Teenage pianist Eldar displays skill, passion beyond his years
June 28, 2005
The future of jazz looked bright Thursday night at Scullers, where 18-year-old piano phenom Eldar packed the house with an audience ranging from teens younger than himself to folks in their golden years.
Eldar, who dispenses with his last name (Djangirov) professionally, sauntered onstage in blue jeans and an untucked black shirt, its sleeves unbuttoned at the wrist, and launched into ”Point of View.” The piece, a fiendishly fast and challenging original performed with sax virtuoso Michael Brecker on Eldar’s debut album, showed off the pianist at his best.
”Point of View” is a tune requiring technical wizardry, and Eldar carried it off breathtakingly. Brecker wasn’t with him at Scullers, but the tune didn’t lack much for his absence, and Eldar’s trio mates — bassist Marco Panascia and drummer Carmen Intorre — stayed tightly alongside the young leader despite it being Intorre’s first night on the job.
Read the full article: Teenage pianist Eldar displays skill, passion beyond his years
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Kawai MP9500 Digital Piano review
June 25, 2005
Concert pianist Michael Kieran Harvey’s review of the ‘cream of the crop’ Kawai MP9500 digital piano, with concert-grand-realistic sound.
“I use the MP9500 in place of a grand to practice on because of it’s superb touch-sensitive action, the best in any digital piano yet made. I travel a lot, and because of its portability and use of headphones, I can play it anywhere, at anytime. I’ve done gigs where I’ve lined it up against a full-length concert grand and challenged the audience to spot the difference in sound – they couldn’t
Read the full review: Kawai MP9500 Digital Piano
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Rzewski blazes a unique piano path
June 22, 2005
Frederic Rzewski is one of the major figures writing for piano in our time, and securing him as composer-in-residence was a major coup for New England Conservatory’s annual Summer Institute for Contemporary Piano Performance. Founder/artistic director Stephen Drury translates the SICPP acronym as ‘’sick puppy,” but composers like Rzewski are keeping the piano alive and wagging its tail.
He is also a fascinating pianist and a master of multitasking, as his solo recital in Jordan Hall last night demonstrated. He doesn’t conform to the image of a concert artist, appearing onstage in a red shirt with his pens clipped to its breast pocket; his way of acknowledging applause is to scratch his ear. He made a point of welcoming latecomers (”let them in . . . but don’t let them out,” he quipped). He does not appear to be interested at all in the piano’s historic ability to imitate other instruments, even a full orchestra, or the creamiest legato of an opera singer. Instead he revels in the piano’s identity as the most complex and varied of all percussion instruments. Flights of finger-filigree lacework are not for him, but he is almost unrivaled in his range of attack, articulation, and dynamics, all propelled by a sense of rhythm as strong and flexible as a healthy spine. And while he is assaulting the keyboard, some of his music simultaneously requires him to pound patterns on the wooden parts of the instrument, grunt, moan, growl, shout words, whistle, even recite a nursery rhyme.
Read full article: Rzewski blazes a unique piano path (Boston.com)
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Prince Charles’ impromptu piano performance
June 19, 2005
Britain’s Prince of Wales charmed members of the public with a spontaneous piano performance during a visit to the Royal Arsenal.
Charles flexed his fingers and gave a brief rendition of ‘Chopsticks’ as he was shown round a newly-restored home in the former military complex.
Householders Nick Tankard, 36, and his wife Teresa Saez, 35, were thrilled when the Prince played for them in their newly refurbished home.
The historic Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, south east London, is being restored to provide private and affordable housing. The couple were among the first to move into the redeveloped flats.
Read full article (FemaleFirst.co.uk)
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PianoFX Studio 4.0 Press Release
June 19, 2005
PianoFX Studio 4.0 from Tanseon Systems is an advanced Piano Music Keyboard Synthesizer for the Personal Computer. You can play live piano music using your PC keyboard or mouse without the requirement of a conventional Piano. The player piano music keyboard interface & piano keys has been designed to exactly resemble a fully featured Professional Keyboard Synthesizer. It produces a ultra-high quality midi sound output with 127 different realistic Musical and Percussion Instruments, piano chords, 4-note Polyphonic sounds, a 10 Drum synthesizer machine, multiple sample Melodies and has a Recording option to save your musical compositions in wav file format. The software runs on all Windows Operating Systems has been designed for ease of use and flexibility.
Features include Realistic full-size 64 piano keys music synthesizer, 8 Octaves of piano music note output, fully featured with ultra-high quality sound output, 127 different Musical and Percussion Instruments, Variable Pitch and Volume Adjustment, full piano chords and realistic piano keys, 4-note polyphony player piano instrumentals, sample Musical scores and Melodies built in, 10 Drum Machine synthesizer available, Record and save music compositions as .wav files, MIDI Mapper or Microsoft GS Wave Table Synthesizer, software works with any standard sound-card.
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Korg SP-300 Digital Piano review
June 19, 2005
The SP-300 Digital Piano is the perfect answer for any pianist looking for rich piano sounds and the convenience of a lightweight, portable instrument. With a choice of internal speakers or not, the SP-300 piano can fit the needs of any practicing or performance situation. Whether you’re a professional musician, a student or simply playing for pleasure, the realism and flexibility of these instruments are sure to impress. High-quality stereo samples of some of the world’s finest grand pianos guarantee the SP-300’s deep, defined, natural sound. There are four distinct and vibrant piano timbres: Grand Piano 1 and 2, Bright Piano, and Classic Piano. To round out the piano offerings, the SP-300 also features a vintage Electric Grand sound and an authentic Honky-Tonk piano.
Read full review (CleverJoe.com)
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Alexander Kobrin wins Van Cliburn piano contest
June 6, 2005
Russia’s Alexander Kobrin, 25, won the gold medal Sunday night at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, a prestigious 17-day contest known for launching classical music careers.
The silver medal went to Joyce Yang, 19, a native of South Korea. Sa Chen, 25, of China took third place. Each medalist wins $20,000 in cash and three years of concert management.
The other finalists Davide Cabassi, 28, and Roberto Plano, 26, both of Italy, and China’s Chu-Fang Huang, 22 each won $10,000.
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Barron rules as a pianist’s pianist
June 5, 2005
Every profession has people like Kenny Barron. You know the type: magnificent at their job but quiet, unassuming, deferential to a fault — almost to the point of being taken for granted. But when you actually take stock of their work, you realize that they do it better than just about anyone else.
That sums up Barron, who’s been called a pianist’s pianist by his peers in jazz. He’s not interested in drawing attention to himself, and as a result, the more extroverted types grab the spotlight. But his piano playing speaks for itself, and it’s just too good to be ignored.
Barron, who turns 62 on Thursday, doesn’t make it to the Bay Area often, but he’ll be here next weekend to headline the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, now in its seventh year in Sonoma County. He’ll be playing solo and leading a trio with Victor Lewis on drums and Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass. Plus, as a special treat, the pianist will pair with violin phenom Regina Carter.
Read full article (SFGate.com)
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MakeMusic! Announces Release of Finale SongWriter
June 4, 2005
MakeMusic!(R) Inc. announced today the release of Finale SongWriter(TM), the latest addition to its family of innovative music notation software. Finale SongWriter allows users to quickly and easily compose and arrange music, hear their work and print premium-quality sheet music.
Created for songwriters of all levels, including those who may be new to notation software, Finale SongWriter offers a large array of powerful but easy-to-use features. Notes can be entered via a computer keyboard, a MIDI keyboard, or by importing MIDI files. Users can effortlessly add key and time signatures, lyrics, chords, guitar fingerboards, markings and musical instructions.
Additionally, Finale SongWriter can automatically generate two- and three-voice harmonies and drum grooves. The software also allows the user to create and edit guitar and bass tablature, save MIDI files and create MP3 files. Musicians can experiment with over 129 professional instrument sounds (a free professional software synthesizer is included). Songs sound like they’re being performed by live musicians thanks to “Human Playback(TM)”. All of these features come at an affordable price of $49.95.
Full article (MoneyPlans.net)
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TASCAM Announces GigaStudio 3.10 Upgrade: Press Release
June 4, 2005
TASCAM is pleased to announce Version 3.10, a free upgrade to the GigaStudio 3 sampling software, adding many features and functions and increasing the functionality of this already-powerful sampling package.
GigaStudio version 3.10 adds new iMIDI templates, making it easier to use iMIDI rules for adding life to instrument sounds, and a host of new iMIDI rules and features. The Stack Instrument Selection feature allows you to quickly assign keyswitches to swap sounds on a MIDI channel during a performance effectively shattering previous limits on the number of Dimensions possible. Version 3.10 also adds drag & drop creation of GigaPulse presets, user interface enhancements, new comprehensive keyboard shortcuts and a list of other improvements designed to improve your workflow in GigaStudio. The release will be available for download at www.tascamgiga.com in early June.
“Updating GigaStudio is a constant process, based on feedback from the top composers, library developers and engineers in the music industry,” says Pete Snell, GigaStudio Sales and Marketing Manager. “Many of the new features in GigaStudio 3.10 were suggested by our library developers. They have a great idea for a new GigaStudio instrument and ask us to implement that feature, like our own new Legato mode that uses GigaPulse to model connecting notes. By working with the best sampler developers, we make sure that the best sample libraries in the world continue to be developed for GigaStudio.”
New Features in GigaStudio 3.10:
iMIDI Templates: GigaStudio v3.10 now supports the use of templates to facilitate loading/saving iMIDI rules. A template is a user/developer-configured rule that can be quickly loaded into the sampler and attached to an instrument or a stack.
Stack Instrument Selection Feature: This feature can extend the playing capabilities of the sampler by allowing an unlimited number of samples to be assigned to a note range
Key Re-Mapping for Stack Instruments: Keyboard re-mapping can be applied at the Port/Channel level for quickly re-mapping input notes to samples as is often needed with drum controllers.
Quick Edit Undo/Redo: New Undo/Redo functionality added to the Quick Edit interface allows users to easily compare changes made to commonly edited instrument parameters.
Naming Stack Instruments: It is now possible to name stack instruments so they can be easily identified, even when the stack view is collapsed.¬â€
Zone Limit for Stack Instruments: This powerful little feature allows the user to remove overlaps between instruments that are used together on a stack.¬â€
Instrument Selection Within Stack Instruments: This extends the idea of dimension key switching into the stacked instrument realm by providing the ability to key switch between instruments in a stack, practically providing unlimited dimension switching possibilities in real time.¬â€
GigaPulse Enhancements
- New Import Wave Data menu item, which makes creating your own GigaPulse presets from raw impulses very easy & fast.¬â€
- It is now possible to enter parameter values directly as text.
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