Saturday night's CD Release Concert was a wonderful event. I love performing, and being with 200+ people, playing on such a great piano and amazing support is, well... I think I ran out of adjectives. The CDs are available only here through me for this week, but should be up through CDBaby, iTunes, and other online outlets within the next couple days.
I'm busy finishing up the Piano Quintet, but soon will post videos of the event.
Thanks to all who came and all who helped! You're awesome!
Monday, March 28, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
CDs arriving, good words
Today, Thursday March 24, I'm receiving a shipment of the "Piano Songs" CD. Yes!
Plus, today is my sister's birthday. A new year for her; a new way to share this piano music. It's another good day.
The effects of these piano pieces on my compositional output is going to be heard pretty quickly. I can hear it and feel it in what I'm creating now. Yes, in addition to this CD I'm still creating other music, and I'm almost done composing my Quintet for Piano and Strings that will be premiered next month. It's lovely, accepting and affirming of... something. Life? Creativity? It will be good to share that soon, too. Especially because it was commissioned by Churches United for their 50th Anniversary. They're a great group of people doing much needed work. More on that later. For now I'm thankful to be able to create music, and to be sharing with the public on Saturday night.
Jeff Ignatius from the River City Reader wrote a wonderful article about all of this. You can read it here:
Out of His Own Way: William Campbell, March 26 at Galvin Fine Arts Center.
Plus, today is my sister's birthday. A new year for her; a new way to share this piano music. It's another good day.
The effects of these piano pieces on my compositional output is going to be heard pretty quickly. I can hear it and feel it in what I'm creating now. Yes, in addition to this CD I'm still creating other music, and I'm almost done composing my Quintet for Piano and Strings that will be premiered next month. It's lovely, accepting and affirming of... something. Life? Creativity? It will be good to share that soon, too. Especially because it was commissioned by Churches United for their 50th Anniversary. They're a great group of people doing much needed work. More on that later. For now I'm thankful to be able to create music, and to be sharing with the public on Saturday night.
Jeff Ignatius from the River City Reader wrote a wonderful article about all of this. You can read it here:
Out of His Own Way: William Campbell, March 26 at Galvin Fine Arts Center.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Artwork & Production; People & Things
When you open it and explore the inner pages you'll find short, zen-like poems by my friend Pat Connelly. Both of these artists are on faculty with me at St. Ambrose and we've worked collaboratively before. It's a pleasure to work with them at the university and on projects like these.
Without Jon Laird this whole thing would not have happened. He tunes, voices, and works magic on our pianos. He had to work a lot with this new piano, and I'm so grateful.
And then there's Lars Rehnberg. So much time with me and my music. Sometimes I'm unintentionally confusing with my comments and suggestions, and for an audio engineer and producer, that's tough to deal with. Lars has been great.
It's the people that we live and work with that help define who we are. Yes, the new Yamaha concert grand piano is amazing and I'm grateful to have access to such a great instrument. But it's not so much the things as the people. We have wonderful faculty, staff and students here, and all the artists I've worked with over the years have helped me in some way to get to this point. Mostly in helping me to be open to accepting these songs as art. I've decided these are classical "songs without words." Some folks might consider this more of a "new age" album. I can understand and even respect that opinion. It's just a thing after all.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Recording
Yesterday's recording went very well. I arrived at about 9:30 and the piano was set up on stage and ready. Lars Rehnberg, sound recording engineer, and Pat Connelly, friend and wise word man met me a little later. By about 11:30 mics were set, and Lars was getting almost what he wanted. Reset the mics, and we got started. By 3:00 we were done. Amazing. The shortness of the session is due to my own preparation, practice and patience, and the technology of this piano.
For those that don't know, the Yamaha Disklavier Pro can record and play back my performances. For a while now I've been recording almost all of this piano music digitally. For the recording session, then, I played all of the pieces, but some were pre-recorded MIDI files stored on a drive and recalled when Lars was there to record the piano. Nine foot concert grand pianos must be one of the pinnacles of human creative engineering. It's amazing to play and hear this instrument.
Here's a video of the recording session, thanks to Pat Connelly who took the pics:
Peace,
~Bill
For those that don't know, the Yamaha Disklavier Pro can record and play back my performances. For a while now I've been recording almost all of this piano music digitally. For the recording session, then, I played all of the pieces, but some were pre-recorded MIDI files stored on a drive and recalled when Lars was there to record the piano. Nine foot concert grand pianos must be one of the pinnacles of human creative engineering. It's amazing to play and hear this instrument.
Here's a video of the recording session, thanks to Pat Connelly who took the pics:
Peace,
~Bill
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Solo piano music
Started playing piano at 6.
Studied piano in college.
Three degrees in music composition.
Ironically, this is my first collection of solo piano pieces. I've composed music for almost every instrument and voice combination, and performed as a pianist for over 25 years. Previously much of my work has been for ensemble and dramatic (theater, film) works, and any solo piano music was often folded into a much larger whole. The benefit of composing piano pieces is that I can perform them by myself and have a ready stock set of pieces for events.
Embarking on more of a solo path, though, is different. Stepping out as a soloist requires a different mentality than working behind the scenes as a composer or sharing the stage with others as part of an ensemble. There’s an exciting sort of vulnerability here performing alone that doesn’t exist when one is part of an ensemble on stage. When you perform solo, it’s just you, a piano, and the audience. There’s a freedom here to be oneself, allowing that essence of the musical idea come through without other filters. No doubt I still love and will continue to compose works for larger ensemble, but this solo music allows for reflection simply on the musical subject, and how it all might resonate on a deeper level.
This CD of solo piano music will contain 12 individual tracks and be approximately 45-50 minutes in duration. Naturally combining elements of contemporary jazz, classical and popular music, each piece is an expression of a particular moment. Some were composed for specific events or as a musical reflection of a concept or physical thing. Others are captured improvisations that have organically grown into being through my creative filter at the piano keyboard. Each piece follows more of a “song” form, and so the overall collection of music is less classical perhaps. This isn’t to say they are any less important than other pieces of mine, and in fact, they may show a more direct and pure expression of my own self. Furthermore, each piece shows in some way a development of motivic materials, variation techniques in melody, harmony and rhythm, and a commitment to expression and communication with my audience. Each piece is stripped down to a more minimal level, and hopefully one hears the elimination of unnecessary distraction and an attention to only essential detail.
I do have the exceptionally good fortune to have access to a great instrument. Using the Yamaha Disklavier Pro, I can digitally record the data of every nuance of my performance and play it back on the acoustic piano. I can also make the music files available to anyone who has this technology on their piano and they can hear how I play my own music. Today's music is a short sample of a piece called "The Reason Why." It's a recording of myself playing this piece, but the piano is playing this from the stored digital data. Amazing.
Studied piano in college.
Three degrees in music composition.
Ironically, this is my first collection of solo piano pieces. I've composed music for almost every instrument and voice combination, and performed as a pianist for over 25 years. Previously much of my work has been for ensemble and dramatic (theater, film) works, and any solo piano music was often folded into a much larger whole. The benefit of composing piano pieces is that I can perform them by myself and have a ready stock set of pieces for events.
Embarking on more of a solo path, though, is different. Stepping out as a soloist requires a different mentality than working behind the scenes as a composer or sharing the stage with others as part of an ensemble. There’s an exciting sort of vulnerability here performing alone that doesn’t exist when one is part of an ensemble on stage. When you perform solo, it’s just you, a piano, and the audience. There’s a freedom here to be oneself, allowing that essence of the musical idea come through without other filters. No doubt I still love and will continue to compose works for larger ensemble, but this solo music allows for reflection simply on the musical subject, and how it all might resonate on a deeper level.
This CD of solo piano music will contain 12 individual tracks and be approximately 45-50 minutes in duration. Naturally combining elements of contemporary jazz, classical and popular music, each piece is an expression of a particular moment. Some were composed for specific events or as a musical reflection of a concept or physical thing. Others are captured improvisations that have organically grown into being through my creative filter at the piano keyboard. Each piece follows more of a “song” form, and so the overall collection of music is less classical perhaps. This isn’t to say they are any less important than other pieces of mine, and in fact, they may show a more direct and pure expression of my own self. Furthermore, each piece shows in some way a development of motivic materials, variation techniques in melody, harmony and rhythm, and a commitment to expression and communication with my audience. Each piece is stripped down to a more minimal level, and hopefully one hears the elimination of unnecessary distraction and an attention to only essential detail.
I do have the exceptionally good fortune to have access to a great instrument. Using the Yamaha Disklavier Pro, I can digitally record the data of every nuance of my performance and play it back on the acoustic piano. I can also make the music files available to anyone who has this technology on their piano and they can hear how I play my own music. Today's music is a short sample of a piece called "The Reason Why." It's a recording of myself playing this piece, but the piano is playing this from the stored digital data. Amazing.
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