Steven Vrancken with Surrender from his 2011 album “Into Resonance“.
↓ click for audio
Source: Schonwieder
Tag: Piano
Monday Morning Mantra
For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner,” wrote the cellist Pablo Casals in his memoir, Joys and Sorrows. “I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being.
~ Glen Kurtz, Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music
Pablo Casals (1876 – 1973), was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time.
Credits: Photo – glogster.com
Árstíðir
Árstíðir (English: Seasons) is an Icelandic indie-folk band with classical, progressive rock and minimalist elements. The band formed in 2008 in Reykjavík.
Árstíðir became known to a wider internet audience in 2013 when a viral YouTube video showed them performing impromptu, Heyr himna smiður (“Hear, Smith of heavens”, a 13th-century Icelandic hymn) at a train station in Wuppertal, Germany. Don’t miss this Youtube video (with ~ 4,000,000 views) here: Heyr himna smiður
Find the band’s website here: arstidir.com
This tune will be found on the band’s new album to be released in March, 2015: Hvel
Background Source: Wiki
For Now I Am Winter
Ólafur Arnalds, 26, is a multi-instrumentalist and producer from Mosfellsbær, Iceland. Ólafur Arnalds mixes strings and piano with loops and edgy beats crossing-over from ambient/electronic to pop.
This song can be found on iTunes on his album titled For Now I Am Winter – which I acquired several weeks ago and have had playing on a continuous loop. Highly recommended.
For related Olafur Arnalds posts:
- Old Skin (from the same “For Now I am Winter” album)
- Near Light
- Pianists’ Live Improv (Olafur Arnalds & Nils Frahm)
Thanksgiving
Eric Lewis, 41, who is better known by his stage name ELEW, is an American jazz pianist who has found crossover success playing rock and pop music. He was born in Camden, NJ. He is known for his unconventional and physical playing style, which eschews a piano bench and includes reaching inside the piano lid to pull at the strings directly, as well as the creation that he calls Rockjazz, a genre that “takes the improvisational aspect of jazz and ‘threads it through the eye of the needle of rock.'”
Lewis began his career as a jazz purist, playing as a sideman for jazz luminaries like Wynton Marsalis, Cassandra Wilson, Elvin Jones, Jon Hendricks, and Roy Hargrove as well as performing as a member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. However, he eventually became interested in rock music and embarked on a solo career as a crossover musician, quickly gaining recognition for his instrumental “Rockjazz” piano covers of mainstream rock hits like The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black” and The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside”.
He released his albums of instrumental covers which can be found on iTunes here: ELEW Rockjazz Vol. 1 (2010, including “Sweet Home Alabama”) and ELEW Rockjazz Vol. 2 (2012, including this tune “Thanksgiving“)