After last year’s program with piano music from Ligeti and Chick Corea, Maki Namekawa once again takes us on her explorations of the music of our time, presenting a rediscovery and a newly commissioned composition:
Keith Jarrett, Ritual for piano solo (1974)
Her new interpretation of Keith Jarrett’s Ritual brings back a wonderful and little-known piece from 1974. (There is only one recording of it, made by Dennis Russell Davies, to whom the piece was dedicated, in 1977).
In Ritual, the improvisational power of Keith Jarrett, whose 1975 live recording of The Cologne Concert became one of the best-selling jazz and piano albums and made his music known far beyond the world of jazz, is cast in composed, notated structures. In the approximately 30 minutes of this composition, Jarrett condensed the very characteristic moments of his music and all its potential and energy gets unleashed by Maki Namekawa‘s virtuoso performance.
photo: Florian Voggeneder
photo: Florian Voggeneder
Joe Hisaishi, Toccata
(New work commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Arts, Science, and Technology (CAST), the Ars Electronica and the Philharmonie de Paris)
Toccata is a new work by Joe Hisaishi, the Japanese composer, pianist and conductor who has written music for over a hundred films and is well known for his work with and between different musical genres.
Of his composition for Maki Namekawa, he writes: “In my Toccata, I am in search of a flowing sound, combined with the rhythmic variety that I so admire in Baroque music. By focusing on horizontal, linear movements and avoiding obvious dissonances in the chords, I hope to evoke an emotional response in the listener rather than forcing one upon them. Maki Namekawa is an outstanding pianist with a direct and sincere approach to the music she interprets. I am very much looking forward to her concert.”
Credits
Keith Jarrett, „Ritual“ for piano solo (1974)
Joe Hisaishi, „Toccata“
(Commissioned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Arts, Science, and Technology (CAST), Ars Electronica and the Philharmonie de Paris).
