Piano man’s passion for work of Welsh composer

Paris-based pianist Ivan Ilic is so taken by the music of Welsh composer John Metcalf that he is premiering his new work. Mike Smith enjoys a preview of Appassionata

FOR his first tour of Wales, award-winning star of the Paris music scene Ivan Ilic decided to alter his programme and include a solo piano piece by Welsh composer John Metcalf.

Such was the audience’s response that Ilic not only performed Metcalf’s Endless Song across Wales but played the work 45 times in the last year, including concerts in France, Ireland, England and Scotland.

Now the virtuoso pianist, who studied mathematics and music at the University of California is preparing to premiere a new work by Metcalf, at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.  Read more

What’s Happening in Pernambuco

Since the 1980s the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco and its capital have generated some of Latin America’s most forward-looking popular music. Musicians from Recife, Olinda and rural Pernambuco have concocted rock laced with funk; reggae; the local beats of maracatú and frevo; old rural songs; and the beats, burbles and scratches of electronica. In songs on the superb compilation “What’s Happening in Pernambuco?” (Luaka Bop), sizable ambitions are disguised by casual vocals and grooves that toss together disparate materials with wily ingenuity. Liner notes translate the lyrics for a glimpse of the ideas behind the lilt, like this one from Siba: “Everyone heard a silent shout asking: Where does our memory hide?”  Read more

Seeking South Beach Serenity

With teak walls, antique jade carvings, dim lighting and neutral silk fabrics, our room at the Setai Hotel in Miami has a serene vibe, right down to the New Age music coming from a source we can’t determine and the do-not-disturb sign with a topless Asian figure embossed in gold metal, finger to lips in a “shhh” gesture.  Read more

Pianist Plays for Pregnant Mothers

Pregnant women in Istanbul will have a rare treat: A concert dedicated to them and their babies this Sunday, Feb. 17 at Bogazici University. The concert will be given by Anjelika Akbar, the well-loved classical pianist, who is also an expectant mother due to give birth to her second son in two months. Even before she became pregnant she thought it would be great to give a concert for pregnant women “when I’m in that state of ‘soul’,” Akbar told the Turkish Daily News. She believes she will be able to relate to this special audience better than any other musician and that as women working in a big city, mothers-to-be needed the musical relief.  Read more

Healing Music From Therapeutic Resonance Room

For those accustomed to traveling to Boulder to experience the latest trends in mind/body therapy, it’s time to set your sights several miles to the east.

To Lafayette.

To the YMCA of Boulder Valley at 95th Street and Arapahoe Avenue, where the only sound-resonance floor in the country — and possibly the world — has just been installed. Read more….

Music plays through a dozen speakers in the ceiling while sound waves are simultaneously transmitted to a dozen transducers — doughnut-shaped, speaker-like acoustical devices — hidden beneath a smooth, blond maple floor. Read more