The Stone

Double Bill at the STONE

Posted by David Arner
Sunday, August 26, 2012
DOUBLE BILL at The STONE!!
Not To Be Missed!!
8:00pm
DAVID ARNER (solo piano)
TRANSCENDENTALITIES
Out there with intentionalities, inevitabilities, interactivities, incarnations, indeterminacies, inclinations, inherencies, inventions and intuitions.
10:pm
THE ROSI HERTLEIN TRIO
Rosi Hertlein (violin & voice), David Arner (piano), David Taylor (bass trombone)
Parhelia and other compositions by Rosi Hertlein
August 26th 
$10 admission each set
The Stone (artistic director, John Zorn)
at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street
See directions below
Rosi Hertlein and David Arner began performing together in 2003 in the New Vanguard Series in Kingston, NY.  Their New Vanguard duo performance In the Language of the Dream is available on the Deep Listening label as a digital download at  http://www.deeplistening.org/site/releasesby/Arner as well as elsewhere online.

Rosi Hertlein was a member of Pauline Oliveros’ “New Circle Quintet,” Cecil Taylor’s “With Blazing Eyes and Opened Mouth,” Reggie Workman’s “African-American Legacy Project.”  She played the Vision Festival with Joe McPhee twice, and has also collaborated with Howard Johnson and Jay Rosen.

David Taylor started his playing career as a member of Leopold Stokowski’s American Symphony Orchestra, and also appearing with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez.  Almost simultaneously, he was a member of the Thad Jones Mel Lewis jazz band, and recorded with Duke Ellington (The New Orleans Suite), The Rolling Stones, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears.  David Taylor and David Arner first played together in 2006. 
David Arner recently performed his “An Invocation fro Hermes Twice Revealed,” for piano and harpsichord at EMPAC in Troy, N.Y. 
His 4-CD boxed set, Spontaneous Suites for Two Pianos (RogueArt) with Connie Crothers has just been released.  The online music journal Point of Departure describes the music as “… parallel journeying… evocative… each return to the music yields a different aural itinerary… comfortable with each other’s biorhythms and sense of space… exuberant… dramatic and physically demanding… introspective and intimate… it’s hard to get used to the idea that this is all spontaneously made rather than organized and in some measure pre-set. What has happened is that the two musicians have constructed a vivid, one-use-only musical language, a singleton rhetoric for duo playing that is entirely self-sustaining. Such a thing ought to be, if not forbidding, then at least exclusive, but there is real and deep pleasure in hearing two musicians of this caliber talking through the arcane and technical matter of their craft.  Revelatory music.“
Directions to The STONE:
The STONE is located exactly on the North-West corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street.  It is an unmarked building except for the door, which has “the stone” printed in small type.  There is a gas station on the corner across the street.
From the Lower East Side – 2nd Avenue station (for the F or V trains), walk North on 2nd Avenue, then Right onto 2nd Street to Avenue C.
OR…  
From the Delancey Street – Essex Street station (for the F, J, M or Z trains), walk North on Avenue A across Houston Street to 2nd Street, then Right onto 2nd Street to Avenue C.

“The Birds of Central Park” at the STONE

Posted by David Arner

The Logic of Birds

The degree to which David Arner liberates himself from  pre-determined constraints and sends it soaring might only be imaginable if you heard his concert of improvised piano music at The Stone in Manhattan last night, or if this effort was guided by someone who had this privilege.  For those who missed this momentous event, I offer a step-by-step guide.

1.  Imagine writing your signature with a pencil on a sheet of lined paper and the many constraints imposed upon you before you lift your pen:

The paper dictates the shape and the dimensions of the field of operations.  The lines dictate the orientation, the spacing within this field, and the proportions of image to space.  You determine the shape of the letters (no constraints), the size and width of the letters (constrained), and the darkness or lightness of your touch (within the paper’s tolerance).

2. Imagine writing your signature on a sheet of paper without lines.

Now only the shape and the dimensions of the field of operations are determined before you lift your pen.  In addition to the liberties identified above, you orient your paper in any direction, choose whether to honor the right angled rigidity of the paper, and select your orientation.

3. Imagine writing your signature in the sand on a beach.

Borders and other constraints dissolve.  You are free to determine the size, shape, orientation, style, and pressure of your signature.                               

4. Imagine this beach in outer space – liberated from the gravity-bound constraints of Earth experience.

The sand-writing analogy only describes Arner’s starting point, not his destination.

5. Imagine Arner drawing with not one, but ten implements simultaneously. Each finger served the fullness of his musicality in the instant of its stirring.

6. Imagine this drawing embracing the myriad conditions provided by the setting. Instead of beach, sea, sun, wind, and shadow, Arner probed the innards of his grand piano as well as the keys, unleashing wondrous percussive and melodic opportunities.

Flights and songs of birds served as this concert’s inspiration.  Arner’s expressive freedom seemed the perfect embodiment of avian disregard for human-contrived borders and rational systems.  Yet, for me, the concert exceeded the untethering of music from compositional norms.  It demonstrated that human emancipation from constraint does not necessarily indicate explosive and destructive fury.  Arner yielded to an alternative ordering system.  He discovered the logic of birds.  Last night, he shared the glorious expression of this revelation with his audience.

Linda Weintraub, September 2009