Magic Mountain is the first recording from the Kalmanovitch Maneri Duo. We recorded this album at our favorite hall in the United States: New England Conservatory's landmark Jordan Hall. Now, we're raising funds to release this album and build a new platform for our music and our message.
About Our Duo
The first time we played together, a decade ago, we knew something
special was in the air. Part of it is our 'string story'. We both play
the viola, the unsung hero of the string world, and each of us charted
our own path as improvisers at a time when 'jazz viola' was still an
oxymoron.
But really, it’s because we share the same basic beliefs about
music. For each of us, improvisation is not about letting go — it's
about digging in. It's a discipline; a ritual space that binds us to the
moment and trains us to be be present to every possibility. When we
play, we listen with more than just our ears: we listen with all the
parts of our experience.
We play out of our belief that every one of us has a personal
voice—a secret melody—that sings the essential quality of the self. That
voice treats tension, uncertainty and difference as literal and
figurative counterpoint. It's empathy made audible. And whenever we play
this way, we create a space for others to do the same.
About Magic Mountain
Magic Mountain is a suite of nine pieces. We started with a simple
set-up: two violas, two chairs, and a few microphones. And what unfolded
from that was everything.
We borrowed our album’s name from Der Zauberberg (The Magic
Mountain), the 1924 book by Thomas Mann. On the surface, Mann's story is
about a young man whose three-week visit to a Swiss sanitarium
mysteriously turns into seven years. Dig deeper, though, and the story
is an exploration of the nature of time: its illusions and distortions,
and the ambiguous quality of memory.
Some people say The Magic Mountain is a challenging read. Maybe
it’s because Mann doesn’t serve up narrative in a straightforward
fashion. He narrates time the way his hero experiences it: unraveling,
expanding, and merging into the present.
Some people say that our music is a challenging listen. If it's so,
then perhaps it's because we don’t serve up our musical stories in a
straightforward fashion, either. Are we improvising, or composing on the
spot? Are we playing chamber music or jazz?
As string players, we came of age in a time that asked us to choose
between the musical languages we loved. Today, we play music the way we
experience, and not how it's categorized. To us, Milton Babbitt is as
essential as the Blues, and a Johnny Hodges tone can be played with a
Morton Feldman touch.
Much of what we do blurs the lines around musical things. Tonality?
From one note to the next, we might find six microtones to play. Self
and other? It can be hard at times—even for us—to tell our voices apart.
Time? At any moment, we might feel three meters at play. Sound and
silence? To us, the music lives in both. With each performance, we
create new chamber music that will never be heard before and will never
be heard again.
We play what we love
Magic Mountain is full of our personal and musical histories. The
track titles form a second narrative, rich with clues to who we are and
where we've been. Some of the track titles are borrowed from Der Zauberberg, and others allude to figures whose voices speak to us: pianist Paul Bley, actor Paul Muni, the fictional composer Adrian Leverkühn, and Mat's father, Joe Maneri.
The Dance of Death, the album's third track, shows the connection
we feel between Bach's solo instrumental works and Eliot Carter's first
String Quartet. We hear an off-kilter swing in both composers' works.
Their downbeats aren't landings, but lifts. Their sense of metric weight
is dynamic and kinetic. Our opening notes are a gesture that reveals
music already in motion.
Foreword, the album's opening track, is a concise summary of our
approach to music-making. Earlier this year, Mat transcribed this piece.
(A concert score is one of our perks - see the sidebar.) It was a
labour of love that allowed him to examine a compositional process
that unfolds outside of the sphere of thoughts and words.
The album's opening track is a concise illustration of a
compositional process that unfolds outside the sphere of thought or
words. In music theory terms, it's a three-part sonata form based on a
six-note motif carried through extended harmonic and rhythmic
development. In human terms, this track reveals a seamless exchange of
roles. Tensions and resolutions shift rapidly between us. Long notes
become short ones; loud notes become soft ones; one voice's harmony
becomes the other's melody.
We never found the Paul Muni movie he was referring to, but for us
it became shorthand for an improvisation stretching thematic and
harmonic development at a glacial pace. The long pauses at 3:06 and 3:17
are silences rich with music. Our coda at 9:10 uses microtonality to
breathe subtle expression into Mahleresque harmonies.
The title of the album's last track, Paul Muni's Boat refers
to a favorite saying of Mat’s father, the saxophonist/composer Joe
Maneri. When Joe wanted to evoke the fine line between stillness and
motion, he’d say, “You know, like Paul Muni’s boat.”
How your support will help
We've been fortunate throughout our careers to release recordings on a variety of labels. But this music is so close to us that we wanted to be able to retain its personality by releasing it ourselves.
We intend Magic Mountain to serve a key role in establishing our presence as a new kind of chamber music ensemble. It will help us to tour more, to record more, and to catalyze new partnerships with presenters, educators, and audiences in every direction.
Our album is mixed and ready to go. Your pledges will help pay for photography, mastering, graphic design, manufacturing CDs and limited-edition double LPs, and the setup costs to distribute the album through our website.
Releasing this record helps us to tell our story, and to invite everyone into our conversation. We hope you'll join us.
We've been fortunate throughout our careers to release recordings on a variety of labels. But this music is so close to us that we wanted to be able to retain its personality by releasing it ourselves.
We intend Magic Mountain to serve a key role in establishing our presence as a new kind of chamber music ensemble. It will help us to tour more, to record more, and to catalyze new partnerships with presenters, educators, and audiences in every direction.
Our album is mixed and ready to go. Your pledges will help pay for photography, mastering, graphic design, manufacturing CDs and limited-edition double LPs, and the setup costs to distribute the album through our website.
Releasing this record helps us to tell our story, and to invite everyone into our conversation. We hope you'll join us.
Risks and challenges
In a time of virtual experience, you might wonder why we'd bother releasing a physical recording. Our simple answer: we still believe in the power of objects.We love books. We love paintings and photographic prints. We love holding records in our hands, because a record explodes time and space. Our record is an invitation. A single day in Jordan Hall magically expands; the day becomes longer and the walls of the hall grow wider, so that everyone can enter in.
As with any Kickstarter campaign, it's an all or nothing deal. If we don't reach our target, we won't receive any funds. But we're confident that we'll meet our goal, and that the albums and other rewards will be in your hands by May 2016.
Thank you.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/magicmountain/magic-mountain-a-new-album-by-the-kalmanovitch-man
