CD: Elektra / Michael Kieran Harvey collection. [2009] : Product : Australian Music Centre

CD

Elektra / Michael Kieran Harvey collection.

Published by Move Records — September, 2009 [MD 3329] — 1 CD (73 min.)
Sales Availability: $27.27— Add to Cart
Library Availability: CD 2038 — Available for loan

Featured Australian works

Folly (2007) — solo piano, by Andrew Ford
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 12 mins, 48 sec.
Recorded/performed at: Move Records Studio, 2007-2009

Menin Gate (2005) — solo piano, by Helen Gifford
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 8 mins, 42 sec.
Recorded/performed at: Move Records Studio, 2007-2009

Crossing (2007) — solo piano, by Tony Gould
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 19 mins, 30 sec.
Recorded/performed at: Move Records Studio, 2007-2009

Elektra (1992) — solo piano, by Michael Kieran Harvey
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 8 mins, 56 sec.
Recorded/performed at: North Melbourne Elm Street Hall, on 1992.

Sonata (2005) — solo piano, by Julian Yu
featuring Michael Kieran Harvey (performer)
Duration: 24 mins, 18 sec.
Recorded/performed at: Move Records Studio, 2007-2009

Product details

Michael Kieran Harvey is one of the foremost interpreters of contemporary piano music of his generation. A champion of Australian music and himself a composer, he regularly commissions new Australian music and has performed Australian music with Australia's leading contemporary music ensembles and orchestras.

Kieran Harvey writes:

...'I had spent some time exploring the intersection between what a composer hears, then realises on the computer, and then what is humanly possible in live performance. Ives, Nancarrow, Ferneyhough, Stockhausen, Boulez and others had been pushing these boundaries well before the rise of the PC but the ease and complexity of computer-generated music for the piano now begs the question: what is the performer for?

'If the performer will only be able to execute the score with varying degrees of failure, what is the point in attempting it in the first place? Should the composer ignore his/her own creative desires and only write what is comfortable for the performer and audience? It boils down to whether humans wish to listen to intelligent machines or other humans. The answer seems to be: it depends. The prosthetic integration of artificial intelligence with human intelligence is an increasing fact of life within art. One wonders though whether an intelligent machine would ever want to play or listen to music for its own satisfaction.

'I came to realise that what I was looking for in live performance could be found in Australian improvising pianists like Grabowsky, Nock and Tony Gould. There is in Gould's music - an experimentation and absorption in the moment; naturally a refreshing spontaneity but also a humility that is totally unlike the more painful histrionics of his overseas colleagues. The sense of playful irony is clearly evident in the music of Ford and Yu, where ancient forms are reinvigorated with the energy of popular music. The dark aspect of human technological advancement through human slaughter is mourned in the Gifford work Menin Gate.'

'Each of the works on this CD I think strives to express the tension in music between formula and spontaneity.'

Duration: 73 min.

Booklet includes programme notes and biographical information on composers.