Tag: video

Au4, “Planck Length”

Au4, “Planck Length”

The AU4, the Audio / Visual Creative Collective formed in 2004 in Canada , including the three brothers Ben Wylie, Aaron Wylie, Wylie Nathan and their friend Jason Nickel, which began from an early age to study music at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto . Later, in high school, they took part in the groups of alternative rock , continuing his musical studies as well as participating in the productions of jazz , choral and theatrical .

In particular, Nathan and Jason Wylie Nickel later attended the Capilano University , based in Squamish and Sechelt, north of Vancouver, deepening their knowledge and practice of jazz, while Ben Wylie and his brother Aaron were dedicated to electronic music. The experiences of this period would then merged to form the future of the group’s style.

Partly inspired by the spread of electronic music in the 1990s, as well as from the albums milestones of the Underworld , Massive Attack , Björk , AIR , Nine Inch Nails , Mogwai and M83,  Ben and Aaron began to compose and shape of the productions both musical and visual, accumulating an amount of work that would later find her suitable accommodation in their debut album on: Audio, and their live show on: Visual.

Fantastic band and experience. Check them out.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Snow Ghosts, “And the World Was Gone”

Snow Ghosts, “And the World Was Gone”, Live Version

Producer Ross Tones (aka Throwing Snow) and vocalist Hannah Cartwright (aka Augustus Ghost) first met and started collaborating in 2008, having a shared interest in British folklore and experimental electronic music.

The first Snow Ghosts record, the ‘Lost At Sea’ EP, was released through Black Acre Records in 2011. Following this initial release, Tones and Cartwright spent the next two years compiling their debut album ‘A Small Murmuration’, which was released on London nightclub Fabric’s record label Houndstooth in 2013.

In 2014, Tones and Cartwright joined forces with multi-instrumentalist Oliver Knowles, and Snow Ghosts became a trio. The band’s second album, ‘A Wrecking’, was released on Houndstooth in February 2015. In August 2013, Snow Ghosts track ‘And The World Was Gone’ featured in a pivotal scene in episode 10 ‘The Overlooked’ of Teen Wolf (Season 3).

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

David Garrett, “Palladio”

David Garrett, “Palladio”

David Garrett, born David Christian Bongartz, is a record-breaking German pop and crossover violinist and recording artist. By the age of seven, he studied violin at the Lübeck Conservatoire, and by the age of 12, Garrett began working with the distinguished Polish violinist Ida Haendel, often traveling to London and other European cities to meet her. After leaving home at 17, he enrolled at the Royal College of Music in London, leaving after the first semester.  In 1999 he moved to New York to attend the Juilliard School, in 2003 winning the School’s Composition Competition with a fugue composed in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach.[ Whilst at Juilliard he studied under Itzhak Perlman, one of the first people to do so, and graduated in 2004.

Palladio is a composition for string orchestra by Karl Jenkins, written in 1995. The title refers to the architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). The work in three movements is in the form of a concerto grosso.

“Palladio was inspired by the sixteenth-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, whose work embodies the Renaissance celebration of harmony and order. Two of Palladio’s hallmarks are mathematical harmony and architectural elements borrowed from classical antiquity, a philosophy which I feel reflects my own approach to composition.” -Karl Jenkins

Maria Callas, “Il Dolce Suono”

Maria Callas, “Il Dolce Suono”, Performed in the Teatro Comunale, Florence, Italy, 1953

Chorus and Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Florentino

Chorus Master: Andrea Morosini

Orchestra Conductor: Tullio Serafin

“Il Dolce Suono” (“The Sweet Sound”) is the incipit of the recitativo of a scena ed aria taken from Act III scene 2, Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti. It is also commonly known as the “mad scene” sung by the leading soprano, Lucia. An arrangement of the aria was featured in the film The Fifth Element, sung by the alien character Diva Plavalaguna voiced by Inva Mula.

Amber Run, “I Found”

Amber Run, “I Found” from the Album “SAM”

Amber Run is a British band from Nottingham, UK composed of Joe Keogh, Will Jones, Tom Sperring and Henry Wyeth. The band has released one album and three EPs while being signed to RCA Records. They were initially called Amber but were forced to change their name to avoid a conflict with the German dance-pop singer of same name.[3] The band has played mostly in the UK and Ireland.

In July and August 2014 the band released videos for the single “I Found” and “Pilot”, respectively, that are a duology. Speaking to LeftLion Magazine in December 2014, they explained: “We were already discussing what to do with  “I Found”; it’s not a song that screams “single” but we wanted to release it in some form. Releasing it with “Pilot” just seemed to be a good method to bring attention to the whole EP, and doing something creative with the videos is a bit more interesting. Linking the videos gives you more scope… [to] expand the storyline past three and a half minutes.“

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Gossip, “Heavy Cross”

Gossip, “Heavy Cross”

Gossip was formed in 1999 in Olympia, Washington, with vocalist Beth Ditto, guitarist Nathan “Brace Paine” Howdeshell and drummer Kathy Mendonça.  All three were originally from Searcy, Arkansas; Mendonça moved to Olympia to attend Evergreen State College and Howdeshell and Ditto followed. Howdeshell and Mendonça had been in bands together in Arkansas. The band coalesced when the three members were roommates in Olympia.

Their style has been described as “a soul or gospel” voice with “a sort of funky punk soundtrack”. The band stated a liking for rock bands like Birthday Party, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nirvana and The Raincoats but also for other genres such as dance and hip hop.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Saint Paul and the Broken Bones, “All I Ever Wonder”

Saint Paul and the Broken Bones, “All I Ever Wonder”

Vocalist Paul Janeway and bassist Jesse Phillips met in the mid-2000s while playing in Birmingham as part of the alternative soul outfit The Secret Dangers. In 2012, Jesse and Paul met back in Ol’ Elegante Studios in Birmingham to start a new project. Janeway says of the project with Phillips, “It was going to be our last hurrah” before focusing on other careers, “but then something just clicked and we walked out of there with something.”

As the two began working around Janeway’s voice, they realized they were forming a soul outfit. As the project progressed, the pair brought in Browan Lollar, formerly of The 400 Unit, Andrew Lee, Ben Griner, and Allen Branstetter. Here, they recorded their first EP, Greetings from St. Paul and The Broken Bones before ever playing a live show.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Russian Red Army Choir, “Song of the Volga Boatmen”

Russian Red Army Choir, “Song of the Volga Boatmen” with Leonid Kharitonov

The “Song of the Volga Boatmen” is a well-known traditional Russian song collected by Mily Balakirev, and published in his book of folk songs in 1866. It was sung by burlaks, or barge-haulers, on the Volga River. Balakirev published it with only one verse (the first). The other two verses were added at a later date. Ilya Repin’s famous painting, Barge Haulers on the Volga, depicts such burlaks in Tsarist Russia toiling along the Volga.

The song was popularised by Feodor Chaliapin, and has been a favourite concert piece of bass singers ever since. Glenn Miller’s jazz arrangement took the song to #1 in the US charts in 1941. Russian composer Alexander Glazunov based one of the themes of his symphonic poem “Stenka Razin” on the song.

Spanish composer Manuel De Falla wrote an arrangement of the song, which was published under the name Canto de los remeros del Volga (del cancionero musical ruso) in 1922. He did so at the behest of diplomat Ricardo Baeza, who was working with the League of Nations to provide financial relief for the more than two million Russian refugees who had been displaced and imprisoned during World War I. All proceeds from the song’s publication were donated to this effort. Igor Stravinsky made an arrangement for orchestra.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Mads Langer, “The Beauty of the Dark”

Mads Langer, “The Beauty of the Dark”

Mads Langer (born 1984) is a Danish singer-songwriter, who became internationally known for his cover of “You’re Not Alone” by the British band Olive. While the song is cheerful, his own songs are frequently typified as emotional guitar ballads, because many of them are in a minor scale and have a melancholic feel to them.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Music History: Montserrat Caballé,  “O Mio Babbino Caro”

Montserrat Caballé,  “O Mio Babbino Caro” by Giacomo Puccini

December 22 is the birthday of Giacomo Puccini, in full Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini, who was born on December 22, 1858, in Lucca,Tuscany, Italy, He died on November 29, 1924 in Brussels, Belgium. He has been called “the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi”.

Puccini’s early work was rooted in traditional late-19th-century romantic Italian opera. Later, he successfully developed his work in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.

Puccini’s most renowned works are La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madama Butterfly (1904), all of which are among the important operas played as standards.

In 1923, Puccini complained of a recurring sore throat and sought medical advice. Though an initial consultation turned up nothing serious, during a subsequent examination he was diagnosed with throat cancer. As the cancer had by that point progressed beyond where it could be operated upon, Puccini traveled to Brussels in 1924 for an experimental radiation treatment. Too weak to endure the procedure, he died in the hospital seven days later, on November 29, 1924. At the time of his death, Puccini had become the most commercially successful opera composer of all time, worth the equivalent of an estimated $200 million.

After an initial burial in Milan, in 1926 his body was moved to his Torre del Lago estate, where a small chapel was constructed to hold his remains. An opera celebration called “Festival Puccini” is held in the town every year in honor of its most famous resident.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)