator, fan, vacuum, food processor, etc––operated by the performers feet sing power strips as controls. The piece is built slowly from dense, low organ chords, buttressed by whirring, harmonic appliance combinations. The appliances gradually take control of the narrative, on, off, on, off, on... 

Dusted describes Ian Power as “a force guiding the rapid-fire development of instrumental syntax and its expressive components... a boundary-breaker” and the New York Times describes his music as of “resolute ooze and elemental graininess”. His music is distinctly bare and brash, pushing every sound to the foreground, creating a space of both severity and warmth. The album, recorded in Berlin, Treviso, and Baltimore, features performances by members of Ensemble Nikel, L’Arsenale, and the composer himself.

Bandcamp, Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter: ianpowerOMG 

for *current* resonance Recorded December 1, 2019, at UFO Studios, Berlin, Germany. Engineered and mixed by Aaron Holloway-Nahum. aspirapolvere, sega, spettro, tenere, possedere Recorded December 4, 2019, at Magister Recording Area, Preganziol, Italy. Engineered and mixed by Alessandro Rorato and Luca Piovesan. BUOY Recorded February 21, 2020, at the Wright Theater, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, Md. Engineered and mixed by Anastasia Kupstas. Mastering: Murat Çolak Design: Carrie Epps-Carey This project was made possible in part by the University of Baltimore, the Klein Family School for Communication Design, and the Peggy & Yale Gordon Trust. Special thanks to Chaya Czernowin, Mallory Bernstein, Shawn Savageau, Amnon Wolman, Yaron Deutsch, Owen Gardner, Martin Iddon, Jennie Gottschalk, and especially to Aida, Aydın, Mom, Dad, and Caitlin

[ianpoweromg]

Diligence, from Edition Wandelweiser Records, out June 28, 2020.

Stream or download: http://ianpoweromg.bandcamp.com

Edition Wandelweiser Records (Hahn, Germany)

Catalog No.: EWR 2006 Release Date: June 28, 2020 CD: €15 | Bandcamp Download: $8

Track listing:

1. mahrem bir eser | a private work - 28:48

Mariel Roberts, cello

2. swathe - 25:41

Gleb Kanasevich, clarinet

-

Edition Wandelweiser Records presents Diligence, the debut release from composer Ian Power. Diligence is two solo works, each 30 minutes long, built of long, itinerant drones. Each drone starts from the fullest of tone and moves to the timbral extremes of the instrument, and the works end with plaintive, pulsing rhythms. mahrem bir eser has an extra layer: an electronic overlay triggered by the performer to obscure her sound, a private space in which to play through part of it as much as she likes. The music is suspenseful, comforting; intense and immersive.

The word “diligence” is from the Latin for “to love,” as in St. Augustine’s Dilige, et quod vis fac--”Love, and do what thou wilt.” These performances are diligent, from that love: love for craft, love for instrument, pride in the movement that music puts to work. Featuring tour-de-force, endurance-testing performances by Mariel Roberts on cello and Gleb Kanasevich on clarinet, Diligence is currently available for CD pre-order at wandelweiser.de, and will be available to download June 28 at ianpoweromg.bandcamp.com.

Ian Power directs the Integrated Arts program at the University of Baltimore. His music has been described as “resolute ooze and elemental graininess” by The New York Times, and has been performed by Dal Niente, Either/Or, and hand werk in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Denmark, and Israel. Another album of his chamber works will be coming out this Fall. 

E-mail newsletter sign-up: http://eepurl.com/g7sLYT 

E-mail: [email protected]  

Website: ianpower.net

Bandcamp, Facebook, Soundcloud, Twitter: ianpowerOMG mahrem bir eser Recorded November 17, 2019, Lethe Lounge, New York, N.Y. Engineered and mixed by Joseph Branciforte. swathe Recorded December 14, 2016, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass. Engineered and mixed by Gleb Kanasevich. Mastering: Murat Çolak Executive Producer: Antoine Beuger Layout: Daniel Bechem, Mess Media, Berlin Printed By: Das Druckhaus, Korschenbroich This project was made possible in part by the University of Baltimore, the Klein Family School for Communication Design, and the Peggy & Yale Gordon Trust. Special thanks to Chaya Czernowin, Heather Roche, Martin Iddon, Evan Johnson, Jennie Gottschalk, Turgut Erçetin, and especially to Mom, Dad, Caitlin, Aydın, and Aida.

[ianpoweromg]

Sunday night in Baltimore with Ryoko Akama and Bonnie Jones.

[ianpoweromg]

I made a score video for my recent long cello piece, which uses different kinds of instructions as a kind of guided exploration of one's instrument, meant to access both the performer's mastery, and a sense of novelty and discovery. All aimed at a sonic result that is determinate and richly accumulative.

This arose from pieces like swathe and bind me take me, which fixed pacing but not rhythm. The goal is, from the performer's perspective, a bodily orientation toward the music that is simultaneously relaxed and precise.

It's also probably just a stubbornness of wanting to make performers feel more agency while not sacrificing the robotic, on-offness of my music that I liked so much.

The "privacy" in the title comes from the fact that, in an attempt to give the performer even more agency, I wanted to give her the opportunity to play parts of the piece that she connected to in a private space. So she can trigger a sound file via a max patch that masks her sound so she can play for herself without the audience hearing.

Anyway it's long, so feel free to skip around, or put it on in the background. Or CONCENTRATE ON IT. It's great loud though! Performance notes are at the end.

Thanks as always to Mariel Roberts for her incredible performance, Gleb Kanasevich for the Max Patch, and Sam Torres for his beautiful video.

[ianpoweromg]

BUOY was selected by the amazing YouTube channel scorefollower for inclusion in their FollowMyScore2018 series! Check out the great video they made out of the score above. You can also see past pieces of mine they’ve treated, aspirapolvere and for *current* resonance.

[ianpoweromg]

May 9 at UB! New music by me! Word, video, and performance art by students. Poster by Katie Watkins.

[ianpoweromg]

View this post on Instagram

[ianpoweromg]

My major new work, ‘mahrem bir eser’ for solo cello. Commissioned and premiered by Mariel Roberts. This performance took place at Peabody Conservatory in February 2018.

[ianpoweromg]

This week, Baltimore. The premiere of my newest piece, ‘mahrem bir eser’ for solo cello.

[ianpoweromg]

Upcoming DC and Baltimore Shows

I have a few shows in the next few weeks in DC and Baltimore:

Saturday, February 3 Ian Power, Tim Wisniewski + Liz Meredith, Travis Johns Rhizome DC 8pm $10

I’ll play a new adaptation of push 4 cut 2 bell, reveni ad me, and Buoy.

Wednesday, February 14 <3 Mariel Roberts, Ian Power Red Room, Baltimore 9pm $6-10

I’ll play the program above sans Buoy, Mariel and I will duet on Klaus Lang’s Tehran Dust, and she’ll play my new cello piece, mahrem bir eser | a private work as well as music by herself and Cenk Ergün.

Thursday, February 15 Mariel Roberts: Music for Unaccompanied Cello Griswold Hall, Peabody Conservatory 8pm Free

Mariel will play the “official” premiere of mahrem bir eser as well as other solo works as part of her mini-residency at Peabody.

[ianpoweromg]

TONIGHT! Carolyn Chen, Ian Power, Body Music.

EMP Collective, 8pm

[ianpoweromg]

Brandon Soderberg, one of Baltimore’s best journalists, has a new podcast for non-profit news, and he invited me on to talk about my performances! Take a look! Take a... take a listen!

[ianpoweromg]

Tonight in Baltimore! With a special guest!

[ianpoweromg]

At 17:00 of this video, you can watch Gleb Kanasevich’s virtuosic performance of swathe for solo clarinet. Thanks so much to the Equilibrium Concert Series for hosting us!

[ianpoweromg]

Somerville-based Equilibrium Series' last concert of the season.

Tonight Gleb Kanasevich will give the US premiere of my clarinet piece ‘swathe,’ along with two pieces by Azerbaijani composer Rahilia Hasanova. Marti Epstein will then premiere Paul Fake’s Piano Sonata. There also might be a live stream, so if you’re not in Boston, check the Facebook event page above around 8 edt!