"A flawless gem... Superlative film scores of rare beauty and consummate aesthetic discretion. A effulgent gauzy beauty invades every aspect of this release. "
"Susman understands both understatement and redolence well, sketching when outlines and suggestions are appropos, painting when tapestries and landscapes demand entry."
"Stroika handles her accordion in unorthodox fashion, subordinating it in accompaniment to the synth string patches and Jeanrenaud's keening cello, later tipping in angelic choral vocal refrains."
"Jeanrenaud is, as she always is, splendid on the cello and strings, perfectly backdropping and foregrounding Susman's piano in multi-tracked parts polyrhythmically hypnotic but gently so, even when propulsive. "
-Mark S. Tucker, Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
Grammy-nominated cellist and recording artist Joan Jeanrenaud (Kronos) is stunning on these evocative new film scores seen on PBS, Cable On-Demand, over 20 film festivals world-wide, museums in New York and San Francisco, and WINNER of the Tribeca Film Festival.
ABOUT THE MUSICIANS:
JOAN JEANRENAUD cellist
Grammy-nominated recording artist Joan Jeanrenaud is best known for the more than 2,000 concerts she performed throughout the world during her impressive tenure with the Kronos Quartet. Jeanrenaud left Kronos in 1999 to pursue different artistic directions including solo and collaborative projects. As a solo artist she has premiered more than twenty compositions written for her. Since 1999, she has composed many works for cello including Be With, which won the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for best composition in 2001-02. In 2009, her solo CD Strange Toys was nominated for a Grammy.
MIRA STROIKA accordion and vocals
Mira Stroika is a vocalist, accordionist, pianist and songwriter whose musical style melds cabaret and her Klezmer roots with a glam rock sensibility. A classically trained musician and former student of William Susman, Mira is a staple in the New York music scene where she regularly performs original songs and cabaret repertoire with her brass band. Mira is a graduate of Yale University where she studied music, theater, political science and video art.
WILLIAM SUSMAN composer / pianist
William Susman belongs to the generation of American composers that came of age in the late twentieth century, received traditional academic training while remaining thoroughly engaged with popular music (in his case, jazz), and who went on to establish careers for themselves outside the academic establishment.
Susman's music is notable for his integration of a variety of influences, including the Western classical tradition, Afro-Cuban music, free jazz, and a variety of non-Western folk traditions. Rhythm plays a strong role in his music through musical devices such as the Afro-Cuban Montuño, Medieval Hocket and Isorhythm.
Susman has written orchestral and chamber music for concert performance, as well as jazz and film scores. The Chicago native was trained in both classical and jazz piano. His orchestral and chamber music has been widely performed, and his music has been played by soloists such as Joan Jeanrenaud, formerly of the Kronos Quartet, and Joseph Gramley of the Silk Road Ensemble. He has been especially active in the area of film scoring, focusing particularly on documentary films. -- Stephen Eddins / All Music Guide
MUSIC FOR MOVING PICTURES
Films during the Silent Era were called moving pictures. Live performance of the music helped provide a “narrative” and intensify the emotion. Setting the mood for these early films, a musician, often a pianist, performed live accompanying the projection of the film. In some of the larger picture houses an organist or orchestra played a score live-to-picture or improvised to pre-determined themes.
The three documentaries represented on this CD vary greatly in subject matter, yet have a connection through their usage, in varying degrees, of historical footage and vintage cameras dating back to the 1920s.
When Medicine Got it Wrong blends historical film with contemporary imagery telling the story of parents who rocked psychiatry. Balancing Acts: A Jewish Theater in the Soviet Union relies entirely on archival footage from the first decades of the Soviet Union. Native New Yorker is a contemporary silent film shot before, during and after 9/11 with a hand-cranked1924 Cine Kodak camera.
Although these films cover vastly different subjects, the music they feature plays a significant and vital role, helping to create and ultimately become part of the narrative.
Composer’s Comments:
When I compose music for a film, I try to make an organic connection to what I see and hear on screen and how I approach the score. I listen for music that may already be in the film or, perhaps performed by one of the characters.
In When Medicine Got it Wrong, one of the leads plays guitar. For my main title theme, I have combined a variation on the harmony from a song he plays with an original melody. I chose a basic instrumentation of strings and piano. Knowing that cellist Joan Jeanrenaud would perform the score helped me conceptualize and orchestrate string parts that bring out her strengths and unique sound qualities.
In Balancing Acts, there is archival footage of a musical theatre number whose harmonic and melodic sound drive one of the themes I composed for Marc Chagall. The choice of the instrumentation: clarinet, piano, strings, cimbalom, accordion and voice derive from the eastern European tradition. Mira Stroika’s haunting vocals and Joan Jeanrenaud’s lyric and ethereal cello recall the story and Chagall’s vibrant color palette in sound.
Because Native New Yorker is a "silent film", I could only create a link between my score and visuals. Unlike my other scores, there was no actual “indigenous” music on screen that could inform my themes. Instead, I chose an instrumentation inspired by the abundance of so many New York City street musicians in the film. Violin and guitar buskers appear as well as drummers. The piano is an homage to the musicians who played in so many of the first movie houses. Native American chanting, as well as Middle Eastern vocalizing, reflect characters, actions and events both on and off screen. The breathy sounds of the native flutes are emblematic of the life force present and shared by all cultures.
The layering of rhythms and the incessant pulsing of the music reflect the energy and the many facets of the city as well as the motion and pace of the images created by director Steve Bilich. In addition, the "flicker" caused by the use of the Cine-Kodak silent film era camera suggest the tempo and pulse of the music.
Additional Credits:
Produced by William Susman
Engineered, mixed and mastered by Stephen Hart
Recorded at Bay Area Sound Studios, San Rafael, CA
All compositions © 2005-2008 by William Susman (ASCAP)
Published by Susman Music (ASCAP)
When Medicine Got it Wrong (2008)
Directed by Katie Cadigan
How parents refused blame for causing schizophrenia
Premiered on KQED-PBS in May 2009
Balancing Acts: A Jewish Theater in the Soviet Union (2008)
Directed by Sam Ball
An exhilarating and ultimately tragic experiment
In 2008-2009 screened with the Chagall exhibit at the Jewish Museum New York and at the Contemporary Jewish Museum San Francisco
Native New Yorker (2005)
Directed by Steve Bilich
A journey that transcends time
Screened at over 20 film festivals around the world, on television, and WINNER of the best documentary short at the Tribeca Film Festival, New York.
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